Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/18/26: GOP Midterm Wipeout Polling, Zohran Rent Freeze Win, UAE Pressured On Sudan

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Ryan and Emily discuss Republican midterm wipeout polls, Zohran rent freeze win, UAE pressured on Sudan.     To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Over the last couple years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people? Because of what happened in Alabama? This Black History Month, the podcast, Selective Ignorance with Mandy B, unpacked black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo. The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more.

Listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson,

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Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experience. experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to two guys, five rings on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access. as to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Meanwhile, we're still technically in a government shutdown, Ryan. Yes, Democrats, I think you've got to give them their flowers for, like, effectively maneuvering enough government funding through.

Remember, we were saying, like, this was their goal, and they were pretty clear about it, and Republicans let them do it. What they did is they got government funding for everything except Homeland Security. And so then when Homeland Security came up, they're like, no, we're not doing that. Partly, I think it's the senators and the House members were so proud of themselves for getting appropriations bills through regular order. Yeah. That they couldn't resist passing them through the House and Senate. Because they haven't done that in like 20 years or something like that.

That's a wild theory. And Democrats are like, yeah, go, go do that. Go ahead. And now, with the government funded other than Homeland Security, Democrats are sitting with all the leverage. Well, and yeah, let's just set the table a little bit. Dave Chappelle, let's put this up on the screen, was in Minnesota yesterday and visited a memorial to Alex Prattie. This, of course, the reason Democrats feel fully confident pushing this shutdown is because the base, the party's base, is absolutely demanding action against DHS and ICE after the violent January in Minneapolis.

And so the fallout from that is trickling right now into this. And just yesterday, we can put the CNBC report up on the screen. This is the next element. Democrats sent a counteroffer over to Trump. Now, technically, DHS is still funded, pretty well funded right now because there was something in the one big beautiful bill that was passed in July to fund them. But headline here is Democrats send Trump DHS funding. Counteroffers, agency shutdown grinds on.

So Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, but I think this is actually just a reference to Schumer's new counteroffer. They are, as CNBC says, quote, locked in negotiations. And they aren't saying they literally did not say publicly what was in the counteroffery yesterday. So we don't know. Brian, do you have any sense of what Democrats might be willing to cede in order? Because Democrats here are in the minority. That goes without saying. Republicans control the House.

They control the Senate. They control the White House. What might Dems actually be willing to concede on this? Well, they're pushing for some, you know, the kinds of police reforms they were pushing for back in the teens. like more body cams, which people have been like, we have footage of Renéna Cole Good and Alex Predey being shot and killed

from like eight different directions. Like a ninth is not changing a situation. Like there's a problem of accountability and impunity that is leading to this, not the fact that we don't have enough camera footage of what's going on. Although I would argue in both of those cases, having first person perspective from the officer or officers will go to making their case for how threatened they actually were.

And they should not have to be pressed to agree to that. Because in the good case, having his, I mean, the guy is holding his phone in his hand and his gun in his other hand, the officer in that case. And so the Nome actually did, I think at one point with Walls and Frye agreed to put body cams on everyone in Minnesota. during Operation Metro Surge, which is now over. So maybe that's something that the Democrats can claim a win on if they get the administration agreeing to supply almost everyone. I think it's like the number that I remember is like some 30% right now are wearing body cams.

It's not even a majority. So if they, I mean, maybe that's a win that Democrats can take to the base. Yeah, that's one thing. The other things they have pushed for are they want to end this like Papers Please, Gestapo situation where they just go around a neighborhood. identifying anybody that they think is here illegally and asking them for papers. They want to stop that. They want to require a warrant.

Like, hey, look, you say you've got X number of millions of people who are here illegally. You know where they live. You know who they are. If you don't, you have an enormous budget. Go figure that out and go find them. And the masks. Like, we don't want masked gunmen walking around the streets. Like, that's a major demand from Democrats and the Democratic base.

I just don't think that's one that the administration will cave on. But, I mean, I agree with a, I don't think armed agents at the stage should be wearing masks. On the other hand, if I had someone in, if I had someone I love to work nice right now, I'd probably want them to be wearing a mask for their own safety, but then you shouldn't take the job. So it's a... It's a democracy. Like... If you're armed, yeah.

If your agency is so despised by the public. that merely working in it is a threat to your family, the agency is the problem, not the people, is what I would say. But people are, like Democrats are just absolutely, completely fed up with this. So New York Times focus group is validating Ryan's spidey sense of what the Democratic Party's base looks like right now. Let's just put this image up on the screen.

