Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/5/24: Morning Joe Death Spiral, French Gov Collapses, Biden Mulls Mass Pardons

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Morning Joe death spiral as liberals furious, French gov collapses, Biden mulls mass pardons.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see 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 breakingpoints.com. At the same time, there have been some extraordinary developments in media, Donald Trump's election, prompting some to think they should just quit. One of them is HBO's Bill Maher.

You can take a listen to his reasoning. I mean, I may quit because I don't want to do another. I did Trump. I did all the Trump stuff before anybody. I called him a con man before anybody. I did he's a mafia boss. I was the one who said he wasn't going to concede the election. I've done it.

I've seen this. Well, then how come he's so hostile to Jimmy Kimmel and not to you? He's very hostile to me. Is he? He tweets about me every week. Oh, really? Oh, yes. Every week he accidentally watches my show and then, low ratings loser.

Oh, well, yeah. But, I mean, I just, I'm bored with it. So which is it? Is he bored or is he afraid or is it? Because at another point he says, I'm shitting my pants. Yeah, I'm bored with it. So which is it? Is he bored or is he afraid or is it? Because at another point he says, I'm shitting my pants. Yeah, I know. About Trump being back in office. First of all, he was like, I said it before everybody.

I called him a con man before. Bro, they've been calling Donald Trump a con man since 19, what, 1978. None of that is original. And they've been right the whole time. What he called him, Cheeto Jesus, Orange Man. This is not original. Like, this is ridiculous. He was, if anything, he was a follower. I mean, that's how I see him, frankly, as like this neo-reactionary center left figure who's like constantly calibrating

where he can be contrarian, but also be within the confines of this like imaginary movement, which doesn't exist beyond the likes of Amy Klobuchar with your famous clip that happened with him. So I don't know. Maybe he should retire. Honestly, it'd be good. He's been on the air for decades. I think it's time, personally.

At what point are you still adding to the conversation? And look, I know this is meme. I like Bill Maher. I watched Religious when I was a kid. He did a lot of good work on atheism and stuff like that in the conversation. And look, I know this is meme. I like Bill Maher. I watched Religious when I was a kid. He did a lot of good work on atheism, you know, and stuff like that in the past. But in the last Trump, you know, in the Trump years,

what's been disappointing is just how boring, frankly, how much all of it has been. It's just, it always comes back to the same conclusion, which is like, these woke young people, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, okay, all right. You know, we get it. Like, we see that point. We've heard that point before. And so it was funny Jane Fonda being kind of like, huh, well, why doesn't he go after you? Which I think she's correct that at this point, Maher has a lot of fans, even as he's still,

you know, as a Trump opponent, there's no doubt about it, he voted for Kamala Harris. He thought Kamala Harris was gonna win as I did and many others. But because a lot of his commentary is punching left, he does have a lot of fans who are Republican, right-wing, voter for Trump, etc. So in any case, it is kind of funny that he's wavering between I'm just bored and sort of exhausted by it, or I might be kind of scared of the next term. Speaking of all of that drama, a very interesting drama is playing out,

a Greek tragedy potentially playing out over with the Morning Joe people and their whole roster of regulars. So David Frum apparently went on the show and made some spicy comments about Fox News. We can put this tear sheet up on the screen of him explaining how all of this went down. The headline here is the sound of fear on air. It's an ominous sign that Morning Joe felt it had to apologize for something I said. So in any case, they were talking about Pete Hegseth and all of the allegations against him. Some of the latest allegations are, you know, per some folks at Fox say that they were concerned about his drinking, that he would show up and they could smell alcohol on him, et cetera, et some folks at Fox say that they were concerned about his drinking, that he would

show up and they could smell alcohol on him, et cetera, et cetera. So he says, and I quote, let's take all the drinking, all the sex pesting, subtract any knowledge of defense, subtract any leadership, and there is your next secretary of defense for the 21st century. If you're too drunk for Fox News, you're very, very drunk indeed. So, you know, this is all kind of par for the course for what Morning Joe used to be. And the tenor of the dialogue that you would expect. And apparently David Frum had already been warned in his ear about, like, you know, his tone or being a little bit too edgy, etc. And then he goes on, he says this. And then Mika feels the need to come on air after they've dismissed

David Frum, who's now apparently too edgy for the show, and says, a little bit earlier in this block, there was a comment made about Fox News in our coverage about Pete Hegseth and the growing number of allegations about his behavior over the years. The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we're in. We just want to make that comment as well. We want to make that clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that's a good debate that we should have often. But right now, I just want to say there's a lot of good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we will want to leave it at that. So obviously, Sagar, this comes on the heels of them making their sojourn down to Mar-a-Lago and having literally on that day, in the next hour, they lost, what, 40% of their audience in a time when, you know, over the course of a morning show, your audience is supposed to build and build and build.

