Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/27/23 Weekly Roundup: No Fly List Hacked, Manchin At World Economic Forum, Pelosi Disses MSNBC, Desantis College, Marvel and China, UFO Debris Retrieved, Candace Owens Calls Steven Crowder Socialist

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

In this Weekly Roundup we look into how a Hacker leaked the No Fly List, Joe Manchin's combative talks with other European leaders during the World Economic Forum, Nancy Pelosi saying she's "not a big fan" of MSNBC over coverage of the Biden documents story, inside Ron Desantis's battle with the College Board over AP African American studies, China opening its theaters back up to Marvel movies for the first time after a 3 year ban, a Congressman admitting the government has retrieved UFO debris, and Candace Owens calling Steven Crowder a socialist for the way he handled The Daily Wire deal fiasco.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/AUSTIN LIVE SHOW FEB 3RDTickets: https://tickets.austintheatre.org/9053/9054To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it means the absolute world to have your support. What are you waiting for? Become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Super embarrassing moment for the U.S. government as the no-fly list, which has massively ballooned over the years since 9-11, was actually leaked after being left on an unsecured airline server. Let's go and put this up on the screen. This is from Vice News. They say in the headline, U.S. no-fly list leaks. It was left on that unsecured airline server. The list was discovered by a Swiss hacker

and it contains the names and birthdates and over a million entries. Just as a reminder, guys, we've had a no-fly list in this country for a long time. But as they point out in this article, prior to 9-11, it contained literally like 16 names on it. So it was, you know, almost non-existent. After 9-11, no one has any real insight into how large, but it had ballooned to, you know, 40,000, 80,000, something like that. And by the way, no due process about who gets put on this

list or any process to get yourself taken off of the list. There's the way, no due process about who gets put on this list or any process to get yourself taken off of the list. There's no way to even know if you're on the list. So this is a huge deal that this list has ultimately been obtained and leaked. The fact that it includes more than 1.5 million entries is really pretty wild, although they said many of those entries are aliases that all reference the same person. But one of the people involved here said it is so much bigger than I thought it would be. Yeah, the total number is somewhere between 47,000 and 81,000 people. And again, like, what does that even mean? And also, what are the justifications for doing that? To be clear, you do not have to be convicted of a crime. And they have no due process or burden of proof to

be placed on the no-fly list. They simply have to suspect you. We had many of these cases after 9-11 where somebody who had a name that was similar to a terrorist's name literally could not board a flight because even though it wasn't them, their name was on the list. And they had to go through an insane process to be able just simply to fly. And it gets to a lot of really interesting, complex case law, too, in terms of, you know, your right, basically, as an American citizen, for people who aren't citizens is different, that, you know, you don't have a right to come into the country. But for people who are American citizens, your ability to navigate interstate is something that's been litigated and well established by the Supreme Court. And there were some cases on this, but it never actually quite came to fruition. So the fact that it is between 47,000 and 81,000

people, also keep in mind, this is the 2019 version of the list. This is an old list. Yeah. What does it look like in the age of the whole domestic terror scare after the last two years? There's no open, nothing about this that has been made public. That's what it ultimately really serves as a reminder to me because I haven't thought, frankly, about the no-fly list in quite a while. Yeah, like a decade. But it's a reminder of the many evils that were birthed out of the quote-unquote war on terror, which they never go away. They just get expanded and then used for other purposes or by other political actors.

And so the fact that, you know, something like this, which created a lot of uproar and a lot of questions from civil libertarians at the time, over time, Americans just sort of like accept that this is a thing that happens, that people got put on this list for with absolutely no due process and ability to get themselves removed from it, that it can be expanded, that you can be added to it at any time. And it takes a news item like this to remind us that how much our sort of liberties and freedoms have really been impinged over this time period. Yeah, exactly. We've covered before how upset the Europeans were that we would dare do what they do, which is place restrictions on their ability to sell cars

in the United States and car manufacturing. Well, they haven't forgotten it. They got real upset at Davos. Let's put this up there on the screen. French President Emmanuel Macron actually confronted Joe Manchin and said, quote, you are hurting my country for supporting protectionist actions within the Inflation Reduction Act. Let's go to the next one here, because this is actually my personal favorite. Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor of Germany, he confronts Joe Manchin. He says, your support for policies favoring U.S. automakers are hurting Germany. Manchin pulls out his phone, Googles tariff cost on autos in Germany, and shows the top result, which shows that Germany has a higher tariff on U.S. automakers than the tariff that we actually put in place just to try and protect our domestic manufacturing. These people are the biggest hypocrites in the world. The French and the Germans have some of