New York Times asked their focus group, A candidate who identifies as progressive or a candidate who identifies as moderate. Every single person in the focus group across the demographic spectrum from every different cohort said a progressive candidate. And for a moderate candidate, the New York Times reports, no one raised a hand. Now, this is a feast for somebody who wrote the books that you've written, Ryan. Like this is a veritable feast of different threats to pull. It's bitter sweet because it's like if you would have listened to us when it mattered, then we might not be here.

So it's very bittersweet to have people come around and be like, okay, yeah, actually, you were right. Well, yeah, well, we're still in hell. Okay, yes. But also, it's interesting how people are going to define modern and progressive

because are they defining progressive as Alyssa Lachin? Do you remember in the 2008 Democratic primary it was a big deal for Hillary Clinton to identify herself as a progressive? It was like a question It meant something back then. Right.

Yeah. And then 2020 kind of lost its meaning because everybody adopted it. But then by 2024 in the backlash around BLM and everything and the woke stuff, you did, you had a little bit of sheen come off of progressive. And it became, it meant more to say you were progressive. Right. Now people witnessing what moderation gets you. are saying, I don't want to be, I don't want anything to do with that. Which is very interesting.

Because on the one hand, there are obvious analyses about voters seeing, and there's primaries in general elections, obviously, but voters seeing Democrats as having gone a little wacky on some of the cultural stuff. And polling on some of the cultural stuff suggests that's absolutely true, that Dems got on the wrong side of some different. different issues. So that's going to be a very, very interesting question post-primary for Dems running in Nebraska or, well, independent, like a Dan Osborne running in Nebraska or a grand platner running in Maine or Tallarico or Crockett running in Texas. That's what I'm curious

is how people who are defining themselves as progressive are approaching those issues because I don't know what that means. Yeah. And it's to get a sense of how bad it is, for Democrats, let's roll, I mean, for Republicans. Even Kamala Harris is, like, if you did a redo right now with Trump, the public is saying that they would actually elect Kamala. So let's roll Harry Enton and CNN here. Choice for a 2024 presidential election. The actual was Donald Trump winning by about a point and a half.

It rounds to a point. But take a look here in a polled redo between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. In April of 2025, it was within the margin of our right. Kamala Harris by point. But look at where we are now, according to an NBC News Survey Monkey Poll. Kamala Harris wins in a redo, asking folks, essentially, if you could redo the 2024 election, how would you vote? She wins it by, get this. Eight points, a massive shift from what we saw back in November of 2024 when Donald Trump won by a point. And I will note that this sample was weighted, weighted to the 2024 result in which Donald Trump won by a point. But yet,

Kamala Harris in this re-weighted, in this weighted sample, get this, she wins by eight amongst a sample that voted for Trump by one. Twenty-twenty-four Harris voters. They vote for the Democrats on average by, get this, 89 points. The Trump voters mostly stick by the Republicans, but by a significantly smaller margin, by 83 points. This means that the Democratic base that voted for Kamala Harris is sticking with those congressional Democratic candidates to a much greater degree than those Trump voters are sticking with the Republican candidates for Congress. And that is why what you're seeing on that generic congressional ballot is Democrats leaping ahead by this point by about five points, because at least at this point, that Trump voters are not sticking by the Republicans

as much as the Harris voters are sticking by the Democrat. Voters choice for election for the 26 congressional elections. If they didn't vote in 2024, look at this, Democrats are winning that vote by a significant margin by 16. percentage points. So you add onto that, the Harris voters sticking with the Democratic candidates, all of a sudden you see, hey, this is the way that Democrats are going to get back to a congressional majority. And more than that, I will note that in 2024, of course, the Trump voters, or the people who voted for Trump, he actually won a larger share of those non-2020 voters. It's not just the House, it's the Senate as well. Democrats chance to win the Senate. A year ago, is 19% of Cornyna Kashi,

30% six months ago, and now Democrats have a 40% chance of taking back the U.S. Senate. Nine points. Yeah, the combination of those two things is a wipeout. I think the curious fear of take, I think the 40% underrates at this point,

maybe not Democrats' chances of taking the Senate. But those two numbers combined that the people who did vote in 2024 now going heavily towards Democrats, and the people who didn't vote in 2024 but intend to vote in 2026, them being heavily Democratic. Also, the combination of that means a wipeout for Republicans in the midterms because you saw the numbers. People who didn't vote in 2020 favored Trump heavily in 2024. That's a key figure, the people who either weren't old enough to vote or just didn't want to.

