Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/1/22: GOP Agenda, Covid Polls, Starbucks Workers, Maddow Hiatus, Rogan Smears, Booster Mandates, CA Dems, Safetyism, & More!

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about the GOP's policy free midterm agenda, Americans moving on from covid, Starbucks workers' union drive sweeping the nations, Maddow's hiatus from MSNBC, media smears of Joe Rogan, the case against child booster mandates, single payer healthcare tanked in CA, the meaning of life with FunkyAcademic, and more!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/Irami Osei-Frimpong: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDMfrKJQ2me8gp5j95TyGgg  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Become a premium member today, which is available in the show notes. Enjoy the show, guys. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of big things happening this week. So we've got some new polls about just how the public is feeling about the state of COVID and what they want public policy to look like and general life to look like going forward. We also have huge, very exciting movement on the front of organizing at Starbucks. There's now over 50 stores across the country that have filed for a union election. I mean, that is absolutely astonishing,

considering that we just got our first and second union shop in America. So we'll give you all of the details there. Big shakeup at MSNBC. Rachel Maddow taking a step back. World is changing. Big doings there. They're also moving their lineup around,

making Morning Joe four hours long. Can you imagine? Four hours. It says everything about the intellectual bankruptcy and desperate nature of affairs over there. Also the very latest on more media figures freaking out over Joe Rogan, acting like he's the most evil person on the planet.

Complete insanity there. Our great friend, Iremi Osei-Frimpong, also known as the Funky Academic, is going to join us for some high-level perspective on COVID and the meaning of life. The meaning of life, philosophy of COVID, and more. I think you guys are going to like it. Yeah, oh, always love talking to Iremi.

But we wanted to start with a little bit of Republicans in disarray. Yeah, this is really hilarious. So there is an ongoing fight within the GOP. They know that they're going to win. So the question is, what do we do about it? And in very classic form, Mitch McConnell says, nothing, actually. Let's put this up there on the screen. Mitch McConnell wants a 100% policy-free midterm campaign. Others in the GOP are less sure. So this is important. Basically, what's happening is that as they see the Biden approval cratering, they see the high price of gas and inflation, Mitch McConnell knows that all he has to do is say, we are going to put a stop to

whatever the hell this is. And for a lot of people, that's actually fine. Hence why the Republicans are up by almost more than they were in the 2000 or than Democrats were in the wave of 2006 and even more so in 2010 for we talk about the generic ballot whenever it takes to the House of Representatives. But there's a big debate within the party about, well, if we're going to win, shouldn't we like promise to do something? And everybody's pointing to the 1994 kind of contract for America that Newt Gingrich pioneered, where Gingrich said, look, we're not just going to take advantage of the popularity. We are going to have a real agenda where it's cutting taxes, crime,

imposing congressional term limits. How did that work out? And a few other things. Mostly it was no new taxes. It was a different political environment, obviously. But that was a huge thorn in the side of Bill Clinton's agenda. And previously before that, Gingrich had stuck to his guns, even under President George H.W. Bush. It was a much very different situation. McConnell here says, no, no, no, no, no. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past. Because what happened, Crystal, is Gingrich came in 1994. He actually had something he wanted to do. They shut down the government. And actually, public opinion kind of went the way of the Democrats. And Clinton obviously ended up winning in 96. McConnell's argument, essentially, here is, no, let's promise to do nothing at all and let Biden hang himself.

So in a way, I mean, you can kind of, you're like, yes, from a cold-blooded political calculus point of view, that's right. But here, they're just like, no, do nothing. Do absolutely nothing whatsoever. I think there's a lot to say about this. First of all, the reason why the contract for America, with America, whatever, was successful in 1994 and why it was important is because it served to nationalize the midterm elections at a different time in our politics when every election wasn't automatically national. It was a lot more local.

Yeah, so at that time, you had to have this sort of overarching governing idea for people to think, okay, we've got to put the Republicans in across the board if we want them to deliver on these things that they've promised. Now every election is automatically national. You don't have to have an overarching theme. And by the way, I mean, it's not that different from what Democrats basically did with Biden of, you know, listen, I'm just going to like stay in the basement and remind you that I'm not Trump and let him hang himself. That's basically what Republicans are doing now. You know, the NBC News piece that we put up there, they kind of try to set up this little divide

between Mitch McConnell, who says, eh, let's just not even bother to even pretend to run on anything, and Kevin McCarthy, who's kind of like, well, let's at least pretend to run on something. Well, the stock thing. Yeah, that's something. But most of the things that they float here

are like a committee to investigate the people who are investigating January 6th, which just sounds like, you know, a wonderful use of time. It's like even worse than the original conception. The committee to investigate the Benghazi committee. Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, Jesus Christ, we'll never get out of this. So the idea even of McCarthy having some like real forward-thinking policy agenda is a little bit far-fetched, but I think it just gives up the game here of how cynical these people are, how cynical the American public is that any

sort of promise that was actually made would be kept or have a chance of getting through. There's a quote here from Representative Tom Cole, who's kind of on the side of McCarthy's like, let's pretend to put out an agenda at least. And he said, listen, we intend to have a positive agenda. We still feel the election is to some degree a referendum on the Democrats. But to be fair, you have to recognize their skepticism about both parties and Washington's ability to accomplish anything. So they've just effectively surrendered to the idea that the only reason to hold power in Washington is to stop the other side, to be able to, you know, engage more directly or have your team in the culture war

win power, but not to actually change or improve anything in the lives of Americans. And so it's a very telling and very sad state of affairs ultimately, but you're right on the just pure, cold, hard political calculus of it. McConnell's not wrong. He's right that, you know, history is goes against Dems. Their own actions go against them. People feel deeply pessimistic about the country. And the tricky thing about promises, if you make some promises, then those can come back and people can say, hey, you didn't deliver, which is part of the what is happening with the Biden administration right now and some specific things that they talked about during the campaign. Yeah, and, you know, overlying all of this is the specter of Trump. And, you know, Trump was both the best thing that ever happened to the Republican Party and the worst thing that ever happened to the Republican Party.

It's really kind of crazy whenever you begin to think about the ramifications of what he really means. Let's go ahead and put this piece up there on the screen. It actually does a decent enough job of tying together some of the inherent contradictions. So on the one hand, Trump is the most popular Republican in the entire Republican Party. But on the other hand, only 44% of Republicans say they want Trump, did not want Trump to run again. So that means a slight majority do, but a sizable enough chunk don't necessarily want him to. They want other people to be able to have the chance. That being said, they would all probably still vote for him if he actually won the nomination. There are varying and cracking degrees within the movement, quote unquote,

of where you stand, who you are, what exactly you amount to, are you a real Republican or not. They point to the fact that Governor Greg Abbott faced shouts of rhino at the recent rally in Houston that Trump himself, and I'll get to this, you know, in his endorsements, many people have actually been revolting against his endorsements saying, oh, you're not being true to the America First movement. I've always put it this way. Look, America First, yes, that's a much longer historical trend. But in the context of 2020, 2022, it's just Trump. I mean, the idea that it means anything, you're an idiot if you actually believe that. Because this is longstanding, Ben. Trump gets to brand it whatever the hell he wants. He gets to hire guys like Gary Cohn and be like, this is my America first advisor. It's like,

come on, Jared Kushner, real America first. And I made peace with that a long time ago. Like Pompeo, John Bolton. Exactly. Neal Kahn, oh, that's super America first. Here's the point. It's Trump. Trump gets to decide whatever he wants. It's his movement. And a lot of people have not yet made their peace with that, which I always find a bit entertaining. But the important part is that not only on a personality level is he, you know, overlying all of this, he still continues to demand absolute fealty whenever it comes to stop the steal. And I mean absolute. So this, you know, obviously took the attention of a lot of people. Let's put the statement up there on the screen. He says, and by the way, I have no idea what prompted this.

He says, if the Vice President Pence had no right to change the presidential election results despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and rhino Republicans like wacky Susan Collins are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election? Actually, what they are saying is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and now they want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn't exercise that power. He could have overturned the election. Now, obviously, that's wrong, completely bonkers. But this is a very good reminder to the Mike Pence's of the world,

who will be speaking recently, I think in a few days down in the RNC, gathering where Trump will actually speak the night after. It's a good reminder to those candidates in Georgia like David Perdue. It's a good reminder to every single Republican who wants to run for office. I've watched Blake Masters, J.D. Vance, all of them had to say some version of, yeah, I think Trump won the election. You don't have a chance in these primaries unless you fully are on board. Not just with, oh yeah, I think it was kind of unfair. It's like, no, no, no, no. You have to be full blown Dominion bamboo ballots. Mike Pence had the ability to overturn the election. And this is the stuff that lost those races in Georgia. So on the one hand, the GOP is probably in the best position

they ever could be. On the other hand, they have a kamikaze-like figure who says that I will nuke you amongst my actual core base of supporters if you do not buy into the most absolutely insane stuff that I believe and parrot it and kneel before me while you parrot it. Yeah, let's be clear. This is the kind of nefarious and totally insane bonkers crap that lost you, Georgia, that, you know, lost you. Nebraska, you know, Omaha is what I'm talking about. Exactly. You're not a place you should lose. This direction of Trump is why you lost power in Washington to start with. So while you're riding high right now, and there's no doubt Republicans are going to do well in the midterms, this is the crap that's going to kill you in the long term. I mean,

you're going to have a comeuppance if this is what your movement is based around, which it is. It also reminds me that, you know, part of why Trump's popularity has kind of creeped back up and why he's doing a little better and a potential head-to-head against Joe Biden if they were to have a rematch is because he hasn't been out there saying crap like this. Well, he's just been more off the radar. Yeah, exactly. He's been relatively quiet. And so the more you lean into this, the more damaging it's going to ultimately be for him, even as it does help to shore up that loyalty and that hardcore support within the Republican Party base.

