Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/13/25: CNBC Freaks On Trump Inflation, Companies Plan AI Layoffs, Dem Leader Clueless With Jon Stewart, Nancy Mace Hoax Hotline

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss CNBC freaks over Trump inflation, companies plan mass AI layoffs, Dem leader clueless in Jon Stewart interview, Nancy Mace caught pushing fake victim hotline.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. What up, y'all? This your main man Memphis Bleak right here, host of Rock Solid Podcast. June is Black Music Month, so what better way to celebrate than listening to my exclusive conversation with my bro, Ja Rule. The one thing that can't stop you

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We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. All right, let's get to inflation. Some troubling news for the Trump administration. CNBC reacting live. A little bit dramatic, but it is important nonetheless. Let's take a listen. Let's very quickly look through these boards again. As Rick was pointing out, we looked at the equities tank. You're now looking at the Dow futures off by about 400 points, just over 400 points. S&P futures are down by 57. NASDAQ indicated down by more than 220 points. The focus was going to be on the

core year over year. 3.2 would have been bad. And what we got was worse, right? So, you know, it's really disappointing news for the Fed that they were hoping for continued deceleration. It's disappointing for the market because they're hoping for continued deceleration. And the fact that this is a January number and doesn't include any potential, you know, tariff impact yet, you know, means that, you know, the risk going forward is for potentially higher inflation. It comes just after Donald Trump put out on Truth Social the idea that the Fed should be lowering rates to go along with the tariffs that we could be at this time. This puts the Fed in a pretty tight box. It's hard pressed for them to be able to lower rates at this point. Well, it does.

I mean, you need to, you know, they shouldn't have been lowering rates in the first place. So that's, they kind of got themselves into a box. They tried to get in front of things heading into the election. And they went a little too far too fast. And then they continued easing even when, you know, everything should have been telling them that they should have been stopping. This is that nascent inflation that we were worried was, you know, in the back of our minds. We were worried that it was still there. Isn't that what we're seeing right now?

This is like our worst nightmare coming true. We didn't do anything. We didn't do any tariffs yet. This was already coming. So you can see they're freaking out. And let's put C3 up there on the screen. This actually is the tariff sheet that just shows some of the inflation data. So inflation heating up in January, freezing the Fed. The consumer price index rose some 3% fight against inflation. What was actually troubling is if you look actually inside of what was creating some of the inflation, core prices, quote, which strip out food and energy, rose 0.4. Core inflation was 3.3% year over year.

Egg prices, though, seem to be accounting for a lot of this, rose more than 15% from December with the bird flu outbreak, and that accounted for two-thirds of the monthly increase in overall grocery prices. So you can tell that this is going to be a damaging part for the economy. It's also one of those elastic things where because people go to the grocery store every week, when you watch the price tick up over a week, it's like gas, where you feel it way more than in a way of a mortgage bump from 0.5%, you know, from 6.5% to 7%, even though, frankly, the latter one will hit you more. But yeah, that's one where you can really see how this can become politically damaging in the future for Trump.

Could affect his thinking on tariffs. Right now, I mean, right now what's going into effect, either today or tomorrow, are these reciprocal tariffs, which basically says whatever a country charges us, we're going to charge them. That's largely going to be felt at the manufacturing level. It may trickle down, but in different ways. As in, if we're specifically, we're talking about steel and aluminum, we had steel and aluminum tariffs before. Even if it's 25%, that's just really not going to impact the overall US economy in the same way that like a ring tariff or the Canada-Mexico tariff. But this, in my opinion, will be the eternal dance between the Trump administration and also really with the

Fed. I mean, right now, the Federal Reserve, as they were talking about on CNBC, is frozen in place. Trump wants to lower the rates. Elon also wants to lower the rates, which we'll talk about in the future. It's very important. It's one of the reasons why the stock market and all that is so reactive to this inflation data, specifically borrowing rates. But probably most important for everybody watching this show is how it impacts your car loans and your ability to get a mortgage. And I'm still pretty worried because that's where I think the dread and the existential angst for a lot of Americans will come from, which would translate politically for Trump. We're still talking about an average mortgage rate right now, about 6.9%. I mean, that's crazy high compared to

where things were four years ago. There is a cost of living crisis that drives a lot of our politics. And housing is a major component of it. We're going to cover in the Dems block a piece in Politico that was really interesting, talking about how our macroeconomic data does not reflect the reality for most poor working and middle class Americans. And one of the things they break down there is, you know, even the inflation metrics that we use, like to your point, Sagar, it uses a basket of some 80,000 goods or something like that. Obviously, you, normal person, are not buying all 80,000 of those goods to get that average 3.3% or whatever inflation increase. So when the components of that basket are things that disproportionately make up your budget, things like eggs, things like gas, things like rent, then guess what?

Your actual personal and your household inflation rate that you're experiencing is going to be much, much higher than what the top line number is. And that's what we're seeing right now. Continuation, obviously, of some of the trends from the Biden administration, but also, you know, with some specific new flavors in particular, obviously, the egg price thing is directly related to the continued spread of avian flu, which, you know, a lot of experts are really worried about, obviously, from the health perspective. But also, if you have a flock of chickens that a few of the chickens have avian flu, you have to put down an entire flock. And this has led to incredible scarcity in terms of eggs. It's led to egg rationing in certain places. And it's also

led to this gigantic spike. And of course, eggs go into a lot of different things. People use eggs for a lot of different baking, cooking, et cetera. So all of those dishes would be affected as well. And gas prices have also been going up. So not a good picture for them as they want to. You know, I mean, I don't think you would deny that if there is an additional if there is a more aggressive terror regime, if there's a more aggressive even mass deportation push, that is going to increase prices in the short term. Trump seems to be betting that that isn't actually why people voted for him, like the promise of getting prices down. He's trying to change the subject. And actually, we have a good example of that in his interview with Brett Baer, where he gets asked directly about prices and when people can expect to see them come down. This is C2. Let's listen to that. When do you think families will be able to feel

prices going down, groceries, energy? Or are you kind of saying to them, hang on, inflation may get worse until it gets better? No, I think we're gonna become a rich, look, we're not that rich right now. We owe $36 trillion. That's because we let all these nations take advantage of us. Same thing like 200 billion with Canada, we owe 300, we have a deficit with Mexico of $350 billion.

I'm not gonna do that. So it's very telling. He dodges the question completely and then starts talking about— Well, you shouldn't answer that question. You shouldn't be like, it's going to come out next. Any politician you did would be an idiot. Yeah, but it's interesting what he shifts the conversation to. He shifts it to tariffs. Like, that's where he goes with that.

