Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/30/23: Trump Campaign Heats Up, Jordan Peterson on Desantis, Biden 2024 Run, Ukraine Fighter Jets, Trump Peace Deal, Iran Drone Attack, Tyre Nichols, Gain of Function Ban, Affirmative Action, French General Strikes, Jeffrey Stein on Debt Ceiling Fixes

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump's election campaign heating up as he throws jabs at Ron Desantis and Nikki Haley, Jordan Peterson's unusual take on the Joe Rogan podcast where he says Desantis did the wrong thing by banning CRT in Florida, Biden's re election campaign begins to shape up, a push for the US to send F16 Fighter Jets to Ukraine, Trump demanding a negotiated peace deal for Ukraine, Iran has an armory hit by a kamikaze drone, a look into the brutal murder of Tyre Nichols by the Memphis police, an expert board of Virologists unanimously agree for stricter rules around Gain of Function research, Saagar takes a look at the fight between test scores and affirmative action at Med schools, Krystal looks at the French General strikes as French President Macron attempts to raise the retirement age, Jeffrey Stein (@JStein_WaPo) from the Washington Post joins the show to talk about 7 tricks he thinks could save our debt ceiling crisis.Timestamps:Trump: (2:20)Jordan Peterson: (17:22)Biden 2024: (27:13)Ukraine Jets: (35:26)Trump Peace Deal: (43:37)Iran Drone: (48:19)Tyre Nichols: (54:58)Gain of Function: (1:09:42)Saagar: (1:19:50)Krystal: (1:29:08)Jeffrey Stein: (1:38:29)EoS: (1:51:25)To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of big political and foreign affairs news that is breaking this morning. First of all, the Trump campaign has now, I guess, officially launched like it had launched before, but then kind of didn't really do anything. Now he actually seems like he's doing some stuff. He was in New Hampshire. He was in South Carolina. Really interesting comments made there in particular about a couple of his would-be rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. So we'll tell you about that. We also, this is a great soccer find. Jordan Peterson was on with Joe Rogan and he was actually going after Ron DeSantis. I was fascinated by it. I thought we would talk.

Yeah. Very interesting exchange. So in the spirit of like 2024 and Ron DeSantis is a potential Trump contender, we will bring you that as well. We also have some new, not very good numbers for Joe Biden coming out of New Hampshire. Actually, Trump, for all the media talk of his weakness in the Republican primary, by some measures, he's in a lot better position than Joe Biden is vis-a-vis the Democratic base. So kind of interesting there. And also, this is a little bit stunning. The Biden campaign is planning on running on how great the economy is, even as their own Treasury Secretary is saying we're headed into a recession. Oh, smart.

Lots of political news. We'll get into all of that. We also have some big news coming out of the Pentagon here. They are considering sending fighter jets to Ukraine. This, of course, on the heels of deciding to send tanks after saying previously that they were not going to send tanks. We have Israel striking Iran multiple times, drone strikes. What will the fallout of that be? We also have that absolutely disgusting, disturbing, gut-wrenching video of police murdering Tyree Nichols in Memphis. We'll bring you a little bit of that and also talk to you about what it all means and what exactly happened there. And a new expert panel recommending some changes to gain a function of research. So we're going to talk about all of that. We also have Jeffrey Stein in the

show. Jeffrey, I never call him Jeffrey. Jeff Stein. Let's call him Jeffrey. Jeff Stein of the Washington Post talking about some weird tricks that could diffuse the debt ceiling crisis and whether any of them are actually realistically on the table. So let's start with the political news here. We had Donald Trump in New Hampshire and Donald Trump in South Carolina talking a little bit of trash about the potential competition, saying that he doesn't really think he has any. Let's take a listen. Remember, I used to in 2016, I talked about polls all the time in 2020. I didn't have to because we didn't have a lot of competition. We had no competition. And I don't think we have competition this time either, to be honest. But I talked about the polls.

And I will say that our polls, we are absolutely we are so far ahead in the polls, both in New Hampshire. One came out this morning, a very nice poll way ahead. And one came out yesterday, a nationwide poll. And we're 35 points up, 39 points up. That's a lot. So Ron would have not been governor. Then when I hear he might run, I consider that very disloyal. Talked to her for a little while. But I said, look, you know, go by your heart if you want to run. She's publicly stated I would never run against my president. He was a great president. So there you go. Saying, you know,

same thing about Ron DeSantis and how it wouldn't be very loyal. He would never be anybody if it wasn't for me with Nikki Haley. He's like, yeah, she apparently came to me. I said, OK, you know, follow your heart.

But she said she would never follow run against her favorite president, which is me.ki apparently uh is looking at a february launch yes presidential election good luck uh that's all i have to say i guess yeah his comments about her i thought were particularly like passive aggressive you know like oh yeah sure she called me follow your heart but of course she said she'd never run against her favorite president, so. But in a way, Crystal, he is right, isn't he? She is such a kiss-ass. If you genuinely believe that Trump was bad, A, you worked for him, you didn't get fired, you quit. B, you kissed his ass all the way up until January 6th, then denounced him, but then kissed his ass again.

Yeah, and is back here kissing the ring even before her own presidential run. Make up your mind, you know. I mean, she's one of these, she's kind of the Kamala Harris of the Republican Party. Donor class loves this woman. They think she's the, you know, next big thing. She's got all the, like, diversity checkbox. And there is so little there there. I mean, just in terms of, like, personal charisma and any sort of political talent, et cetera.

I mean, listen, maybe I'm wrong, but I think she is a complete donor and media class phenomenon. So anyway, she looks like is really actually getting a team together and may jump in in February. She might be the first other. I guess John Bolton announced his presidential campaign as well. But other than him, she might be the first sort of challenger to jump in this race. Against him, we've been talking about how the field is kind of frozen

because they're all terrified of him really coming after them in an aggressive way. Well, they should be. And actually, immediately after that campaign, Trump put out truth last night. Quote, the fake news media was good yesterday in their coverage of my stops in New Hampshire, other than the Globalist Street Journal, which is rarely accurate or good.

They said the day was really, I mean, he's not wrong. When he's right, he's right. He's right. It was really amazing. The enthusiasm to make America great again has never been stronger. Here it is. The revelations about Ron DeSanctimonious doing far worse than many Republican governors, including that he unapologetically shut down Florida and his speeches, was interesting.

Indeed. DJT leading big. So what can we get from that? So it's been leaked now for quite some time that the DeSantis tactic against Trump, if such a thing were to materialize, would be, I'm the one who fought against the COVID regime. Trump is the one who kept Fauci. He's the one who kept a lot of the lockdown procedures in place while he was there. So I've always been skeptical of how potent that attack is because, look, it's 2023. It's January 30th, 2023. Why are we still litigating the pandemic, especially the lockdown phase of it, which effectively was in over at least for over a year. And then number two, it gets to, I mean, look, I just think this is probably what Trump would say. And I do actually

think he's correct. One of the reasons DeSantis was able to do effectively whatever he wants is because the federal government does not have the power to determine lockdown procedure in the state of California or in the city of San Francisco. Like we have a federalist system as president. You have actually very little leeway. And look, even at the time, like we're really want to get into this. Trump was basically anti-lockdown after what, like July, I think of 2020. I remember in the beginning it was like, we'll be open by Easter. Right, we'll be open by Easter. I mean, he was saying all kinds of what turned out to be totally false and not accurate things.

It was a dumb move not to fire Fauci. That's absolutely a very valid criticism, not to go after him on that, on some of the elements that were in it. But, you know, by and large, like I don't know if DeSantis has a real substantive leg to stand on. As far as it lands with the base,

I mean, do people really love Ron DeSantis right now because of COVID and lockdowns? Or is it COVID anti-lockdown, economic growth, population growth under Florida, anti-woke, like just a major like owning the libs energy for the last three? Like how much of that is COVID and how much of that is just being hated by the media?

So I'm just genuinely skeptical of this entire case. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I also think this puts the Kristi Noem alliance with Trump in some perspective, too, because if any governor in the country could make the case for like she really didn't give a care and just kept everything open the whole time and was aggressive about it. She was the one who, you know, really was sort of at the forefront of that. So if anyone could make the case that, hey, you're kind of a fraud when it comes to what you're saying you did on COVID versus what you actually did on COVID, she would be a good figure in order to do that. But I do kind of agree with you that, listen, I mean, we've looked at the polls and in the midterm polls, we continue to see, you know, what people rank as their top issue priorities and whether it's Democrats or Republicans for the entire country, people have moved on. So

if this is the whole thing that Ron DeSantis is going to hang his hat on, I don't know how far it gets him. I do think, too, like, listen, Trump is out there. You may be waiting and biding your time or whatever. Trump is not waiting to take shots at you. So if you aren't out there defending yourself, counterpunching, trying to gain some ground here, because Trump is right that at this point, I mean, in most polls at this point, DeSantis is significantly behind. I think you're losing the opportunity to take advantage of what was a period of weakness for Trump, which is quickly receding into the past. I think that what DeSantis, if he were to prosecute a case, the Reagan campaign of like 1976 would be the best one. Now, Reagan actually did not

win in 1976. It came pretty damn close, and that's effectively what made him the nominee in 1980. He was propagating the message. He's like, look, we need to move on from this madness of Nixon, from Ford, from all of this chaos. Go towards the, quote, true conservative principle and fulfill the Barry Goldwater revolution of 1964. And it was a forward-thinking message that actually, again, came very close to actually knocking Ford off in 1976. And a lot of Gerald Ford people would tell you that Ronald Reagan is the guy who cost Ford the election

because he's the one who weakened him amongst a conservative base so that he could then get elected in 1980. But the point is, is that Reagan was able to almost successfully take down the sitting president, Gerald Ford, amongst a conservative base because it was a feeling of, man, should we really stick with this guy? There's been all this madness with the pardons. And then obviously you have the Saigon pullout. And it's like, we just got to move on into a new phase, into a more hopeful phase. I don't know exactly how that translates, but when I'm looking at it, Reagan had the sunny energy. And at the same time, he was barbarous whenever he wanted to be with a political attack. That's,

I think, the DeSantis category. Look at Florida, open for business. We're booming. That's what I want to bring to the entire country. And that's all I would really, really. With Donald, I thank you for your help. You did a great job while you were president, but it's time to move on. I think that's actually a powerful message for a lot of people. Do you think that that would sell with a Republican base? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, that's the real question is you have to bet on the idea that the Republican base actually sees this as a period of chaos. Actually, you know, a majority of them really want to move on. And this is the other, you know, it's the other problem.