Instead of building, 40% dropped off. MSNBC overall has lost something like half their audience. They are already, you know, have already announced they're spinning off MSNBC along with another, with a bundle of other cable news channels. NBC is staying at Comcast, so they're not going to have, you know, the journalism of NBC. They said this is going to be like a well-funded startup, not music to the ears of people who are making, each of them, I think, make 10 million a year, each of them. I think, make 10 million a year. Each of them. Must be nice.

Each of them. Good gig. And they're watching. I mean, they're really in kind of a tailspin here, which I think comes out in their reaction, which happened just this morning. Thank you to our producers for getting this clip cut so that we could react to it.

Where they're now responding to David Frum and the fact that he's calling them out for basically being, I guess, terrified or capitulating or whatever it is that they're doing. Let's take a listen to how Joe and Mika responded. This got turned into a column and a headline that said that, let's see, what was the headline? The Sound of Fear. Now, the headline? The sound of fear. Now, that wasn't the sound of fear.

That was the sound of civility. And saying that Mika had apologized. Mika didn't apologize. No, I didn't. She simply said it was too flippant. Now, I would recommend that if we're at a stage where a comment like this causes a meltdown, and I saw George Conway, another guy we have on the show. Who we love. We love George, saying, read this article. It's going to make you very sad, but you must read it all. Oh,

because of the fearful times we're in. Well, there's some problem with the times that we're in. You can't be fearful. If you can't be fearful, just because some people have said that we're fearful, let me tell you something. You can talk to anybody that's worked in the front office of NBC and MSNBC over the past 22 years. I'll tell you, I'm not fearful. You talk to anybody who served with me in Congress,

they will tell you, not fearful of leadership. The main complaint was that we called Donald Trump's rhetoric fascist during the campaign. And then we went down to have an off-the-record comment with him. Guess who else does that? Let me see. From the New York Times, the Washington Post,

the Wall Street. You know what? I even think folks from the Atlantic. I think, actually, probably, if they have a chance to talk on the background with the incoming president and president-elect, they would do it.

In fact, as somebody wrote during this outrageously stupid, immature series of articles that lied time and time again about us, reporters said, I'd be fired if I had the opportunity to go in and talk to somebody

who's the incoming president of the United States. They didn't do it. Ask any journalist at the New York Times and New York Post. Joe, Joe, you are not a journalist. You are a group of people who loves to just suck up to power. Like these were the people who were the Biden whisperers. And we see where that got, you know, the side of the aisle they were supposed to be assisting with. You know, they were people. Joe is the person who went on and was like, I've seen all sorts of Joe Bidens.

This is the best Joe Biden I have ever seen. And if you don't believe it and you don't see that, fuck you. Yeah, and three weeks later, what happens? He's talking about how Joe Biden needs to drop out of the race. Incredible. He called Trump a Hitlerian fascist. That's the thing about the Frum thing. I don't agree with what David Frum said,

but okay, I mean, you can't be having a show built on histrionics of literal fascism, warning that Hitler is re-rising in America, and then what, three weeks later, you're in your guest's ear? That's outrageous. Telling them to tone it down. I'll tell you this.

I've been on probably television 100 times on Fox News or some of these other channels. I've never had a person tone it down. I've never had that happen to me either. I have never. Never. Even when I was a host, I never had them like, oh, you need to tone it down. I have never had that happen to me. That's crazy.