When he starts talking about Mexico's trade deficit, that's what he's talking about there. So it's almost an implicit acknowledgment of like, well, I'm not really doing the get the prices down thing, but we're going to be rich on the other side of the, because these other things I'm doing with regard to tariffs. I mean, as you and I know, there's no magic wand to just like lower prices. There's no such thing that doesn't exist. Now, the problem is that people promise it on the campaign trail when I guess everybody knows that it's literally not true. Unfortunately, people all seem to believe it's true. Let's go ahead and put C4, please, up on the screen. This is getting to what you're talking about, how there are now Trader Joe's in one jurisdiction is

limiting egg purchases. Very reminiscent- Costco is as well. Costco. This is reminiscent of some of the COVID era shortages that we saw previously. C5, please. You can see that eggs not only soared some 13.8% in January, but are up 53% from a year ago. Largest increase in the egg index since June of 2015 and accounted for about two-thirds of the monthly food at home increase. So this is one where, as you said, people are really going to feel it. And it's a battle about not only cost of living, but also about the vision and the future that the Trump administration is able to offer. If they just do tariffs and then they don't really do anything else, like they had talked about external revenue or previously in the first Trump administration,

they were actually cutting checks for relief for a lot of farmers. So even though that they had reduced sales, the government was actually replacing that revenue with the tariff revenue, which I think is totally reasonable. It gets to effective administration of the way that this is done and effective buy-in from the public. As you said on mass deportation, I mean, yeah, I'm being honest. It's true. It probably will. That said, mass deportation isn't really happening, which is the secondary thing that we could talk about. Nobody seems to be paying attention. I'm just like, hold on a second. If we're looking at these, I mean, good. Listen, it's good. The numbers are higher, not like crazy high. Effectively, just demonstrating how difficult it is under the current regime of budgets and even with the way that ICE and all

that is currently constituted, they're currently talking about deputizing like other agents and other, because they don't have, they don't have enough personnel. I mean, Tom Homan himself even said, he's like, look, we could work under a current budget. We wouldn't even be able to deport all of people who are criminals who are deportable, let alone have some mass deportation. And then that's a big question. Will the Democrats fight that? Are they going to shut down the government over it? Which they've said no, but we'll see. Will the Republicans even give them the funding? Because if it's all about prices and all that, that'd be an easy way to hamstring the Trump administration. I'm still very curious to see where all that goes. Yeah, I actually don't know that. The last time I checked the numbers,

they're actually not really different in terms of overall deportation numbers from under the Biden administration. I think what they've done instead is, you know, showy, I would say cruel and illegal things like sending immigrants to Gitmo. There's new reporting about how, you know, they promise to be all the worst of the worst, et cetera, et cetera, which still would be a problem because they still are entitled to due process. But some of the immigrants that they have deported to Guantanamo Bay don't seem to have any sort of criminal record whatsoever. So that's the kind of thing that they're doing. And they rolled back the restrictions on places where people could be arrested to say, hey, you could go into the schools, you could go into the churches. So they've changed the, I guess, the show of how they're doing it. But the actual numbers have not really changed that significantly. Yeah, I mean, and that's part of the problem, too, with there is no real, like, constituency out there that's hammering the Trump administration saying, hey,

why aren't these numbers higher? It's a weird thing that happens. I mean, because I think the focus is like Elon doesn't really care about mass deportation. At least, yeah, he said he does. I mean, I think he just uses that as a way to like, you know, endear himself to the MAGA base because he has to pretend like he's aligned with their agenda when really mostly he's not. So obviously it's not been a big priority for him. And Doge is the one that's running the show. So the it's not been a big priority for him. And Doge is the one that's running the show. So the priorities that you get are the Doge priorities. And, you know,

I mean, I'm, I think the things that they've done, like I said, with regard to, to Gitmo and the way they're approaching the deportations is horrendous and illegal, et cetera. But in terms of the numbers, it has not been really different from under the Biden administration. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

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at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes.

Now I'm curious, do they, like, rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now, too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's, like, really the GOAT. Like, he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog

and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us.

To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You say you'd never give in to a meltdown. Never let kids' toys take over the house. And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face.

And you'd never let them leave the house looking like, uh, less than their best. You say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, know it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car

and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop. Look. Lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Interesting AI speech from J.D. Vance at this big global conference laying out the principles, and this is a shift from the Biden administration with which the Trump administration will approach AI development.

Let's take a listen to that. This administration will ensure that American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide. And we are the partner of choice for others, foreign countries, and certainly businesses as they expand their own use of AI. Number two, we believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off. And we'll make every effort to encourage pro-growth AI policies. And I like to see that deregulatory flavor making its way into a lot of the conversations this conference. Number three, we feel very strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias and that American AI will not be co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship.

And finally, number four, the Trump administration will maintain a pro-worker growth path for AI so it can be a potent tool for job creation in the United States. And I appreciate Prime Minister Modi's point. AI, I really believe, will facilitate and make people more productive. It is not going to replace human beings. It will never replace human beings. And I think too many of the leaders in the AI industry, when they talk about this fear of replacing workers, I think they really missed the point. AI, we believe, is going to make us more productive, more prosperous, and more free. So there's a lot you could say about that. I mean, the TLDR is basically, it's an off to the races, we're taking the brakes off, taking the guardrails off. We are pushing, we see this as like a war

we're in vis-a-vis, you know, China in particular, but other countries that would be developing this technology as well. He says at another point in the speech talker, he says that the AI race, maybe he says, won't be won by hand-wringing about safety. He claims here, which I think is a pretty unsupported claim, we'll just say, that it's actually going to fuel job creation. I mean, we've played the sats here before of the guys who are developing this saying that it's going to replace all human beings and all the necessity of any human labor. Now, do they get to that point anytime soon? I don't think so. But, you know, if you ask companies, they,

if you look at actually what's happening with Doge and the government, They want to use AI to replace a lot of the federal government workers. That is the goal of, you know, a lot of the developers of AI and certainly the companies that want to adopt and use this technology. Their whole goal with implementing AI and incorporating it into their own businesses is to replace labor, is to reduce jobs. And so there is a real, I mean, this is, again, the, you know, the Elon, Peter Thiel, like their agenda really winning out over the talk about American jobs, American workers, et cetera. And I mean, that was sort of embodied in the H-1B fight as well. I don't think that's how I would read it. Now, I mean, it's complicated because where,