We're talking about Nikki Haley getting in the room. Freaking John Bolton. Like, there's a whole cast of characters. Mike Pence is almost definitely going to run. Glenn Youngkin almost definitely going to run. You have a whole cast of characters looking to jump into this race. And so it's one thing if you've got this true one-on-one Ron DeSantis versus Donald Trump, but I think it becomes so much more difficult when you have a

whole slate of people who are taking up media, oxygen, and energy, and who are trying out their own tactics and shots that they're taking at Trump and also have their own base of donors that, even if they don't really have any public support, are going to prop them up for longer than they really deserve to be in the race. Yeah, I think you're right. Okay, so let's talk about what Trump's strategy is this time around, at least thus far, because it is quite different from the stylistic approach that he took in both 2016 and 2020. So let's put this up on the screen from the New York Times. So as I said before, he had these two events in New Hampshire

and South Carolina. The headline here from The Times is Trump tries a new campaign tack, colon, small scale. At two events on Saturday, he embraced more traditional campaigning as he struggles to maintain support for his third White House bid. So in New Hampshire, he spoke in a high school auditorium in Salem, New Hampshire, which, you know, that's like classic sort of what you do when you're on a campaign. But it's not the gigantic rallies that he's kind of known for. In South Carolina, this was kind of interesting. They say he's previously attracted thousands to rallies, but he introduced his state leadership team at the state capitol, an extraordinary setting for a politician known for upsetting the establishment and taking direct aim at longstanding public institutions. You know, one thing of note in South Carolina is it all depends on how you look at this thing, because on the one hand, he didn't get like unanimous

support of the Republican congressional delegation or all the elected. I mean, obviously, Nikki Haley isn't backing him. Tim Scott is not backing him, who also, by the way, both of them might run for president. But he got the governor of the state endorsed him. And I think several other statewide elected officials from South Carolina endorsed him. And you also had the senior senator, Lindsey Graham, who endorsed him. And I think three out of six of the Republican members of the congressional delegation. So do you see that as a show of force for a former president who's now lost re-election and is running again? Or do you see that as a sign of weakness that he no longer has complete control over all of the elected officials in the state?

It kind of depends on how you look at it. I look at it as what the actual state of affairs is. He has the most people are behind him in the Republican Party from what we can tell so far. A large part of the Republican establishment afraid to go up against him. You have some people who may oppose him but are being silent about it right now. And that's effectively the state of the case in New Hampshire. In South Carolina, he's got the first mover's advantage. And also, we know that announcing early doesn't really guarantee you anything. You know, remember, who was the first guy to announce in 2012? I think it was Tim Pawlenty. I mean, when's the last time you heard

that? Last time I checked, he was like the chairman of the American financial lobby here in Washington, D.C. So congratulations. It worked out well for him, I guess. But look, that's my point. It's all a game of timing, but it's also, you have to have genuine appeal. So with Nikki Haley, I don't think anybody has a genuine appeal behind her, except for billionaires who are basically neocons. And, you know, I mean, good luck, I guess, in the race. I think we would find out with her pretty quick. She definitely would be a Jeb Bush type character. But for a serious

person, and I really think DeSantis is the only person who might be able to do it, this is a tricky game. On the one hand, it's, you know, you just won re-election by 20. You're cruising. At a certain point, either do it or don't. On the other, Trump has always destroyed everybody he's ever gone up against. Is it different this time? Look, we can only find out through action. That's the difficulty. A couple other notes about the way Trump is approaching the campaign, which is also interesting. I mean, 2020, the messaging was very little in terms of policy focus. It was a lot of just like weird online grievance politics, very hard to say. You know, he's talking about like, okay, the economy was great under me and

selling some of what he did in terms of COVID. But there wasn't a real sort of core policy argument like he was making back in 2016. And in 2016, he was successful because both people liked his style. They liked that he pissed off the people that they hated. But they also liked the core of a lot of the actual policy that he was selling. And then he, you know, is in office and doesn't do any of those things and ends up just being another, like, Republican who gives the store away to the rich. He seems like he's trying to recapture some of that 2016 energy. So in this article, they point out that over the past six weeks on True Social, Trump has been posting a bunch of videos about his policy positions. They say including plans to protect Social Security and Medicare. Oh, again, that's like a 2016 throwback.

Ban Chinese citizens from owning U.S. farmland or telecommunications, energy, energy tech or medical supply companies. They say the videos in which the former president speaks directly to his camera are aimed at reassuring supporters he's focused on topics other than his 2020 defeat, an issue that flopped with midterm voters. But that doesn't mean he has let go of his election conspiracies. He still is harping on that to quite a significant degree. I think what I take from this, Sagar, clearly his campaign manager recognizes that just obsessing over the 2020 election is not going to be a winning strategy for him in the Republican primary or in a general election and is trying to, you know, refocus him on these other issues. Does that work? Are you able to like actually

corral him to talk about things when clearly his big obsession is over the election? Good luck with that. Trump will always say whatever he wants. So background story. I don't even remember this lady's name. But somebody had accused, she was like, some lady went on TV and said that Trump had sexually harassed her. So I'm about to interview Trump. This happens the day before.

So before I walk in there, Sarah Sanders is like, hey, don't ask about this. And I was like, that's not how this works. Like, I'm going to ask about whatever I want. And guess what? The first thing he wants to talk about is, he's like, did you see this lady on the TV? It's one of those where the staff tries to protect him. But if he wants to talk about it, he's going to talk about it. All right. You cannot. One thing have we learned at this point? It's been seven years of the Trump era. He will say whatever he wants. And so if he believes it, which he does by all accounts, I think we should take him at his word. Then we're going to hear a lot about it during the campaign. That's baked into any support of

Trump or whatever. People who are like, oh, like the policies, but not the tweets. Well, I'm sorry. They are not, they are completely indistinguishable whenever it comes to the man. Correct. That's just how it goes. Correct. All right. So that's kind of a encapsulation of where Trump and his campaign is at this point. I guess the last thing I will note is that in contrast to the very sort of contained launch speech that he gave that was, you know, kind of boring and dull and just reading off the teleprompter, these speeches were more like the, you know, Trump ad-libbing stemwinders of the past. So that was more the energy of these particular speeches for whatever that's worth. Okay. Let's go ahead and get to this interesting exchange between Joe Rogan and

Jordan Peterson on Ron DeSantis, who of course is seen as Trump's primary rival in terms of winning the nomination. As you guys probably know and followed in the news, DeSantis has banned the AP African-American history course from being taught in Florida schools, obviously incredibly controversial move. And Peterson brought it up and took issue with it. Let's take a listen to the argument that he makes. Once you get to the point where the government has to step in and regulate, say, what education systems are doing, you're already in deep trouble. And because I can't, I don't see how it can really be done because I can't define critical race theory. You know, I mean, more or less, you can get some sense of the cloud of ideas that's associated with it.

But trying to draw the lines, how are you going to do that? And then, of course, you enable inevitably, no matter what your goal is to begin with, you're going to control a certain form, let's say of pathological communication, misinformation, that's just going to play into the hands of people who like to censor. And that's just as likely on the right as it is on the left. So no, it's a real dangerous game. And is the problem like the term critical race theory is it's open to interpretation. Yeah. Well, it's often even hard, except in retrospect, to understand a lot of what these things actually are, you know, because new clouds of ideas emerge and they kind of have an animating spirit. And they have a set of associated, what would you say, presumptions.

And you can often only see what that is in retrospect. Yeah, I was actually fascinated by that. Yeah, what did you make of that, Sagar? I don't know, because, you know, he's also endorsed Rod DeSantis. Actually, I remember. Who, Peterson? Yeah, he did in November of 2022. Jordan Peterson, I don't know if endorse is the right word? Yeah, he did in November of 2022. Jordan Peterson.

I don't know if endorse is the right word. I think he was like, I would like to see him. Yeah, I was curious just to see it because he also kind of brought it up unprompted. For those who haven't listened, it was within the first five minutes.

It was right out of the gates. In the discussion of a Twitter Files episode. So I was like, huh. I don't know. I mean, I'm curious actually what you think because you did that monologue on the Crowder, Ben Shapiro thing. And like, by the way, there's some fun stuff coming out about Steven Crowder. But how exactly you said it was relating to the GOP primary. And I was like, well, maybe he's, you know, I mean, he said he was pro DeSantis.

Maybe this is like a political move. I know that there's strife within the Daily Wire over being pro Trump or pro Ron DeSantis, but I was just fascinated to hear it. I was like, wow. I was totally unexpected. That's actually a layer of it that I didn't even consider because I wasn't even thinking about the fact that Peterson is now with the Daily Wire. I mean, this is his employer. Shapiro is very clearly team Ron DeSantis, has been for a while. I mean, he was not an original Trump supporter.

He was a Ted Cruz guy. And then, you know, during the Trump era, he was relatively an original Trump supporter. He was a Ted Cruz guy. And then, you know, during the Trump era, he was relatively supportive of Trump, although, you know, he would criticize him from time to time. But Walsh is very pro-DeSantis. That's why I was like, oh, maybe this is like a thing. Maybe this was like, you know,

his attempt to carve out his own lane or put out a little bit of dissent to that move. The fundamental point that he makes here, I think, is a solid one, which is just basically like, listen, you can't run around being here, I think, is a solid one, which is just basically like, listen, you can't run around being like, I'm the pro-free speech guy and then be banning books and banning entire courses. And the case that he makes here of like, you know, once you get into, okay, this is the sort of vague, amorphous concept that people have trouble

even defining, but you're saying you're banning it, well, that can bleed over into a lot of areas. I think seems like a reasonable case to make, especially to Rogan and a Rogan-aligned audience. The one thing I will say is, you know, I like the idea of, okay, we just want to teach the facts, and we want education to be neutral and stay true to the history, whatever that history is, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. The reality is that's not really possible because, I mean, government is always going to have an influence on what is being taught. And so there is a real battle of ideas here. Now, I would say it's not the appropriate role of like the state executive to just top down decide this is what's okay and this is what's not. This is why you have local control of schools. And in theory, in best case scenario, you have a democratic local process where parents are involved and they're electing school board

members. And that's how curriculum are being ultimately being developed. But I do want to just say that I think it's a little bit of a fantasy to imagine that schools are not going to be political whatsoever, because the way you teach things, the type of courses that are included, those are always going to be somewhat political decisions. I actually, I completely agree with you. And that's why it's very difficult because I also believe in free speech. And, you know, for example, this AP history exam, we're talking about the reparations. This is included in the curriculum.

Movement for Black Lives, Black Queer Studies, Post-Racial Racism and Colorblindness, Intersectionality and Activism. I'm sorry. I mean, I'd be furious if that was taught to my child in a state environment. And I'll give people the flip side. So I grew up in Texas, I grew up in College Station, Texas. I remember this vividly. My science teacher was required to teach us evolution. And somebody asked her a question and they were like, hey, I'm not gonna call her out, although I still probably think I should. One of my students was like, what do you believe? And she's like, well I believe what my church, something like that, church teaches me. And I was like, I'm sorry. He's like, you just

cast out as an authority figure on evolution and you're a freaking science teacher. And I'm sitting there as a non-Christian being like, am I losing my mind? And she starts talking about, you know, whatever they taught in the Bible or whatever. Look, that's fine. You want to do that at Sunday school? Be my guest, even though I think you're absolutely out of your mind. But this lady is an authority figure. And I remember thinking in that moment, I'm like, oh, wow. I'm like, you know, somebody really should like have a say over this, you know, and obviously I didn't because I was in the cultural minority. But the point that you're making is correct. We are going to have to fight about this in a state school, private school. You can teach whatever you want. If you want be at home, you want to teach this to your kids. I mean, the things you're talking about to be taught about,

OK, what is the argument for and against reparations in a high school elected course? This isn't even something, you know, you get to decide whether you're going to take this course or not. I don't think that's inappropriate whatsoever. So in any case, I do think that, you know, it is it is a difficult balance for Ron DeSantis to strike where he's again trying to paint himself as like, oh, I'm against the woke mob and I'm against cancellation and I'm pro free speech. And that's my whole thing. But at the same time, you're banning more books than any other state in the country. Florida and Texas are the two top states in the country in terms of banning books. Back to your Texas example. And you're wholesale just saying, no, we're not going to teach AP black history. Not like, oh, hey, maybe we should make some tweaks. No, we're just going to ban it.