In my entire career. Well, and you're so right. And that was something that really irritated me too. He's like, we said some of his rhetoric was fascist. No, you didn't. No. You didn't. You said he was Hitler. Yeah, literally. You said that. And then once he won, you went down to suck up and grovel and bend the knee. Don't portray this as some like brave

journalistic feat. Bullshit. Bullshit. So they're in a total meltdown mode. Like they're in a tailspin mode. I think they are truly sort of, like, panicked about what to do and how to maintain their relevance. And they've had a very cushy and very powerful seat at the center of power, especially, never more so than during the Biden administration. I mean, they were on the phone with him. They'd have his, you know, John Meacham on, who was his speechwriter, that they, you know, wouldn't even mention the, you know, conflict of interest of this person giving this analysis on their show, whatever. None of that was over the line. But apparently, you know, David Frum is now too spicy for them. It really is quite, quite remarkable to see. And, of course, I, you know, cheer for the demise of this program in particular, which I think has been one of the most damaging. Like if you actually, if you care about the

Democratic Party being any, like better at all than they are right now and doing anything that's going to like really deliver for working class people, these two have been so pernicious, so damaging, and so frankly effective in the project of blocking any grassroots populist energy that, you know, to watch them struggle and spin and, you know, have these coping meltdowns live on air is truly a beautiful thing to behold. I mean, the whole thing is hilarious, but the sad part is it honestly might work. The reason why they're policing the Pete Hegsath comments is because they still want people in power to come on their show. My hope is that the Republicans don't do this again. In fact, yesterday there was a viral photo where a Trump appointee was spotted having lunch with CNN

journalist Caitlin Collins and getting doxxed like live by being like, hey, check this out. Look at these people by MAGA people hey, check this out. Look at these people by MAGA people who were pointing that out. But this is a dirty little secret that a lot of Republicans never want to acknowledge. Nobody wants mainstream media attention and approval more than Republican lawmakers. It's true. Donald Trump in particular. Oh, Trump. Trump is the head of the snake, but like they all like it. They love to be on CNN or any of these other places, not even just to fight. They all like it. They love to be on CNN or any of these other places. Not even just to fight. They like the attention. They like to be feted by the people

that they think embody political media. It just occurred to me. I wonder if they think maybe, maybe our next move is Fox News. Uh, maybe. I don't think that that's crazy to think. And why the comments about Fox in particular triggered them. It's a good point. Because, you know, MSNBC is being spun off. Well-funded startup, okay? Well-funded startup or not, you are not going to be able to afford $20 million for these pair of morons who have no audience left, right? So where else can you go and get that kind of a payday

and have that kind of access to power? Like, Fox News right now has like 73% or something of the cable news market share. They are the biggest game in town. And if you're going to be relevant in the Trump era, you're probably going to be on Fox News. So, you know, whether they really think they can make the shift there or not, which I don't put it past them to have the level of narcissism ego to think that, oh, any of these networks can take us, blah, blah, blah. And as we have all seen, they can justify anything to themselves about the move over there.

Of course. Oh, of course. Of course. No, they would go on, oh, we're, you know, we're branching out. We're just speaking truth. We're trying to reach audiences that, you know, we couldn't reach over at MSNBC. You better believe it. And also, I don't put it past Fox to be like, hey, maybe, take a shot at them if it makes sense, if it's useful to them and they think it works for their bottom line. So maybe that's the move they're planning. I don't know. I don't know. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.

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It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today.

Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024. Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing

other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor,

going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's go ahead and get to these events that occurred overseas. Just a quick rundown for you of what happened here. So you guys will probably recall, I don't know if you remember all of these details, but Emmanuel Macron calls these snap elections, foolishly, ultimately. And it was looking like the far right, like Marine Le Pen's party was really surging, and they were.

But there was this kind of coalition of, you know, the anti-Le Pen faction, bunch of Macron-aligned people, and a lot of leftists who joined together and were able to block them from an outright majority. And actually, it turns out that the left party won the most seats in parliament. So you would think maybe that would give them some, you know, governance power in terms of governance, but not so. Macron decided to make a deal with the not like far right party, but the center right party and put in place a prime minister that came from that faction with the idea of being basically like, I'm going to do move enough to the right with this pick that Marine Le Pen and her crew are not going to instantly vote against him and instantly tank him. And so rather than trying to work together with the left, I'm going to do

this right of center coalition and try to construct a government that way. So that has now come crashing down in spectacular fashion. We can put this up on the screen from Politico. They say, French government collapse turns the screws on Macron. The collapse of France's government on Wednesday night means it now finally falls to President Emmanuel Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a vote of no confidence after he tried to force through an austere budget to fix the country's yawning deficits. Once he formally resigns, Barnier will become the shortest-lived prime minister in the history of the modern French Republic and the first to be booted out by Parliament since 1962. So basically, the lefties and the righties and the right wing, like Le Pen's faction, they voted together to oust this dude. That's how he went down. We can put this next piece up on the screen. This is Daniel, Daniel Nishanian, who in addition to doing great work covering