One of the things that was interesting that they point to in this New York Times article that we had up before is that it was for a long time one of the hallmarks of the Trump Republican Party was that more people in the Republican Party saw themselves as loyal to Trump first than to the Republican Party. Those numbers with him out of the public spotlight and out of office have now flipped. So in a reversal, they say from Mr. Trump's White House days, an NBC News poll in late January found 56% of Republicans now define themselves more as supporters of the Republican Party compared to only 36% who said they were supporters of Trump

first. And one of the biggest swings in the group was widely seen as Mr. Trump's most loyal constituency, white Republicans without college degrees. They went from 62% identifying first with Trump to 36%. So listen, let's be clear. It's Trump's Republican Party. If he runs for the president again, he's going to win the nomination. He's got 100% name ID. He's got like hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank. You know, he's going to be unstoppable in terms of winning the nomination. But these types of statements and this direction of the party that's not about anything other than just loyalty to Trump, it does not have widespread

national appeal. So yeah, you might be riding high right now, but these are the sort of warning signs that could ultimately come back to sow your demise and give Democrats the upper hand once again. That's a very good point. And finally, I'll end with this, which is, I've watched this kind of with some humor, to be honest. Let's put this up there on the screen. So in the Tennessee 5th Congressional District, there's a guy running named Robbie Starbuck. And Robbie has been on the forefront of like the America First movement. He's been on Twitter, Breitbart guy, like full-born, behind Trump the entire time. He's really cultivated what I call like MAGA Twitter, like MAGA online, the MAGA extended universe, if you will.

And he was expecting to get endorsed by Trump. And Trump found out that Mike Pompeo's former spokesperson, Morgan Ortegas, she used to be on Fox News. She obviously works at the State Department. She hasn't even announced she's running, but she was like exploring a run. And Trump just put out a statement being like, I heard she's exploring. She has my complete and total endorsement. And there has been an outright revolt online as to all of this. But I love it because it just shows you no amount of ass kissing or, you know, of subjugation or of even genuine belief in whatever Trump himself has espoused, it doesn't matter. It matters more whether Trump knows who you are or not. Personally, yeah. Yeah, whether somehow you got to his phone and he's like, oh yeah, sure, I'll endorse her, and just like puts out this statement. He doesn't

think about it. I always look at it as this, which is that so many people put themselves in the shroud of Trump, like I believe in Trump, all this. It's one of the, it's like the madman meme. He doesn't think about you. He doesn't care about you at all. He cares about himself. And he cares about the people who are around him, whether they believe in what he has or not. I don't really know that much about, you know, what she believes or whatever, but I'm more look at it as a, it's just, it just shows me you can be online branding yourself as an America first warrior for what five plus years and he'll still stab you in the back well he doesn't care she was my co-pays she was spokesperson for Mike

bomb so I mean yeah association with him would indicate either neocon or just rank opportunist careerist she's a Washington person one of those two directions certainly but as he said I mean, it doesn't matter. It just matters. The only thing that matters to Trump is what have you done for Trump lately? And that's the bottom line. I mean, the idea that this movement was about something real, sadly, is not the case because there were certain parts of what he had to say in 2016 that I thought were important and, you know, could have really changed the orientation in Washington. And sadly, it just ended up being about, you know, stop the steal and personal loyalty to Trump. And ultimately, you know, I don't know how far that's going to get you in the long term. Well, again, Republicans are in very good position for

these midterms. And it's no accident that part of them being in a good position for the midterms is that Trump has been relatively quiet. Very, very good point. Okay, let's move on with polls. And if you want to talk about what's going to sink the Democrats, this is exactly what it is. So we covered a little bit of this yesterday, but it's becoming clearer and clearer how fed up the American public is with COVID restrictions. Let's put this up there on the screen, which is that a national mammoth poll, 70% of Americans agree with the statement, it is time to accept COVID is here to stay, and we just need to get on with our lives. But when you break it out by party ID, it's actually pretty important. 89% of Republicans agree with the statement, 71% of independents, but only 47% of Democrats. And those

53% or so of the self-identified Democrats, those are the most powerful people in the country and in the party. We're talking about white, upper middle class, suburban people, the people here in Northern Virginia who are going tooth and nail trying to keep mask mandates and strap N95 to like a two-year-old's face. These are the folks who are in charge. And the rest of the country is so dramatically fed up with them. The 71% independent figure, Crystal, is the most important one. We had a graphic yesterday, which I'll recycle and put it up there for those who might have missed it. Let's put it up there. From Echelon Insights, it's a polling analysis firm. It shows relatively the exact same thing

here because this is a little bit different phrasing, which makes it a little bit more stark, which says that 55% COVID say that COVID should be treated as an endemic disease, while a majority of Democrats, exactly the same figure that we just cited, say it should continue to be treated as an emergency. So what's important to understand here about how the public is feeling about COVID is that the more and more that the Biden administration and the Democrats are associated with COVID restrictions of almost any kind, they are going to be then on the generally wrong side of the center of gravity of where public opinion is. That being said,

there is some different and interesting breakdowns, Crystal, in terms of how different generations feel about it. Yeah. So a few things here. First of all, I don't totally agree that the people who are the most into pandemic restrictions are the people in charge generally. For one thing, I mean, the Biden administration hasn't really, they haven't aggressively pushed like social distancing or masking mandates at the federal level. At the local level, most of the country is run by Republicans. I mean, I live in Virginia where Youngkin just got elected. And, you know, I just got, in fact, an email about now my kids indoor soccer, they're going to be allowed to be maskless, which is part of why, I mean, listen, that's going to be popular in Virginia. And most places in Virginia, people are going to feel like good.

And the email even said, because of Governor Youngkin, your kid no longer has to wear a mask during indoor soccer. So I think it's a very local phenomenon. It depends a lot on where you live and what the constituencies are that have a lot of power. I mean, look, even in New York City, the new mayor, Eric Adams, is not going full bore on pandemic lockdowns and restrictions. So I think this can get overblown sometimes, this idea that we're like Australia and we're on the verge of COVID lockdown camps or anything like that. We're not headed in that direction. However, where I think there's a problem for the Democratic Party is that because this constituency is powerful within their own ranks at the federal level, there's been an inability to clearly communicate a direction. So even though there's not a lot of affirmative, they seem like they've sort of given up on the vaccine and test stuff. Like there isn't a lot of affirmative like COVID lockdown measures coming from the federal government, there also isn't a clear vision of how we go about living with this as an endemic disease and what that ultimately

looks like. And so I think because of that lack of direction and clarity, that's why you see what, you know, the Republicans on the other side, very clear about what their views are. I think that's why you see this morass for Democrats. Although honestly, at this point, I don't even think COVID is really the big thing that's a problem for Democrats. I think the problem for Democrats is the economy. People feel really crappy about how things are going in their own personal lives with their own personal material well-being. Most places where you live in the country, including where I live in King George County, people basically are living with it as an endemic condition. It's not impacting their lives nearly to the extent that it used to be.

They've gotten back to most of their normal activities and normal routines. So I think the bigger issue for Democrats is the sense and the reality that they're not focused on the economic issues that people are routinely telling pollsters are their number one top priorities. So here's why I would say, for my counter on the Biden thing, they may not be informatively doing anything, but they're not using their bully pulpit in order to push against it. And that is where I think the dramatic popularity on this is going to be come from. I mean, with the Republicans, like I made a joke, you know, the first executive order of the Trump administration is going to be taking masks off on planes. And I can't freaking wait until that happens. I gave you an example, you know, I went to that comedy show.

And look, there's no mask mandate in Virginia. But these private theaters, like, oh, you got to wear a mask even you're a freaking comedy show. Or when you're in line to go use the bathroom, you have these, like, little enforcers barking at you constantly. You also live in, like, the most— Well, that was Tyson's Corner, right? Yeah, that's— I mean, this is not D.C. Yeah, but no, I mean, but that is, like like the epicenter of the white affluent liberal civil right.

That's like their headquarters. You write into me. When you go in Ohio, Cincinnati or somewhere else, is that happening to you? Because I suspect that it is. I mean, what I suspect is that there has been a privatization of the COVID regime of the most like insane people with white collar workforces. Or I get messages from people all the time, people with white collar workforces. I get messages from people all the time, people who work in factories, and they're like, you wouldn't believe, man, I sit in the break room, I'm drinking a coffee, and my boss is barking at me to pull my mask

up and down. You can't underestimate that level of misery, which is just being put through a lot of people. And you combine that with the economic restrictions. This is where, I mean, look, Biden and the school thing. He says, yeah, I don't think schools should close. But he's not calling out Montgomery County, Maryland whenever they do go online. That's what Trump did. I mean, I'm not saying it was a good thing. It was different at that time. But, you know, I mean, Biden should, for his own good, should be using the bully pulpit to say, no, enough.