Well, I think they did request to change the AP curriculum. At every school statewide, I think that strikes people as going way too far and does smack of, you just don't want to teach the ugly parts of American history that, you know, look bad for the state. You want the warm and fuzzy version that doesn't include like the ugliness of slavery and the Jim Crow South and all of those things. So in any case, I thought it was interesting that Peterson jumped on that particular issue and clearly wanted to bring it up in the podcast right away. Yeah, I was, see, that's where, look, we don't have to litigate it,

but like, I'm like, I don't think that post-racial racism, colorblindness, and black queer studies has a goddamn thing to do with the American Civil War. I mean, I would love for more people to actually have an accurate understanding of what that is. But isn't this part of, I mean, if you're talking about an AP black history course, shouldn't those struggles and those movements,

like, why shouldn't they be covered? Well, who decides that? Why shouldn't you talk about- Like, are we talking about Harvard University's color department? You know, in movements, like, why shouldn't they be covered? Well, who decides? Why shouldn't you talk about? Are we talking about Harvard University's color department, you know, in terms of like how we understand colorblindness and intersectionality? Are we talking about actual black people in Florida and like what they want? I think that's a good question because you're saying it should be up to Ron DeSantis and however he feels about that. I don't think it should be. I don't agree with that at all. I'm saying I'm looking at the

curriculum being like, yeah, I think this is a problem. That said, I have honestly no idea how to deal with it. I mean, I just gave my example. Here's the truth. The vast majority of people in that class probably did not believe in evolution. And probably the principal who ran the school also didn't believe in evolution.

But they were required to teach it for a state standard. And at the same time, they're casting doubt on it. I mean, is it my fault for living in the state? I don't know. You know, it's like one of those where it's tough. I do want to, listen, in my opinion on this particular issue of banning an entire like black history course from an entire state, I think that is clear cut over the line way too far. But I do think that overall the conversation of like what gets

included in education curriculum is actually very complex because on the one hand, as I just said before, you have this principle of local control, electing school board members, an ideal situation, parents having a lot of input. On the other hand, right, you can think if you think back into like the Jim Crow South and you have a majority of the white citizens who think black people are inferior. Is that should that be? No, of course that shouldn't be taught to students. It shouldn't just be we have basic rights that should be included in the curriculum. So it's just like with all of our laws and institutions, it's not enough to just say majority rule. You also have to make sure that there is, you know, equality and basic rights that we recognize in the

Constitution that are reflected in that curriculum as well. so it's also not just as simple as saying like whatever the local community decides like if the local community is like we don't like evolution i would personally say i'd be like oh i'm not down no i i would personally say like this is the facts this is the science kids need to be taught this in a public institution well that kind of happened already right yeah so that that's already here's another fun one. Kids in the South, if you start hearing the war between the states, you need to start reading for yourself.

Listen. That's a little bit of a flag for all of you. Having grown up in a rural part of Virginia, there were a lot of highly questionable parts of the curriculum,

field trips that I went on, et cetera, that, you know, we'll just leave it there. All right. Let's get to the current president, Joe Biden. So this is a new report from our old colleagues over at The Hill. Let's go and put this up on the screen. I just can't help but laugh. Biden gets set to lean into the economy

in 2024. One of the journalists on this piece is Amy Parnes, very well-respected, well-sourced. And Sylvan Lane is the other one on the byline here. So let me read you a little bit of this. With the State of the Union address on February 7th, which, by the way, guys, we are going to do live stream coverage of that, Biden is likely to give an upbeat tone on the economy that's going to roll into a campaign message that Democrats expect will highlight strong job numbers and rising wages. A senior vice president for the third way, like corporate centrist think tank, said the economy can and will be a winning issue for Biden. When you look at the top line stats, they're incredibly impressive. These are massive accomplishments. Guys, reality check. We still have 70 plus percent of the country saying we are on the wrong track. You literally have Joe Biden's

Treasury Secretary warning that we are headed into a recession. We have covered the way that banks are stockpiling cash because they are so fearful of what is happening in the future. You still have the Fed hiking interest rates. You have all kinds of weirdness and craziness in terms of the housing market, in terms of even the auto loan market. So for them to pretend like, oh, the economy is going to be great and this is something we can lean into for the election, I think that is totally delusional. Yeah, I obviously agree. You know, look, actually what I'm taking away from this with Biden is he should run on Social Security and Trump madness. I mean, that's what all the exit pollings that we have about

Democratic overperformance or Republican underperformance has to do with Trump madness and then boomers coming out because they thought that Republicans were going to cut their Social Security. I mean, it's actually, you literally have the whole debt ceiling fight going on right now where they're on their back foot. That's what all I, all I would do is bash them over the head. I wish that the politics didn't work this way, unfortunately, we really do seem to be in the age of the defensive. When you vote Republican, you're voting against the liberals. When you're voting Democrat, you're voting against the Republicans. In a lot of ways, the stop the steal madness was enough to keep people down or at the very least switch ticket at the very top.

For Biden, you just want to make a choice between stop Trump madness and me and also I'll protect your Social Security. Yeah. Same simple. Trump is very aggressively trying to inoculate himself against the Social Security. It's tough because it's a vibe, right? So Biden can say I'm anti-Puigdemont on the police. Does it matter? If the institutional left is for it, people are like, well, I don't believe you.

It's one of those things where Trump, by being in the Republican Party, if the Republican Party is going to be coded as anti-entitlements, then you're going to ultimately get the pushback. That's a fair point. And also, you know, they're moving forward with this insane plan of like, you know, 30% national sales tax that they have to vote on in the House because this is one of the things that McCarthy gave to the holdout caucus. And, you know, how's it going to sell to the American people? Like, hey, you know how high your grocery bill is right now? You know how much you're paying for eggs and milk right now? How about we up that by 30 percent? How do you feel about that, buddy? Good luck with that messaging, too. I mean,

Democrats are going to have a field day with the vote that they're going to take on that ultimately. So anyway, that's the Democratic plan to try to pretend like the economy is all hunky dory. This is something the Obama administration tried as well, and it did not work out well for them either. I think this is an incredibly, incredibly foolish plan. And at the same time, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Biden, even though the media narrative was after the midterms, solidified his position, he's looking stronger than ever, and he's good to go in terms of, you know, being the nominee and probably winning the general election. The numbers in some of the early states really tell a different tale. So let's go and put this New Hampshire poll up on the screen. So you've got the Republican primary results up top. You've got Trump with a

lead over Ron DeSantis, 37-26. They also then threw Chris Tanunu in there. I don't know why. I don't know if he's planning on running or not. Anyway, he gets 13% in the state of New Hampshire. Then you have Nikki Haley, four, Mike Pence, three, and basically Glenn Youngkin, zero. Good luck with that, buddy. And then on the Democratic side, though, this is what's interesting,

is even though DeSantis is, you know, he's within 11 points, kind of nipping at Trump's heels there, Biden is actually in a weaker position in the Democratic primary than Trump is in the Republican primary. You've got Biden at only 25% of New Hampshire Democrats saying they want to vote for this guy. Pete at 16, Michelle Obama at 10. Why do you include her? 15%. Kamala Harris, 5. Gavin Newsom, 3. Undecided, 36%. So in any case, there's a lot of weakness here. This was the second New Hampshire poll to come out that found basically a majority, a large majority of New Hampshire

Democratic-based voters wanting a different candidate than Joe Biden. And I just think it's absolutely remarkable. If you dig into this poll, another thing that I found really interesting is they they say Biden's advantage over Buttigieg comes almost entirely from older, self-identified conservative Democrats without college degrees, a fading part of the party's coalition. And also apparently with people who don't vote that often, which is, you know, if you know anything about politics, those are not necessarily the people that you want to be the core of your base. Oh, of course. I mean, the Democratic Party primary base, overwhelmingly, at least increasingly, now becoming a lot more college educated and increasingly the overall vote share

as a whole. So that's a terrible place to be. At the same time, that's exactly what you would want in a general election. At some point, I don't think it matters just because Buttigieg is not going to challenge it. Pete's not running. Right. He's not going to run. So, you know, it doesn't matter. That said, whenever it shows up, what can that tell us? Which is high turnout saved Joe Biden's ass in the 2020 election. Remember this, guys. We had one of the highest turnout elections in modern history. Like, I think Trump, you know, that's one of the reasons Trump was always like, I want 10 million more votes.

It's like, yeah, well, you also got 15 million people on the other side. But anyway, that's aside. The point is, is that millions more people voted in 2020 than year prior. I actually see no reason why that would go down. We just had a midterm with the highest record midterm turnout in decades. I think it was like 2002 or something like that. It came similar to, in terms of the strife that we're feeling. I don't think anybody can doubt that 2024 won't be, you know, at least in a very emotive rematch between the two or whomever, does ultimately become the GOP nominee. So I just see a scenario where your ability to motivate

people to come out for you is so vitally important. And for Biden, you know, if I'm Biden, you better be on your hands and knees and pray for Trump. It's the only thing that's going to save you. Otherwise, remember this, Republicans won the national popular vote by six points in the midterm elections. You're toast without that. And let me tell you guys, don't underestimate Trump. Yeah, obviously. You know, and listen, I fell for it. Okay, listen.

Dude is going to get indicted. Like, the document thing seems like an open and shut case. He might get indicted also. And this might still happen for some of the January 6th stuff. Like, surely this is not going to wear well to the American public. You just had this massive repudiation of him in the midterms, as clear as day. But again, in this poll, according to this poll, and these polls can be wrong, we all know that Biden and Trump are in a statistical tie for a general election, head to head.

And obviously, New Hampshire is a state that, you know, Biden won previously. Democrats did quite well in terms of midterm elections. And you're tied with this dude right now at this point when he's kind of at his like low ebb of popularity in terms of, you know, Donald Trump. Anyway, so he's got an electability issue. He's got a lot of weakness with his own base. He's got a lot of people who are understandably like, bro, you're going to be 86 by the time you finish this term. I can't even believe it. Are you really up for this? You really think you can handle this job for another four years?

