Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/21/22: Ukraine Tensions, Truckers, CDC Secrets, Epstein Questions, CNN Corruption, Crypto, Child Tax Credit, & Populist Left vs Right!

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Krystal and Saagar cover the Ukraine-Russia developments, Canadian Trucker crackdown, CDC hiding data, Epstein pimp's mysterious death, even more details of CNN's corruption, the case for bitcoin, culture war killing material politics, a populist left vs right debate on workers, and more!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Oren Cass: https://americancompass.org/essays/not-what-they-bargained-for/ https://www.ft.com/content/050e37b9-f5f9-4b4d-8b5d-a70e96981f28 Paul Prescod: https://www.jacobinmag.com/author/paul-prescod https://www.paulprescod.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? We have a lot of huge stories this morning. So, indeed, we do have a big show to get to. Huge developments coming out of Ukraine. We're going to leave the show with that in just a moment. Also, all the details about the massive crackdown on those remaining protesters up in Canada and whether a similar protest could be coming to the U.S. There's a lot of sort of security state fear-mongering about this at the moment. So we'll give you those details there. Also, this is a pretty bombshell revelation that certainly fuels like some of the worst conspiracy theorists out there, but is something that is worth taking note of. The CDC has collected all of this data with crucial information about how effective boosters are, how long you're infectious for, all of these very granular, detailed information that we

could really use to help deal with the pandemic that they haven't been releasing to anyone. And have no plans to. And have no plans to. So New York Times says that story. We're going to break that down for you. Also, massive development in the whole Epstein saga one i mean the guy that was effectively his pimp allegedly supplying thousands of girls to epstein hanged himself um in a very similar manner to how jeffrey epstein himself uh died died in prison. So we've got those details for you. Also new revelations about exactly why Jeff Zucker and Alison Gallis are out at CNN. I'm also really excited about a debate we have today between Paul Prescott and Oren Kass about unions, public sector versus private sector unions, and also some legislation that Margot Rubio put forward trying to get workers non-voting

seat on corporate boards. That'll be a really fun discussion. But we have to start with all of the breaking news coming out of Ukraine. There are developments just this morning that we will get to in a moment. But to catch you up to speed, bottom line is massive escalation, both in terms of rhetoric from the U.S. side, a tone shift from the Russian side, also actual escalations on the ground, mutual accusations of ceasefire violations, and a sort of ginned up refugee crisis that is unfolding as we speak. So we'll give you all of those details. Let's start with President Biden, who has now come out and said that based on US intelligence, they believe that Putin has already given the order to invade Ukraine. Again, offering no specifics of that

intelligence and some of our allies are skeptical. We'll get to that in a minute. But here's what the president had to say. Yes. My sense is this will happen in the next several days. Well, there are just these. Are there any diplomatic paths still available? Yes, there is. There's a third diplomatic path. That's why I asked Senator Secretary Blinken

to go to the United Nations and make his statement today. He'll lay out what that path is. I've laid out a path to Putin as well on, I think, Sunday. And so there is a path, there is a way through this. Are you going to call Putin? I'm not calling Putin. I have no plans to call Putin right now. Okay, and then the very latest this morning is that President Biden has agreed in principle

to have a meeting with Putin if there is no invasion. Observer is very skeptical that any sort of actual face-to-face meeting is really going to happen. And in addition, the White House now saying this morning, on top of that the Kremlin has given the order to invade, they're saying that they have compiled a specific list of Ukrainian individuals that they would target either to kill or to imprison. These would be dissidents. These would also be LGBTQ people. That's the word from the White House. President Zelensky from Ukraine continues to really castigate the U.S. and Western powers for their entire response to this, complaining very much about how they're using all of this heated rhetoric, freaking people out in Ukraine, but not actually taking really any specific actions.

Let's take a listen to what he had to say. And we are being told that you have several days and then the war will start. And I said, OK, then apply the sanctions today. Yes, they say we apply sanctions when the war will happen. I'm saying, fine, but you are telling me that it's 100% that the war will start in a couple of days. Then what are you waiting for? We don't need your sanctions after the bombardment will happen and after our country will be fired at

or after we will have no borders or after we will have no economy or parts of our countries will be occupied. Why after we will have no borders and after we will have no economy or parts of our countries will be occupied why would we need those sanctions then what is this about in terms of nato we had a lot of debates regarding this and there were lots of discussions about the world leaders and my friends and meanwhile i have lots of friends among the world leaders. I will not name them because others will get offended. Ukraine is being supported, indeed. But Ukraine needs security guarantees.