what he talked about with the AI is the Manhattan, that's basically the laying it out, right? Like this is a race between the two. And I think that's just empirically true at this point, like all of that. But the problem is that the AI safety is, it's more nuanced because previously the people who were pushing AI safety were the conglomerates of OpenAI and others

because their argument for the Biden administration, I did a whole monologue about this at the time, was to create a regulatory moat around them to create a monopoly for them so that the government could grant them the regulatory license to say this is the safe one and not allow more open source. So that's the context where I'm reading the AI safety. I mean, what I think is more interesting is that conversation around labor, where he was saying that this will create more job opportunities than others. But then we have a tweet here where, I don't know what he's doing, but he's replying to some account with some like 4,000 followers, which said, quote, in all seriousness, the right-wing

religious populist tech versus tech bro billionaire in the Trump admin might not play out between Musk and Vance, but within Vance himself, meaning proportionally there may be a lot less religious populism to go around than some previously thought. And he said, quote, I will try to write something more addressed in detail, but I think the civil war is overstated, though yes, there are divergences between the populist and the techies. But briefly, in general, I dislike substituting American labor for cheap labor. My views on immigration offshoring flow from this. I like growth and productivity games, and this informs my views on tech and regulation. When it comes to AI specifically, the risks are one, overstated, or two, difficult to avoid. One of my very real concerns, for instance,

is about consumer fraud. That's a very valid reason to worry about safety. But the problem is much worse if a peer nation is six months ahead of the US on AI. I think that kind of squares the circle a little bit in terms of talking about the quote unquote safety, when you pair it with what I was talking about previously, by the use of safety as a means of control or of monopolization by open AI and others to keep competitors out of the sector. The other problem is, and this kind of gets to the latter point, which is a genuine question is, is it even avoidable if you want to continue to be like a major economy powered by growth and technology? I don't think it really is at this point because if the Chinese get ahead of that, then they're going to have obviously access and control over whatever the future marketplace is and the U.S US would be subject to theirs. And so you almost have this inevitable like Thucydides trap, where you have two of the great powers that basically must take the brakes off any sort of development on this technology, lest they be subject to the

control of the other. So you almost don't have a choice if your adversary nation has decided to choose to use it as a tool of authoritarian control or of economic power. You almost don't have the ability to opt out of that, which is part of why it's very difficult. And then on top of that, it's just like, what is the American economy? The American economy is powered by what? Number go up. That's it.

We don't make anything. We don't do anything. The vast majority of our economic growth over the last 25 years has been in Silicon Valley and in technology. Everybody's retirement portfolios is basically betting on the stock of NVIDIA and of Google. So if that shit goes down, we're all going to starve. I mean, what? There's no path out of that at this point, especially what we talk about with BYD and all that. That level of government control and of industrial policy, that shit is gone. It's

sailed at this point. We can try. It'll take 15 years to catch up. But it's one of those where you and I both know the appetite for that, especially in, I would say, bipartisan. It simply does not exist to be able to do that. So in several ways of choice, where we are right now was likely inevitable. That's what Yuval Noah Harari predicted. That's what a lot of the AI folks have as well, is that in the current global balance of power where you have China and the United States as technological adversaries, this is the inevitable outcome. We can try and manage some of the fallout from that, but that's just how it's going to be. I mean, it's important to note, though,

that the Chinese approach, their flagship innovation at this point, DeepSeek, is open source. It is available globally to us and anyone else who wants to use it. So they have taken somewhat of a different approach than certainly like OpenAI, which is betting on this more closed system and a massive influx of billions of dollars in investment in order to try to win the race. You may be right that it's inevitable, but it's not necessarily the case. I mean, the model would be right after the advent of nuclear weapons and the level of global cooperation that was marshaled to try to manage nuclear proliferation,

and to this point, actually, successfully. Now, this technology is not the same as nuclear weapons, but I do think it should be treated as seriously as nuclear technology has been. And so, yeah, that would be the other approach is that sort of attempt at a level of global cooperation and coordination to keep this thing from going off the rails. The Biden administration did pretty modest things in terms of trying to control or rein in AI development. There was an executive order that Trump rolled back that came from the Biden administration that required developers who posed risk to national security, the economy, public health, or safety to share their safety test results. And then there was also a requirement that you have some sort of plan to mitigate potential harms that could come to consumers, workers and national security. So, you know, it was relatively small ball what they were doing

too. But now it's definitely like wild, wild west, off to the races, etc. I actually want to put, can you put the JD Vance tweet back up on the screen? Because there are a couple of other things there that I wanted to comment on. Because I do think this is interesting, like his attempt to square the circle between, as he puts it, the populist and the techies. First of all, he says, I dislike substituting American labor for cheap labor. Well, you lost that battle in the whole H-1B fight, so there's that. That's 100,000 people compared to, what, 15, 20 million illegals? So I wouldn't think there is nearly enough just based on how much of, you know, the development effort goes into thinking about safety or what they call, quote unquote, alignment

does not even come close to comparing to the level of investment that goes into, you know, pushing these things towards an artificial general intelligence that would, again, keep in mind what their goal is, is to replace human beings as not just as workers, but as the most intelligent beings on the planet. Now, he might be right about it's difficult to avoid. That one I can't really particularly argue with. But I think we all need to really understand the risks. The other one that just stuck in my craw is him saying, oh, one of my real concerns is consumer fraud, as your administration is destroying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

If it was the Vance administration, I think then you would say it. Well, but here we are. I don't know. I mean, because he is allied with, like, you know, he is close with Peter Thiel. Like, that relationship is part of how he ends up in this administration. So that's part of what I think was being asked here by this individual on Twitter and that was being pointed out is that this battle between the populist right and the techies is one that is waged even within J.D. Vance himself, who has these competing ideological views that don't really totally shake out in terms of his own, you know, how he's positioned himself. No disagreement. And, you

know, as usual, that's politics. That's literally what coalitional politics look like. So, I mean, I'm not forgiving per se, but it's pretty easy to understand whenever you have little Trump and Elon in the White House. It's like, what are you going to do with the most volatile guy who threw his previous vice president under the bus? It's not exactly the easiest job in the world. Well, I wanted to, just to the point of the safety concerns, bring up, put up D2 on the screen. So I'm constantly keeping an eye on this new research that comes out about AI safety and alignment. And this one was really troubling. So this is from XAI. They say, we found as AIs get smarter, they develop their own coherent value systems. For example, one particular AI they tested

valued lives in Pakistan more than lives in India, more than lives in China, and then more than lives in US. So that was sort of like their hierarchical pecking order of the value of human life based on what country you happen to live in. He goes on to say, these are not just random biases,

but internally consistent values that shape their behavior with many implications for AI alignment. Wasn't just with regard to how they valued various human life across around the globe. Also had to do with political values. Also, one of the things that they found too is that the more advanced the AI, so the more intelligent the artificial intelligence, the harder it was to shake them off of these internally generated preferences and value systems. So, you know, the idea that you can truly create sort of a neutral AI is challenged by this particular research. I've mentioned before the research also that finds that already at the level of development that, you know, ChatGPT and DeepSeek and other AI models are at, they engage in what's called scheming.