the most protectionist economies in all of Europe. Germany specifically, their manufacturing, they go to immense government lengths to prop it up because it's the backbone of the German middle class and really of the entire European Union. And it's been smart for them too, by the way. I don't fault them for a second. I would do the same thing if I was Germany. But do not have the temerity to get upset when we do one-tenth and what we should have done 30 years ago, what you've been doing. And we're like, yeah,

maybe we'll protect our own industry. And they're having a full-fledged freakout. There's another level of hypocrisy here too because they would sort of chide the US for not doing enough on climate change, which, I mean, deserved, right? I get it. But then we actually do something

and they're mad about it. So I'm very upset. This is also something that you remember Macron had a state visit here recently. And this was apparently a point of real tension between him and Biden as well over the fact that they're worried that some of their green energy manufacturing is going to reshore here because of the incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act. So the European Union is actually preparing their own package now, which great. Good. Yeah, go for it. Do it. But, you know,

the fact that for once the U.S. is doing like the teeniest, tiniest bit to rebuild and protect our own manufacturing base here and they're freaking out about it is just hilarious. So, yeah, a rare a rare mansion W here. Very, very rare mansion W and very common Eurocentrism. They drive me nuts. Like the level of moral superiority, once again. You know, they act like they are the kings of the world, both morally and then they get so upset whenever we happen to do something they've been doing basically since the inception of their economy. Germany is the richest country in all of Europe. And France is, I think, number two or number three, depending on how you define continental or define Europe with the UK or not. These are very rich societies. Like the idea that they could not comprehend why we would do this.

Also, Crystal, you know, they're taking us to court most likely in terms of the, was it the World Trade Organization? They're calling this like a breach of the WTO. I mean, go for it. All right. Be my guest. Like, it just drives me completely crazy. Yeah. I will say that, you know, when the Inflation Reduction Act passed, obviously, I was supportive of it, but I didn't. It's hard to look at these numbers in the abstract and the tax credits in the abstract and say, like, is this going to be a significant? Does this really matter or not? The total freak out from the Europeans has really hardened my support. Yes, I agree. And made me feel like, oh, this was actually a bigger deal than maybe I really realized at the time. So thank you by, you know, happenstance. You have

hardened my support and belief in the power of this program. Criticism of MSNBC coming from a very unexpected place. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. Nancy Pelosi admits she is not a big fan of MSNBC. Of course, her reasons here are absolutely hilarious. This was in a big sit-down interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. And Dowd brought up to her that even some of the folks on MSNBC were being critical of the president with regards to their handling of the classified documents situation. And that's when Pelosi said, quote, I'm not a big fan of MSNBC. I love some individuals there, but dot, dot, dot. And then I guess she sort of trailed off. So effectively, Sagar, amazingly, her criticism of MSNBC is that they are not slavishly partisan enough for her taste. Everyone pay real close attention to this. She's mad that MSNBC is not a 100 percent Biden propaganda network by just covering the Biden documents.

And here's the funny part. In their coverage, what do you always note that they say every single time? These are totally different. These are totally different cases. It's not the same at all. They actually go out of their way to downplay the entire thing.

So if anything, they are doing the Biden propagandas. By their definition, I saw this during the Hillary thing. The press, the Hillary people could not handle it. You're not allowed to talk about the emails. Period.

Zero. Even talking about it means that you're playing into Republican hands. What if it's bad? What if it's the news? You would be derelict if you're a news network and you were not covering that. And what do you do here? We cover it and then we cover a lot of other stuff. Everything is important. We're not saying it's the most important story in the world, but it's also very significant involving the current president of the United States and even the former, tangentially. So these people are brain dead. They demand 100% allegiance from their allies in the media. Well, and if you think that executives at MSNBC won't take notice of this, you are wrong. Because their core mission is to serve their advertisers and