politics here, also covers French politics in a way that's very useful. He says the unnecessary July snap elections resulted in a wildly fragmented assembly, as you'll know well, if you were following me, that's what I was just referring to before. The left coalition got roughly 190 seats. The Macronist parties got roughly 170. The far right got roughly 140. Conservatives got roughly 40. Okay, so that's the smallest faction that Macron had partnered with here. In French, coalition that controls the assembly gets to be prime minister and effectively govern the country with little input from the president if the PM and president are in different camps. But no election in the current regime had resulted in such a fragmented chamber. Let's put the next slides up on the

screen that continues to explain this situation. He says, Macron, you'll also recall, refused to name a prime minister from the left coalition, saying that with only one-third of the seats, they were too certain of losing a no-confidence vote as soon as they came in power. That itself provoked controversy. So instead, he named this conservative, Michael Barnier, as Michel Barnier, as PM, formalizing a tacit alliance between his parties and this center-right party. Overall, alliance only had about 210 out of 577 seats. But the idea was this is the best way to get the far right to hold off on

a no-confidence vote. I'll put the last one up on the screen here. So here we are. Either Le Pen changes her mind and lets Barnier live another day. We now know that did not happen, either because he gives concessions or something else, or the cabinet falls and it's unclear what happened then. There can be no new elections till the summer at the earliest. So that's kind of where things are right now, Sagar. As far as like the analysts I'm reading online, no one really knows what happens next. It's crazy. It's like, I mean, the country is just basically ungovernable at this point. And, you know, it really all does go back to that original decision from Macron to hold

the snap elections. And then rather than working with the left, who he'd sort of allied with to be able to, you know, hold on to power, instead trying to please Le Pen and do enough to keep her from participating in this no confidence vote. And now that has all kind of come apart. The whole thing is completely insane. And really what it is, is that there are not a lot of easy choices, as you said, about where things go next, because now you have no prime minister. Also, Europe is in, honestly, like turmoil right now, not only with the election of Donald Trump, but Germany is like torn right now over whether they should escalate the war in Ukraine or not. Their chancellor is like simultaneously visiting Kiev, but also said he doesn't want to provide offensive weapons. They literally have no idea

what to do. And so with the French, Macron has been very hawkish on Ukraine. He's even floated putting like French troops on the ground. But then you also have the budget crisis internally. I mean, I don't know. The whole thing is nuts just for like where things even go in the future. And I would say it's a major, it's a major problem for them because Trump is going to use a lot of this as to his own advantage. Remember, Trump is going to be in France this weekend. He's going to be- Oh really? I didn't realize that. He'll be in Paris on Saturday for the opening of the, the reopening of Notre Dame after it burned down. Oh wow.

And so, and him and Macron famously got along very well. Macron played him like a fiddle. I watched it up close. He speaks perfect English. He's very, you know, he's a glad-handing shapeshifter. He knows exactly what to do. You should see him in action with reporters, who, by the way, he knows them all by name.

It's amazing to watch, to watch a foreign leader play Americans so well. But anyway, he has invited Trump, you know, to that opening. Famously, by the way, Trump is planning that he will be in charge of our 250th anniversary party for July 4th, I think it's 2026, will be America 250, which is going to be a big celebration. And he got the idea, remember, for a military parade from the Bastille Day in France. So apparently he'll be discussing some of that with him. It'll be interesting. It'll be interesting. But I'm curious to see the effects in terms of the French government and also the country and

Europe itself, what they want to do and how they're going to handle a Donald Trump administration. I was looking at tariff charts just yesterday. We had very modest tariffs on European goods last time around, even with Trump in office. They were bitching about like a 1% increase. If Trump is able to get what he actually wants to, which is like 10% to 15%, it would decimate the European economy. They would be destroyed. They were pissed off about the Biden administration's, yeah, the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA has specific provisions within it that require certain percentages of the car to be eligible for a tax credit. It has to be made in the United States. Yeah.