Chicago, D.C., public school, we're done. Take the masks off in the schools. He's like, you should not be doing this. The overwhelming number of schools in the country are open at this point. This is a disclosure. I mean, it's important. And obviously, I've talked about this as well, the schools that continue to close. I think that's a really important problem. I think Biden should call them out. I think we're kind of talking about two different things, because in a sense, what you're talking about is the people who have cultural power. Yeah. And I'm talking about people who have actual political power in terms of public policy. One of the things that I find the most disturbing about some of the continued COVID regime

protocols is that, yeah, as a customer, as a consumer in most places in the country, when you go in, you don't have to wear a mask. Right. But the workforce is all required by their private employers to wear masks. And, you know, I can understand why actually a lot of service workers might want to wear a mask just because the sheer number of people they come in contact with. But this is not a choice that they have. Exactly. They're forced to wear it. They're mandated to, not for their own protection, but so that they can signal, you know, their safety to safety for the consumer public, which is what this country is completely oriented around. So I think that's where there's a disconnect between how we were ultimately looking at these things. There's no doubt that Democrats' orientation towards COVID is a liability

for them. I just happen to think that even if they were sort of directionless on COVID, if they had done a good job on economics and people felt like, my wages are higher, they're dealing with price inflation, I see my family getting ahead, I think that would be a significant counterweight. Because ultimately, I mean, listen, that's what people tell pollsters over and over again is their number one priority. It's very multifaceted. I don't disagree on that at all. You pointed this out. I actually should put this up there too, which is young Democrats, put this tweet up there,

please. Young Democrats are more worried about getting sick from COVID actually than older Democrats, even though the science says that the opposite should be true. This is a heartbreaker. I mean, personally, for me, given that, you know, young people, A, obviously overwhelmingly liberal, but B, I mean, it's like, if you look at the data, I mean, you people are the least at risk. And so scaring yourselves over the last couple of years into this mindset, I mean, I think this is going to have longstanding safety implications to come. There's a whole thing online, a discussion

around safetyism, which I do think is important, which is that when people are looking at others as threats and really worried about getting a disease, they're much less likely to take risks. They're much less likely to engage in entrepreneurial behavior. They're much more likely to go on a date. I mean, any of the things that makes life worth living, it can make you a lot more miserable and worse, actually make you be more online, which is literally the opposite of what you should be doing with your time when you're a young person. And I look at this as just a blatant failure of the media to properly educate people about the various risks depending on your personal health background, and especially, of course, age has been the biggest factor and who's most vulnerable ultimately to COVID. So when you see numbers like

this, you can just tell the way that propaganda has caused people to mis-evaluate the risk. Obviously, that's clear here based on those graphs. It's also clear on the Republican side in terms of older people underestimating what their personal risk is towards COVID and dramatically overestimating what they think the risk of the vaccine ultimately is. So media failures all the way around here. I could not agree, especially on that side where it's like, look, you're playing yourself. I mean, really in both regards. So educate yourself at least at this point. I think we've been pretty open. I've been trying to for what, well over a year now and what it actually looks like. And I wish other people would do the same.

All right. We do have some good news, though, on the front of labor organizing and Starbucks in particular. Let's go ahead and throw this first tweet up on the screen. This is extraordinary. Starbucks Workers United just announced yesterday that workers at 15 more stores have filed for union elections, like just in that one day. So now you have over 50 Starbucks stores across 19 different states that have filed to unionize. You can see the list there. Mesa, Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona, Santa Cruz, California, Buffalo, New York, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Beaverton, Oregon. I mean, there's stores in Virginia, Midlothian, Virginia. I mean, it really is a nationwide. You can see on the map there,

stores in Tennessee, across the Midwest, coast to coast. You've got examples of Starbucks workers who have decided to file for a union election. Where things stand today is you have two stores that have officially voted to unionize. Contract negotiations, actually, let's put this next tweet up on the screen that comes from Starbucks Workers United. Contract negotiations just started with those two stores. And after More Perfect Union put out that tweet, actually another store in Portland, Oregon, the Garden Home store, also filed for a union election. So that puts it at 16 in one day, 51 stores filing to unionize overall. And it really is quite extraordinary. I mean, there are so many barriers to unionizing that we talk about a lot in this country,

but specifically in the service sector, it's very difficult because you have a workforce that has a high amount of turnover. It's usually young workers, high amount of turnover. They're all atomized, so you have to vote store by store, not as one mass movement. And that makes it extraordinarily hard. That's why you don't see, I mean, there's scarcely another chain in the country that has any significant union effort within, you know, fast food or within retail, a retail service oriented industry. So this is a huge, huge deal. And it's interesting. One of the things that I looked at of why this has happened. First of all, Starbucks was right when they feared that the Buffalo stores would trigger

a domino effect because so many of these stores cited the Buffalo example. They saw that they were watching that really closely, and they said, hey, if they can do it there, what the hell? We can certainly do it here. And that's why Starbucks threw everything they could to try to prevent that unionization effort in those first couple of stores. When they failed, that set off a ripple effect across the country, their worst possible fear. The other thing that's interesting in the Starbucks context is it's sort of like their own hypocrisy is coming back to bite them because they put out there in the world, all the corporate propaganda is very progressive. They call their baristas and their workers, they call them partners. So they have all this, like, inclusive, progressive language.

And that attracted a workforce that was relatively progressive and thought, hey, Starbucks, like, they match my values. And then when they came up against, you know, okay, well, let's extend those values into the workplace. Let's actually live up to what Starbucks claims their values is. And they see these aggressive union busting tactics. That's a real wake up call that this corporate bullshit was just that, corporate bullshit. Because when it came down to it, when it came to workers having actual power in their workplaces, Starbucks was far from progressive, which, of course, is a trend that we see across corporate America, where they use certain language and certain orientation, especially on cultural issues, to signal they're progressive and good actors generally.

But when it comes down to the bottom line and comes down to maintaining control, they're anything but. So because they had that language up front, they attracted a workforce that was disproportionately more interested and more in favor of unionizing. And that's part of how you've ended up Starbucks really being the tip of the spear here in terms of a national labor movement resurgence. Yeah, it's actually really crazy, especially whenever you look at the map, because it's the entire country. I mean, it's all coast to coast. It's also in the Midwest. It's in the South. We're talking Florida. We're talking even New Mexico in the Pacific Northwest, but a lot here on the East Coast, the industrial Midwest as well. So this is one of those things where you watch it and you can see how it's very clear that with all the stores kind of coming together and uniting is that it's going to cause even more of a reckoning within Starbucks management.

And I think that what we have to watch very closely is, look, they tried to stack the deck and rig the election in that one store in Buffalo, but they can't do it to like 50 stores. So now what do you do? I mean, are they going to have to negotiate in good faith? Like what's exactly going to happen? And I think that, you know, Howard Schultz and them must be absolutely losing it and freaking out because these people, the more and more that it happens, they're going to gain a lot more power in the workforce. But we talk here a lot about this. And look, props to these guys. I hope it works out. The problem is that there's still a lot of the deck that is stacked against them. And whenever it comes to actual what the company can do,

we should watch this very closely, Crystal. I mean, it's very conceivable that they'll just close a lot of these stores down. They can do it. We've talked about Dollar General in the past. They're like, oh yeah, for, you know, because of reasons, this entire store is just going to get shut down. This is not outside the realm of possibility. They can take a lot of action against you. They can fire you on fake cause. We've seen a lot of these instances where we've covered this. No doubt it's a lot harder to try to organize against 51 stores versus the couple in Buffalo that they initially did the full court press on. We're getting a little bit of a peek into some of the tactics that they're using. Stephen Greenhouse sent out a text that he received as a tip from one of the workers at one of these stores

where Starbucks is messaging all of their quote-unquote partners, and they say about the union election, they say, vote no to make sure you don't potentially impact your current benefits, including the ability to transfer to or pick up shifts at other stores. So that's like a little thinly veiled threat that if you vote yes on this union, you know, things may not work out so well for you at this job. And these are the type of tactics that they will continue to employ. I have no doubt that they will, you know, they won't spare any expenses to try to stop these union efforts in every single store across the country. But again, Buffalo really showed the way. And so in Buffalo, you had a comparatively favorable context because you have a town that

has a union history. New York, I think, is the most heavily unionized state in the country. So you have sort of union muscle memory. You probably have workers who have family members in unions. You just had the India Walton campaign that also inspired people in that direction. A lot of people also mentioned the Bernie Sanders campaign as being an inspiration and helping to help them understand the power and importance of solidarity. But now, with Buffalo having had a couple of successful efforts, you see this happening in states that have union histories and states that have been virulently anti-union for a long time. So this is their worst fear. And by the way, you know, we shouldn't expect that it just stops at