We are smart people. We are not narrow minded. We understand there are lots of different risks because of NATO. There is no consensus around all of their allies. Everyone is saying there is some distance that we need to go between Ukraine and the NATO that we need to walk. All we're saying is tell us how much time does it take to complete this distance. So very much a put up or shut up moment there, both in terms of, hey, listen,

he's like all of this rhetoric and saying, oh, what's specifically gonna be this day of invasion, massive, I mean, crushing the Ukrainian economy. And meanwhile, they're saying, and you're not really doing anything, you're just freaking everybody out and costing our economy. And then same thing on NATO saying effectively, look, we get it. If you don't

really want us in there, like just tell us, be upfront with us. And then we can work with that. And of course, NATO being potentially one of the key points of tension here with the Russians. Our vice president, I got a couple more pieces here to just set up the story of everything that's happened. Our vice president being as profoundly unhelpful as she normally is and unimpressive as she normally is. Let's take a listen to what she had to say. It requires sometimes for us to put ourselves out there in a way that maybe we will incur some cost. And in this situation, that may relate to energy costs, for example. But we are taking very specific and appropriate, I believe, steps to mitigate what that cost might be if it happens.

So she was asked there what Americans should be prepared for if war happens and basically has a word salad there where she says nothing's better. And possibly higher gas prices. So, wow, that could be great for the U.S. economy and for U.S. consumerism. Not like we have a problem. There's a lot to say here, which is that I remain mystified by all sides. So the US, as you say, we say the invasion is imminent. We say that Putin has already given the order. And then Zelensky is like, okay, if that's true, then sanction them. But also that hasn't happened. I'm not whitewashing what's happening here

whatsoever. Let's go ahead and put that next thing up there on the screen in terms of some of the other activity. Beyond what Zelensky, you know, has said there, there is remaining some actual conflict happening in eastern Ukraine. So specifically, there was a high level of shelling that we saw in Donetsk. I may be mispronouncing it, and I'm sorry to everyone who's involved. But this matters because those eastern Ukrainian areas have basically been in a civil war for the last eight years. And the separatists there are Russian-speaking. They're supported by the Russian government. Some of them are even involved in, remember,

that shoot-down of that Malaysian aircraft several years ago. So, look, I'm not saying they're good people. They have very big, strong ties to the Russian government, if not outright cutouts themselves. But what's happening now is that they're being used in a potential kind of proxy way. So there's a lot of observers who say that if an invasion were to come, what it could look like is that they would have a refugee crisis. And by refugee crisis, I'm using air quotes for those just listening because the prospect would be that the eastern Ukrainian militias are saying, no, you have to leave, basically go into Russia, and then use that as a pretext to say, Russia, you should come in in order to guarantee our security. Two Ukrainian soldiers were actually killed in actual shelling and this conflict. I was not able to get to the bottom, Crystal, of what this was actually about, about who the munitions were even supplied by and whether there's a pretext or not.

You do have some legitimate grievances that the Russian minority speaking population in Ukraine does genuinely have in terms of not being able to speak Russian. This is a big problem in the former Soviet Union, like Latvia, there's actually a large stateless group of people who are Russian who have been, I'm not saying they're maltreated because they were Russified in the first place, but post-Soviet conflict is a problem.

And the issue right now with the shelling is that Russia is looking and has long been, saw themselves the guarantor of Slav rights and specifically Russian speaking rights in Eastern Europe could be using this as a pretext possibly to take it over. So if there is a takeover, and again, the Russian Duma and others have recognized Donetsk specifically as part of Russia, then that's what an invasion could look like. So I think what we can say for sure, acknowledging that there's a lot of propaganda that's hard to sort through,

both from the Western media and also from Russian media, is we see some saber-rattling, increased saber-rattling from the Russians that is different from the tone that was coming out last week. Last week, it was much more, oh, we want a diplomatic solution. We're withdrawing our troops. Now we have the Russians,

let's put the BBC tear sheet A5 up on the screen. We have the Russians saying, oh, we're going to keep troops in Belarus and continue the sort of exercises and war games that we're doing there. So that's a definite escalation. You also had nuclear readiness tests that they engaged in, another sort of chest beating, saber rattling kind of actions. We had an escalation because I think

it is important to remember that, yes, there's been a civil war going on in these Russian separatist regions for eight years now, but you had an increased significant spike in allegations of ceasefire violations. So mutual allegations. And of course, one of the things that U.S. intelligence has been saying is, oh, they're going to accuse the Ukrainians of some sort of an atrocity or an attack that's going to justify their invasion. Western media and the U.S. government is basically saying that seems to be going on right now. They're making all these accusations that the Ukrainian government is potentially engaged in genocide in this region. So you have that. And then the other

piece that you have on the refugee front is the Russian separatist regimes in these areas have urged civilians to evacuate to Russia. Thousands of them reportedly are doing so. And you have the Russian government paying them in order to leave and go to Russia. It's something like $130. So again, that could be seen as they're trying to create these images of people fleeing the area when the reality is that they're being told they have to leave and they're being paid to do so. So I think the thing that we can say is that there's definitely been – last week we talked about the sort of Russian propaganda was not preparing their population for any sort of war and invasion. That propaganda has definitely shifted now. Dramatically shifted the last couple of days.