maintain their access to the Democratic Party. I mean, that's what they do. It really matters actually less what their audience thinks or whether they're certainly whether they're putting out fair coverage or not. Those are really their sort of two core missions. Would not shock me at all if Nancy Pelosi, who she may not be speaker anymore, still one of the most powerful forces in this town and in the country if she or one of her aides put in a call to express directly their displeasure with the direction of this coverage. And in corporate media, you know, careers are made by being able to maintain access to someone like Nancy Pelosi or any of her sort of like, you know, surrounding circle. So they will take careful notice of the fact that she is displeased with

the tone of their coverage and the fact that they have been even covering this at all, let alone moderately, occasionally, mildly critical of the president. So that's why it's really something to take note of here. Would not be surprised at all if it shapes the network's coverage going forward. You're absolutely correct. Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis won a very big battle, actually, against the college board this week. He originally pushed back on the pilot curriculum for a new AP course in African American Studies, objecting to certain components of it, like critical race theory and queer theory that have been brought into this curriculum that was being piloted by the College Board. The coursework had been kept secret. The only reason the public really knows what's in it is

because of leaks to media. But DeSantis pushed back on it, and the Associated Press, the College Board said, OK, we're going to rework it. We're going to revamp it because DeSantis and Florida Republicans were not going to allow it to be used in Florida schools. This does not have to turn into a debate over the Stop Woke Act that DeSantis implemented. I think it was just last year. I have my own problems with that law, even if I sort of agree with the thrust of his point. But he got the college board to change the coursework. And I mean, as much as people hate Ron DeSantis, I actually think this will be for the better of the curriculum. What do we know? What do we know about what the curriculum? I saw him griping about queer

theory and intersectionality. And what do we know about what was in the curriculum from the leaks? Yeah, so the leaks particularly pointed to critical race theory. They pointed to queer theory, intersectionality, and a lot of the writers and thinkers that had been sort of used as scholars and used their scholarship in the curriculum were, to put it mildly, very radical, I would say fringe left thinkers. And again, this is where, and this is my colleague wrote in The Federalist, that there's a 14th Amendment question here when you're getting into questions that like, there was a quote pulled out in one of the leaks about one of the scholars cited in the coursework had been talking about how white people are X, Y, and Z. And it was basically just because they were white and not because of any sort of learned or conditioned traits that people pick up, but because they're

white, they're X, Y, and Z. And that is not healthy. And I think there is a real 14th Amendment violation in that case. So my colleague, Joy Pullman, wrote about that, and I thought it was an excellent point. Equal protection? Yeah. And that's, by the way, why I think you don't need things like the Stop Woke Act, because we already have civil rights protections on the books. I know these lawsuits take a really long time to go through, and you're banking on winning them, obviously, but we do already have protections for racial equality. And so is he claiming that, so I'm wondering if he's, let me try to find this one piece in there. DeSantis zeroed in specifically on abolishing prisons, queer theory, and intersectionality,

and he said basically this is a political inclusion. This is something that is more about one political team than the other. I saw in one of the articles that was about that he was saying that they've won a victory kind of over identity politics. But so that's why I wonder if this is actually about him wanting to like edit out some of the excesses that might have kind of slipped in from some fringe thinkers, but is fundamentally comfortable with an AP African American history course, or whether he just rejects the entire idea. Because if you say that you're winning a victory over identity politics, in what way can you be completely against identity politics, but then also

supportive of African-American history classes? African-American history classes are, in essence, by definition, connected to identity, the identity of African-American history in America. I am guilty of using that term imprecisely myself because it's become such a political football identity politics. But I think you're making a really good point, which is that fundamentally, I don't really have an issue with identity politics, the literal definition of identity politics, because people are different. Thus, their political interests are going to differ based on those those different interests. So, of course, there's there's some element of identity politics. And the right plays into them, too, with, say, the white working class.

That's identity politics. And I think, personally, there is legitimacy to talking about the white working class differently than other demographics, just like we talk about suburban women differently than other demographics. So, yeah, I mean, identity politics in its essence. To your point, Ron DeSantis, I guess, isn't rejecting the AP African-American studies class. He's still going to allow, obviously, the College Board to administer the class in the state of Florida and has said repeatedly, we are proud to teach African-American history. This is a line that I think Manny Diaz and Florida officials have been using in their back and forth with the College Board. We are proud to teach African-American history in the state of Florida. This is just too far,