So they got some big problems on their hands, bottom line. In 86. Wow. Okay, let's move on to Ukraine. This is an important discussion. Let's put this up there on the screen. The Pentagon, a push to send F-16s to Ukraine, is picking up steam. So for those of you who are familiar with Fight Club, I've taken to a new phrase. On a long enough timeline, Ukraine is going to get anything that it needs.

First, Patriot missiles were out. Then they're in. Then tanks were out. Now tanks are in. F-16s and the no-fly zone, that was something that was out. Maybe it's back in. This is only the first step to a no fly zone, right? So currently there is a major contingent of military officials pushing the

Pentagon to approve F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine to help the country defend itself from Russian missile and drone attacks. Wouldn't you look at that? Ukraine has kept American-made F-16s at the very top of its wishlist from the very beginning. However, Washington and Kiev have viewed artillery, armor, and ground-based air defense as more urgent needs as Ukraine protects its civilian infrastructure. And as they are about to launch their new offensive, they view their ability to at least battle for air supremacy as a vital part of not only the spring offensive, but possibly in the future. Now, the reason why these fighter jets were not really under consideration at all is, well, everybody, what's the range on an F-16? More

than Ukraine, I can tell you that. What are they going to use it for? Well, we don't really know. They may tell us one thing, and sure, they're probably very useful in their initial spring offensive to take back territory in the initially invaded part of Ukraine. But what about Crimea? And what about Russia? Let's say that one of the things that you do when you're at war is you destroy an enemy's ability to try and wage war upon you. So would then we not open up the ability to have F-16s strike inside of Russian territory if they're provided by the United States? Look, at the one hand, and this is what the Ukraine people always tell me, well, it's not unprecedented in the history of the Cold War not to provide F-16s to our allies in the fight. On the other, let's think back to Afghanistan, right? One of the reasons that we

could only give the Mujahideen missiles that were in storage or ammunition, or sometimes you couldn't even give them a rifle with a scope on it, was because we had very strict regulations at that time around what exactly surplus equipment and not necessarily U.S.-provided equipment was allowable in the conflict, even if the Soviets knew that we were doing it. Lines were very well considered in the Reagan, even one of the most hawkish administrations at that time. Now, this is blowing just way and way past that. White House right now says, quote, they are considering it very carefully with Kyiv and its allies. What does that even mean? Also, don't forget this. It's not just us as F-16s. We could allow another country who we sold them to, to sell it to Ukraine or even just give it to Ukraine. But if they're in NATO,

we bear the brunt of it regardless. I don't think that's going to happen. Why? Because with Germany, they won't even give them tanks without insisting that we give them tanks because they want us and our nuclear security umbrella to underwrite this entire thing. Yeah, they don't want to have their ass out. They want us to be taking the brunt of the blame here. Right. Listen, I've tried to be really like very understanding to the case that Pentagon and the Biden administration are making here. This is insane. And the logic always go, no matter what happens on the ground, no matter what the actual conditions are, whether Ukraine is winning or losing or Russia is falling apart or

doing better or whatever, it always seems to justify more escalation. And so this is the key point. There's a couple of key points to take away here. Number one, we are continue to court World War Three. I mean, don't forget that we are in a proxy war with another nuclear armed superpower. And this idea of like, well, they haven't blown up the world yet, so I guess we can do whatever we want is pure insanity. We're creating a situation where not only are there no off-ramps for Ukraine and Russia to bring this war to an end, but there are no off-ramps for us to get out of this situation. So it really is looking more and more like an

Afghanistan-type situation where, you know, remember the original idea of going into Afghanistan, okay, we're going to get the bad guys and then we'll be out. What ended up happening? I mean, we are creating that same sort of logic and inability to back out on the ground in Ukraine as we did there as well. Talking to our friend, Bronco Marcetich, about all of this, and he brought up a good point. I'm just going to read you what he said to me. He said, listen, there's two paradoxes of Western discourse on this war. Number one, if Putin and Moscow threaten escalation but don't act on the threats, the U.S. should get more aggressive because they're bluffing and will never do so. If Russia does escalate, then they're dangerous madmen and the U.S. should get even more aggressive because they can't be appeased. So

all roads lead to escalation. And then the second one is when Ukraine is on the back foot, the U.S. must escalate and hold off on diplomacy until Ukraine is in a strong negotiating position. When it gets to that position, the U.S. must escalate and hold off on diplomacy because now Ukraine can win until it can't. Then we go back to the start of the loop. So if Ukraine is not doing well, it's OK, we've got to send them the tanks. We've got to do this and that so we can give them a stronger negotiating position. And then if they do better than it's oh, if they can win, we're going to make them win, so we can't negotiate now. So again, all roads lead to escalation, and you are 100% right, Sagar. Over a long enough time horizon, they have gotten everything they want. And the logic here of, okay, we just agreed to the tanks. It's not, okay, we're good, like, thank you. It just justifies,

now we're going to push the envelope even more in terms of what we're going to ask for. Because if you can justify tanks, then, hey, why are you drawing the line now at F-16s? There's no logic that would allow you to draw the line between those two offensive capabilities. And let's put this up there on the screen. Former Admiral James Stravitas, he was also the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, putting it out a tweet saying, this is the right thing to do. Tanks will be helpful. Better aircraft will be decisive. Well, you know, it certainly could be. It could be decisive, certainly, in a lot of directions. I always try and look back to the

history. So when you think about World War I, what's one of the one things that we all think about? Gas, right? Well, the war lasted over nine months before the first gas attack ever happened. Wow. So think about the longevity of the amount of people and suffering in the war that was happening before that even. We're not even barely one year into this conflict. The first year of the First World War, I could have made a very good case for why the central powers were going to win and why the United States would never enter and the things would never end up the way that we thought they would. Think about World War II. If it's one year into the great film right now, Narvik on Netflix, fantastic film. We're talking about the Nazi invasion of Norway and

the very first Hitler defeat. One year into World War II, appeasement's looking pretty good. You're like, hey, these people rolled over France. They took over Norway. It's time to negotiate. There were people in the British cabinet making the point that I am making right now. They said, no, we're going to stand up against the Nazi colossus and hope that the United States eventually gets into this war. And by 1943, okay, that ends up becoming very clear. But there was a very good case to make in 42 that it wasn't going to happen. The point is we have no idea where this thing is going to go. And it could end up as a freaking disaster. Yeah, right. Russia right now, Peter Zayhan made a great point on the Joe Rogan experience where he said, look, the history of all Russian conflict, and you can go all the way back to Napoleon, even further if you want to.

The first year, it's a shit show. I'm quoting Peter directly. And then what do they do? They throw bodies at the problem and sacrifice proportionally far more of GDP and life than they ever actually needed to, but they end up winning. Am I saying that's going to happen here? No. I have no idea, but we could look back, well, we can at least understand from that that they're not going to stop. And if they're not going to stop, then what is the limiting principle? And so on a long enough timeline in that 10-year period, can you confidently say that a call for a no-fly zone won't happen? I cannot say that here, given the current administration. And that's the point that I think we should always try to hammer home. Yeah, I completely agree with you.

Let's go to the second part here, which is, I said, the current administration and that timeline. However, one of the people who is running for president right now, possibly the next president of the United States, is Donald Trump. And Trump is making very sustained calls for negotiated peace in Ukraine. Let's put this up there on the screen. Quote, if I were president, the Russia-Ukraine war would never have happened. But even now, if president, I would be able to negotiate an end to this horrible and rapidly escalating war within 24 hours. Such a tragic waste of human life. Interesting and could be a very politically popular message, let's say two years

later, let's say another hundred billion later, maybe a couple F-16s later. And Trump was speaking to this on his campaign stop in South Carolina. And I think this is a very potent message right now. Let's take a listen. Joe Biden has brought us to the brink of World War Three. We're at the brink of World War Three, just in case anybody doesn't know it. As president, I will bring back peace through strength. Peace through strength would have never happened. If I was president, there would not have been a war with Russia in Ukraine. Zero chance. And Lindsey would be happy with that. That's better than any alternative. Wouldn't have happened. And I will say this, even now, despite tremendous loss of lives and destruction of much of that country, I would have a peace deal negotiated within 24 hours. Peace deal within 24 hours. That is something which I really believe, Crystal,

could have a significant potency also in the general election. Sorry, also in the primary, but really in the general election, where a lot of polling, and you've been taking a lot of look at this, is what? People are very split right now on support for Ukraine. The numbers have moved significantly in terms of how the public feels about continuing Ukraine support. There's an NBC News poll that just came out. It's kind of funny because they buried this at the very end of the write-up and did not highlight it at all.

50-50 split on whether we should send any more aid to Ukraine. Within the Republican base, it is not 50-50. Republican voters are very much on the side of not sending any more Ukraine aid, and those numbers keep shifting in that direction. So again, listen, Trump is full of not sending any more Ukraine aid. And those numbers keep shifting in that direction. So again, listen, Trump is full of shit on any number of things. He's been all over the map on Ukraine. You remember, what was he like saying? Should bomb them with Chinese flags. Right, and put Chinese flags. So he's alternated between taking like insanely hawkish, psychopathic views. And then now he clearly sees this as a political lane to exploit. And I think he is absolutely correct about it. He also put this out on True Social last week when they announced that they were going to send these Abrams tanks. He says,

first come the tanks, then come the nukes. Get this crazy war ended now. So easy to do. I mean, classic Trump, like, oh, it's no problem. No one is saying this would be easy to end. But of course, in his mind, he's always always there to make the deal. So I do think this will be very potent in the Republican primary. I think it's a big sleeper issue that could end up being what gets him back in the White House. But with regards to the primary, he has already they've already telegraphed one of the cases they want to make against Ron DeSantis is that he was sort of like classically hawkish John McCain style Republican when he was in the House of Representatives, which I think there is some, you know, some sort of record there in voting history that would indicate that that is an accurate portrayal of how he was positioning himself at that time. So this could end up being incredibly potent in terms of the Republican primary. And DeSantis has said more sort of traditional, like just we should be supporting Ukraine and very much position himself on the side of more aid to Ukraine within the Republican divide on that issue. So it could be potent in the primary. And I think you're right, Zagor. This could be this could end up being an extremely potent sleeper issue for the general

election right now. You know, yes, the public is divided 50-50 on whether it's in A to Ukraine. It's also not anybody's, very few people's top priority. Yeah. In terms of how they're thinking of their issue. You know, they're worried about the economy, classic things that people are concerned about with regard to their pocketbook. But you never know when these sorts of things can really become, the situation could become destabilized. We could get pulled more directly into this thing, or you could just have continued public erosion of support for the endless direction that we're going in with right now with regards to Ukraine. So keep a close eye

on this one, because I do think this is some Trump 2016 instinctive finding a political fissure to exploit saying the thing that no one else is really saying, but a lot of the American public are actually thinking. Oh, absolutely. I think it will be very, very powerful. Let's move on to Iran now and let's talk about what happened over there. So there appears to have been a strike. I'll let you decide and maybe we'll tell you about who exactly that strike was after we show you the video that happened on an ammo depot and on facilities that were manufacturing kamikaze drones inside of Iran. Many of these drones currently have been shipped over to Russia who have been using them on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. So let's play some of the video here. I'm going to talk a little bit over it. You can see somebody