When they come in, they tilt the electorate in sometimes unpredictable ways. is if you have a shift that big, Susan Collins loses, even to Janet Mills, who's not going to win the primary, by the way. Like she's getting, I think Platner's going to beat her fairly convincingly. We'll see. Nebraska might go.

Alaska goes. Like Mary Paltola wins this Alaska seat. If that's the... The climate. People are so mad at what the federal government has done to Alaska. Iowa is in play. Unfortunately, Nathan Sage dropped out. But Iowa is in like a depression.

Trump's killing Iowa. Deep red. That's in play. Jared Brown, with those numbers, can win in Ohio. North Carolina, probably Democratic with those numbers. Asaf cruises and is like top-tier presidential candidate with those numbers. I don't get I don't Texas forget it Texas for me

I don't mean I was so close last time genuinely was so close last time if you guys go ahead and pick that crazy attorney general me yeah the the Ken Paxton race cornon Paxton thoroughly corrupt

professionally and personally and might be the nominee and if he goes up then against Tala Rico okay I'll like watch it I'm not gonna believe it, but I will pay attention. For the record, I have no dog in the Texas Republican primary, or to the extent my only

real dog in that fight is that John Cornyn is a establishment McConnell tool. So I'll say that. That doesn't mean the other options are great either. So speaking of which, that's exactly what I was just going to say. My caveat to everything you just laid out about the climate being unfavorable to Republicans, It's that I went back and recently pulled the numbers compared to 2018, which was a massive blue way, a blue tsunami. Republican favorability, Dem favorability. Right now, Dems are at negative 19.9. Republicans are at negative 12.8. The Democratic Party is less favorable nationwide than the Republican Party, even though Donald Trump is so unfavorable. People do not like Democrats.

They just don't like Democrats. Now, Dems still lead in the congressional ballot right now, but by a smaller margin than they did at this point in 2018. What's that lead looking like now? Let me pull the RCP here. While I find that, I will keep... Okay, here this. Okay. So Dems have a plus 4.6 spread right now. Plus 6?

Plus 4.6. Yeah. Plus 4.6. Yeah. Plus 4.6. So, I mean, it's actually fairly healthy at this point, but it is lower than where they were at this point. in 2018, or at least as of the time that I published that last story. So anyway, the problem that Democrats will have is getting people to the polls to counter disillusionment with the party.

Now, Republicans are going to have that problem, too, because Donald Trump is not on the ballot. And the disillusionment, when Donald Trump is not on the ballot, makes people stay home, vote for the dem in some cases if it's an independent. but that's a, I mean, independent voters in general elections, like Maine, for example, certainly in Texas, certainly in Georgia, certainly in Alaska, if independents don't like Democrats, that's the caveat. I do think things are, the climate looks good for Democrats for maybe a blue wave, but is it a blue tsunami, the type of which that sweeps, you know, Asoff into a healthy reelection, possibly someone from Texas, possibly someone from Alaska,

Dan Osborne and Nebraska. I don't know that yet, and Osborne obviously is running as an independent, but Democrats are carrying a lot of weight. The brand is carrying a lot of weight right now. It is. So, yeah. In a midterm, though,

people are almost always voting against something, then for something. And that was the case in 2010. They were voting against, you know, they came out against, Obama and Democrats, and the status quo, 94, 2018, 2006. Like 2006, Democrats were not popular, but Bush was much more hated. And so the only option that we give to voters to express their anger in a midterm is to vote for the other party.

And so, and because you're not going to put them in power, I think it's easier for people you're not going to put them in the White House. So in 2006, you might not like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Right. But you really didn't like Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush and Dick Cheney. So you're like, fine, Democrats. So I think that's what they're going to do this time. Fine, Democrats.

And I hope Democrats don't confuse that for love. Love, right. Yeah, that's a fine line. It's a fine line. Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Welcome to the A building.

I'm Hans Charles. I'm Minalick Lamuba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated. And Black America was out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia at Martin's Al-Mermata, Moore House College, the students had their own protest.

It featured two prominent figures in Black history. Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people would die. In 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A building on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world.

But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats. texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn.