Both Canada and the Europeans hate the inflation. Well, and so they may be, I mean, Trump has said he wants to roll that stuff back. So they may, I mean, they may be pleased with some of the things that they have in trouble. They might be pleased with that. But, I mean, in terms of raw goods and other stuff that we do, I mean, think about it. Like for every EV that we buy, we probably buy 10 Volvos or whatever. So it comes over in terms of gas-powered vehicles. The amount of trade that we do with the EU is, EV is a very, very small part of that. They were upset because they see that as a future market. But in general, they're going to be, if there's any real tariffs that go into place, especially think about it, right now, Europeans are heavily reliant on US LNG. And so that

previously they moved from Russian gas over to US LNG. We are the dominant energy seller. That's right. To the Europeans right now. So we have tremendous leverage over their economies. We could destroy them overnight. They're all doing their version of the Joe and Mika trip to Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Trump, congratulations. I don't hate it. Congratulations on your incredible victory. You're such a genius, like Zelensky tweeting all that stuff out. I like to see Europeans in a supplicant mood. There's nothing that I hate more than when they lecture us. We'll see. Yeah, we will see. I thought this was funny from

Arnaud, our friend, who we tried to book for today, but he was busy. We'll get him on another time because he does such a great job. But put this up on the screen, drawing some parallels with the wild events in South Korea this week. He says, run for election, overtake country from unpopular incumbent promising you'll change things, perform even worse, suck up to the U.S. in very embarrassing ways, run country's economy to the ground, be wildly unpopular, lose parliamentary majority, propose budget that's opposed by parliament, present opposition as illegitimate and anti-democracy, disregard election results, be Emmanuel Macron, pick unrelated, and the picture is of the South Korean dude who just tried to do the coup. So drawing some parallels here. But just to make the tie-in with U.S. politics to wrap this up, you'll recall, Sagar, when the left alliance was able to sort of block the, you know, the

Marine Le Pen surge, whatever. Isn't that when Ron Klain put out his tweet that was like, oh, interesting, incumbent with some 30% approval rating is able to maintain his position of power, basically saying like, oh, this will be Joe Biden's path back in. And I think they they really believed that they thought that the the, you know, anti some would say anti fascist coalition that came together in France, that it would be a similar dynamic that would play out here in the U.S. And that was really the view, you know, the anti-Trump coalition, like that was the bedrock view of the Morning Joes of the world, of the Ron Klains of the world, of the whole like Liz Cheney approach to politics and David Plouffe and all these people. They really thought that that was the way to win back the White House and obviously it didn't work out. Yeah, and clearly the radical reaction they thought was an aberration. So, for example, you had Theresa May kind of become the, like the inheritor of Brexit.

She calls the snap election. She thinks she's going to win. She ends up losing. Yeah. This leads to the disaster of Boris Johnson and of Rishi Sunak and now even Keir Starmer. He's like tremendously unpopular. Don't forget Liz Truss in there.

Liz Truss as well. Yeah, that's right. But, you know, Nigel was more popular than ever before. You know, traditional conservative voters voted reform for the first time in the UK. Same in France. Macron rose on the promise that he would move past, he called himself a Jupiterian, which is an amazing term, to like move past, like almost a Napoleonic figure, rising above the traditional French mess of politics to lead Europe in a center-left neoliberal direction. Remember, Barack Obama endorsed him in 2017. It's been a disaster. Angela Merkel, same thing, like the inheritor of that theory of Germany and of strong Europe and the United States,

didn't work out, has been replaced by Schultz. Him himself is a mess, you know, in terms of the rise of the AFD now in Germany. So across the continent and really across the world, you watch as a lot of these incumbent figures are slowly dropping one by one. I don't know who's going to replace Macron. It could be a socialist, it could be Marine Le Pen, but either way, it's going to be pretty radical and shocking and different than what came before. Likely. Very likely. His goal was to be a bulwark against that. And it's just they thought they could outlast the forces of Brexit, of Trump and all of that. And the truth is, is that those were like not only nascent, but they've only grown even more as people have tried to push it down.

So the Trump victory and the fall of these governments and whatever come next is just a natural extension. Part of that global trend of anti-incumbency too, where every single incumbent figure in the Western world lost share. And where did you say? And India. And India lost share. So anyway, the winds of change are a-blowing, whether our leaders listen to it or not. Yes, that's right. It'll be fun. It'll be fun to watch. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets.

Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame

one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover,

the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other.

It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves.

Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. it's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself. And I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage

from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor going above and beyond

the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's go to The View. Couldn't help but get some of this in there. Just to be clear, it's not just because it's The View. It's because we also found some interesting news about the Biden administration pondering pardons for Dr. Fauci, Liz Cheney, and others. But before we get

to that, there was an amazing moment between Charlemagne and Whoopi Goldberg where he calls her out because she defended Joe Biden saying he never lied about pardoning his son Hunter. Let's take a listen. You know, nobody's above the law. I respect, you know, the jury's decision in regards to my son. He didn't believe that, but he didn't have to volunteer that lie to begin with. I'm going to stop you for a second. Uh-oh. Only because you don't know that it was a lie. We don't know why he changed his mind. You really think he just changed his mind over Thanksgiving weekend all of a sudden?

No, I'm going to tell you what I think. Okay. I think he changed his mind because he got sick of watching everybody else get over. And this is just my feeling. Because at some point, you get to the place where you just go, so I'm just going to follow the straight and narrow always. Because that's what's expected of Democrats. But that's their fault.

They're the ones that go out there and they stand on this moral high ground. They don't have to do that. I'm a Democrat. Tell me what the moral high ground is. The moral high ground is nobody's above the law. I respect what the jurors are saying. He don't have to do that. So we're mad at him because he changed his...

By the way, I'm not mad at him pardoning Hunter Biden. But you sound like him. No, no, no. What is it that makes people flip out with Joe, but we don't have the same kind of thing? Well, I don't think people are flipping out with Joe. I think Democrats are flipping out with Joe because Democrats believe that they don't represent what he's currently representing. But that's just not true. That's why I say they stand on this moral high ground that simply does not exist.

And I think this is also the problem when we pick sides, right? We've turned political parties into teams. I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. Ain't nobody more delusional than me, right? Okay. I feel like we're going to the Super Bowl every year, but I'm not delusional. No, that is delusional. But when it comes to political parties, if you pick a side, right, if you say you're a Democrat, if you say you're a Republican, you refuse to be objective about anything. I'm an independent. What do you even say about it? And look, it's the natural extension now of reneging on all of this previous discussion, because it's not only about the pardon for Hunter Biden, but the White House, let's put this on the screen,

is now mulling pardons, preemptive sweeping pardons, just like the historic pardon of Hunter Biden, the most sweeping pardon in American history for quote unquote Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, and Dr. Anthony Fauci. You know what's actually amazing about this, Crystal, is that specifically previously, remember the Supreme Court case about presidential immunity and the Biden discussion around that? The entire liberal intelligentsia was attacking the very mechanism that Biden would have to employ to give this, quote unquote, sweeping pardon of all of these figures. It's kind of legally complicated, but I looked into it in terms of what previous people had said. But it has to do both with presidential immunity and the power of what it would take to actually enact something like this in legal. And it specifically relies on that Supreme Court interpretation of the preemptive

pardon. But more importantly, it's ridiculous from the point of the preemptive sweeping pardon. First of all, they told us that these people did nothing wrong. So why do they need a pardon? Especially Fauci. Like that,, they told us that these people did nothing wrong. So why do they need a pardon? Especially Fauci. Like that is the one that really. I mean, because you've got people who are coming in who have an enemies list. Yeah. Who've said they're going to like. That's a good enemy list.

Go after and have retribution against them. Yeah. So to be like, you know, even if you ultimately think they're going to be found innocent in a court of law, even if you believe that, then, you know, just the investigation and the invasion of privacy and the harassment and the legal bills, like multi-six figures of legal bills or whatever, like, yeah, I support him pardoning these people because you can't-

Even Fauci? You can't- Even Fauci? I mean, at this point- The guy's worth millions. Donald Trump pardoned Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Charles Kushner, Dinesh D'Souza, like the list goes on and on.

And whatever randos that his son brought in who like paid enough money to get in the door. So am I going to cry a river about when you've got a guy coming in who campaigned on retribution, who put into place the people to, you know, make good on those promises? Am I going to cry about them being like, no, we're going to, you know, yes, we're going to pardon these people. And I'm sure Democrats are going to run around saying like, oh, we don't want these pardons, please. You know, like Adam Schiff has already said, like, oh, I don't really want to pardon. Yes, they do. They just want to keep their hands clean. Listen, my issue with all of this is just, listen, if we're done with the norms, be done with the norms.

And be done with the norms in not just a way that protects your elite buddies, which is what this is, or your son, Hunter. Be done with the norms in a way that actually delivers for regular people. That's my real grievance here is not with taking this action, which I think, given what Trump has said, what he campaigned on and who he put in place, whatever, no one should be surprised that Joe Biden is moving in this direction. But OK, if we're done with norms, then let's be done with norms. Let's also listen, Joe Biden, you campaigned on, and Ryan pointed this out, you campaigned on ending the death penalty. You've got 40 inmates sitting on federal death row right now.