who is filming and then a massive boom and a flash that happened. We don't have any information right now in terms of the exact munition that hit that facility, but there were several strikes that happened all across Iran on these facilities. And let's put this up there on the screen. Iran is saying that this is a drone attack that targeted its defense facility and that bomb-carrying drones targeted the Iranian defense factory in the central city overnight, causing some damage at the plant amid heightened regional international tensions. Much of this, again, is coming after the provision of these drones and of military equipment to Russia, which has spawned a lot of discussion here in Washington

about how we have to get much tougher on Iran because now they're in the fight against Ukraine. Well, it turns out, probably not a surprise, let's put this up there on the screen, that the Israeli government appears to be the one that conducted the strike, likely at the behest of the United States. Israeli and American officials discussing new ways to combat Iranian operations. Wall Street Journal has no qualms here, even though Israel is not taking credit for the strike. They are directly attributing it to them, saying Israel strikes Iran amid international push to contain Tehran. This was a drone strike targeting the defense compound

as, quote, the U.S. and Israel look for new ways to contain Tehran's nuclear and military ambitions. I also don't think it's a coincidence that Bibi just happens to be back in the government and something like this happens. And also he's got a coalition where Bibi is the centrist guy right now in Israel in terms of who is ruling Israel. So just so everybody knows about that and who exactly is calling for more posturing on Iran. It is probably the most hawkish far-right government in Israeli history. I mean, he is, in terms of who he brought into his cabinet and positions of power, I mean, these are some really fringe characters with views that were outside of the mainstream until very, very recently. He formed a coalition with these extraordinarily hardline far-right parties. So, yeah, it's no surprise, not an accident, that Bibi's back in charge,

and this is the kind of thing you get. Also, just so everybody knows, maybe this has something to do with it or not. The CIA director, William Burns, actually made an unannounced trip to Israel just last week to discuss Iran and other regional issues. Just a coincidence, I'm sure. Drone strike by Israel. Israel just last week to discuss Iran and other regional issues. A week later, we have a drone strike by Israel. Again, not even being questioned, really, about what's happening here. And just last week, actually, the U.S. and Israel carried out their largest ever joint military exercise

from both countries for air defense systems, refueling jet planes and others, and the potential for a military conflict with Iran. Now, hopefully this does not escalate into anything, but I think it is very clear that this is also BB is in a tough spot. Israel wants good relations with Russia. I should just note, it is the only Western nation in the entire world, which has not undergone significant criticism for saying no to 98% of requests to Ukraine, including refusing to provide Iron Dome, including refusing ammunition, missiles. So I think Bibi probably, first of all, is never a bad thing for Israeli politics to strike Iran, all right? Unless you get into a broader thing. But that's not where we're at right now. So probably helps his coalition, helps his government,

something he personally believes in. Number two, this is how you get the West off your back. You're like, hey, I'll do you a favor. I'll strike the drone facility. And I'll go after Russia. It's like a two birds with one stone while he's refusing to actually provide a lot of military aid to Ukraine. People don't know this, but a lot of Russians actually live in Israel. People who left during the Soviet, I think it's like one-eighth or something of the population. So how they feel towards Russia is much more complicated than basically any other nation.

And Bibi has had very friendly relations with Putin. And, you know, it was like there were like posters up of him and Trump and Putin together. And so, I mean, this is part of his sort of political identity. And he has, even since the last government, he has struck a more sort of hands-off approach towards the Russia-Ukraine war. So, yeah, this is a good way for him to both signal for his domestic base and posture in the hawkish way that he wants to with an increasingly hawkish Israeli domestic populace, but also pretend like with the U.S. like he's on our side in terms of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It was put well by one expert here quoted it at a Washington-based think tank critical of Iran. They said, this is a smart trifecta where Israel can hurt Iran, help Ukraine not risk its strategic interest in Syria, or run the risk of the diversion of its sensitive military technology, Russia, and into Iran.

I just have to point out the hypocrisy here when, you know, we're risking World War III to back Ukraine over the principle of territorial sovereignty. That's the principle that's at stake in Ukraine that we are willing to risk World War III over. And then our, you know, buddies in Israel, probably at our behest, are striking Iranian territory. And for some reason, that's not a violation of territory. That's all fine and good. So, I mean, there is just a blatant hypocrisy here in terms of the way we approach these supposedly ironclad international rules and norms. Yeah. The last thing that this country needs is a war, another war in the Middle East.

Controversial statement. And the final piece to put on this is, of course, the Obama administration, they struck the nuclear deal with Iran, which seemed to be working pretty well. Trump backs out of it. Biden could have gotten back in as Trita Parsi many times came on the show and talked about the window of opportunity was right at the beginning of the Biden administration. They could have just gotten back in. They didn't do that. And now that deal is basically off the table. And instead, we have actions with our close allies in Israel, you know, once again, putting more on the table and risking war with yet another country around the world. So

it really is a dramatic failure and failing of the Biden administration here ultimately and how they've handled the situation. Absolutely. All right, guys, let's get to what is a I don't even know what to say about this story and this happening in American life. So guys probably followed a bit of this on Friday. the Memphis Police Department released horrifying video of a 29-year-old black man, Tyree Nichols, being savagely beaten by five police officers. We are going to show you a little bit of the footage. I just want to give you some of the backstory first. So Tyree was—this is what we know. Tyree was on his way home from actually a local park.

He was a FedEx worker there in Memphis. He worked with his stepdad at that facility, lived with his mom and his stepdad on his way home from a park where he was probably indulging his interest in photography. And he gets pulled over. Now, the officers initially said this was for reckless driving. No sign from any camera, no indication that there was actually any reckless driving going on. And this was a band of five black officers who are part of this scorpion unit, so-called, which was, you know, sort of aggressively supposed to be tackling street crime in one of the more tough neighborhoods in Memphis. So they pull him over. They pull him out of the car. They start beating him. He tries to run. He's very close to home. He's like 100 yards from home. They start beating him. He tries to run. He's very close to home. He's like a hundred yards from home and they, they catch him. And the savage beating that they inflict on this man that ultimately three days later ends up costing his life. It's just

beyond words and beyond description. I mean, they propped this man up so that they could take more shots at him. Five men on one. After he is shown in the video collapsed, he's mumbling. Eventually, you know, 16 minutes later, an ambulance, paramedics arrive on the scene. They don't take any action for a number of additional minutes, even as this man is clearly in a devastating state. And as I said previously, you know, there's no indication he did anything wrong here. And these five men literally end up beating him to death. Now, the officers were ultimately, there was an immediate investigation. The officers were arrested. They've been charged with kidnapping. They've also been charged with second degree murder. And as a part of an attempted accountability attempt at showing the public exactly what happened here so that there wasn't sort of like rumors and misinformation flying around, they released an hour of this horrifying, gut-wrenching video. So I want to show you a little piece of this before

I put it up on the screen. Guys, if you, you know, just, it's horrible. It's horrible to watch. So make a decision whether you want to see this or not, but I do want to show you a piece. So control room, let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. You know, this is after they, you know, they have him here. They're holding him up and taking shots at him repeatedly. Again, five men punching him in the head, holding him up so that they can brutalize him further. If you listen to the audio, they're giving him all of these contradictory commands, you know, put your hands up. Well, they're holding his hands behind his back, all of these things. And they just continue to kick him, beat him, punch him, et cetera. And, you know, again, this video is an hour long. So watch the footage if

you feel like that's the right thing for you to do. The other piece of, there's a lot actually to say about this. Let me put this Washington Post piece up on the screen. So you can see the distance between how the cops originally described this brutal, completely uncalled for, I mean, no justification for this attack and savage beating. Here's how they first described it in their reports. They said that a confrontation occurred following a traffic stop. They said he fled on foot and then, quote, another confrontation occurred. Of his fatal injuries, they said that he complained of having shortness of breath. And then the suspect was transported to St. Francis Hospital in critical condition. Of course, the video footage paints a very different story of them pepper spraying him, punching and kicking him. And rather than simply complaining of shortness of breath, he could barely sit up after the beating.

They actually propped him up against a police car where he repeatedly slumped over. He can be heard groaning. It's not heard forming any words. He twists and rides against the police car, at times falling over on his side as he waits 22 minutes for an ambulance and at times is calling for his mother. So blatant lies in the report. The police chief, to her credit, immediately thought that this report was strange and launched an investigation. But, you know, Sagar, the part of this that I think is really difficult is so many of the reforms that advocates have called for were actually instituted. I mean, you have body cameras. They didn't care.

You had a female black police chief. You have a police, I mean, all five of these men black. You have a police force that actually the percentage of black officers on the force roughly matches the percentage of black citizens in the city of Memphis. And, you know, none of these reforms which have been called for in the past by more incrementalists none of them seem to make a difference i mean with the body camera there's even some evidence that police were sort of using the body camera they were narrating things on the body camera footage knowing that they were almost like playing for an audience like they said oh we grab reach for my gun even though that's not on the video.

To again, try to use the body camera footage to sort of shape their narrative of what ultimately happened. So it's just devastating. There's just no other words for it. Oh, it's a horrific attack. I mean, even watching it, it's like gut-wrenching. Over the video, I had to watch this and the Paul Pelosi thing,

and both of them just make you feel like completely sick. I almost wonder, maybe this will come out, there seems something almost personal about this, right? I mean, I didn't know, I almost wonder, maybe this will come out, there seems something almost personal about this. I mean, I didn't know, I'm like, what would ever compel like five grown men to like literally beat someone

within an inch of their life for literally no reason? I mean, one thing you could say, let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen because I think this is relevant. New York Times, Memphis police disbanded

that unit, so-called Scorpion Unit, whose officers were charged in Tyree Nichols' death. Mr. Nichols' family and activists had demanded the scuttling of that group, the Scorpion Unit, which patrolled high crime areas of the city. And, you know, there had been a lot of complaints about this unit before. And I don't think it's personal. I think it has to do with when, I mean, they basically turned into a roving band of terrorizing thugs with a lot of power and no accountability. And, you know, so they felt this is the mentality that was created within this force. They said that,

you know, this was a pattern in practice. This was not the first time that there were incidents similar to this reported. The reality is if Tyree Nichols had not died, we never would have heard about this incident. So God knows what was going on with this Scorpion unit before Tyree Nichols was ultimately killed. So even though obviously like these five individuals are wholly responsible, they're accountable, but then you had two other guys show up that didn't really do anything. You had the paramedics come. They don't administer aid. Like what the hell is going on? How is there not one person who says, who doesn't participate or who says, hey, this is, that's enough. Let's stop. It shows you this was

a, the structure of power they created here wholly corrupted the people that were ultimately involved. I mean, that's, that's the only thing that I can really come away with here. And then in terms of like where you go from here and what you advocate for, I don't even know, because like I said, some of the basic things, they seem to have completely failed. There is no evidence that having a police force that is demographically representative of the community, that it makes for good policing. There's no evidence that it actually changes the way and the level of brutality involved in policing. I have no idea what the answer is. Like you said, I've thought about it a lot too. Last couple of years have changed a lot of my thinking, honestly. And I know this might not satisfy a lot of people, but like, I take a lot of this as like a personal thing also in terms

of at this point, like these, the politics around this are toxic. Clearly the culture around here is toxic. I don't really know what to tell people unless like, if you're in an interaction with a law enforcement official, use the hell out of this thing and just film the entire thing. Because, you know, I mean. They apparently don't care. I don't know. I mean, I think you're right. I think something was going on here.