No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its fault of secrets. Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaking of love, Ryan, Mom Donnie, beloved by all, the men of the people. Do we have any polling on him? That guy is just killing it.

Like, the funny thing about a mayor is that, like, the job is to be hated, and he'll get there. I was going to say. Give him time. Yeah. It's only been there six weeks, seven weeks at this point. usually a mayor by this point can't walk outside grazing mansion without getting heckled but if we put up i think it's the third element um the news now is that mom dine is going to be able to appoint a majority of people on the on the rent guidelines board which will then allow him to uh enact his

one of his most prominent and most criticized campaign promises which is to freeze the rent and this is a good moment to think about all of the people who put themselves out there as, you know, experts on the democratic process and on politics. And what, these are the well, actually, types of nerds who inject themselves into these conversations and say, well, actually, you know, Albany needs to sign off on any tax increases. So it doesn't matter what he's, what Mom Donnie says. And they say, here, well, actually. the rent stabilization board, the rent guideline board.

You know, there are a lot of tenures that will be hanging over for a long time. We never get you in character, so this is a rare treat. And so they basically they said, Mom Dani can't. He can't... We're good with that tweet.

Mom Dani cannot, on his own, freeze the rent. So stop getting excited about what this guy is promising you he's going to do. And other people said, look, with enough will, there is a way. With public pressure, the board will do what the mayor wants to do because they don't want to get in the way of this public will. And right as he left office, Eric Adams tried to install a landlord-friendly member to this board for a period of time that would have. made it difficult for that for mom donnie to have full control of the board and execute it on his agenda guess what that guy said no way are you kidding me like if you are a landlord friendly type of

person that eric adams is going to put on the board you're probably doing pretty well in your life you may have some difficulties at home you know there's probably some unhappiness somewhere in soul as a result of how you got where you are. But you're doing pretty good. Like your life is, life is pretty good. And Eric Adams is like, why don't you be the face of rent increases against Mayor Mom Dhani? And so they nominated this person. And we won't even name them because why, why make them infamous? In fact, we'll give them credit. But when it was too late for Eric Adams to do anything about But the person said, actually, how about I don't do that? How about I don't spend the next several years being the face of rent increases?

The guy standing in the way of this democratic mandate for freezing the rent. He might not, this guy probably thinks freezing the rent is a terrible idea for all the reasons. Lots of people think it's a terrible idea. Including me? Including you. I don't think it's going to work. I'll go on the record right now. God bless the people of New York City.

You know what it might not. But what it's going to do is bring relief to a lot of people in the short term. And then it will put pressure on politicians to get it right. As a long-term solution, there's a lot to... And you know, I think Zoroamam Dani actually, if he were sitting with us right now, he probably would say the long-term solution is the more important policy. Right, right. And sort of like tariffs in a way, like the tariff.

For Trump or a stand-in? Yes. They were a proxy for Trump understands that things suck and that we're getting ripped off. Yeah. People are ripping you off. And he's going to do something about it. Not that tariffs alone are going to fix everything. Or that tariffs long term, the way he's implementing them or even a good idea.

Of course he can. I think there's a similarity there. The freeze-the-rent was a stand-in. for fixed prices. No, for like, housing is unaffordable. Yeah. Life is unaffordable in New York City

and I care and I'm going to do what I can to try to reverse that. Right. Now, do you want to make the counter argument? I can even make, we can all make them, but what to the rent freeze?

Well, I mean, there are obvious counter arguments but the one thing I would say in the short term that becomes a real threat to people who find themselves in precarious housing situations is that landlords act even worse. The rent gets frozen. They stop fixing things. They let you live in abject squalor.

And so the mayor is going to have to then be policing that even harder, like housing codes and regulations and all of that. On the other hand, can you get people into, I mean, can he build? I don't know. Can he build the types of places that people want to move into? Can you increase supply in a way that doesn't just, leave people stuck. You can freeze the rent and it's going to be frozen at an unacceptably high level for a lot of people. That's kind of the problem with