Starbucks because once other workers and other chains see that this is possible, that these workers were able to succeed, and especially if they're able to win a contract that gives them some real power in their workplace, well, a lot of people around the country are going to take note of that. I think that's the next, a lot of big battles. I mean, every one of these fights is going to be a giant battle. But for the stores that did unionize in Buffalo, oftentimes what companies will do is they will not negotiate a contract in good faith. And so you can end up with a year later and still no contract negotiated. And that's allowed under current law. They can basically just, you know, drag their feet, pretend like they're negotiating, but really not be negotiating in good faith. And so you end up

with a union that's kind of meaningless because you're you don't you weren't able to negotiate a contract with your employer. So that's going to be the next big fight for these shops that have voted to unionize. They just started contract negotiations. So that's something we're going to follow very closely. There's another story that we wanted to talk about on the union front. This is too perfect. Too perfect. Let's go ahead and throw this tarot sheet up on the screen. Guess who Jim Clyburn, once on the Supreme Court? Oh, who is it? A management side labor attorney from South Carolina

whose a lot of her legal work was helping employers fend off claims that they were, you know, violating people's civil rights and discriminating against them. Nobility. She also,

the firm that she worked for, Nexen Pruitt, they say where Childs was a partner, has for years boasted of its anti-union services, advertising to firms hoping to keep their workplace union-free, offering strength in unfair labor practice and union representation issues and warning against the impacts of the PRO Act. Of course, that's the unionization bill

that ended up going nowhere in the Biden administration, but still would be good if it ever actually happened. I mean, how perfect is this? And remember, Clyburn is the person who got Biden to make the Black Woman Pledge to start with. Of course, he basically is the reason why Biden is president of the United States. Very influential in getting Kamala Harris in as vice president as well. And, oh, by the way, part of what he promises with this potential pick, her name's Michelle Child, South Carolina District Court Judge Michelle Child, is that it could be bipartisan because Lindsey Graham also loves her saga. There's a little bit of lovely bipartisanship here in favor of the union busting lawyer

that they want to put on the Supreme Court. Hey look, she's a black woman, so what do I care? This is where it leads you, right? Oh, she's a black woman, awesome. Oh, what does she actually stand for? Oh, union busting. And actually, you know, one of the things that they point to in this case that she was involved in was when a black woman who alleged race and pregnancy discrimination

in a situation where the company denied her a promotion and then terminated her outright, she argued on the company's side in order to try and destroy this lady. Yeah, that's really helping and uplifting other black women, Michelle. Thank you. Judge Childs or whatever the honorific is. This is where identity politics is going to lead you and nobody in the media is actually going to tell you the real stories. It's so pathetic every time we reduce somebody down to whatever

they are. Even if she does get the tap, they'll be like, oh my god, it's historic. Yeah, okay. Yeah, and if you say otherwise, then you're the problem. Come at me. Look, I want to say some of the other pics that Biden is reportedly floating seem like they have a much better record and would be much better on the court. There are plenty of black women who would be well-qualified and not be corporate shells like this woman has apparently been throughout her career and also in her tenure as judge. But it really does kind of say it all because you can gloss it over,

and this is what Starbucks does too, gloss it over with this progressive sheen just based on the identity piece that's very visible, it's very easy to see, it's easily weaponized, and then hide all of who they're actually carrying water for and the way that she has directly deserved the interest

of the black community in her own work. You can hide that underneath the surface and very few media outlets would have the courage to report on it. So interesting little development there that we will also be watching. What is a media outlet that wouldn't report on it, Crystal?

Maybe MSNBC. Great little thank you for that layup there, Sagar. Yeah, I'll try. Okay, so we've been tracking, and it was weird that this didn't get more attention before. We've been tracking Rachel Maddow renegotiate her contract with MSNBC, but there was a big caveat that she was effectively given permission and planning to step back from her daily show. Now, the expectation was that that wouldn't really happen until kind of the end of the year. Apparently, insiders were thinking she might take some time off in the spring.

Well, that initial time off has come a lot more quickly than people expected. Let's go ahead and throw this insider tear sheet up on the screen. And I think that this happened last night that she announced to her viewers that she's going to take a temporary break from her MSNBC show to work on movie and podcast projects. The movie, we know, is based on her other book and podcast, Bagman, about a 1970s political bribery scandal.

It's gonna be directed by Ben Stiller. She is going to serve as executive producer. So that's the movie project. Apparently, she also wants to work on a new podcast project. But this is just a reminder saga.

I mean, Rachel Maddow is the most, it's not even close. Rachel Maddow made MSNBC a thing. She is the anchor.

She created the modern environment. Everything stems from her. So the initial, initially just for people who don't know the whole history, MSNBC wanted to just be like a competitor to CNN. And so they had programming. It was all kind of scattershot. It was low quality. It was bad.

And then they stumbled on Keith Olbermann, who had this, you know, really aggressive, very popular show. It was a very good show, honestly, in the cable news world and relatively pioneering. Took sort of like the sports center type of model and applied it to the political world. And he's this very strident voice against the Bush administration. Which is what the country really wanted at the time. And they weren't getting it anywhere else. And so he takes off. And out of that success, they say, oh, there's something here. So this was never like a, oh, we believe in progressive values thing. It was always an idea, like a money play. I mean, that's what this was all about. They saw the ratings for Olbermann and said, this works. Rachel, who, you know, came out of Air America, she was part of the regular guests on Olbermann's show. And then she ends up with her own show.

And then Olbermann implodes and is a total asshole to everyone and everyone hates him and he gets fired. And so she becomes really the tentpole for MSNBC. And the whole model and who their audience is now really develops from that. You know, they push out voices like Ed Schultz, people who were more sort of like that old working class base of the Democratic Party. They lean into the professorial, the Rachel Maddow, the Chris Hayes, that liberal affluent direction of the Democratic Party. Of course, she's the chief Russiagate proponent, pushes them, you know, as far into conspiracy land as they possibly can go. But, you know, in terms of what she does, she is the one person there who has a real dedicated audience. Yes. And they have no one.

And they show up for her in a big way. They do. 8, 59, or what? I don't even know what she does. 20. Yeah. Is it 9 o'clock? No, I can't remember right away.

Anyway, they all come and turn the TV on for Rachel. Yes, and so no one else at that network has that power. Nobody does.

That's right. And there's very few in cable news who have that power overall. There is no one there who can possibly fill their shoes and they know it.

Apparently, here's the next piece of news. Let's put Axios up on the screen. So, Axios had just broken news of other big shakeups. So Brian Williams leaving at 11 p.m.

Stephanie Rule is being moved into that 11 p.m. hour so she could tell us what Wall Street's thinking at 11 p.m. instead of at 9 a.m. or whenever she was before. Who is going to watch that? What are they thinking? And the really funny thing to me is that they, again, have no one to fill even those shoes. The 9 a.m. hour. Let alone Rachel Maddow's shoes.

They don't even have anyone to fill Stephanie Ruhle's shoes at 9 a.m. So they're just extending Morning Joe for a fourth hour because that's what the country is really. That's what the people need. That's what the people are desperate for four hours of joe and mika yeah that's a great point that you had i hadn't even considered which is they have so little bench of talent that they're like oh no our only flagship morning product just extend that thing for an hour and pay everybody like 25 percent more this is really bad for them i mean this is an existential, almost extinction-level event.

Because the thing is, is that their flagship news product was Meet the Press. But Meet the Press was dying in the Biden era. So they take Chuck Todd and they bump him down. They give the 5 p.m. hour to Nicole Wallace. So now you had two hours of Russiagate madness on top of with a little sandwich until you get to Rachel Maddow, which is the queen of Russiagate madness on top of with a little sandwich until you get to Rachel Maddow, which is the queen of Russiagate herself. And obviously you have elitism hour on Morning Joe. But the problem is that now they have to extend Morning Joe. Then they extended Nicole Wallace. Now they have nobody in the primetime. What are they going to do? Who is going to take over? They have nobody now who can compete with Tucker. I mean, Rachel basically was the liberal Tucker, and now it's dead.

I mean, dead in the water. Chris Hayes and who is it, O'Donnell, they don't even come close to the numbers of what they're going to be able to put up. So, you know, this is a real disaster for them. But it also just shows that they don't know what the hell to do. They truly have no idea. By all accounts, their streaming efforts have been a failure. Mady Hassan's show and Zerlina Maxwell, complete disaster. A lot of their Peacock News-type content,

they're trying to launch some NBC News, Today Show, behind-the-paywall stuff. Nobody cares. It's just like CNN. What are you going to do? And now they don't have anything to say. I think that's actually the biggest problem, which is, look, I don't watch Rachel Maddow, but at the end of the day, Biden sucks. What are you going to do? You're going to defend him? There ain't no Biden bros who are out there who are like tuning in every single night in order to hear how great he is. And then there's no bench. We want to tune into the Kamala hour, the Pete hour. I mean, what are these people going to do? They don't have a central guiding narrative. Their boogeyman is gone. The conspiracy theories have been dwindling for a while. And so it's a real problem. I mean, they built ultimately their network around the

emerging Democratic base, which was these affluent white suburbanites. And that's great until it's not because those people are fickle. They tune out. To them, politics is something that you care about as a lifestyle brand when Trump is in power. And after that, everybody just goes on to going back to brunch and making a whole lot of money. So now what are they going to do? NBC News is rudderless. I mean, they just hired freaking Stephen Hayes. We covered yesterday the Iraq war propagandist and liar. They're trying to do the never Trump thing. They can't lose their existing upper middle class white libs, but they can expand elsewhere.