which, you know, whether or not you think Ron DeSantis is sincere in that, it's at least politically clever. And right, not only are identities kind of real and salient, but sometimes people have multiple overlapping elements of their identities that actually intersect. Like white and working class would be an intersecting identity, and both of those pieces of your identity inform who you are, how you go about the world. So to see him coming, like to call it,

if maybe his advisors have some like sophisticated critique in the background, but like the way that he's presenting it publicly seems just like a blunt rejection of the entire notion. Yeah, but I think it's a blunt rejection of the entire notion that's broadly popular because people are sick of being excessively divided along identity lines and being divided along identity lines when it's not salient, to your point. And that happens over and over again. And intersectionality was taken from a legal theory by Kimberly Crenshaw into a hierarchy. And whether or not you think certain folks have abused it, Crenshaw accuses the right of abusing it. But it has been extrapolated in cases with certain thinkers to becoming hierarchical. And I think that's been a high profile mistake and one that allows Ron

DeSantis to come in and talk about identity politics being a bad thing because the excesses do resonate with people. Yeah. And we talked earlier about how Maurice Mitchell, who's the national director of the Working Families Party, wrote this 6,000 word essay about the way that the left had vulgarized identity politics and was abusing it for people's own internal motivations inside organizations and divorcing it from its structure. Quoted somebody saying that you've taken the politics out of identity. Identity politics no longer has the politics connected to it. Now it's just identity. And so there's an irony in that all sides have dumbed it down and then battered each other with it. And then you try to say, okay, well, then let's do a course on this.

Let's actually study it in a profound way. And then the dumbed down parts would get pulled out and say, well, we can't do that because this is so dumb. Like, well, how are we going to get smarter if we don't study this? So, and we'll keep watching this and see what AP comes back with. I'm skeptical that it's going to be a good faith

back and forth, but this is all we've got. You know, I think the red line in the sand should actually be, whenever you're studying like racial history, whatever it is, the red line in the sand, if you're Republican or Democrat, whatever you think, should be treating people differently based on the color of their skin solely and saying these are innate characteristics that come because of the color of your skin. And so to the extent that that's Ron DeSantis' red line, you can take it in good faith or not, it doesn't matter. But to the extent that that's Ron DeSantis' red line, you can take it in good faith or not, it doesn't matter.

But to the extent that this move at least drew that red line for the college board and the course is going to go on, I have a hard time being upset about this. I think that's great because I imagine that that's painful for children and causes a lot of confusion for children and a lot of strife in classrooms, as we've seen actually over the last couple of years. And it's not just white students. A lot of studies have shown that black students, when you present this idea that you are defined by race completely and fully from beginning to end, that can create harm as well. But yeah, we'll keep following this story and others like it. So stay tuned for that. Really big news this week, though it kind of got buried in the media cycle. Disney is welcome back in China. This is, again, huge news for Disney stock, which has been struggling. But Axios reported yesterday that Marvel movies are officially returning to theaters in China.

That's the first time since Spider-Man was released in 2019. Remember how huge of a relationship that Disney and Marvel has had with China over the years. It's a big, big, big moneymaker. But it's also something that has caused losses. If you remember Eternals, which is directed by Chloe Zhao, she was banned, basically, the movie was banned from China because she had said something critical in a trade publication about how there are secrets everywhere in China 10 years ago. And that caused the movie, I just pulled this up. This is like a $300 million movie, and its budget was expected to be made up by getting a great reception in China. That's a loss for Disney when you can't show that movie in China and have spent a ton, a ton, a ton of money on it.

What do you make of this? This is a big deal. Just couldn't be happier for Mickey, Donald, the whole gang, Disney. Happy that they're going to be back raking in money from China. Congratulations to them. So they're going to do their Marvel comics, right? They've got Ant-Man and Black Panther coming out in February in China. And do you think that this was public pressure in China?