New York City to begin with. Yeah, and to me it's an incomplete policy. Like you would need, like if you're going to freeze it and let's, what often happens is somebody, a tenant leaves and the place needs somewhere between $10,000 and $50,000. So you get empty spaces. You got to, yeah. Because for a new tenant, you want to make the place look better. And you want to fix all the problems that exist. And that can, that can end up being fairly expensive. And if it costs $40,000 to rehab the unit, there's a lot, but let's say it costs $40,000 and rehab the unit, and you can't move the rent to cover that cost. Because construction's expensive in New York. Then what a lot of landlords do is they just leave it empty. Yep. And that's not, like,

nobody would argue that we should leave units empty. I think Zoron has actually talked about that, too. empty units. There's tons of like ghost units. So to me, a more complete policy would be like, okay, we're asking you to subsidize against the market rate by keeping this rent underneath the market rate. So we then, as the city, are going to come in and we'll rehab it for you. Like, do that at least. Well, let's put this on the screen. I mean, this is F, E4. This is going to be a sot. This is Mom Doni doing a little bit of doge, because even before, he was elected, he was the guy who was holding court, speaking fluent, abundance in conversations with Derek Thompson. So listen to Mayor Mom Donnie. This is the next stop. We are being as

aggressive as we can in recognizing additional revenue and have surpassed the state in our estimates of personal income tax, corporate tax, and sales tax. But responsible governance is not only about revenue. It is also about discipline. That means finding savings of across city government, reducing bureaucratic waste, and rendering agencies more efficient and cost-effective. That is why I signed an executive order establishing a chief savings officer in every city agency. Chief savings officers, or CSOs, have a simple remit, identifying savings within the agencies they serve. They will consolidate redundancies, insource programs that have been outsourced to bloated consultant contracts, and eliminate extraneous programs. Each CSO will

issue a public report by March 20th, detailing the savings they have found and provide updated assessments every six month. These CSOs will have clear goals, 1.5% in savings in fiscal year 2026 and 2.5% in fiscal year 27. I mean, he's picking all the low-hanging fruit, Ryan. He's cleaning the subway. He's doing an obvious thing where he's, as a progressive Democrat, Democratic Socialist, going out and saying, we're appointing chief savings officers to get me a report within a month, basically, about savings that they found throughout the government. So coupling rent control with a little bit of doge is at least better than not, I suppose. Yeah, and the beauty of this, to me, is that it, and we had Christian Parenti on here,

you know, saying the left needs to embrace some austerity. He literally made exactly, yes, the argument for what Zeran Mandani just did. Yeah, and the argument is that if you and the public, like, care about the government doing good things, it has to do them efficiently and effectively. Yeah. And that the government's purpose is to benefit the public, not just to kind of make work for government workers. And under the Tammany Hall kind of style of city politics, it becomes its own thing and its

own power base. but if you want to really radically use it to make as a kind of force for working people in the city working people have to believe that the government is that they are the government the government is them and they're working as one rather than that the government is this thing that is its own separate entity that is actually just trying to extract from you and too many working people think correctly, not, I wouldn't say correctly, but like fairly. Yeah. And in many cases correctly, have identified the city governments as like just extractive.

And their goal then is then to get the jobs in government or to get, you know, if their cousin works in this department, maybe they can get in that department too. And that's not sustainable and it's not a way to scale up. You want working for everybody. So good for Mom Dani for embracing this because like it's too easy to just to not do it. Yeah. And that's why Doge could have been great. If like Doge came in and was like, wait a minute, you're all using these like 1984 computers running on Microsoft Windows 98.

Like let's upgrade this stuff. We're going to let's make it so you can do your job more efficiently. It's going to cost a little money here, but it's going to save all of this money down the road. That would have been one of the best services. Al Gore tried to do that, remember? Yeah, but to your point, Doge lost the public trust really quickly. And to undertake significant reforms, you have to have public trust. And they lost public trust.

And actually, I wanted to ask about this because this, I just remember broke last night. I'm curious what your take of this is, New York Post, so they don't like Mayor. Mamdani, to say the least, who, by the way, producer Max says, he's up plus 16. He's up 16 points in his approval rating. So interesting. Mom Donnie. He won by about 15, so it's up. So he's like even more, yeah, it's unusual to go northward.

We'll see how that continues, but here's the headline. Mom Donnie brings back homeless encampment sweeps turning on campaign promise after backlash over cold weather deaths. So the New York Post is reporting that he's. expected to reverse course on this campaign promise because of this deadly cold snap in which I think at least 10 people have died on the streets of New York City. It's been very, very cold. And sources have told the New York Post that that is going to start possibly as soon as today. Very interesting.