Young people don't care what they have to say. It's a real, you know, I just, I feel so bad for them. Yeah, we all do. We all feel really bad. I'm just shedding, what are they, crocodile tears? I've got real crocodile tears. I do feel like your point about they have nothing to say is probably the most important one. Yeah, what's on their website?

I was looking at what has Rachel Maddow been covering. I pulled up the Maddow blog. Yes. And it's all January 6th investigation stuff. I mean, why would you

tune in for that? And, you know, I think as we tried to demonstrate on the actual day of January 6th and try to, you know, take it seriously and what it actually meant for the country, there are ways you could talk about the things that led us to January 6th and a genuine crisis of democracy that the country really is facing that truly is an

existential threat in terms of the America that, you know, we'd like to believe in. Right. But of course, I mean, they don't do that. All they do is the like, Trump bad, Republicans bad, and Trump's bad again, and Republicans are bad. Okay. Okay, we got it. Like, we got that message. How it ends up not being all that interesting after a while. Like, okay, take it a level deeper. Okay, if they're so bad, why are people supporting them?

What's behind that? What's going on there? What are maybe some failures on the Democratic side? Like, how did the country end up in this place where people who, okay, we get it, are bad and evil, how did they end up with so much power and with so many people fervently believing in the project that they're engaged in? That doesn't, that sort of introspective conversation, like, they're, they can't, they can't engage in because it would go against their sponsors in the DNC. So, yeah, they've cultivated an audience base and told them that if they elected Biden,

they could go back to brunch. And they did. And they did. They're in big trouble. So that's essentially what's happened here. And I'm sure there's no accident that in that environment, somebody who put her politics and her conspiracy theorizing aside is very talented. Rachel Maddow looks at that landscape and says, this is not all that interesting to me. Let me go and do something else.

So I do think that they have a real kind of crisis on their hands with her moving on. I mean, she's still going to be with the network. She'll be there for big events. But in terms of her daily show, its days are numbered, and they have nothing to fill the gap. No, they've got nothing. I cannot wait to see this thing crash and burn. Okay, so speaking of media and more,

obviously we've been tracking the Rogan story, the Neil Young element. But to me, the most disturbing part has been watching the vultures in cable news and in media who have hated Rogan for years take the gloves off and throw everything at Spotify in order to try and destroy him. And chief among them has been CNN, who are the most disgraceful, just, I have difficult words to describe them in the attacks that they have wrought upon Rogan, upon Spotify, and more. And they recently had a panel on CNN, which really gives away the entire game about why they hate Rogan so much in the first place. Let's take a listen. Kat, you wrote on Twitter about Spotify. You went viral for a comment about it yesterday. Tell us your point of view first about this Spotify mess, because it's really dominated the week.

Yeah, you know, what I think is interesting about the backlash against Spotify vis-a-vis Joe Rogan is that, you know, people are fundamentally angry about not being able to stop his audience from wanting news that is bad for them, you know, wanting something that's bad for them. So, you know, we're all haunted by the specter of this guy who's listening to Joe Rogan and internalizing this bad information and making bad choices as a result. But bad information, bad choices as a result. Who are you to decide what bad information is. And I love haunted by the specter. I, you know, sheepishly was like, I'm haunted by the specter that anybody watches that. That has any power that haunts me to my day. When I go to sleep, the last thing I think is, oh my God, I can't believe people are watching CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and consuming this garbage.

I mean, ask yourself this. You know those annoying relatives out there? How many of them have been brainwashed by cable? How many have been brainwashed in the same combative and adversarial way by Rogan? We all know the answer to that question. And this is really pernicious, Crystal, because we're watching this happen in real time, morph from a media effort to cap an opponent, essentially, much more so than it has any real objection on vaccines. I highlighted yesterday, one of our listeners, thank you to this person, sent me this, but move on, the progress, I don't know, what do you call them, like a resistance organization? It's hard to describe.

I mean, they started, I used to like them back when they were like they were like anti-bush yeah that was like some of my first political awakening now they're just yeah okay so move on in some group called ultraviolet which is some abortion it's an offspring of move on i think they use their had their same mailing list and they use it for like you know know, feminist choice, that sort of thing. So the feminist group move on, uh, feminist group, ultraviolet and move on teamed up and they sent out an email to millions of people yesterday. This is the title. Sign the petition, remove racist and conspiracy theorist, Joe Rogan's podcast from Spotify. Now, dear move on member, Spotify has an incredible number of podcasts, but Spotify has an issue with disinformation

and extremism. The streaming service's number one podcaster is none other than the racist, transphobic, conspiracy theorist Joe Rogan. Jeez, that's the trifecta. Last week, Neil Young posted in a letter, sign ultraviolet's petition now to stop the spread of disinformation and remove the Joe Rogan experience.

This has merged into a full-fledged cancellation campaign. This is what I was talking about in my monologue yesterday. There are big, big interests here that are all at play. And I think that CNN and them, especially Brian Stelter, the chief among them, has been declaring war on Rogan, both on their Twitter feeds, in terms of their cable news appearances and more. There was another one yesterday, Crystal, which we wanted to highlight here of Oliver Darcy talking about how Rogan doesn't fact-check his information like they fact-checked their information. They say this stuff with a straight face. Take a listen. And yet Joe Rogan has the number one podcast on Spotify. Millions of people listen to him. Audiences are choosing him.

Why? What is it about him? Clearly, he connects. Yeah, I think it's maybe that it's an unscripted conversation. He does have these people on who are not really given platforms in major media institutions. And that's because they are, you know, spouting all these sort of anti-vaccine rhetoric things that are not in line with the public health consensus. Look at CNN. We have a health desk. We make sure that the information that we provide viewers is accurate. Most major outlets have some sort of system in place to do that. Joe Rogan's having a conversation with people that, you know, he finds interesting and they might attract eyeballs or I guess ears, but they are not reflecting the public health

consensus. And I think that's really what's unnerved a lot of people over the past few weeks. Yes, Crystal, CNN, of course, is famous for putting on only the best experts with the best information and the, you know, they have the good information, not the bad information. They've been right about everything during the pandemic, right, Sagar? Let alone Russia, let alone the wars. Yeah, this is, you know, Matt Stoller tweeted something this morning. Let me go ahead and read this. I just think it was so, so perfect, which was basically, you know,

unless Joe Rogan goes ahead and starts a few wars and prints trillions of dollars to his friends, then we can cancel him. Until then, F off. And, you know, that is perfectly well said. and they stop promoting absolutely bonkers anti-science stuff when it comes to COVID, not to mention the Russiagate lies, not to mention so much of the pernicious forces that have been released upon this country, then perhaps we can have a conversation around a freaking comedy podcast. But until then, shut up. I mean, watching this war really take hold. I mean, I'm seeing very prominent people saying, now let's start with Joe Rogan's advertisers, posting a list of the advertisers trying to

incite a boycott. I've watched this whole thing happen with Fox News in the past. And don't you for a second think that this isn't going to have an effect? I've tried to explain this yesterday. Yeah, Spotify might back Rogan. What about the next one? You think they're going to buy him? No way. That's the thing to me. Rogan's going to be fine. Of course, Spotify might back Rogan. What about the next one? You think they're going to buy him? No way. That's the thing to me. Rogan's going to be fine. Of course, and he would be regardless. Right, even if,

and I don't think this will happen, but even if Spotify was like, you're in violation of your contract, I mean, his viewers are going to follow him. He's going to be perfectly fine. And he also, I think, has capitalism on his side because he's made Spotify a lot of money brought over

a lot of new listeners and new users of their platform you know not just to listen to him but to listen to other content that is there and engage with their other podcasts that are there so I think he has capitalism on his side in this particular interaction the problem is that as you were

saying what about the next person who's coming up who doesn't have 11 million listeners in their audience, who's new, who's just getting their start, who's a little bit edgy? Are they going to take a risk on them? Probably not. That's where this stuff gets really pernicious because people who say basically like, oh, cancel culture isn't real, they'll point to somebody like Rogan and like, oh yeah, we canceled Rogan so hard that he still has 11 million listeners to his podcast. The problem isn't actually those people who are kind of too big to cancel. The problem is all the folks who come after that, who, you know, may not have such a clear capitalist win written all over them. And companies will just do the cost benefit calculation and decide, you know what,

this isn't worth the headache. This isn't ultimately worth the risk. And so you end up with the pipeline that's coming up being totally sanitized, being totally establishment friendly. It's only you're allowed to be wrong, but only in the ways that are, you know, good for the establishment, good for making new wars or like giving more billions to rich people. Those are the types of people who are allowed to be wrong. Stephen Hayes is just the absolute perfect example here. I mean, we talked about this yesterday. NBC News hires this guy. He was the worst, the number one proponent of this fake link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. But does he need to be censored? Is anyone boycotting him? Are they

putting trigger warnings on his appearances? Are they even disclosing that he was part of that? No. Rachel Maddow is another perfect example. The crap that she sowed. I mean, she was so incredibly damaging to the liberal mind because she is so influential and because she was so relentless with this Russiagate nonsense. It really has poisoned people who believed in her and who trusted her to believe these wild conspiracies and have this totally insane view of the threat from Russia in their heads, which has completely screwed up our geopolitics and created very dangerous situations and made it less likely that we can solve the problem in Ukraine through peaceful and diplomatic means. So those things are incredibly damaging. They're, you know, the absolute definition of

misinformation, and no one is worried about that whatsoever. You know, I think it's really, the part that I'm really disgusted with right now is there's this new effort, you know, not only is he, is Rogan like anti-vax, but now he's an open racist. And I saw this, so I mentioned yesterday, there was this New York Times reporter who tweeted what I thought was a reasonable thought. He said, Joe Rogan is what he is. We in the media might want to spend more time thinking about why so many people trust him instead of us. Good point.