They're still saying like, of course we don't want to invade, but now they're starting to lay the groundwork of, oh, but we may be forced to do something we don't really want to do. Now, listen, the U.S. continues to be extraordinarily confident and bold in their allegations here, very specific. None of them have any evidence that's been offered. Not the you know, not the fact that the intelligence allegedly says that Putin has already decided to invade and already given the orders. Not the intelligence that was offered just this morning that they've compiled a list of who they're gonna kill and who they're gonna target and who they're gonna imprison. And some of our allies continue to be more reluctant

to go as far as the US has in that Washington Post-Terror sheet we put up earlier. They say some European allies question the US's conviction that the Kremlin will launch hostilities, saying that they have not seen direct evidence suggesting Putin has committed to such a course of action. So they haven't seen the evidence. We've not shared the evidence with them, let alone with our own media here. Which is troubling.

Yes. One European official told The Washington Post in Munich that, quote, we have no clear evidence ourselves that Putin has made up his mind and we have not seen anything that would suggest otherwise. Another said that although the situation is grave, at this stage, we do not have such clear intelligence that Putin has decided to invade. So those are kind of all the pieces that are out there. As I said, to sum it up, it seems clear there's been definitely an increase in sort of saber-rattling, chest-beating from the Russians. There's been a shift in their propaganda, and you have the U.S. making increasingly aggressive accusations and allegations that an invasion is imminent,

it has been authorized, a killer in prison list has been drawn up, and yet they're still keeping on the table the possibility of some meeting between Biden and Putin. So that's where things stand. That's where things stand, and I know it's incredibly dynamic. Things are moving. What I cannot separate myself from is the rhetoric coming from Washington. Look, I could be completely proven wrong. But to say that U.S. is saying that Russia is compiling

a kill list and to send people to camps, I just don't believe it. I mean, it's not the year 1933 anymore, Crystal. The eyes of the world and the internet, I mean, you're going to have mobile data. People are going to be able to film and watch all of this. Do we really believe that Russia is willing to make itself a pariah state in the eyes of the world? Would there be a full-scale massacre of Ukrainians? Maybe. I mean, look, then they're a lot more like the Nazis than I would have thought. That being said, I don't think this is Poland 1939. I mean, there has never been any evidence, even in terms of the way the Russians conduct themselves in Chechnya back in the 90s. Obviously, there was bombing. There was a lot of action, you know, terrible action really by the Russian military and killing of civilians. But

they took great care in order to try and move the propaganda war away from being able to be criticized from the West. And that was a civil war in their own country. Here, we would have an invasion of a European state, granted, yes, longstanding ties. So look, it's possible. That being said, it is true. It's not like Russia is its own self-contained economy. I mean, they are deeply dependent upon Europe. And if you saw what the U.S. is accusing Russia of saying that they're going to do, that would almost certainly lead to at least some sort of cutoff,

with sanctions unlike the world has ever seen, and possibly not even sanctions, like the full-scale turning off of the gas. And that would probably be supported, right? This is what Zelensky's saying. If these allegations are true, if they're already they've given the orders they've got the kill list they're sending people to camps like what are you waiting around for is what zelensky is saying again put up or shut up and the fact that the fact that of course the media has been

given no evidence it's just like they just repeat our word for it. No, let me just repeat these things, you know, with no skepticism like I just gave you, being like, really? Is that really what's going to happen? A lot of these reports, too, it's like just one anonymous U.S. official, which you should have at least two independent sources

when you run with something, but they'll just, you know, they're reprinting anything that they're told right now. So you should be skeptical there. The fact that our allies have also not seen this purported evidence should also cause you a little bit of skepticism that maybe things aren't as solid or as clear cut as what the U.S.