Like the public being like, come on, these are fun. Or how do you account for this shift? Yeah, I mean, maybe it's that. Maybe it's just shaking things back up post-COVID. Maybe it's because Bob Iger is back at Disney and he always had a good relationship with China. And Bob Chappack got pushed out last year and Iger is back. That might have something to do with it. Maybe he was instrumental in reopening that relationship or rekindling that relationship. But Disney has really been struggling. And it's obviously a

huge company. It's a huge part of the economy. And so its access back to Chinese markets is a really big deal. And they'll argue, by the way, that this is a really big bridge between the two countries so they can share culture. It's sort of like the old Cold War argument about blue jeans, right? If you can get people overseas to enjoy blue jeans, appreciate blue jeans, want blue jeans, then they'll be more favorable to the United States. It's a problem that's really plaguing many, many industries, whether it's the NBA, whether it's talking about rare earth minerals or semiconductors. This is a really big problem. And Disney, it's interesting, Thor Love and Thunder, I think it was Axios that pointed this

out. It dropped over the summer. It was not approved by China's censors because it had LGBTQ themes in it. Now it's awards season. And I'm very curious to see if any celebrities in their sanctimonious award show speeches speak out against Disney coming back into this relationship with China. You get immediately blacklisted, immediately blacklisted by China. Even your studios that you work with can get blacklisted. The consequences will be huge. They'll be sweeping and it'll affect more than you if you speak out against this. But this is them rekindling a relationship with an authoritarian country that has a lot of human rights problems. Right.

And so some people would call it a bridge, but what you're describing sounds more like shackles, right? You saw the NBA cracking down on anybody who said anything even remotely critical of treatment of people in Shenzhen or Hong Kong, said anything about Taiwan. You couldn't touch anything. It's more verboten than basically anything online. It's like saying anything at all about the biggest country in the world. And so you're right, like actors love nothing more than to give virtuistic speeches at the Oscars. But I would be shocked if any of them stood up for, you know, said anything about any of that. And so then if it is a bridge,

which way are the people marching? And it seems like they're marching this way and controlling us rather than us kind of having an influence on them. And to your point about what's driving this, China has learned how to make Hollywood caliber movies on its own. And they release a lot of movies that are very nationalistic, like big blockbuster things that

are very nationalistic and very appealing to Chinese audiences that really, really like them. So that's another thing. I mean, Disney planned the budgets for a lot of these films well before this relationship splintered. And now they want to make up and they know that they can spend more money on these films and get them hopefully to appeal to bigger audiences. We saw what Top Gun did over the course of the last year. A huge big budget blockbuster does really well because people like the high octane stuff. So Disney can spend more money on these movies and then show them in China and all is well that ends well. But every sector of our economy is now grappling with these questions. I think the public is more aware of these questions.

Mulan, which never ended up getting shown in China, thanked the law enforcement of Xinjiang and the credits, which was a huge controversy at the time. So good luck to Disney, a huge lucrative contract or a huge lucrative move to be able to open up that relationship again with these two films. They're going to make a lot of money off of it, maybe break even on the films because of it, or even do better than that. So we'll certainly keep following this in every sector of the economy because there are some real problems for American business leaders. Yeah. there are some real problems for American business leaders. Some big movement in the realm of UFOs, UAPs, whatever you want to call it. The government put out their report. They've been trying to gaslight us all on the issue. There's a new clip that's been resurfaced, as well as a new image released by my friend Jeremy Korbel. Let's look

at the clip first. I actually missed this. It was back in May of 2022, but still important nonetheless. You have Congressman Richie Torres here talking about debris that has been recovered by the United States government. Let's take a listen. Has any physical evidence such as debris been recovered? The debris that has been recovered has not raised any notable alarms. So hold on a second. Which debris? What?

Where? So a lot of this was discussed, was at least wiped under the rug in the report. We talked previously about the Pentagon Inspector General coming out and talking about secret compartmentalized programs at Roswell and other things that he's been, quote, looking into. Still absolutely no disclosure on any of that. So my friend Jeremy Korbel, he's been talking, he's been, quote, looking into. Still absolutely no disclosure on any of that.

So my friend Jeremy Korbel, he's been talking, he's been releasing new podcasts, weaponized podcasts. Let's put this up there on the screen. You can make fun of it if you want to, but this is a brand new photo. It's actually been taken from the US government archives. They call this crystal the Mosul Orb. So this was a U.S. military filmed UFO from, presumably from a drone, and has been officially designated in government files as a unidentified anomalous phenomenon. So are we looking at this like round patch? Yeah, that round thing is actually seen for, so the video itself is four seconds long. It was seen on the camera for only a single second. That's what you get there. And let's be clear, in the files itself, for all of the balloon people, this stuff has been ruled out. This has been, you know, in terms of the analysis,'t know what to make of it. It almost seems too good to be true. But again, I mean, nobody in the government is disputing this. It doesn't even look like anything in particular. It literally appeared on camera like a flash. So it's just stunning stuff. And it all