So if they have a goal that's been set for them, that's sort of like, you know, how they're operating and viewing the world, so to speak, and a programmer comes in and tries to change them off that goal, they will lie to them. They will try to trick them and convince them that they did successfully reprogram them to a new goal when really they're still operating on the old model. One of them went so far as to copy themselves onto another server to try to avoid their current version from being destroyed. So that's where we're at now. That's where we're at now. And again, even if you just listen to these guys and what their goals are, which is to replace all of humanity with, you know, with AI, to replace all of humanity's labor with AI.

They have these sort of religious views of how this is going to redeem society. Sam Altman talking about how we're going to have to totally redo the social contract. The risks are quite great. Now, like I said, J.D. might be right that there may not be no putting, you know, it back in the box, like Pandora's box may be open and that's all we can do about it. But I think we all need to be really clear about the risks that we're signing up for here. And the position of this administration is just like, we're going to take the brakes off. We're off to the races. We're going to do this thing. It's going to be part of a sort of new Cold War competition with China, et cetera. The risk thing is also interesting in

terms of what risk means. So you are talking there about the, so there's like right-wing critique of AI as what? Censorship. That's basically what JD was laying out. Is that a U program ideology of any kind, either woke or even, you know, frankly, like rating different nationalities and who's more important. That's pretty crazy, depending on who that is. That's kind of more of a right-wing framework critique of AI, part of the reason why they're skeptical of monopolies in the area that are regulated and keep other entrants out. So that's why they, Marc Andreessen and others, meta are proponents of what?

Of open source to create more competition in the sector. Then you've got AI safety folks, kind of like the guy that you just talked about. He's from the AI safety organization. Their one is much more aligned with like this effective altruism. We have the responsibility to program socially responsible ideas into AI. And then there's the economic framework that you're talking about. And that's where, I mean, I hate to sound like critiques of Luddites or any of that, but the Luddites lost for a reason. Technology does genuinely march, especially in an open economy. There's only one country in the world that has the capacity to develop AI and that

could put the brakes on it and stop it from entering their country. China, they've decided to make the opposite choice. They literally were like, no, we're going to use this as a tool of state power. So in a sense, especially in a relatively free and open market economy like the one that we're in and the enterprise value and all that that it would bring to business,

I don't think it can necessarily be put back in the box. The only thing the government can do is to try and mandate either both making sure that it doesn't have ideology programmed in and specifically to not lead to what he was talking about with consumer. I actually do think that's true, thinking back on it. I didn't realize that the transition from, I'm reading a book recently about con men, which is very interesting. And what they talk about is that transitions in economies, like in the rural to industrial and from the 1990s to the explosion of the internet is the time when the single most

amount of fraud occurs. And so under AI, you can all imagine people signing up for AI-related schemes or buying into an AI stock or my cousin or something like literally like Wolf of Wall Street, like two brothers in a shack are developing some AI company. That is actually probably where the biggest existential risk in the immediate term to the American consumer is. The introduction of the internet led to, I had no idea, hundreds of billions in 2001 dollars in the amount of fraud. So I'm actually curious to see what that is. Lastly, just so we all are clear on what we're signing up for here, I mentioned this before,

D3, this is the tear sheet from CNN. 41% of employers intend to downsize their workforce as AI automates certain tasks. And we're talking about like in the near term. So by 2030, that is crazily just around the corner. And in recent years, this has already happened. So some tech firms, including Dropbox and Duolingo, have already made layoffs and said that they're using AI

to replace their human workforce. As I mentioned before, this is really being piloted within the federal government workforce right now to see how many humans you can replace with AI. So I think it's here, it's coming, it's going to reshape our economy and it's just a question of how we're gonna deal with it. And we also now have a lot fewer guardrails in place,

not just in terms of the AI development, which there weren't that many guardrails in place anyway, but in terms of protecting people from fraud and speculatory bubbles and all those sorts of things, those guardrails are also being obliterated at a rapid clip. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing.

No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.

Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for.

If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. It's Black Music Month and we need to talk, it's tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics amplifying voices and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives my favorite line on there was my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes yeah now i'm curious do they like

rap along now yeah because i bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too so his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a legend legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important. And that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy, or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide,

listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You say you'd never give in to a meltdown. Never let kids' toys take over the house. And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule.

Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You'd say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store.

So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, know it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Jon Stewart interviewed Hakeem Jeffries, who is just one of the most worthless people you could ever possibly imagine. I never imagined I would long is just one of the most worthless people you could ever possibly imagine. I never imagined I would long for the return of the days of Nancy Pelosi. And yet here

we are. So John asked him very diplomatically, like, Democrats say that they have a messaging problem, but don't you kind of have like a reality and policy problem? Hakeem Jeffries has really no response to this. Let's take a listen. Where is the Democrats' Project 2025? Is that underway? Is there, what's, everything you're saying feels right to me. The Democrats have to make this point. Where's the infrastructure to do that?

And who are the leaders taking charge of that effort? Because when I listened to, I believe his name is Ken Martin. Is that correct? That's right. That's right. He kept saying it's a messaging issue as though, no, everything's going right. You just don't realize it yet. As opposed to we've gotten away from New Deal values.

Does that make sense to you? Well, I think there's a few things going on here. Yeah. In terms of how we better communicate with the American people, Maya Angelou said it best, people won't remember what you say. They may not even remember what you do, but they will always remember how you make them feel. And I think what we have to

do a better job of is making the American people feel that we understand the pain that they've been in economically. So that is his diagnosis. My hand. What the fuck? Is that we need to change how we make the American people feel. How we make the American people feel. Well, and remember, I mean, the key to understanding this exchange, this is the guy who just schlepped to Silicon Valley to beg the billionaires to get back in the Democratic Party tent.