Why not use these powers to commute their sentences if that's something that you believe in, which I also believe in, by the way? You've got nonviolent offenders that are in federal prisons. Like, use these powers to help them out as well. That's more of my issue is when you're only using the powers to help your elite buddies. But again, I think, you know, given what Trump said and who he's put into place, like I'm not surprised and I'm not shocked and I'm not appalled by any of this. No, I mean, sure. I'm not shocked by it either, but it's just, first of all, it's so

deeply hypocritical for what it all like previously was. But I mean, the point on Fauci is that that actually would be directly antithetical to any accountability that I think we believe in But I mean, the point on Fauci is that that actually would be directly antithetical to any accountability that I think we believe in. I mean, not Fauci not only lied to the American people, but he genuinely perjured himself multiple times before the U.S. Congress and was complicit in the lab leak and helped cover it up. If that's not a crime that should be, you know, be prosecuted or whatever, then what is? I mean, if we look back and we think about all the people who got away with the Iraq war or any of the great crimes of our life, like this is the poster child for what government accountability really should look like. Now, sure, I get the aesthetic is not, you know, fun for a lot of people with whenever you

combine Adam Schiff and with Liz Cheney. But at the end of the day, like we believe in elite accountability, preemptive and sweeping pardons. Yes, even if they are for somebody who wants a quote-unquote target list or whatever. I just think it's wrong, especially if this person was held up as the figure and the father of American medicine. He was defended to the death by the media, by the government. I think he genuinely is a criminal and he should face at least some accountability, at the very least, okay, fine, a criminal prosecution or not. Real hearings, a real report, a real investigation. I think America deserves that after the fucking devastation of all of the years of COVID. I mean, he did more damage to the public health system

than anybody else, probably in modern history. And so when you think about like preemptively pardoning him, especially too, if you think about it, with a lot of people who supported Donald Trump or even RFK Jr. and other, a lot of that was built on the public health distrust. So if we believe in any sort of elite accountability, I think a pardon for Fauci in particular, that's the one that got me. Schiff, Liz Cheney, whatever. I mean, listen, I think we should reform this unilateral power altogether. But the reality is there's a lot of selective outrage out there

because when Trump was pardoning his buddies because they didn't want to testify against him, these same people who are outraged now didn't have a goddamn word to say. And unlike with Hunter Biden,

where Joe Biden did come out and was like, I would never do that. He never said that about these people. So it's not like he lied in this instance or went back in his word. You know, this, I think that there is a reasonable point to be made that it is ridiculous and you end up looking like a fool and losing if you are the only side that is still committed to these norms. And so that was the message that was sent by the American people in this election. And, you know, that's, this is the world we live in now. So if you wanted to live in a world where Dr. Fauci was held accountable, then you should have objected when, you know, going back when Bill Clinton was letting his

own brother off the hook, or when Donald Trump was letting Charles Kushner and Roger Stone, Dinesh D'Souza, and all these people off the hook. Like, if you weren't outraged then, then spare me about, you know, Adam Schiff getting a pardon or whatever. So just because people have not been ideologically consistent means we should all continue the race to the bottom. I mean, that's just like a rhetorically. This is where we are. This is where we are. And it's not just like, you know, some of these people who I don't like, like, I don't, you know, it doesn't mean that they committed crimes. Trump and Cash, like, they literally have an enemies list.

He literally ran on retribution. And so you think that given that rhetoric and given putting into place the mechanism to follow through on that, that the other side's not going to respond? Like, of course, they would be fools not to. And the Republicans would do the exact same shit. That is a fair argument. I don't disagree. It doesn't make it bad. I mean, it doesn't, you know, and I think that's what at least I'm trying to get at. And that's why I'm focusing on the Fauci one. Schiff, Liz Cheney, whatever. I mean, has Liz Cheney committed a crime? I mean, in a moral sense, yes. And has Adam Schiff committed a crime? Actually, I don't know in terms of what

that would look like with the Russia case. But with Fauci, I'm just so dead certain. And so for him, like, it would be like pardoning Scooter Libby, which, who did that, by the way? Which president? Donald Trump, that's right. There you go. Who pardoned Scooter Libby. But I don't remember. I don't remember a lot of outrage about that, really, from anyone on the right at that point.