comes on the heels of the new report and just a lot of general interest that is happening right now with post-report environment. Jeremy himself, I spoke to him, a lot more stuff is going to continue to come out. And I just want to say, look, I know it sounds a little wacky and I know it sounds kind of crazy. None of these photos are smoking gun proof, but you would also presume that if you have a hyper advanced society that's like this, like the idea of the actual smoking gun proof and all of that just coming out, I mean, it doesn't seem all that likely. You get little glimpses and pieces. Maybe it's true of that just coming out. I mean, it doesn't seem all that likely. You get little glimpses and pieces.

Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. I don't know, but it's a real mystery. It's interesting. Can we incorporate this into the weaponization of government new church committee? Can we? No way. Because it's one of those things

where this is so much deeper than that, like in terms of the car apartment. I always think about this. John Podesta, whatever you think about the guy, he was a big UFO guy, actually. He was chief of staff to Bill Clinton. And he wrote an intro to a UFO book. And he was like, look, I tried to get to the bottom of this. He's like, I'm a UFO guy. I've always been interested in UFOs. Bill Clinton has actually fully admitted this on camera. He said, I tried to get to the bottom of it and they wouldn't tell me. That's out there. You can go and look at the clip itself.

Podesta himself, White House chief of staff, he literally tried to corral the IC to give him the information and they didn't give it to him. There have been a variety of people like that who have been in senior government officials, the assistant secretary of defense, Christopher Mellon. He's talked about the same thing. He's like, there's a lot of stuff in there. He's like, but, you know, it's not coming out. So the highest levels of elected office and even they, many, but, you know, it's not coming out. So the highest levels of elected office and even they,

many of them, they have no idea what's going on. We'll see. I take a lot of pride in guys like Ryan Graves. He was the pilot. One of those pilots,

I believe he observed the gimbal UFO. He actually said he was almost arrested for coming out and speaking out about his experience with the gimbal.

What ever happened with the dude who ran the website and had his house run? Yeah, nobody's, that also, nobody knows what the hell happened to that guy. They, FBI broke into his house, no knock warrant, actually no, it wasn't FBI, it was like Navy special, whatever, the Naval Criminal Department, NCIS, literally, went in and stormed in without a warrant, they searched, seized all of his stuff, his servers, private phones, all that. Didn't give it back to him.

Still, to this day, we have no idea what happened. And he basically runs a website that has these photos showing, you know. From Area 51. Could be similar photos to what we just showed you, for example. And look, I get it. I know this sounds crazy. I know. That said, this is all true. Nobody's disputing that video. And we're talking about members of Congress and all this stuff that are saying this, who have access to some of the actual information.

That's what he says. And he says it hasn't raised any questions. But I mean, look, who the hell knows? We have questions. Whether he does or not, we definitely do. I need to see it. That's what I need. We have been tracking somewhat, and you guys have probably been tracking as well, this big fight between two giants of conservative media. It's Stephen Crowder on one side and Daily Wire, led by Ben Shapiro on the other side. Another player in this whole drama has been Candace Owens, who is now employed by the Daily Wire and who has been doing her own videos and an appearance with Tim Pool, talking about this whole thing and, you know, really slamming Crowder and talking about what a betrayal this was. And I think she called it a, quote unquote, bitch move.

That's kind of true. I can't really do that. It is a bitch move. I can't really just do that. But her latest charge against Crowder is that he is basically now with exposing these terms of this contract, that he's basically a socialist. Take a listen to what she had to say. I think that people are really seeing just how nasty what you did was. And I think that I would hope that you would come to terms with the fact that you owe everybody an apology that this was

never necessary, that you can start whatever company you want. You don't get to step in like a socialist. And it is socialist-like. These are the demands that you hear when people are trying to establish a union, when the Amazon workers have walked out because they have decided that they are worth more, that they should have three-hour lunch breaks. They've gotten their contract from Amazon, and they realize that there are lunch breaks for only one hour, and that they're required to show up to work, and they think they should be able to work from home for three days a week post-COVID and they walk out and they want to stay at a union. This is the big con. It's Amazon. No. I mean, I was with you on the bitch move, Candace. Why did you have to go so far as to call him a socialist?