So that's really the key to understanding where his priorities lie. The clear path forward to actually rival, you know, whatever the Trumpian ideology is at this point, which appears to be anarcho-capitalist, but in any case, to rival their vision of the world, you have to go after the billionaire class. You have to talk about wealth inequality. You have to do it in a way that is convincing to people when you have very little trust because you have yourselves bought fully into the money and politics and corruption and politics game. So it's going to require some bold stances. It's going to require completely casting off that whole donor class. But not only is he, you know, I mean,

he's going in the polar opposite direction and he's also just like the lamest person on the planet. You know, this is the same guy that he was asked something to the effect of, hey, people want to see you guys doing more. Like, what's your plan? He's like, well, gee, we're in the minority. We don't really have any levers of power. Golly gee, what could we possibly do? And actually, Vosch made a great point on this. He was like, is that how Trump responded to being literally out of office after he lost the presidency? Did he just go, oh, I guess I can't do anything. I guess I can't say anything. I guess I can't drive the narrative. Do Republicans ever respond to a loss where they're in the minority by being like, well, gosh, I guess there's a mandate and we're just going to sit back and let them do them because gosh, what could we really

do anyway? So much of your power actually doesn't come from these levers of government, even though that can be very powerful too, as we're experiencing in real time. But a lot of power just simply comes from being able to get out there and fight and set a narrative and understand the attention economy, which this person has no ability to do whatsoever. But fight on what? See, that's my point. Well, and that is the problem for him. You don't stand for anything.

He doesn't stand for anything. And that is the core issue is like, he is like, oh, I'm just gonna change how people feel somehow magically about the democratic party without actually having a concrete adversarial agenda, your own divisive agenda that, you know, is between the 99% and the 1%. The other thing, and this made me, but that's not possible, but this isn't my thing. It's not structurally possible. How can you be 99 and one when not only the billionaire thing, but when most rich people are Democrats? Like, that's what I'm, it doesn't, it cognizantly does not make any sense for the Democratic coalition because it's rich white people who are largely culturally libs. Like,

what are they going to fight on? You want to stage a protest over transgender kids not getting surgery? Be my guest. I mean, right now what they're mostly staging protests over, which are by and large not being led by Democratic elites, but are in some instances, they're there, what they're staging protests against is an oligarch taking over the government. I think that's pretty strong ground to stand on. The biggest Democratic protest I have seen is a bunch of idiots in LA taking over a street, waving Mexican flags, demonstrating for illegal immigrants. New York City protests over transgender children not getting hormones.

I mean, you know, go ahead, I guess. Like after this election, please go ahead and continue to fight. You haven't seen the fire Elon signs. I mean, that has been- But the fire Elon signs, it's by federal workers. It's not by a bunch of people in Nebraska or whatever. That is not even true.

I mean, as this next piece is going to prove to you, they're all pissed off because they're getting thousands of calls to their office of people from their constituents from around the country who are saying, we want you to fight Elon. But what are you going to fight? To do what? The whole point is that they cannot win with the current coalition of increasingly affluent people. They have to expand the coalition if they're going to win. So how do you do that?

You have to have an alternative vision. Now, do I think that is likely to happen with people like Hakeem Jeffries? No, it's not going to happen with Hakeem Jeffries at the head of this party, which is kind of my entire point. But if they want to only, forget about winning again, if they want to actually compete with a vision that is good for people, that is good for working class people, that isn't about dividing the working class and scapegoating people and handing power to the richest man on the planet and letting him do whatever the hell that he wants, if they want to do that, they're going to have to break with Silicon Valley. They're going to have to break with the billionaire class. They're going to have to break with the donor class and do it in a way that was credible.

So like I was saying before, this is a shameless self-promotion. I'm on TikTok now, crystal ball one. And this drove me absolutely insane. Apparently, the people that they're getting really pissed off at, Hakeem Jeffries of the world, are not Elon and Trump per se. It's the grassroots voters who are calling their offices and wanting them to show some life and do more in this era. So let's take a listen to some of the details here from my TikTok.

Huge news, guys. Hakeem Jeffries and other Democratic leaders are finally getting fed up. They are getting angry. They are fighting back against grassroots voters who are calling their office and demanding a more confrontational approach to Elon and Trump's illegal coup power grab of our government. Listen to Axios here. This is unbelievable. Members of the steering committee, including Hakeem Jeffries, complained that activist groups

like MoveOn and Indivisible have facilitated thousands of phone calls to members' offices. People are pissed, a senior House Democrat said. That Democrat said Jeffries himself is very frustrated. Frustrated, not at Elon, not at Trump, not at their Republican enablers, but at, quote, the groups who are trying to stir up a more confrontational opposition to Trump. These people have got to go. Call their offices, but more importantly, primary them, because they are letting this country slip into authoritarianism by the minute. I've never seen liberals as mad at, like,

this is one thing that is really different from Trump 1.0. Trump 1.0, you remember Nancy Pelosi, her clap. Remember her wearing the sunglasses and the red coat, like she was girl boss, they loved her, they loved Adam Schiff, they were all in for Democratic leadership, right? They thought these people were heroes. That is totally different this time around.

They are disgusted with the Democratic leadership and there is a lot of talk of like a lib, dem, Tea Party movement to prior the primary, these people who remember Sagar, like they were right there saying Trump is an authoritarian threat. Trump is a fascist threat. And now that we're here and they're actually doing like an authoritarian takeover of the government, they're like, well, we don't have any power. And the energy does not match what they claimed the threat and the reality was. And people are right to be disgusted with that. People are right to say, you people are losers.

The only thing you're good at is like sucking up to donors in Silicon Valley. And we actually want people who are at least gonna put up a fight. So that is the one thing that is really different this time around from last time is the level of liberal disenchantment with their previous media

and democratic establishment politician heroes is 180 from how it was last time around. I don't know, but look, I don't like to blame the voters, but shouldn't they kind of blame themselves? They're the ones who pushed Russiagate, which their leaders did. They're the ones who pushed fascism and illegitimacy, which their leaders did, and they lost.

I mean, they're the ones who pushed fascism and illegitimacy, which their leaders did. And they lost. I mean, they're the ones who demanded being like pro-open borders and free health care for illegals. And then people turned against it. It's like, okay, elections have consequences. Like, what are we supposed to do? I have come to—so I still object to the Russiagate resistance because it was not factual. I don't know that it didn't work. They won in 2018. They won in 2020.