Yeah. Reasonable line of inquiry. I don't know who you are out there, but thanks for being one of the sane ones. Yeah, so that's a New York Times reporter, Matthew Rosenberg, and in the replies, his colleague, Nicole Hannah-Jones,

Of course. says, with respect, I don't get this. We need to understand why millions of Americans don't mind the open racism. It's not a mystery. I've been reporting on it for years. So what do we do with that? And actually, first of all, in her reply, she's not just attacking Rogan, which is one thing. She's saying everybody who listens to him and enjoys his podcast is good with open racism and is basically a racist themselves. Yes.

And her question there, what do we do with that, is actually a really important one. Because if your operating political assumption is just that all these people are racist, so what are you going to do? Well, that lets everybody with power off the hook from actually trying to do anything. That's how you end up with, you know, Democrats losing Virginia and going out. Well, even though this is a state that just elected Biden by 10 points and has elected Democrats up and down the ballot, what are you going to do? It's just the people got super racist. And so, you know, we can't possibly win against this. And so we're insulated from any sort of criticism of what we've ultimately

been engaged in. That's a good point. That's why that's all so incredibly, ultimately pernicious and disturbing. No, it is. And I really want to emphasize this, which is that if you're coming up right now, you know, this is a shot at all of us. I was thinking about it. My monologue today is about boosters for children. If we were trying to get bought by Spotify, that would be an idiot to do that monologue, right? It's definitely going to get, uh, whatever labeled or whatever. I don't care because that's why we do this show, but you have to make that conscious choice. Now we're okay. We designed the business with our premium stuff in order to make sure that we don't care whatsoever, but not a lot of people have that luxury. If you were not restarting out three years ago and you're like, oh man, this is the only way to get it done, what would we do?

I mean, seriously. And this is what it's all about. It's about encouraging people down the line, the next generation to self-censor, to stop themselves from creating stuff, not only that people want, but covering the stories that are necessary to a real public and free society. So if people want to know why I'm personally so animated about this is I know what it does to the people out there who don't have the same freedom that we do. I know how much they have to censor themselves. How many famous people out there agree with Rogan, agree with us? They can't say a word because they're going to lose their Hollywood deal or whatever. Yeah. And that is the thing too is if you're gonna engage in um something that's interesting and take risks sometimes you're gonna get things wrong yes and you know and i i do

think that those two podcasts with malone and mccullough like those guys are very good at sowing misinformation about the vaccine and only talking about the risk and cherry-picking the evidence and just getting some things that are just completely blatantly wrong. For example, as we talked to Dr. Prasad about, hydroxychloroquine does not work. Well, the one that really bothered me is when McCullough said that you can't get COVID twice. And I was like, it just does. It's just like flat wrong. That's just not true. Right. I mean, we personally know people that that's the case.

But again, if you're going to engage in this world, sometimes you're going to get things wrong. What do we do then? What's the process for saying, you know what, here's how I'm going to change things moving forward. Here's how I'm going to adjust to this learning experience. And a society with no path to like forgiveness or learning where you have to be right 100% and you have to have been right your whole life, that's an ugly place to be. And nobody, no one in this entire country is ever going to meet that standard. That's a great point, Crystal. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, as I mentioned here before, I try to highlight

some of the worst COVID insanity stories that I can on the show to spotlight the worst actors and stand up for the people that I believe have the least power in our society. That's children and students. Obviously, kids themselves can't vote. Students have no real power beyond their voice. They rely on us to mediate and set the conditions in which they go through their most formative years. So it would follow then that we have a sacred responsibility to consider policies which govern them the most seriously. Now, perhaps you saw the story I posted about Johns Hopkins student.

He was vaccinated. He contracted COVID twice. He had a medical exemption from the booster that was then denied by the university, who said they didn't agree with his doctor's conclusion. It's the most extreme example yet of a trend of booster mandates across the United States for children and for college students. And yet, nobody has stopped and asked the question, does any of this make any sense whatsoever? Luckily, journalist David Zweig, who wrote on the absurdity of school masking, is out with a new investigation

into Boosner mandates for kids. David correctly points out that while at the university level, Boosner mandates are already very real, there are signs they may become real even for much younger children below the age of 18. New York specifically has already updated its guidance to say that if kids 12 and older are exposed to a positive individual, only those who are boosted will be allowed to play sports and participate in extracurricular activity. And Hawaii's governor has said he's going to require boosters for visitors. It is possible soft booster mandates will be in effect for many places with children in the future. So does that make any sense? As David points out, what's

everybody else doing? Let's start with that question. Well, the UK only allows a booster shot for people between 12 and 15 who are very, very high risk. Finland has the same policy. In Ireland, you can't get a booster if you're below the age of 16. In many developed places like Denmark, Sweden, Japan, and Spain, boosters are for adults only. Norway doesn't even give second doses to people between 12 and 15 years old. Just one. Why? Look, it all comes down to the risk of myocarditis, the inflammation of the heart, and the incidence of this condition compared to its incidence from contracting COVID if you're a child. Now, David quotes both Dr. Monica Gandhi of the University of California, San Francisco, a bona fide infectious disease specialist in her own right, and Dr. Paul Offit. He's the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. And in the case of Gandhi,

she said she would not give a booster to her 12- and 14-year-old sons. Dr. Offit said he advised his own son in his 20s not to get one, while discussing the risk of getting one for a healthy 17-year-old boy. Now, the experts don't stop there. The WHO's own chief scientist, Dr. Samya Swamitan, said, quote, there is no evidence healthy children or healthy adolescents need boosters. No evidence at all. All of this is predicated currently on recent data that David has reviewed from the Israeli Ministry of Health and the Canadian government, models and trial data from Pfizer, and studies in peer-reviewed journals. All of them, quote, suggest that the CDC has downplayed the prevalence and severity, end quote,

of myocarditis amongst children and specifically younger men. David quotes specific studies from Kaiser Permanente, the University of Oxford, and the FDA's own memo, which show instances of myocarditis amongst younger individuals who get a booster. But in the question of severity, the results are actually stunning. David, upon reviewing the CDC's own slides, finds, quote, if you are a young male who is vaccinated, you have two choices. Option A, don't get a booster and run a 0.3 in 100,000 risk of ending up in the hospital with COVID. Option B, get the booster and you run a 10 in 100,000 risk of getting myocarditis. That number was then confirmed to David by Dr. Sarah Long. She's a member of the CDC Advisory Committee and a pediatric infectious specialist at Drexel University.

But to be fair, she says this. The sample size was too small. It was only 20,000 doses to males, which is too small to extrapolate then. So there's that. But Long did admit to David, quote, We made the decision, in my opinion, without any data on safety. And she herself was somebody who voted to authorize the booster shot for 12 to 15-year-olds. So to be clear, the United States is the most extreme in its recommendations that all kids over 12 get boosted.

The process through which the booster shot itself was authorized did not consider safety data by their own admission. The safety data shows the opposite results that we do have, that we would want for children. And given all of that, the mainstream media is ignoring all of this entirely, while various governments take the CDC's recommendations, which at this point you should probably consider anti-scientific in their own right, and turning them into mandates for private institutions and perhaps even children. The case for mandatory booster shots for kids is honestly worse than the case to mass kids in school. With masks, the evidence is inconclusive at best. With boosters, the evidence that we do have, and I want to stress do have,

shows actual possible harm in the wrong direction. I say this as someone who has championed the vaccine, vaccinated myself. It dramatically reduces hospitalization and death, which is all that really matters in a society that accepts by and large that COVID is here to stay forever. And with boosters themselves for adults, I recommend them, especially if you are obese or have a health condition that it sounds like a great idea for you. But for kids, it's incumbent upon us to do everything in our power to keep both kids safe and develop policy for them in the most rigorous of rigorous manners. A child's life is the most precious and innocent thing that exists. And the negligence and the outright callousness that these policies are being developed with will have far-ranging consequences for many years to come. I mean, you read this piece, Crystal, and it's absolutely stunning. And I want to say this too. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's

monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, as you probably know, California is effectively a one-party state. Democrats hold the governor's mansion, they hold 31 out of 40 state senate seats, and they hold 56 out of 80 assembly seats. Whatever Democrats want in California, they can accomplish. And so it's with great interest that I've watched as many of those elected Democrats try to avoid doing something that they pretended to support, and which, by the way, their constituents overwhelmingly want. And that would be establishing a single-payer health care system in that state. So here is the very latest, and this news was breaking late last