I really want to know what the actual investment. If it was cultural, that is insane. And if that's what was happening, like, on a broader level. And I think clearly, obviously, it's with the unit, but disbandeded and now the eyes of the world are on this it also should be a lesson to everybody out there like hey if you do this you know at least in the age of uh hd video like you're going to jail this ain't 1991 where some guy happens to have a camcorder and films the rodney king thing it's like you are constantly i don't think that's true though because again if tyree nichols didn't die, never would have known about it.

Would have been just another instance swept under, like, nobody would have ever known. And so, actually, when I looked at this, the idea that this is just, like, a few bad apples, I don't see how you can have five people there and then the other people who respond and then the paramedics as well. To me, well, of course, these men deserve what they get in terms of their punishment, you know, charged with murder, charged with kidnapping, all of these, like they deserve to have the book thrown at them and go to prison for the rest of their lives, in my opinion. I don't see how you can look at that and say a few bad apples because it was everybody involved in the interaction. And again, there were significant reports of consistent abuses from this particular unit. So you can't have these, you know,

like roving bands empowered to, however they set this thing up, this Scorpion unit, this needs to be a lesson of you can't, this does not work because this is just creating more pain, more crime ultimately, because obviously this was a lesson of you can't, this does not work because this is just creating more pain, more crime ultimately, because obviously this was a crime they committed here and is not doing anything to solve the issues that you're claiming to try to solve.

Yeah. We own the city, the sequel to The Wire. Highly recommend people. We had our friend John Bernthal on the show a little bit to talk about it. He's also got a podcast where he talks a little bit about this as well, both with cops and with people on the street who have been abused by police and have had interactions and conversation. Again, I wish I had that conversation or the answer to this one. It's a twisted, a twisted one because, right, at the same time, it's like, can't have, you know, people will get pissed when there's a lot of high crime. They shouldn't be. You know, somebody was shot or robbed at gunpoint like two blocks away from my house the other day. People around me are kind of freaking out. They're like, wow. People deserve to feel they live in a safe neighborhood. Yeah, and exactly. And, you know,

here in Washington, watching the city just really, frankly, descend over the last three years, it's been a tragedy. It's been killed a lot of businesses. So it's both community problems. Like, I have no idea exactly what the balance is. I think it's probably way above pay grade. All it comes down to is like, I don't know, have compassion for each other. I don't really know why anybody would ever want to do that to another person for literally no reason, at least seemingly from what I could see from the video. It was truly horrific. And there are a lot of deranged and crazy people out there too. And, you know, I guess some of them are on, it's kind of like what we talked about with Santos, where those people like gravitate to the top. It's like, you know, people say it's like,

maybe if you want to be a cop, maybe you shouldn't. It's one of those where if you get off on power over people and physical violence and all this stuff, it's like, well, maybe you shouldn't be in that position. I watched this video that was going around at the time a couple months ago. This guy, Mike Glover, he's a former Green... He was actually just on the Rogan podcast, but he did this whole takedown about Uvalde. He had a line which really stuck with me where he was talking about operator because he's a former green beret and he's like everybody wants to be an operator until it's trying to do time until it's time to do operator shit where you're either like you get carried away with your emotions

you're training you're just completely leading with uh like no leadership or any of that and i don't know i couldn't help but think about that when i was watching this i'm like this is just a total lack not even professionalism. This is just savagery for almost the sake of it. Well, the Uvalde point is a really important one because what it actually counted, when you needed the good guys with guns and you had a real bad guy, nothing. This defenseless man who was trying to drive home from a park and is 100 yards from his mom's house and apparently

weighed like 146 pounds. Oh, you're a real tough guy. Five of you beating this man to death. Real tough guys. Congratulations. There is a power structure here. And I do think that you're right. There is maybe some sort of self-selection, the type of person who would want to have that like power over another human being. I don't know. I mean, to zoom out from this, I will say that in the broader conversation, we have a lot of societal ills. We got a lot of social problems in this country, and there's no way you're ever going to have a police force that can handle all of those things. Like if we had a healthier, more equal society, we would have less crime to deal with.

And then we would have less inclination of tough on crime politicians to send, you know, roving scorpion bands out on the streets. So I think it's always important. A lot of data actually bears that out. You know, a lot of them, too. A lot of these guys have insane PTSD. Actually, there's a lot of studies about the amount of PTSD that a lot of these cops have. So, you know, also even on that front, where it's like, you see, we send these people into situations

where it's like, listen, what do you do whenever you see somebody get their face blown off by their husband? You literally want to beat the crap out of the guy. And the guy's sitting there saying, I didn't do anything. She shot herself or something. I can't even imagine what I would want to lose it

in that situation. And then you got to deal with that for 25 years. I don't know. You know, look, I mean, these are extraordinary circumstances of which we're always trying to like judge it in that situation. Then you've got to deal with that for 25 years. I don't know. These are extraordinary circumstances of which we're always trying to judge and look at from a point of normal view. Part of the problem is this is not a normal life in any way. I have no idea, again, how you get out of that.

I think your point is probably the most correct, which is that if you inhibit the amount of even conditions in which this stuff is going to happen, then we don't ever have to find out in the first place. And that's probably, as difficult as it is, that's probably the correct answer. All right, let's move on here to gain of function. I know that there was a lot of discussion online. There was a video released by Project Veritas. So the video has actually been banned on YouTube, and since we're on YouTube, I'm going to do my best to describe it. So let me get the actual circumstances of this all in front

of me. So there was a Project Veritas video in which James O'Keefe and others confronted a scientist at Pfizer who was in the vaccine division. Supposedly. Well, yeah. So that's the other one on Pfizer. Right. This is yeah, so that's the other one. On Pfizer, right. This is always the difficulty. Look, I actually think- Project Veritas does themselves no favors in the credibility department with the amount of editing

and the things that they've been caught just completely inventing on a whole cloth. I've said this before. Please stop with the editing and the music. It is genuinely, it's like maddening because it actually makes and casts doubt on what, just play the raw video. That's all you got to do. Anyway, so we have the Pfizer, allegedly, according to Project Veritas, we have a Pfizer director where he was on the cameras,

I guess, supposedly on a date with an individual. I went ahead and watched the full, again, to what they have put out in terms of the music and all that stuff that I could find on Rumble. And in the course of that video, what he says is he was, quote, and they were working on mutating the COVID-19 virus. So there has been a lot of discussion around that point. What does that mean? Are they practicing gain-of-function research within the Pfizer division of the vaccine on the coronavirus, specifically also with bivalent boosters and working on future boosters? Is it mutation with regards to trying to come up with vaccines against new strains? Is it commonplace within the realm of vaccine production? I'm trying to

choose my words carefully from the research that I've done around this, even though I do kind of have an opinion. So from what I can tell, what the guy was describing around the mutating of the COVID-19 virus and others was the lingo, allegedly, this is what I've read from vaccinologists and others who work on this, was the lingo in which they use, and maybe this is a broader structural conversation, around vaccine development. Now, I don't know actually a whole lot about the process. I would like to learn. However, a lot of people were shocked by that. And it's sparking a conversation around gain-of-function research. So the reason I wanted to address this video around what allegedly might have been taking a place at Pfizer, we don't know, they deny it,

and we'll get to that around what this is. With the conversation around gain of function, broadly, that is a legitimate one. Whether Pfizer was doing that, I have no idea from the video or not. We don't actually have any proof. They deny it. We'll see not exactly a lot of trustworthy characters all around here. Here's what we do know. The United States government was funding gain of function research, which is effectively mutating viruses and then trying to come up with cures for those viruses, except for the problem is sometimes those mutate viruses, I don't know, they escape from a lab and maybe cause a global pandemic. Well, this conversation has been fringe and has been basically on YouTube or the Joe Rogan experience now for almost two years. So it has been cast as kind of a fringe one. However, actual scientific experts working behind the scenes have caught with a lot of what we're all talking about, a lot of what

we're concerned about, and are now voting to actually put in place much stricter rules for the United States around funding gain-of-function research. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is what broke just two days ago, actually right around the same time as the Veritas video. An expert panel has voted for stricter rules on risky virus research. Now, the hands are in the White House. So this was on Friday. It's a set of proposed changes to the federal government's program for regulating experiments that involve tinkering with risky viruses and other pathogens. Now, the Biden administration has to either decide or approve draft recommendations which, quote, ask health officials to extend oversight to less dangerous pathogens, including one similar to the coronavirus. We'll remember that the removal on gain of function around bat coronaviruses specifically was taken away by Dr. Anthony Fauci in 2017.

They also recommended an end to exemptions, and this is why this is directly related to the Pfizer video, an end to the exemptions for research related to vaccine development and the surveillance of emerging viruses. So right now we have an exemption in place actually for Pfizer, Moderna, and for any other vaccine makers that they are effectively allowed to do a type of gain of function in the lab as long as it's under the guise of creating a vaccine and maybe a future vaccine. That's why with the Proveritas video, there may really be some truth to it. This is a very roundabout way of saying it. Okay. I'm just going to completely dispatch with the Project Veritas

video because they have zero credibility and you can't even find like this guy that they say is like senior advisor or whatever. You can't even find this guy. He took his LinkedIn off and anyway. So anyway, I'm just going to say, I don't trust the Project Veritas video. We'll put that aside. In terms of the expert panel here, I mean, these recommendations seem to me as a non-scientist to be a step in the right direction and something a lot of us have been asking for a lot more thought to be put into for a while. Because even if you don't think that coronavirus came about because of a lab leak, we know that lab leaks are not uncommon. So it seems like a good time to look at. And gain-of-function has been recognized to be dangerous and something that should be regulated and watched carefully and done under strictly controlled environments. So this seems like a good time in the interest of preventing a future pandemic to tighten up those controls based on expert recommendations.

The piece of this I found interesting is, of course, there's a big backlash. Of course. Among, you know, people who basically make their careers off of doing this type of research. And they penned a letter and they are continuing to insist that in reality there's no evidence that COVID leaked from the lab. Even though the best you can say is that, you know, we don't know the truth of the matter. And they're using, they're continuing to use that idea that there's no chance that it leaked from the lab to justify like, oh, we don't need to make any changes. It's all good. And this is going to shut down needed research, et cetera,

et cetera. So that the backlash to what these experts are suggesting in terms of tightening up the regulations was, to me, the kind of most interesting part. Yeah, look, to me, a lot of this is basically not about science. It's about money laundering. Because what are you going to take a, take one view at all of the quotes of the people who are pushing back against this. The duties of the director of the National Institute of Health, the virologist at Vanderbilt University, Johns Hopkins Center for Global Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. What do all these people have in common? It's called getting funded by NIH and Dr. Anthony

Fauci. The National Institute of Health is the number one distributor of scientific grants across the United States for virology research. If you piss off the head, then you're dead. My parents both work in an academic environment. If you're a tenured professor, you've got to cover your own salary. You've got to get grants to not just cover you, but especially if you're in the STEM field, you've got to cover yourself and your whole lab. You've got to get funding for that.