That's true. But that doesn't mean that it's a good thing. And it's like, look, you're right. Do we live in a race to the bottom politics and all of this like nihilism and nothing matters? I mean, look, you might be right. You know, it's certainly possible. Is there any ideological consistency? No.

But this is politics and this is Washington. It's always been that way. And in a sense, with the Fauci thing, I guess even in an Adam Schiff, others or whatever sweeping parties, pardons that they would enact, it would be the ultimate admission, maybe in a PR sense, that they didn't do anything wrong. Or sorry, that they did do something wrong to issue them a quote unquote sweeping party. I don't really think that's true.

When you have, I mean, just when you have the rhetoric coming from Trump and the fact that, I mean, they previously in the past, like for example, they launched an investigation into John Kerry to basically like politically harass him in the previous Trump administration. So, and he was never found guilty of it. They never even filed charges against him.

He's worth five hundred million dollars. I think he can afford the legal. Sure. Sure. I'm not crying a river for John Kerry. I'm just saying the example already exists where it doesn't require, you know, guilt for them to come after these people. And they're already making lists and they're already threatening even like you know talk show hosts Ari Melber was threatened as one example so I you know maybe maybe they should issue blanket media pardons across the board too oh no absolutely not come on it'd be better for the country if these people were taken off the air that would be a net positive so I think I thought you I thought you supported free speech of course I support free speech uh absolutely did I think it was a good thing? No. Did I say it would be a net positive? Yes, it certainly would be. But it's like one of

those where, look, I think in general, first of all, do I believe that he will be coming after talk show hosts? No, I don't. Second, also, as I've said before, I also still believe in America's jurisprudence. If people genuinely are not guilty or any of that, then I think they'll probably be fine. Now, again, in this case of Fauci and of a few of the others that are supposedly on this list, it would be anti-democratic to actually prevent the government from being able to look into any of these things. And look, maybe you can make a high IQ argument for it in the way that Ford pardoned Nixon, which was a crazy move when we look back on it. He was like, the country needs to heal. Our long national nightmare is over and we need

to move on. But I mean, did that really provide like the real justice that a lot of people want? Because it wasn't about Nixon. It was really about the entire machine, you know, beneath and below him. Was that really a salve to the wounds that people felt? I would say no. Here's my high IQ take for you, Sagar. See what you think of this one. If Fauci's pardoned, then he can no longer plead the fifth. True. And he's not in any legal jeopardy. He could say whatever. He can come clean. We could learn the truth. Yeah, you're not wrong. Maybe that would be a good trade. Maybe we'll take that trade. I don't know. I mean, I do want to hear it from his mouth that he lied. I do.

I mean, look, we still need to know the details. Weren't we just talking about this exactly five years ago is when the first cases of COVID-19 were beginning to come. Well, okay. The real first cases were when the lab leak happened in September 2019. Right. As we all know. But the first, like, international cases that people were beginning to. I think the first confirmed

case in Wuhan was somewhere around five years ago. That was such a crazy time. And it was so wild too, because remember at the beginning it was like only Tucker Carlson taking it seriously, because there was like this like anti-China lens to it. And then totally, we should have shut our borders. Totally flipped. My friend Balaji Sreenivasan, I'll never forget it. He called me in January of 2020 and he's like, you guys need to watch out. He's like, this thing is coming.

It's bad. He's one of the first people who... The one I remember is we had Matt Stoller on the show. Yeah, Feb 2020. And he was like,

I don't know why we're just like bullshitting about whatever topic this is. In a few weeks, the whole country is going to be shut down and the whole world

is going to be upended and that's what I was like. He was right. He was right. I remember I was the first mask, you know, I'm almost ashamed of it. I was one of the first people to wear a

mask. Oh, you were. Yeah, I remember. You were in, Saga was masking way before me. I had the mask. I had all the emergency supplies when you could still get them on Amazon. So I was, I was luckily early. I still have the goggles and my entire survival kit. It's crazy. It feels so surreal that all of that actually happened. It was a wild time. Yeah. Absolutely. And it was only five years ago. Crazy. Anyway. Okay. That was a fun show.

I honestly enjoyed today. That was good. We will have, if we need to, we'll come in with breaking news over the weekend. Otherwise, we'll see you all on Monday. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture

that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now.

Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7. Because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.