So obviously the Amazon part is going to trigger me because this woman clearly has no idea what conditions are like for warehouse workers at Amazon. The idea that they get to work from home or they even get a lunch break, you know, let alone fighting for a three hour. No, that is not what's going on there whatsoever. So that and also the whole concept of like, oh, this is so outrageous that you would band together with your fellow workers to have a voice in your own workplace, which you spend a majority of hours of your life at. Obviously, I find that atrocious. But I will say, Sagar, one of the things that was always amusing to me about this fight is, you know, Crowder and Shapiro and Candace Owens,

these are all dyed-in-the-wool capitalists, bleeding free market, all this stuff. And ultimately, what Crowder was talking about, even though I think, you know, this is a total setup, it was like a cynical move to start his own thing, but he's talking about provisions in a labor contract and what is fair and unfair to workers. As if any of these people, and him in particular, have ever really expressed concern or encouraged anything like the banning of non-competes from the Biden administration. Like there is no track record there of caring about labor conditions in the past. So in a way, she does kind of have a point here of like,

I clearly disagree with their ideology. But what Crowder is claiming to stand up for in this whole fight is very much inconsistent with the ideology he supposedly holds. Well, it's also, you know, she also said something which really has me curious. She goes, Stephen has a lot going on. Yeah. And I was like, what does that mean? Yeah. And she said something like, I think we should all pray for him. At this point, just let it all out. I got to know I'm transfixed at a lot of things too, just to see exactly what's going on with this. I will say it seems incredibly bizarre. At first I was of with Crowder, and I was like, well, I could see him.

I'm not sure I would sign that contract. The idea of, especially the tech censorship thing and all of that, I get where the Daily Wire was coming from. But at the same time, it's a term sheet, right? So it's not even like it was a contract. That said, the more you think about it, like taping the phone call of your friend. And you can hear the betrayal when Ben and when Jeremy, especially Ben, when they talk about it. I'm like, man, that's screwed up.

The timeline that Ben lays out of, you have this term sheet for months. Registering the website. You have this term sheet for months. You register this Stop Big Con website, and then you set up the phone call that you record. It's very clear this was like a cynical market play. Ultimately, it was very capitalist of him. I mean, that's, you know, I think what he is after

here, I think that seems incredibly, incredibly clear now. But yeah, it's going to continue to be ugly because she is effectively sort of threatening and blackmailing him with revealing some sort of information that I guess he, you know, wouldn't want out and that she got from quote unquote sources. So we'll see where it all goes. But, you know, part of why it's right. These these are huge players. Like we're talking about this is a 50 million dollar contract over four years. The amount of money, the amount of influence they have in terms of the conservative ecosystem is massive. And I do think even though Crowder is not a noble actor here, you know, Daily Wire probably spends a lot of ad dollars on YouTube. I don't doubt that they have people high up at YouTube that they're able to call.

Do they have insights into, okay, what can you say and what can't you say and how to walk the line to make sure they don't get demonetized, that they don't get suppressed in the algorithm? I think those are, like, decent questions to ask. But, again, I don't really think Crowder is, like, a noble actor here in terms of this whole dynamic. I don't think anybody is particularly noble. It also shows you there's a hell of a lot of money involved. It also just shows you also, by the way, you know, whenever people accuse us or whatever of doing, here's a perfect example. I was like, if you're willing to go all the way and read ads for gold and do

sponsorships and really go into it, that's actually what it looks like in terms of our business model, which is mostly in subscriber funded. We don't do host read ads or any of that other stuff. Never talk to an advertiser. It's just auto-generated ads and subscriber backing. That's it. So just to give people an idea of how much money exactly we're leaving on the table, knowingly in favor of independence. And this is exactly why. So I also want to put that out there, uh, in general, like with the whole situation, I really do think like, for me, it's the personal betrayal of Crowder and the way that he's behaved, because there are a lot of people who I hate in this business, people who actively talk smack and like all this, I would still never do any of that to them.

Yeah. It's just not right. Like conducting yourself this way, especially to try and to make a profit. If there was a genuine disservice here that was done, I think that's a completely different story. But the more that I see it, he betrayed friends.

And I don't know, to me, that's a wash your hands of moment. Yeah, gross move. Very gross move. All right. All right, we'll see y'all later. This is an I heart podcast.