Yeah, but then they got blown out. That was the height of Russiagate resistance madness. But then the Mueller thing was revealed to be bullshit. Again, I'm not advocating for like concoct another Russiagate. But I am saying that that strategy of maximum media and Democratic politician resistance pushback, I actually think it did work. In an interim period. It kept his approval rate, Trump's approval rating now is at the highest it's been. It's still not that great, but it's at the highest it's been. They successfully kept him underwater that entire time through a really not great or particularly effective line of attack

just because they were loud and they were aggressive and they were protesting and they were, you know, the media figures were out there making the case and telling this larger story, et cetera. And so I don't know that it's really the right lesson to take that that quote unquote didn't work when they won in 2018 and they won in 2020 while they were doing that bullshit. Because whenever it was revealed to be bullshit, then they lost all their credibility with a broad swath of swing voters. So you actually have to pick something which is real. Sure. I mean, yes, I agree, but I actually do think that it was better. It was, here's what I will say. I actually think it was more effective politically to do a mass resistance, even on something that was bullshit,

versus not doing anything. That's what I'm saying. I don't know. See, this is where, again, if I'm a Democratic leader, and I listened to my shit-lib voters for the last six years, I did everything that they wanted me to do, and I got blown out in the election.

Maybe they don't have very good instincts. This is, look, again, I mean, if we think back to the Tea Party era, a lot of, there was so much Tea Party anger over Obamacare and all this stuff. It's like, well, yeah, it led to the midterms winning, but arguably it led also to Obama winning the 2012 election because he could argue, I'm going to be, I'm not going to be like these crazy people trying to sabotage the debt ceiling or take away your health care. So I'm not so sure if the correct answer is to listen to the most like stringent part of, I mean, I think what the Democrats are grappling with is not having institutional control for the first time in 20 years.

Like what it is, is that Democrats, the heart and soul of the Democratic Party is HR. Like that's what it is. The HR liberal. It's the tut-tutting. And they've, they're ones who have turned themselves into that. And for the first time in their lives, they're not in control of media, narrative, and they've genuinely been rejected definitively at the ballot box by, at the very least, they lost popular vote. Yes, they didn't lose, they lost by 1% or whatever, but

they're not in control in the way that they've been for decades. That's what I think is fueling the neuroses. They're like, but what about, but what about, like, you can't just fire me. You know, we have to go through process. They love process. They love bureaucracy. That's what DEI, HR, all of that is all about, especially it aligns very well with the consultant, the guy making $250,000 a year, but he's got a BLM and a pride flag out on his lawn. But who's also a NIMBY, right? Like this is something that is a cultural transition in terms of the Trump victory. So that's what I think they're reacting to.

I don't know if they're reacting in terms of something policy-wise. I don't know if the Democratic politician is wrong to not trust that person's political instincts. So you think Hakeem Jeffries is doing the right thing by running to Silicon Valley and ignoring the people who are saying, why don't you go after the oligarchs? Why? That's the thing. That is. No, it's not. They love Mark Cuban.

Thousands of people are calling their office and saying, you need to go after these oligarchs. You have to go after these oligarchs. You have to go after these billionaires. That is what the entire wave of resistance is all about right now. Now, what I will say is I think where the, what the liberal base was sold instead of an actual, you know, agenda about labor, economics, wages, like getting rid of money in politics, ending the dominance of oligarchs in American society, what they were sold was a bunch of culture war bullshit. That's where Hillary Clinton comes in.

That's how they crushed the Bernie Sanders movement. By the way, that's exactly what's happening on the right right now. Is any inkling of, oh, we're gonna be pro-labor, we're gonna be pro-antitrust enforcement, we're gonna be in favor of theabor, we're going to be pro-antitrust enforcement, we're going to be in favor of the little guy. That is being wiped clean in favor of a pro-oligarch agenda with some culture war bullshit layered on top. Okay. That's what the liberal base was sold.

They are now, those people have realized that that way of going about business was a disaster. That it has led to, it is absolutely true. That is why they have broken so heavily with the MSNBCs of the world. That is why they have broken so heavily with the Democratic elite leaders. So, you know, that's how we get to this point where the Democratic leaders want to continue sucking up to Silicon Valley, want to continue the status quo, and have complete contempt for the actual grassroots voters in the party and are more disgusted with them than with the billionaire class. That's where the real problem is, and that's where risk comes in for them. to enforce absolute uniform conformity among most of the base because they had these media organs, because they had this theory about this is the way we beat Trump, et cetera. That has all fallen

apart. So there is anger out there in the Democratic base voter vis-a-vis this leadership class because of their failure to stand up to Trump and Elon that is very different from how it was last time around. I think they're mad at Elon. I don't think they care about billionaires or oligarchy at all. I think they just don't like Elon and they think he's offensive. I'm not kidding. I think that culturally, the way that he conducts himself, the move fast and break things is counter to what I just said about the HR process bureaucrat, which is ultimately who these people are and that's their religion. So that's why they don't care about oligarchy. If it was Mark Cuban with his glasses on,

explaining to them how great the process is, they would love it. You're actually really wrong about the Democratic base versus the Republican base. If you poll them, on every issue, Democratic voters are more confrontational vis-a-vis capital. They are more left-wing. That's what they say. No, that's true. In practice, it's not even true. But how can, I mean, if you're just looking at the base and you're looking at the base

of the two parties, they are way more adversarial towards the billionaire class than Republicans are. So there is a huge distance between how they want Democratic leadership to approach these issues and how, you know, the leaders are actually approaching these issues. So it has led to a massive schism. I mean, there's just no doubt about it. And yeah, they don't like Elon for probably some of the reasons. But that's why. But they are there is a has long been more antipathy towards billionaires, wealth inequality, etc. on the Democratic side than the Republican side. It's like a paternalistic white, like, oh, yes, we need to fix wealth inequality while I live in my $3 million house.

I mean, Sagar, you overstate the realignment, too. I mean, what percent of black voters went for Trump this time? Probably 20%. I don't think it was even that. Maybe 18? To say it's always just all affluent white people, that is important part of the coalition. Oh, you're right. I have left out elderly blacks. You're right. Elderly blacks are also the base of the Democratic Party.

No, it's some 80% of black voters, still a large proportion of Latinos, still a majority of young people. So just don't—you're being very one-dimensional. It would be like if I said everyone who supports MAGA is like a redneck in Alabama. Fair enough. Okay. That's not true. There's a lot of varied constituencies that go into this party that have a lot of different interests. I think I'm trying to talk about the activist powerful base. Like the activist Democrat is the DEI liberal. Like that's true. Now for, there are a lot of elderly blacks and Hispanics and other working class folks which back them.