The Post says the city's Department of Homeless Services, which has been left in the large with zero guidance since Mom Donnie's order came down to halt the sweeps last month, will again take the lead on issuing notices to people living on the streets. said that was an Eric Adams policy. It's been unpopular with people on the left. But listen, my perspective on that is it can save lives. I wonder if that's Vermamondani's perspective having been in power for about a month now if that actually is worth the life-saving efforts and just bitterly cold weather in New York City. So I don't know, Ryan. I don't know what to make of that, actually, to be honest. This seems like a case of

where your well-meaning left orthodoxy ran into this fierce ice storm and snowstorm. Right. And I'm glad he's readjusting this. On the other hand, the orthodoxy comes from a serious place where criminalizing homelessness has its own obvious problems. Cruelties. That's not a solution either. but certainly in these like freezing you know freezing you know freezing temperatures for long stretches of time it's it's just incredibly unsafe and can be deadly to be out in the cold then so the

government has some responsibility you got to like can't you don't want people to just die in the streets well i'm curious to see how he handles questions that i'm sure he's going to get from new york city press corps about this because listen i think people actually respect when you are leveling with them as a politician, you say, listen, like, this was, we have people dying and I did what I had to do. You know, that's how it goes. So I don't know.

I'm curious how he handles that. Yeah, we'll see. But, yeah. Because he's not actually afraid to, like, color outside the lines, as we're pointing out with him doing Doge in New York City. That hasn't ever been, like, a huge barricade for him.

And the storm is interesting context, than the snow for his popularity rate. Like, you could easily imagine a world where the city was just wrecked by this dump of snow and that he's at like the 30s in popularity already. This was a difficult situation. New York seems to have handled it much better than D.C., in fact. It's been fun.

Thankfully, the 40-degree days are now getting us out of this. But the city was struggling. And, you know, Mom Dani was very out there and energetic, out there, like, with the crews and, like, doing the mayor thing. Yeah. Which, you know, there are probably some people were like, oh, the problem with these left-wing candidates, they're not, they don't, they're just going to be lost in, like, the ivory tower of socialist ideas, but not, not get into the streets. and actually do the job of being a mayor, which the number one job of being a mayor is plowing the streets when it snows.

But he was so aware of that, like deeply aware of what went wrong with de Blasio. So we'll see if he can stave that off in his own tenure at Gracie Manor. Let's move on to Sedanarin. Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are of them.

And that's why we're thrilled to introduce The Honest Talk Podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm in Alec Lamoma. It's 1969. Malcolm X of Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated, and Black America was out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale.

In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's Almermata, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King's senior and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people would die. In 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone.

The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A-building on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast.

I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. no one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In Sudan, the Sudanese army in a wave of drone strikes in Cordofan and the Sinar State. over a period of a couple days killed upwards of 60 people, at least 26 of them, civilians in West Cordifan. In North Cordifan, 28 people were killed when an SAF drone struck a market, according to the emergency lawyers group operating there.

The Sudan Doctors Network reported three killed in shelling and blamed that on the UAE-backed RSF. And some sources that a hospital was directly hit in that case. This comes as at the Munich Security Conference, finally we started seeing some pressure applied to the UAE in particular, which has evaded kind of all responsibility for this catastrophe that they have be gotten. And the U.S. is putting forward a proposal to the kind of the quartet of countries that are kind of behind this, behind this war. Let's roll F2 here. You've been very involved in peace talks, particularly with the quad, which we were talking about earlier, which is the U.S., Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. So can you just update us? Is it peace in our time?

You know, can we be hopeful? We've done extensive work. We've been in continuous contact with both parties to work on the quad road map that we put out on September 12. The roadmap starts with the humanitarian truth and ends with a political transition process. So on the humanitarian truth, we presented an initiative. We presented a strong text to the parties that addresses all aspects of this,

let's call it temporary ceasefire or truth. We have also engaged in extensive consultations with both sides and then we've reached at some point an understanding that it will be most useful to go through a UN mechanism. So we proceeded with that. We've been working with Outsha specifically and with the UN Secretary General and his team to come up with the UN mechanism that will help implement and monitor this ceasefire or this humanitarian truth. And we've worked on it for weeks and I can say that we announced that in Washington a few days ago along with with our partner Tom Fletcher, that we do have a draft mechanism. It's going to be hopefully finalized very soon by the Secretary General's office.