The university is not just going to be the one doing it. You're almost like a PR salesman whenever you go out and do this stuff. So when the number one dollar of the dollars is the guy who loves gain of function research, and it's not just about him, it's a cultural problem within the National Institute of Health, you're not going to speak out against it, even if you privately disagree with what's happening. That's why with lab leak, with nobody's willing to come out, everything is in the shadows, in secret. I've spoken with some people who are very high up in this field. None of them want to talk on the record because their careers are in danger. This is a cartel that is controlled by the scientific establishment, specifically with Fauci at the top. And so

that's why I think that it took a lot of courage for these people to adopt even this mealy mouth like, yeah, maybe we should end it in this way. And if you look at the language around the vaccine, here's what I've got around gain of function with vaccine exemptions. Remove blanket exclusions for research activities associated with surveillance and vaccine development or production. However, include and implement processes and procedures for urgent federal departmental review and evaluation of research critical for public health or national security. How can you possibly be against that? That's at least somebody in the feds, if you're going to get an exemption, should say, all right, what do you want it for? Which vaccine? You have to report this to us. Now it's subject to FOIA, subject to Congress. We can all talk

about it. Why should Pfizer, Moderna, and all these other companies have a blanket exclusion on gain-of-function research as long as it's under vaccine development? That is nuts to me. I mean, and that's here, by the way. They have labs all across Europe and the United States. Who knows what's going on in our own shores? And who knows how much of this subcontracted out to China, just like the Wuhan Institute of Virology. So I know that this is convoluted. It's difficult without being able to show the video. If you want to watch it, it's on Rumble. You can go ahead and watch the full thing.

And I'm not saying you'll necessarily take anything away, but it'll put some of what exactly we're talking about into context. Zoom out from Veritas. Clearly, something is going on here. We have a chance to actually fix it. Now it's up to Biden. That's the key. The bottom line is, I think,

it has long been recognized in the scientific community that gain-of-function research can be dangerous. We had a vivid example of that with the possibility that coronavirus escaped from a lab. The idea that there should be tightened regulations and restrictions on this type of research should be something that everyone can get behind and embrace. And it is no accident that the people who are disputing this idea and trying to keep the regulations as loose as they are right now are people who have potential career and financial interests in being able to continue this type of research.

So that's what I take away. Absolutely. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, a while back, I did a monologue on one of the most cynical and disgusting acts I've seen take place in the higher education space to date. Certainly saying something considering these people may qualify behind only the pharmaceutical industry as the largest legalized criminals in the United States. But considering the trillion-dollar scam that they've pulled on people, I think they deserve it. The sum of the scheme involved law schools in this particular example. Especially, it goes like this. The top law schools in the country are all pulling out of the U.S. News

and World Report rankings. Normally, I celebrate this. I think the rankings are deeply flawed, but the timing of it was terrible. It's being done specifically because law schools know the Supreme Court is about to strike down affirmative action in college admissions across the board. Law schools know this, but they are also deeply wedded to a racialized view of college admissions. So what do you do if you want to keep affirmative action even if it's against the law? Well, you make it impossible to prove. How do you do that? You downrank or you remove objective criteria like LSAT test scores, GPA, and you move toward essays. Then, when you discriminate against Asians, you can't compare people's essays quantitatively.

The racial numbers just happen to look the same. There's only one problem in doing all of this. Whenever you downrank GPA and remove objective measures like the GPA or the LSAT, then you're going to drop in the rankings. So to prepare for your scheme, you pull out of the rankings and you claim it's a benevolent act. To be clear, this is not a conspiracy. It's out in the open. Already, affirmative action activists have campaigned to kill the LSAT for law school admissions because of, quote, equity concerns. Starting in two years, the LSAT is no longer required by some of the nation's top law schools or the American Bar Association. Any merit in the admissions process to the extent there was any at all is dead. But today, I have an even more troubling news. It's not just the

profession of law. Now it's medicine, which arguably is one of the most important in a country where one-fifth of all spending is healthcare-related. And we are fatter and more sicker than ever. Well, they took their cues from law schools. Harvard University, Stanford School of Medicine, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, many have already pulled out of the medical school rankings. This, too, is a benevolent act, they say. They don't agree with the rankings. But in almost every single case, the medical school deans cite, quote, philosophical concerns in pulling out conveniently at this moment. I want people to

really internalize how evil this is. These schools are trying to paint themselves as benevolent, keep their legacy Ivy League brands intact, all while removing the very idea of merit from their systems specifically so they can admit targeted racial groups for the field of medicine. This is the same tactic Harvard, a few generations ago, was using to discriminate against Jews and against Catholics, and in modern times, now, Asians. Who cares about their test scores? They're not well-rounded, that's what they used to say.

Or my personal favorite, test scores are bad because they're racist. Already, what happened to the LSAT is going to happen to the MCAT. The seeds for nuking it are already planted. Look here, the American Association of Medical Colleges printing on its front page op-eds about eliminating bias from medical school admissions. Not biased against Asians, they say. You need a, quote, more holistic view of the whole student to do what you need to to rely less on the MCAT and GPA. By doing, it would increase the amount of black medical students, he says. What I find disgusting about

these arguments is actually the implicit racism, that black students are scoring less on the MCAT or GPA because they can't figure them out. Or maybe people who come from poorer backgrounds, writ large, regardless of race, do badly on standardized tests. Why should we not care about merit, according to this doctor, to remove the MCAT and cannot consider GPA? Here's what he says, quote, diversity matters. It starts by educating a class of medical students who can provide culturally responsive care for an increasingly diverse patient population. I promise you this, if I'm in a car accident and I'm at the hospital and someone is about to cut me open, all I want, and I think everybody wants,

is somebody who knows what they're doing. Or let's say in that accident, it's someone else's fault. You want to sue them and you need a lawyer. Same thing. Do you know what you're doing or not? Because I don't, and I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people who engage with both professions, they don't care about the race or the gender of your doctor or your lawyer. You just want the job done. I say all of this as someone who believes in equal opportunity for all. But that is the key, opportunity to succeed, not rigging the outcome to be, quote, equitable according to whatever arbitrary social ideology that is in vogue at the time. In fact, if you actually care about having an equitable society, merit is one of the only things that guarantees it. Merit is what gives foreign applicants actually a fighting chance

when they're applying to U.S. schools. It is the only metric genuinely comparable across the world. Merit is what guarantees that someone from a low circumstance can emphatically stand out against their peers from a wealthier place. And ironically, by nuking merit, these idiotic schools have instead kept a system easier to preserve legacy admissions and let in any brain-dead son of a multi-millionaire or billionaire without having to even pretend they were ever good at school. The rich will be completely fine under this system. It is the middle class smart ones who have no chance in hell. Unfortunately, we are going in an opposite direction as a society. Woke bureaucrats like those at these medical schools have decided they would rather engineer the number of minorities that are doctors

by lowering their standards rather than help minorities reach something that should have an objectively high standard. The ongoing war on merit will do nothing but lower confidence in these jobs, which are genuinely important to all of us as a society. And that's why, you know, I tried to weave this as, I don't want to. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, since taking back a house,

some Republicans have been floating using the debt ceiling as a cudgel to force through cuts to Social Security. The popular and effective program has been under attack from conservatives literally since its inception and who have at every turn sought to undermine, cut, or privatize our nation's single most successful social welfare program. Well, those who are considering pushing for such a move this time around might want to take a look at what is happening right now in France, where market fundamentalist president Emmanuel Macron has been on a multi-year quest to lift the retirement age in that nation from 62 to 64. So just over a week ago, millions took to the streets of France in a general strike to protest Macron's proposed changes here. These marches occurred in over 200 French cities. They brought together all sorts of unlikely allies. That movement has united labor unions

across the political spectrum, has even put leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the same side as far-right leader Marine Le Pen. While there were some clashes in Paris between strikers and police, the protests were largely peaceful. That doesn't mean they didn't pack a punch, though. Far from the American-style, toothless march with placards that politicians

feel free to ignore, this general strike cut energy production, shuttered public transit, and generally ground business as usual to a halt across the country. Our wonderful partner Max Alvarez from The Real News interviewed one of the strikers there. Here is what they had to say about their fight and their strategy. We fight by respect to our grandfather who fought for this system against Nazi fascists. We fight for us and we fight for the next generation. Even for the working class, they are not born now. We fight for them. We fight for our principle.

That's very important. So three days ago, we was not born now. We fight for them. We fight for a principle. That's very important. So three days ago, we were on a general strike. 70% of the schools were closed in the entire country. The train, the buses, the metro, the airport was paralyzed. The factory was closed. The refinery, the pipes were turned off, et, etc., etc. And we was about 2 million people in the street in the entire country, including half a million people in Paris. And we claim not one year more, not one euro less. So that was Mathieu Bolch-Rodat. He is a train conductor and general secretary of a CGT union local in Versailles. And as if that energy wasn't already incredible, Mathieu and his brothers and

sisters, they are going even further. Here is France 24, quote, Robin Hood energy strikers are giving free power to French schools, hospitals, and low-income homes. Amid national strikes in the energy sector, some workers in France have found a novel way to protest. The article says on Thursday, quote, Robin Hood operations unauthorized by the government provided free gas and electricity to schools, universities, and low-income households throughout the country.

Among the facilities provided free energy were public sports facilities, daycare centers, public libraries, some small businesses, and homes that had been cut off from power. So these trade unionists are literally giving power to the people. French citizens, like many others, have been struggling with high inflation and especially with soaring energy prices due to Russia's war in Ukraine and the NATO response to it. Already in 2021, a quarter of French citizens struggled with energy costs, gas and electricity prices there. They are expected to spike another 15 percent this year alone. So needless to say, there's a lot of

French citizens who are in need of help from any corner. They can get it right now. The voice of capital, though, is quite panicked about this tactic. In a new article, The Wall Street Journal cried about threats from radical trade unionists to not only give power to the poor, but to cut it to the billionaires and political elites who are attempting to force through this wildly unpopular retirement age change. So far, the union, CGT, has claimed responsibility for cutting power for three hours to the office of one of Macron's political allies, and they have also name-checked a billionaire media mogul as a potential target as well. Though the boss class might cry, polling suggests the public is firmly on the side of the protesters. Some 70 to 80 percent of the public opposes Macron's plan to lift the retirement age, plan which Macron was already forced to abandon after

mass public resistance just a few years prior. In spite of winning re-election by a comfortable margin, it's not like Macron is a popular political figure. He won, even though a lot of the public really actually detested him. It's just that they detested far-right leader Marine Le Pen even more. This inspiring model is one Biden chief of staff, Ron Klain, name-checked as a potential blueprint for our president's own re-elect. Now, Macron has been malleable on a whole range of issues, shifting with his view of the political winds. But on this particular issue, he seems rigidly ideological, despite damn near unanimous opposition to his plan.