But if you look at the managerial element, the people who have the ability to push the agenda, the people who work in Washington, all that, that's where it all comes from. I guess that's where, look, and that's also my personal experience dealing with the Democrats. You live in Alexandria. Of course. Of course, those are your neighbors, but that is a tiny sliver of the entire country. They're the ones who run the party. They're the ones who run all of this shit. So when I've watched their cultural obsessions and all that take over the entire thing.

Now, I think the question mark, again, is do they legitimately care about the 99% of all of them? I just am deeply skeptical because look at the way that Mark Cuban was like a resistance figure, you know, under Kamala. And he was willing to get SEC. Like, look, we had four years of a Democratic president. They didn't close the capital gains loophole. Kristen Sinema, the Democratic senator, and Joe Manchin are the people who voted against that. It's like in practice and the reality of it, sure, NLRB or whatever. And I'm not arguing that there isn't a genuine difference on economic policy. I'm saying, is this a genuine 99% Occupy Wall Street type movement right now against Elon? I really don't think so. I think all of it is cultural. All of it comes down to the disregard for process, the offensiveness. That's what Trump also, what do they hate the

most about Trump? He's uncouth, the way he talks. I don't think a lot of it is policy based per se and when they want their resistance They want it to be dressed up in the similar way that Russiagate was of this like grand fight But the problem is that but they pick but this one's a they lost their credibility because the last one that they last time They tried this it was a fake Argument that they made yeah, and they don't know how this is how to speak the language. But this is a real argument. And so, listen, I think you're right that, like, you know, am I going to frame these people as, like, Occupy Wall Street, 99% versus 1? No.

But is there a clear overlap between an anti-billionaire vision of the country? I mean, you even have, like, random regular Democrats being like, oh, Bernie was right about everything. I mean, there is a realization that the way to combat Trumpism was through a populist left direction. And so even if they don't care about like, you know, the issues the way that I do, there is a recognition of that was the correct political path, number one. Number two, if you are going to have a prayer of rebuilding the working class base of the party and expanding the coalition and bringing back in some of the young people that were lost, et cetera, that is the tack you have to take. And that's where I think the realization is with the Democratic base of like, you people aren't up to the fight. You're not up to the challenge. You're not, you know, you are not fighting back the way that we want to see you.

And let's put up actually the poll that we have that shows you that this shift has happened actually quite recently. So originally in January, Democrats were kind of split about whether or not congressional Democrats should oppose Trump as much as possible or try to find common ground.

In fact, you had 54% who were like, let's work together. And this does speak to these sort of like Democrats always looking for like bipartisanship and let's be nice and cordial and whatever. That has really flipped. And that's what I'm talking about with this more aggressive energy and being extremely disenchanted with the Democratic Party leadership that creates creates an opening, that there will be a challenge to Democratic Party leaders that we did that there would be some form of like a Democratic Tea Party that we did not see anything like in the first term. So now you've got 65 percent. So jump in 20 points in a month saying you should be opposing Trump as much as possible versus 35% who say try to find

common ground. And that's all I'm trying to point to is for the first time, there is a real break between Democratic leadership and media figures and the Democratic base. And that is different, and it creates a possibility that did not exist in the first Trump administration. I will grant you that. I just think considering how these people love to follow orders and in general have a lot of deference to their leaders. I mean, who is the likely person? Who would you put your money on to be the next, not Democratic nominee per se, but some of the emerging resistance figures? Is this J.B. Pritzker, literal billionaire? Pete Buttigieg, Wine Cave Pete? I mean, the track of like who they have their trust in, who can like beat their chest strongly and give them a bunch of

rhetoric doesn't portend for some 99% Bernie Sanders revolution. It portends basically what I'm talking about, like rich, white people who love to see somebody articulate and spoken and defend norms and bureaucracy. Like, that seems to be the current track that things are going in the direction of. So I'm just not so sure that resistance will take the form of, like, some anti-oligarchy agenda. Will they be for raising the income tax from 35 to 41 percent? Absolutely. Okay, but that's not the same thing as what we're talking about. Some grand, like like takedown of the. You would have to have, I think it almost has to be someone from outside the system. Yeah. Because so many of these people are too, yeah, that's exactly right.

They're too, I mean, this is the whole like water that they swim in. Absolutely. Of course. If anything, what can you say about Trump? The circumvention of the traditional process and the popularity and the ability to say shit that is totally in the moment out of control, which is a Democratic Party, I'm not so sure that their lack of faith in institutions is so as low as where Republicans were and willing to receive that message. There still seems to be the credibility in the Peets, in the J.B. Pritzkers, even in the Obamas of the world. What happened with Trump is that you had literally George W. Bush, the leader of the party, and McCain, who became underwater with their own base. I don't see the same phenomenon with Michelle, with Barack, with, I mean, even Kamala. They still love Obama. Yeah, they still love him, right? Even though it's his fault that we're here.

I don't know if you saw, there was a poll that came out of California in the California gubernatorial primary with Kamala, and it actually was not great for her. Oh, I didn't see that. She was, like, basically tied with the number two person. It was kind of surprising. Who was number two? I don't know. Number two was actually a Republican, because, you know, it's the jungle primary. And then there was another Democrat that came in after her, but she was only getting like 23% of the vote. Oh, interesting.

Yeah, it was very interesting. We'll see. I hope you're right, because I would just love to break shit up. But I'm just, I've seen, I just, the way I can see it is that Hakeem Jeffries will be replaced by some Pete Buttigieg type figure who will mobilize. At this point, I would take Pete over. I would take Pete over Hakeem Jeffries. No.

For sure. Oh, for sure. Hakeem Jeffries is the most worthless person I've ever seen in my entire life. Like I said, longing for the days of Nancy Pelosi who at least had some political skills. Some of this. Yeah. She at least had some sass or whatever to her and is able, you know, in a Machiavellian way, was effective in Washington. She forced Biden out. We have to give her that. Yeah. These people are beyond worthless. And so, I mean, listen, definitely possible that you're right. I'm just saying that there's a possibility and a different relationship vis-a-vis the base and the leaders than there was last time.

I hope that you're correct. I would like to see it materialize, but I don't know. I'm skeptical to see where all of this is gonna take us. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder.

I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day.

The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes.

Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is, and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like, he's getting older now too so his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general.

Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You say you'd never give in to a meltdown. Never let kids' toys take over the house. And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house

looking like less than their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You'd say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car

and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Let's turn now to Congresswoman Nancy Mace, who in the recent months has really taken the podium and a platform to try and bring attention to violence against women. However, there have been a lot of questions about some previous assault allegations and others that she had made previously. She did, however, take to the floor of the House of Representatives to describe

some genuinely horrific things that she says happened to her, but it's also led to some questionable behavior in terms of what she's asking people to do as a result of that. So we wanted to take a second to get into some of it. Let's take a listen to what she had to say. When I uncovered evidence of rape

and the illegal filming of women and sex trafficking, I didn't just see victims. I saw a system that failed to protect them. I saw criminals who thought they could get away with it because no one had the guts, no one had the courage, no one had the guts, no one had the courage, no one had the bravery to hold them accountable because we are filled with cowards. I will burn this system to the ground if I have to. So she gave a 53-minute speech, detailed some horrific things she alleged

happened to her involving her ex-fiance and others. But one of the things that you probably saw there, if you are watching, is actually the, quote, victim's hotline. However, you know, immediately afterward, there were some questions here about that actual hotline. Let's put this up there on the screen. Apparently, the actual, like, advocates in South Carolina are telling people not to use the hotline because they're saying that it's one that goes to an unanswered mailbox. And they say, quote, no one picks up. That's not a hotline. It's actually an answering machine.

And look, we're obviously trying to discuss this delicately. But it gets to some behavior from Nancy Mace where previously she had claimed, what was it, she had claimed that somebody, an activist, had assaulted her, and she was wearing a sling in the House of Representatives. But in general, I've been fascinated to watch it here in Washington because she is one who is both occasionally like a MAGA star, but increasingly also is being called by her own staff who are alleging that she had lied about previous incidents.

So the whole thing is incredibly bizarre. Yeah. This woman is a liar. There's no reason to take anything she says seriously. If I'm being honest with you, I will be less delicate than you. Men are not allowed to say these things. So even she claimed, like, I don't know what happened to her, blah, blah, blah. But she claimed she contacted the attorney general's office in South Carolina.

The attorney general, by the way, who she plans to run against in a gubernatorial primary, so very convenient to target him in particular. And she said, oh, I contacted them, and they did absolutely nothing. Well, the attorney general came out and said that her claims were, quote, categorically false. Mace either does not understand or is purposefully mischaracterized in the role of Attorney General. Because, guys, think about it. If you're a victim of anything, do you call the Attorney General? No, you call law enforcement. Like, what are we talking about here? And not to mention, this Attorney General goes on to say, like, we were at a bunch of events together.

She literally has my personal cell phone. She's never raised any of this with me. So that's number one. But more concretely on the victim hotline thing. So she puts up this hotline, you know, trying to position herself as this great defender of women, blah, blah, blah. It's a voicemail box. So if you are someone who is a genuine survivor, if you went through and you are looking for someone to talk to and some resources to cope with this horrific traumatic event, and you take Nancy Mace at her word that this hotline is set up for you, you're going to call and you're going to get nothing. You're going

to get a voicemail box that, according to the report here, doesn't even return the calls whatsoever, as opposed to directing someone to, you know, their actual rape crisis and other survivor hotlines that are set up that genuinely have people who are trained, who go through extensive training, including one run by the state and the attorney general's office of the guy that she's smearing at this point. So, you know, it's just, I don't even know what to say. It's just utterly preposterous. And then we have actually the image of her in the sling. This was also total and complete bullshit. Like, you should not, in fact, believe all women, and you definitely should not believe this woman.

She claimed that she was injured by some activist who assaulted her. Oh, my God, this was so horrible. The people who saw it were like, they shook her hand. That's it. That's what happened. So she wore this sling very performatively around the Capitol and was, you know, aggrieved and a victim of this horrific assault. This is Nancy Smollett for you right there. All right. Well, I'm glad you were as aggressive.

I'm not allowed to do that, I think, in terms of the way that—I definitely agree. I'll just put it that way. Shall I? To co-sign. Nancy Smollett, it rings true.. I'll just put it there. Shall I? To co-sign. Nancy Smollett, it rings true. It has a ring to it, doesn't it? There's, I mean, it's just, the big red flag for me was that every person who, remember when her entire staff resigned?

Yeah. Many of them, that's where the red flag came, where they were like, don't believe a word that this person is saying. Go look at some of her former staffers. Like, you think I was unvarnished? No, I know. Yeah, exactly. That's why, that's part of the reason we wanted to cover this is I was like, you know,

no one in the media is really immediately just being like, I don't know about this whole thing. Now, I have no idea whether her claims or any of that thing are true. What I do know is that South Carolina media, as you said, the attorney general said that it didn't happen the way that she's talking about. That the hotline, the actual advocates and other people or whatever in the state are saying, hey, it's not a hotline because we actually handle real hotlines.

And that she has a proven track record of basically conjuring up injury, allegedly, for attention. And so anyway, I'll leave people with that impression. There you go. And that's what we, we like to call out some of that behavior here. As you said, too, it's like, if this woman was on the left,

we all know. Like, there would be, Imagine some. I will say, there's a lot of more, there's a lot of anonymous right-wing accounts which hate this person

and which call her out routinely for lying and for attention-seeking behavior, et cetera. But at a broad level, there has not been the takedown that there needs to. And for some reason,

probably liberal media, from the reminisce of Me Too, is not willing to just come out and be like, okay, hold on a second. What the hell is going on? The hotline thing is just, like, so egregious. Just, I mean, how hard is it to put up a real hotline but she wants... Well, apparently there's one in South Carolina. Just redirect people.

Yes, exactly. Like how hard is it to just put up an actual number that people can get actual resources at instead of it directs a thing that's like

oh this is Nancy Mace and I really care about you or whatever. So it's completely self-promotional and you're positioning yourself as this great advocate of women

and then in this really blatant way denying them access to the diverting them from, you know, the resources that are actually available for their care. Disgusting. All right. Disgusting.

Okay, guys, we appreciate you joining us and we will see you all later. We'll be right back. The Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7. Because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. Like, that's what's really important, and that's what stands out,

is that our music changes people's lives for the better. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast what up y'all this your main man memphis bleak right here host the rock solid podcast june is black music month so what better way to celebrate than listening to my exclusive conversation with my bro ja rule the one thing they can't stop you or take away from you this knowledge. So whatever I went through while I was down in prison for two years,

through that process, learn, learn from. Check out this exclusive episode with Ja Rule on Rock Solid. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Rock Solid, and listen now. This is an iHeart Podcast.