And we will be ready at that point in time, hopefully within days, to present the final draft to the parties and hopefully get their approval. And the reason there is hope that this could be ended is that if the UAE were to back off, most outside observers believe that this would have to be, you know, have to wind up in a negotiated solution. The UAE has completely escaped any pressure internationally from the, from the U.S. At the Munich Security Conference, Channel 4s, Lindsay Hilsom asked the American advisor, Massad Bulos, if it was time to get nasty with the U.E and finally put some pressure on, let's roll this.

that there's enough talking. Because I understand that you bring together all these different parties, but it seems to me that this is the time... It's a time to get nasty, isn't it? Isn't it the time to put real leverage on the countries that are arming these factions? And the US has more leverage. President Trump has more power than anyone else.

Come on, you can do it. I agree with you. We've been quite patient and we've been quite accommodating. We wanted to make sure it's a successful. process. We've been engaging with both sides and all the relevant actors. However, too much time has gone by and it's really it's about time to act. In fact, next week at the UN with the Honourable Secretary Cooper, we're going to have some serious talk and action. You know, what is the pressure you're putting on him? What is the pressure you're putting on Hometti? What is the pressure you're putting on Abu Dhabi to stop taking the gold which is coming out of Sudan at $5,000 an ounce? Yes. Regarding, again, regarding the external support, our position is very clear, not just us, but all our partners within the quad and all the other partners.

We are totally against any sort of external support that we're seeing, and we're seeing it coming from all sorts of different sources, different supply routes, and to both parties. We're seeing it come to both sides. And this is totally counterproductive, absolutely, to the mechanism and to the process that we're putting in place. We have a comprehensive peace plan that we've proposed. And we're going to work. But I'm still not understanding how, I mean, you know, I've looked at some of the principles of your peace plan. It hasn't been published yet, but, you know, I've looked at it. It looks great.

But I don't see what is going to make either the parties or those supporting the parties agree to it. They want to keep fighting. So this is going to be a Sudanese-Swedanese solution. We're not going to come here and impose anything. We can probably come up with mechanisms that will help them. We can come up with probably a UN Security Council resolution that will give the legal cover and the umbrella for this work. But it's going to have to be a Sudan-Sudanese solution.

It's going to be a comprehensive national dialogue and leading to a civilian-led government. So that's Tiffany Trump's father-in-law, for what it's worth. Let's also roll this clip of the UK Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper at the Munich Security Conference, responding also to those questions about pressure, pressure, what kind of pressure will be used as leverage to get to peace?

Everyone says they want peace. How are you going to get there? Let's roll the clip. What is Britain doing to try and pressure the United Arab Emirates to stop supporting the RSF? So there are two different issues there. So let me just briefly deal with the issues around arms flows and the UK controls, because we have very substantial controls. We ensure, in fact, when there were any allegations made, I insisted that all the licenses were reviewed and 2,000 licenses were reviewed to ensure that there was no leakies, to ensure that there was no, nothing than any of those licenses was reaching. Sudan and to make sure that the allegations that had been made were unfounded. But if there are any further allegations, we would take the same approach and to review extensively to ensure that that

must not happen. But what I'm asking you about very specifically, and then I'm going to come on to you as well, is about leverage, again, what leverage does Britain have on the UAE, because the UAE is supporting the RSF. I know they deny it, but there is plenty of evidence. And it seems to me that Britain has a very close relationship with the UAE. So what I'm asking is, what are you doing to pressure them? So we raise all of these issues with the UAE, with Saudi, with Egypt, all of the members of the Quad, who are working with Mossad and continue to do so. And we also believe that this needs to be wider than the Quad. So I've raised this with the African Union, with all of the neighbouring states, with foreign ministers, from all of the neighbouring states for Sudan. Our assessment is there's

probably more than a dozen countries who are in some way involved in arms flows, maybe through funding, maybe through manufacture, maybe through transit, maybe through training in different ways. And like you, I am concerned of evidence that some of those arms flows may be escalating rather than reducing. However, a huge amount of work has been done on what a ceasefire might look like. Impressive questions from the moderator, Ryan. And unimpressive answers. And we wanted to play all those clips because if you read into what she's saying that Cooper for instance what are you going to do about the ue well i reviewed a whole bunch of licenses you know a bunch and then she go like we cut a lot of that out she filibustered forever before instead of answering the question about how they're going to pressure the ua so the

reporter um press it again okay great what are you going to do about the ua she's like well there are like a dozen countries that are involved in some way in this so of course we should pressure the UAE but also Saudi Arabia, but also Egypt and all the, like doing everything she can to, if she can't kind of say that the UAE is innocent to just pour as many other culpable parties on top of it so that you spread out the blame. When everybody who's following this is like, no, it's the UAE that is the key driver of this conflict. Now, to be fair, the Sudanese armed forces are also.