Now, the French, of course, famously protective of their social safety net and social contract. I understand why. But I would suggest Americans might be moving towards a more French relationship towards work, careers, and the elite class. In fact, Matthew had a message for Americans

who are watching all of this unfold. To the American people, I will tell to you, we are workers and we are proud to be workers because we create all the beautiful things in the world. The trader, they create nothing. The CEO, they create nothing. But we, the workers, the working class, we have gold in our hands. create nothing. The CEO, they create nothing. But we the workers, the working class,

we have gold in our hands. From nothing, from the nature, we create buildings, train, wheat, bread, especially in France because I know you have not bread good like in France. I'm sorry about that. And we

create all the wealthy things, all the beautiful things in the world. And we prove that when we are on strike because we prove when we stop the works, the France collapse. So we prove that we are the only class, the working class, we are the only class who create something.

So they have to respect us and they have to respect us and they have to share with us all the profits we create for them, for the companies. So we won't, as Margaret Thatcher said, give me my money back. I create, you know, I create the profits. I want my share and I want it now. More and more Americans are waking up to exactly this realization after being deemed essential and yet treated as disposable, after realizing that without their work, literally everything stops, or for white-collar workers, after realizing that perhaps there was more to life than their credentials and their career. Those who are thinking of messing with our social contract would do well to take a look at what is

happening right now overseas. And those who plan to fight back might take some notes as well. And Sagar, it seems to me there are sort of like two potential— And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. As you guys know, the Republican House caucus is threatening to use the debt ceiling that we have already actually technically hit in order to extract some kind of spending cuts. Our friend Jeff Stein over the Washington Post has been looking at ways that the Biden administration might deal with this particular situation that would not require them negotiating with the Republican House caucus. Let's go ahead and put Jeff's tweet up on the screen before we bring him in. So he wrote a piece about the seven different

quote unquote gimmicks for dodging the debt limit. Listed here they are, number one, mint the coin. Number two, declare laws unconstitutional. Number three, sell federal assets. Number four, buy discounted bonds. Number five, 14th Amendment. Number six, console bonds with no maturity date. And number seven, Fed remittances. And Jeff joins us now to break all of these various things down for us. Great to see you, sir. Good to see you, man. Thanks so much for having me back on, guys. Yeah, always our pleasure. So I guess let's just go through these. First of all, top line it. Do you think it is realistic to expect that Joe Biden would use any of these tricks and maybe start

with the one that you think is the most sort of plausible among them. I think there's basically no chance he does any of these ahead of a crisis. I think the White House sees political upside as really, you know, to continue to just sort of, they feel like they sort of have the Republicans in a hold and they can just keep hitting them over and over again with this message. You guys are trying to destroy the economy to cut Social Security and Medicare, which is true for many of the Republicans. It's an accurate line in many respects. So they feel, and I think for others more substantive reasons, they feel like they can't really go down any of these routes now. But if we hit a situation where the debt limit, not, you know, as you mentioned, we've hit the debt limit, but we're in this weird limbo purgatory period where the Treasury's extraordinary

measures are keeping us afloat by shuffling money around the federal government. Once we get beyond that and markets start to freak out and there's still no chance of a deal, then I think these options are going to come back, especially because some of them are, we can get into this, some of them are more or less dramatic. Obviously, the coin being the most fun one to discuss and to think about them actually doing. So, Jeff, all of this presumes they're actually not going to negotiate and we are going to default. That just seems extraordinarily unlikely. I know that Speaker McCarthy is actually meeting with President Biden, I believe, on Wednesday to begin hashing this out. Everybody says they're not going to negotiate. Clearly, somebody is going to negotiate. What

do you think the odds of even getting to a unilateral to an actual default actually are? It's one of these hard things as a reporter where you're like, I want to convey to people that there is a real danger here. You know, I think I don't even I don't see how a deal gets done. And that's why we're covering the story that, you know, it really seems hard to envision, because if I of the Republicans and the president and the Democrats in the Senate, everyone understands that they cannot default on the debt. And so it's this awkward position as a reporter where you're at risk of crying wolf and feeling like you're running around screaming, hey, this is a huge thing that we all need to be worried about. And I feel like

I've seen this already, which I totally sympathize with, where some readers are saying, saying every time this comes up you guys are running around shrieking like this is a big deal and then nothing ever happens um but the fact that it hasn't happened so far doesn't mean that it won't right of course of course and the reason that i i i'm more nervous now than i have been in any of our other previous death fights and we we can discuss this at length. But I just, if you look at all the pieces on the chessboard, none of them seem to point towards a resolution. I just don't see how any of the major actors here has an incentive to do what would be required to reach an agreement. I don't think the White House could or maybe should offer substantive concessions on cutting major domestic programs after winning, you know, expanding their Senate majority. Republicans have this incredibly thin margin in the House that they

barely squeaked by. And the idea that Biden should give in to Republican threats to blow up the economy to cut, you know, major programs that people rely on, you know, the White House sees that as rewarding hostage taking, and it's hard to sort of discount that people rely on, you know, the White House sees that as rewarding hostage taking, and it's hard to sort of discount that opinion. Similarly, I just don't see McCarthy, I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't see him giving up his speakership for the sake of getting this done and protecting the nation's creditworthiness. And then similarly, I just don't see House conservatives telling McCarthy, yeah, reach some sort of pro forma deal that doesn't have any meaningful cuts or teeth and we'll go along with it. I mean, do you guys see Gates or Lauren Boebert going for something that is like kind of obviously a fake win for the right?

So and Trump obviously is in the background, like yelling at the Republicans to, you know, be tough and stand strong. So I just don't, I don't really know where this goes, which is why I think we're looking at the unilateral options again. But these options are really not that good. I mean, the coin would be really, really fun to cover and really exciting to watch happen. And we could debate who would be on it and everything. But I just don't see it happening for reasons that we can discuss. But the primary one is that if we did one of these so-called gimmicks, Republicans would immediately denounce the subsequent treasury auction of debt as illegal, and then investors would demand a substantial risk premium on purchasing U.S. government debt. And we could drive up our

borrowing costs by hundreds of billions of dollars, which is a real dramatic downside to going down any of these routes. And even if you believe in their legality, you have to contend with the Supreme Court and Republicans mucking it up after the administration tries it. Exactly. Well, I mean, this is what was sort of revealed in the exchange that you had with two of the individuals who have really been sort of thought leaders, I guess, behind the mint the coin idea, which is basically like, okay, so what happens if, you know, the scenario you just discussed unfolds where basically the markets are demanding a risk premium on this debt or potentially the treasury doesn't accept it or it goes to the Supreme Court and Supreme Court's like, no, we're not buying this. What do you do? And they were basically like,

ignore the Supreme Court, send the military to the Fed and force them to, you know, to accept the coin. And when you look at that, you're like, there's no way Joe Biden is going to ultimately do that. And that, you know, sounds like that's a lot for the American people to take, too. Like, you're going to ignore the Supreme Court and you're sending troops to the Fed. That's just a lot for the American people to take, too. Like you're going to ignore the Supreme Court and you're sending troops to the Fed. That's just a lot going on there. So do all of these ideas basically suffer from that same flaw? Because, you know, another one that I had seen floated, I guess, most commonly is the idea that you effectively have two laws that are in conflict. Congress has already appropriated this money and said we are spending it. Here are the things that we're doing. And at the same time, they're saying, but you can't,

you know, borrow what it takes to spend the money that we already said spent to spend. So you have two things that are just in direct conflict. So in that situation, you could have the president just say, listen, these I'm getting conflicting instructions from the Congress. So the way the government is going to execute this is we're going to decide to follow what they said in terms of the appropriations process. Does that still then ultimately suffer from some of the same flaws as the other ideas here? Yeah, I mean, to your point, my sources in the administration think that that second route, the one that you identified about just saying these laws are in conflict, we have to pick one. Let's do the one that doesn't destroy the global economy.

That one seems much more palatable to them. I think, you know, these are early discussions happening at the White House. But if we get to a point where we're at, you know, this is still months away, unfortunately. I guess fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you want to think about it. But from a reporter's perspective, it's unfortunate we're going to be covering this for months and months. I think that path seems much more politically feasible. I think the coin strikes people in the White House as kind of ostentatiously out of the box, you know, sort of so beyond people's expectations, it's kind of easy to make fun of and grab hold of and sort of doesn't have that sort of technical legal veneer. I mean, the coin advocates that you referenced who would say, I think not unreasonably, that at the core, these different

ideas are not that dissimilar. You're trying to say that the spending powers, you know, that the debt limit that Congress has approved is in some way not a valid law and we need to find a workaround. The coin is obviously a more colorful one, but they would say, you know, even if you were to go down the route of ignoring the Supreme Court, that that is a usurpation of executive authority, a usurpation of judicial authority and congressional authority, where the executive is stepping in and asserting its unilateral power, the troops going to the Fed is obviously a very colorful illustration of what that looks like. But that's really, when you're deciding to overturn Marbury and Madison and get rid of the process of judicial

review, you are kind of asserting that you will use the military force of the White House and the executive over the other branches of government. I just think it's really hard to see the White House ignoring the Supreme Court. I mean, putting aside the substantive question, this is not the kind of White House that wants to be seen as wildly out of step with American political norms. And even if you think that it's totally justified by the law and circumstances, it's just impossible to see them, you know, Biden, a guy who was in the Senate for 40 years going for something like that. Yep. I think you are absolutely spot on with that. And to be clear, I think you're doing the right

thing. I think the odds of default, I mean, the odds of default in 2011 were high. The odds of default today are high. Whether we actually get out of it or not, who knows? And you should continue going. Don't listen to people saying that you're playing it up or not just because the consequences of it are so high.

And continue to do your job. Thank you so much, Jeff. That's why we have you on. We appreciate you. Always great to see you, Jeff. Good to be bucked up on here. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Anytime. Thank you guys so much for watching. Really appreciate it. We got great shows for everybody this week. A little programming note. Thursday, the show, we're going to be coming in remotely, or we're going to be in Austin, Texas. We're going to have fun times while we're down there.

You can go ahead and guess what we're doing. It's called The Live Show. That's what it is. It's on Friday. We're going to have a great show for everybody who is in attendance. Just a programming note there. We will still have Tuesday's show. CounterPoints will still premiere on Wednesday,

and we still have a show for everybody on Thursday. So don't worry about it. We're always working very hard for all of you. Thanks so much to our premium subscribers. We really appreciate you, especially with all this stuff going on with our business right now with expansion. You're going to hear much more about it. We'll see you all tomorrow. Love you guys. See you tomorrow. This is an iHeart Podcast.