night. Unions, activists, and progressive politicians have been trying to pass single-payer health care for decades in California. The most recent attempt was back in 2017. That effort gained a lot of steam following Bernie's first presidential campaign. In fact, single-payer actually passed through the Senate in that state. But the health insurers, they had a key ally, an Assembly Speaker, Anthony Rendon. They flooded his campaign coffers along with the coffers of the Democratic Party writ large, with millions in campaign cash. And lo and behold, Speaker Rendon decided to not even bring single payer to the floor for a vote. No one would have to take a tough vote to show whether they sided with the people or with the corrupt corporate insurers. And the issue was very effectively

killed for that moment. But the fight wasn't over. Single-payer advocates got another shot with then-candidate Gavin Newsom, who backed the effort in his successful run for governor. Newsom recognized that the issue was popular with voters, and he was jockeying for the endorsement of an influential nurses union. So during that campaign, Newsom was totally une issue was popular with voters, and he was jockeying for the endorsement of an influential nurses union. So during that campaign, Newsom was totally unequivocal. He even chided other politicians for their fake support of universal health care. He tweeted, So here we are in 2022 after a pandemic that saw economic and health

devastation, with California voters keenly interested in breaking away from this rapacious for-profit model that has had such devastating consequences for their state and for the country. And Newsom, well, he's no longer a candidate for office, he's governor. He's leader of the California Democratic Party. No one has more power over what that party backs and prioritizes and what ultimately happens in the state. So last week, a bill that would establish something called CalCare, single payer, passed down of committee, sending it for a vote to the full state assembly. Newsom must be ecstatic, right? Delighted that a key campaign promise is one step closer to fruition. Thrilled politically that he can deliver on a popular issue among California voters. Yeah, not so much. Whereas before, Newsom was tired of politicians

making excuses for not backing single-payer, now he is one of those politicians making excuses for not backing single-payer. When asked about this bill, he said, quote, I've not had the opportunity to review that plan and no one has presented it to me. I think that the ideal system is a single payer system. I've been consistent with that for well over a decade. The difference here is when you're in a position of responsibility, you've got to apply, you've got to manifest the ideal. This is hard work. It's one thing to say, it's another to do. Indeed, it is one thing to say and another to do. I will give you that one. And I'll give you one guess what happened between campaign Newsom throwing

down for single payer and Governor Newsom getting all weak-kneed. Well, he got a whole raft of cash. Our partners over at The Daily Poster had this report. Health insurer Blue Shield of California has been forking over multi-million dollar donations to Newsom to his pet causes and to the California Democratic Party. We're talking $99,000 direct to Newsom's campaigns, $2.7 million to the California Dems. That includes a $1 million gift to the state party just last summer. That was back when Newsom was fighting back a recall effort. $100K to Newsom's inaugural $20 million to a Newsom-backed homeless housing project. Now, this money has already reaped great rewards for

this insurer. We previously covered here how Newsom awarded Blue Shield a $15 million no-bid contract for vaccine distribution in spite of the fact they had absolutely no relevant expertise in setting up vaccination sites or administering vaccines. But Blue Shield, they're not the only ones who have been funneling cash to Newsom and the Dems in hopes that they will kill single-payer. Anthem, UnitedHealth, they also have ponied up significant contributions. Now, by law in California, yesterday, Monday, the last day of the month, was the final day that the CalCare bill could pass through the full House. Otherwise, the effort would once again die and have to be resurrected.

So it all came down to a single dramatic vote in the state assembly. Who would live up to their promises? Who was bought off by the insurance schools? Would it have enough votes among the super majority of Democrats to even get through? And at the very last minute, they did the absolute worst possible thing. Again, they killed the bill. It was the exact same ending as last time. Once again, not only did the insurers and their millions win the day, but corrupt, bought-and-paid-for politicians didn't even have to come out of hiding to register their no vote. And there is zero doubt here,

by the way, that Newsom's lack of support helped doom the bill. I would be shocked if he wasn't twisting arms behind the scenes to keep the vote from coming to the floor, because ultimately, the lack of a vote benefits Newsom more than it benefits anyone else. Now, he doesn't have to display to the world his fealty to the insurers and contend with the possibility of an actual bill that's awaiting his signature. Now, I want you to really take this one in. Whatever you think of single payer, it is extremely popular in California. In fact, in Newsom's recall election, pollsters found that a Medicare-for-all type system was backed by likely voters by a margin of 60 to 34. And of course, among the Democratic base, the very people who regularly show up to elect these people and who kept Newsom in office,

it's supported by 86% of voters. Not to mention, the moral and the financial case for single payer is really clear. And if you don't believe me, well, you could just ask Governor Newsom. The fact is, we're already spending $367.5 billion a year on health care, according to UCLA, in this state, 70% of it borne by the taxpayers. A single-payer system drives down the cost of health care, drives down the cost of prescription drugs through economies of scale,

and provides a more effective, efficient, and universal access for those that are uninsured. You still have 3 million people in the state of California without health insurance. And even through Colored California, millions of others have seen double-digit increases over the course of the last few years in their premiums. Single-payer is the way to go to reduce costs and provide comprehensive access. What's more, if California did have a genuinely successful experiment with single-payer, it'd be an unbelievably powerful force for persuading nervous Americans that it is a superior system to the current for-profit deathscape. It's one thing to say, hey, you know, France managed to pull this thing off, and quite another to say, hey guys, look at the distant and foreign land of California. So to sum up, the people want single payer. They elected a super majority of politicians who supposedly back single payer.

And yet single payer is dead because money ultimately matters more than people. And yet Democrats will have completely bewildered and blame the voters when they fail to show up for their next reelection campaign. Quite a democracy we've got here. And this is why we can't have nice things. Sagar, it is so demoralizing. And listen again, I obviously...

And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now, we have the man himself, Iremi Osei from Pong. Welcome back to the show, my friend. Good to see you, Iremi. Yeah, thank you for having me. This should be a hoot. Absolutely. Always is with you, my friend. All right, let's throw your latest piece up on the screen. That was very provocative. You talk about COVID and the meaning of life, and you go through sort of like at a higher level, a philosophical level, how we should think about balancing taking precautions

in our life with living our life. Just talk to us about why you wanted to write this piece. So we've gone through two years of a pandemic without actually talking about the meaning of life, which is in some way, it's kind of impressive considering that, you know, these were always life and death discourses that were running around in our heads and in our policy. But we've never actually like drilled down on the meaning of life because it's presumptuous. And this is why people don't talk about the meaning of life. It just seems presumptuous. But, you know, everything that has to do with anything important is a little bit presumptuous. So we're going to get a little bit presumptuous in the next few minutes. And I think that's appropriate. You know, we have a

nation that, and if you don't actually talk about the meaning of life, then the worries about life just go unregulated throughout our political discourse, and we see it start like contorting other aspects of meaning in our lives. So we actually have to like drill down and understand what it means, lest it just unregulated in a way, unregulated, just metastasizes and screws up all of our aspects of freedom. So yeah, let's be presumptuous because governing is itself presumptuous. Schlager, Crystal, your monologues are presumptuous every day and that's just our work. So we're going to have to tell people what their life means and they might not agree with it or we're going to have to actually hash this out. Right. Well, I think what I want to focus on with you is that you've always had a very – not expansive, but you've pushed back on what the idea of freedom means.

And so talk about that in the context of what it means when we're talking about restrictions and what it means to actually live, Iremi. Right. So you have to understand that life itself is fascinating, and for no other reason than it's a prefiguration of freedom. It's the first prefiguration of freedom. So what do I mean when I say that life is a prefiguration of freedom? Well, you have mechanical causality, where everything in the world gets its properties by being caused by something prior to it that makes it what it is. And then you have electromagnetism, which is kind of the same. And then chemistry is a little bit different. But in all of these kind of prior to biological sciences, you have things that we see in the world, and those things are effects. And those effects are effects of other things that were causes that happened prior, right?

So everything you see in the world is an effect of some prior cause. But with life, it gets a little bit different. Life calls its own number. It causes itself, right? So you have, let's talk about the form of life. You have a semi-permeable membrane and then some chemical interactions within that semipermeable membrane. And then you have an inner and an outer. And what gets in and outside of that semipermeable membrane is for the sake of life itself.

So life is, in a way, not consciously, but in a way, acting to cause itself. It's the reason for its own being. So you're going to have three components, right? You have the semi-permeable membrane, the chemical reactions within the semi-permeable membrane, and the interdependent relationship between the chemical reactions within the semi-permeable membrane

and the membrane itself. And when I say that that's a prefiguration of freedom, what do you think our nation is? It's a semi-permeable membrane, reactions within the semi, like a certain set of reactions within the semi-permeable membrane. And then kind of that addresses

what gets in and what gets out for the sake of itself, right? So that same structure is going to be in all of our institutions of freedom because that's what you need to not be externally determined but to determine yourself to realize yourself now um like i said that's going to be the the the same um that's going to be prefigured in life but it's going to be the same institution that you find in nations it's going to be the same institution that you find even in a show like Breaking Points, right?