a significant problem here. And the Sudanese Prime Minister at Munich, we won't play this because it's too hard to kind of clip up. Camille Idris, we can just put this tweet up, and people can read it from Dropsite. So he went back and forth with her as well and says basically that a ceasefire would, quote, not be an end. He said, a truce quote, will never work

unless it's paired with disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, meaning that the RSF fighters must surrender their weapons, dismantle forces, and be reintegrated to civilian life. And all those steps must happen concurrently. He said the RSF are now, quote, mercenaries. Basically, his argument is that they have basically killed any of the kind of indigenous elements of the RSF, and now they're basically all mercenaries that the UAE is paying to bring in. It is a fact that there are enormous numbers of mercenaries that have come in and fought on behalf of the UAE or RSF in Sudan, but it's not true that it's all of there. There has to be, you have to reckon with that fact. And he also deflected when what asked about the SAF's own war crimes, which are many. So while there is some pressure in the U.S. is saying that there are,

They're putting forward a proposal to end this. Like, the UAE's backers don't seem that interested in putting real pressure on the UA to end it. And the SAF also is still drawing a pretty hard line. It's where you look at, Munich is such a polite place. It's such a, like, hub. We're all friends here. All these conferences are like hubs of respectability politics. And one of the things you can read into from the tough questions there, at least I think you can read into, is that people who are following this seriously realize when the dust settles, how dark the kind of global disinterest in this is going to look.

Yeah. That's kind of what I'm watching this. It's almost a little jarring to see it on stage at Munich like that. And not just to us. And they all know what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah, it's really, it's really dark. And I think with the moderator, whose name I should.

know, but what I think she's prepared for, she's looking at the carnage and thinking, these are serious questions. These are not, you can't just sort of like punt this stuff away because everybody is going to look really bad when the dust settles. Everybody looks really bad now if you're following it closely. Right. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

And before we read, we wanted to put up F6, we wanted to give a little shine to the Sudanese journalist network. This is the IN network. We'll put a link to this. It's down in the show notes. You can watch the full clip. There's not a whole lot of good journalism coming out of this war for obvious reasons. And so it's very difficult to cover.

But Ion Network got did some very interesting on the ground reporting about what it's like to live through one of these sieges and battles for the civilian population there. So we'll put that in so you can watch the whole thing for if you really want to dive into it. But that will do it for us for today. You were here yesterday? I was here yesterday. I think soger's back. I think sogars back tomorrow. Sager back tomorrow.

And we'll all be here. We'll not here. We'll be back Friday. We'll be back Friday. And second half that show, premium subs. So breakingpoints.com if you want to get it. Yes. It's what makes the show possible.

It's the counter algorithm. I was going to say they keep the lights on, but that is a horrible point because last week my lights literally went off in the middle of the Friday show. I lost power for like four hours, and it happened while we were live taping the Friday show. So it doesn't necessarily keep the lights on.

And Emily and I are going to do the Megan Kelly show later today. That's right. We're going to do an Epstein. Deep dive. Right. Which means, by the way, We've been planning here at Breaking Points as producer Griffin teased last Friday

some type of deep dive into Epstein for a while. This is, I think, a good... Megan has us on today to do a deep dive, but that's a good reminder for us at breaking points. We've got to get this thing rolling. Yeah, that's also a good reminder for you that you have the Megan Kelly thing later.

Don't forget that. Yeah, and then the podcast live at 9, like there's no rest for the weary, Ryan. It is what it is. It's working, though, right? It does, and the news doesn't stop. There's so much to do. So breakingpoints.com if you want a premium subscription,

otherwise Ryan and I will see you Friday, and Crystal and Sager will see you back here tomorrow. Over the last couple years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people because of what happened in Alabama? This Black History Month, the podcast, Selective Ignorance with Mandy B,

unpacked black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo. The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, And that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hair styles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis.

And at Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the board of trustees, including Martin Luther King's senior. It's the true story of protests and rebellion in black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Minelick Lamumba. Listen to the A-building on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bowen-Yen. And I'm Matt Rogers.

During this season of the Two Guys' Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan-Cortina-2026 winner Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bob, hi, Matt. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt, hey, boy. Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to two guys, five rings on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.