The semi-permeable membrane is you guys deciding who gets on and then what questions are asked. And if you don't understand how that figures into meaning, and this is what happens, and this is what happens in our discourse. If you don't understand the structures of meaning, you start talking in terms of numbers, and you start doing it badly. You start like talking like Fauci. You say, well, 10,000 is too much. Yeah.

So let me, because you have a line in here that I think starts to drill down on the point you're making. You say, even one person dying of COVID is too many is only a horrifying statement because we aren't culturally prepared to account for why that's an absurd and pernicious idea. So I think a lot of people would say, well, what's absurd and pernicious about it? Then you're valuing life. You're saying even one loss of life is too many. We need to do what it takes to keep people safe. Why is that absurd and pernicious? So one life doesn't tell you whether it's too much or too little. It just tells you that one person died. And you can't just attach a number to that and assume that that number creates meaning.

Or you can just say that, you know, life matters because you have more of it. That means the person who lived the most life did it the best, which means that since Barbara Walters and Martin Luther King were both born in 1929, Barbara Walters obviously lived her life better than Martin Luther King, who screwed it up because he only made it to 39, right? So if we just do this by numbers, you're already going to kind of distort the quality of what we're talking about. And I'll tell this to your audience to be very clear, and I don't know if this is for the premium people or the people who get it for free. It's for everybody. It's for everybody. For the people. I'm going to save you a lot right now. Be very careful of people who can only talk about numbers and costs.

If they reduce everything to how much it costs, because they don't understand what it means because they can only think about if they got it at a good deal or it's too expensive. They don't actually think about meaning. So that goes for your dates. That goes for your politicians. Have the conversation about what things mean before they have the conversation about what things cost. For example, I'm sure that some people would say, Crystal, I will give you a 15% raise if you go back and work at the Hill. I will give you a 15%. And obviously, since you're driven by numbers, it would be irrational for you to not take that 15% to go back and work at the hill, to which you would tell me? Hell no. Not for 15% more, not for 50%, not for 500% more. So the people who reduce that to like your simple pay have a confused understanding about what your life means.

And Sagar, I can ask you, look, I can put you on Fox News. We'll decide who you get to interview and we'll give you the questions. But you will reach hundreds of thousands of more people. I don't know how big the demographic is. So you'll reach hundreds of thousands of more people. I don't know how big the demographic is. So you'll reach hundreds of thousands of more people. You just have to ask our questions, and we'll tell you who to interview, to which you will say. No, absolutely not. Also, it wouldn't even reach more people, so it wouldn't matter.

There's that. But the idea is that, well, then you don't understand. You'll be so much more influential because you'll meet so many more people. Irony, I think what you're articulating, too, I mean, this is what I've tried to articulate. I don't think as well as you have done. That's the problem with people like Pete Buttigieg. That's the problem with like the McKinsey consultant way of approaching government. That's the problem with, you know, this is something we've talked about recently with the Fed where they want to just portray

to the people, listen, we're the experts. We're going to crunch the numbers. There's no values involved here. It's just crunching the numbers, coming up with the answers, defer to us. So when you get into this realm of just let the experts crunch the numbers and tell you what the right answer is

and you strip out value and you strip out meaning, it's also a deeply anti-populist idea. It becomes very easy to sequester decision-making in this sort of credentialed elite, which has been the direction of the neoliberals and the Democratic Party for a long time now. Right. So they're going to be, anytime you just defer to the experts, there are going to be two really big presuppositions that the experts are going to take on for themselves. They're going to take on what the content is going to be, and they're going to take on how to evaluate it. They're going to decide what should do and then how to evaluate if it's a success. Those are decisions that we need to figure out about how this works in our life and securing meaning in our life. And as soon as we seed those decisions off, then it just becomes a math problem. But we shouldn't seed those decisions. What does school mean? Is school just a mechanism to make sure that nobody ever gets COVID? Is that the purpose of school? I'm not sure that is the purpose of school.

I actually think we should talk about what it means to develop a populace that's an engaged and competent citizenry. And that should actually guide our decisions over school mask policies, which I'm one of these pro-vax anti-mask mandate guys, which apparently is a growing demographic, thankfully. We're centrist, Ironman. We're the real centrist. That's our position on this show too, Ironman. Good, good, good. Pro-vaccine, anti-mask mandate. I'm okay with masks being, you know,

voluntarily. Whatever, right. Yeah. So that's the thing. We need to actually figure out what the meaning of school is and if it's not merely safety first in terms of like nobody ever gets sick but actually like we want to be able to teach people how to speak and talk and we want people to be able to communicate across we want third graders to be able to communicate to each other across the table like without having to um i don't know, be extremely frustrated. I get frustrated talking to people in masks. So like, it'll just keep kids quiet. So I, we have to understand what

the school means. And then once we hash out what it means, how it figures into our life, and how we realize ourselves through these institutions, then we can figure out like what kind of safety precautions we should take. But if we start with the idea that no one person should die ever, no one person should get sick, that will govern what the institution means, because that's telling you that the purpose of the institution is to make sure that everyone else lives like a biologically safe life, but culturally kind of decrepit life. And why that's important for a nation that's supposed to be of self-governance is that when Patrick Henry says, give me liberty or give me death, he wasn't joking around. Like, that wasn't an idle concern. We actually need to work out what liberty means and not let the concerns

of life govern that. Because life as a prefiguration of freedom is realized alongside other institutions of freedom. And now it enables these other institutions of freedom. You can't just do it when it's dead. You can't have a good family and all that stuff when you're dead. But it's an enabling condition that is itself good only in this one kind of minor way as a prefiguration of freedom. It's not good in itself in a way that trumps everything else. The most important thing in life isn't living longer. The most important thing in life is actually working with institutions, including your family, your church, your school, your nation, that actually, like, secure some sort of self-realization in that life, right? And if you don't understand that, you'll let these people tell you that, like, well, you know, as long as 5,000 people get COVID, then we have to shut down all of your meaningful institutions through which you realize yourself in the world. And that's a shame and that's a degradation of our political thinking.

And we just don't value freedom. Well, the left doesn't. Now, Crystal, I will tell you, you remember the first conversation we had about this pandemic was I thought it was a fantastic opportunity for just a handful of people to take a monopoly of the nation's attendance, a monopoly of the nation's attention by just launching a little protest where we just kind of threatened to breathe on people in order to get everyone talking. I remember this, Army. I remember when you said this. I remember talking to get everyone talking i remember this army i remember you said to me and michael brooks about this actually um yeah and i was serious because i was like it always had a few people we could set the discourse for what people talk about and they sure they'll call us crazy but they'll be talking about a federal job guarantee they'll be talking about talking about i was worried that we would be far too demonized for taking that action, especially at that point. But I think you also from the beginning had a good sense of how the fight over being able to go to church would be important and significant on the right and was something that shouldn't be ignored.

Two months later, the right did it something that shouldn't be ignored. So I mean, you had later, I will say two months later, the right did it. Yeah. Two months later, the right, uh, like actually established that no, our freedom is more important than like some really kind of dicey concerns about safety and as controversial as it was, they took over the debate. And if the left loses or the centrists lose because of like the mask mandates because they didn't actually work this out, it's because the right just beat them to freedom faster. That's a good point. Yeah, well, I think another conversation we should have is why it is that the right had this better work down in terms. And I think this is kind of a consistent theme that there's a willing to prioritize, you know, their particular values and their particular meaning over the sort of safetyism that we've seen in COVID. But I recommend everybody go read

the piece. Yeah, we'll have a link down there in the description. And go subscribe for Irami's YouTube channel, which is called The Funky Academic, because he has many brilliant insights there that you all should be partaking in. Thank you, Iremi. Great to see you. Thanks for the philosophy lesson, Iremi. Always. Thanks.

Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. I mean, we mentioned it yesterday, but the Rogan thing is a wake-up. I mean, the attack just comes all the time. It can come at any time, and they can just destroy you overnight.

You know, he'll survive, but what about everybody else? I was telling you during the break, Crystal, about how New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz is actually leaving the New York Times. You know, she's famous for canceling YouTubers who said a bad word like 12 years ago, and she's going to the Washington Post. She's accepted a new job there because they're going to allow her to do whatever she wants online. This is the state of the mainstream media and the people who are in power. They can attack us anytime that they want.

So look, if you support us, it means the world. It just means that we can do monologues and touch topics which are radioactive to everybody else and to the mainstream. Of people like R. R. Beyond who is not the safest character. I love R. R. Beyond, but he's crazy in a good way. Of people like Iron Man. Of people like Iron Man. The safest character. I love Iron Man, but he's crazy in a good way. Crazy in the best ways, obviously. Iron Man is a truly free man.

He is totally unafraid of saying whatever he really thinks. We've talked about this. There were some segments there on Rising, which let's just say there were some contentious debates about whether they were going to go up or not. We were always in favor of putting them up. But just so you guys know, that's why we have our own show. That's why we rely on you.

We have the premium link down in the description. It means a lot when you support us because it makes fighting these fights truly worth it. And I can't tell you how much it means. Love you guys. See you back here on Thursday. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024.

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