officials are saying. And of course, there's absolutely no reason to trust Russia in any of the things that they are saying either. This morning, we're also getting more alleged details of the U.S. plans in terms of sanctions. This is from Reuters. They're saying that Biden has prepared an initial package of sanctions against Russia that would include barring U.S. financial institutions from processing transactions for major Russian banks. So that would impact the entire population. That's not just targeted at Russian elites. They also say that there could be specific restrictions put on Russian individuals and companies,

placing them on the specially designated nationals list that would effectively kick those specific targeted people and companies out of the U.S. banking system altogether and freeze their U.S. assets. You know, this article is kind of wild, though, because they say that, you know, the goal of these sanctions would be to hurt the Russian economy, but not the Russian people. How does that work? And they even say that the goal is to cause inflation, trigger capital flight, and to have a short-term upfront cost on the Russian economy. How does that not, how does mass inflation and capital flight not impact the Russian people? I love the way that they spin this stuff.

Let's all be honest. Look, but here's the thing. Look, if Russia actually does what they're going to accuse them of, I'd be like, okay, fine. I mean, you know, if their government is really going to go through with this, then they should be deeply punished by the international financial system. Once again, though, what I would say is most likely, and this is just my opinion from what I can tell, it looks like given the pretext and all that, I think an annexation a la Crimea with the Eastern Ukrainian separatist region looks incredibly likey, probably like 90, I would say like 90%. In terms of what they're proposing, I mean, the US continues to say like they're going

to bomb Kiev, they're going to sack Kiev, they're going to take over the whole country. That just seems extraordinary to me. I could be completely proven wrong. But like I said, the Europe, I mean, the eyes of the world obviously will be upon this. But also, right now, one of the things going for Russia is the deep apathy in Europe and here towards what's happening over there. Most people don't care. This was pointed out over the weekend. Before the invasion of Iraq, there were hundreds of thousands of French and British people who took to the streets, Berlin as well, to march against war. You go to any of those cities right now, nobody cares. I mean, people are saying nothing. Here in the United

States, there's very clear line from the domestic populace saying, we don't really care about what's happening in Ukraine. I'm not saying if you're Ukrainian, I know that sucks, but look, it's our country and we have to also respond to our domestic populace. If they actually legitimately sacked the capital of Kiev and committed the atrocities, that would change dramatically the international picture. And I don't think that, look, if they are truly dumb enough to do that, okay, maybe you're much bigger idiots than I ever thought, but it just doesn't seem as likely, in my opinion. So look, that's my kind of read of where things stand, Crystal, but it's a very dynamic situation. And I continue to be just deeply skeptical of Washington's rhetoric. Jake Sullivan

was on television. We're recording this in the morning. Jake Sullivan was just on TV a couple of minutes ago, and he just said that an invasion of Russia could come within hours. But at a certain point, this comes down to like the boy who cried wolf. It's like, you said they're going to invade on February 16th. That didn't happen. They said that there would be like a putsch and that there would be a takeover if President Zelensky left Ukraine and came to Munich. And then that didn't happen. So it's like how many times are you going to continue to say these grave warnings? The funny thing, too, is that the U.S. media continues to spin this like,

oh, like they've been correct all along. Right, yeah. They acknowledge because the pieces that they can point to are, you know, you have this sort of manufactured refugee crisis. You have the saber rattling. You have, you know, allegations of Ukrainian hostilities that could be used to justify an invasion. So they're like, ah, see, we were right and the U.S. government was right. But they just completely ignore those very specific predictions that did not come true whatsoever. I do want to say in the sanctions, because I disagree with you there, I'm totally on board with any sanctions that target Russian elites and, you know, Russian oligarchs.

But I think what we've seen throughout history is, first of all, I don't support anything that's going to hurt Russian civilians. And I think we've also seen the way throughout history that those sanctions have massively backfired and haven't ended up getting us – have just served to create more hostilities. Because what happens in Cuba? What happens in Iran? They can point to U.S. government sanctions and say this is the reason why your life is miserable. It's not because of our actions. It's not because of our actions. It's not because of our failure. Same thing in Venezuela. And so it gives corrupt regimes sort of an out for their own failings to their population. It hardens sentiment against the West. And I don't think that it is ultimately proved effective, but we're not there yet in

terms of what sanctions are actually going to be levied. This is just what's being reported this morning. Yeah. We don't know where it'll go. Again, I'm saying that I would only be like in the most extreme, you know, basically they act like Nazis, but then it's pariah regime should be treated as so. But look, we'll see in terms of how they conduct themselves. Lots of accusations flying around from Kiev to Washington, Berlin. I think the only thing we didn't mention is that President Macron did speak with Putin and that he did, he claimed that there Macron did speak with Putin. Yeah. And that he did. He claimed that there was still a path forward towards diplomacy. There was a second call late last night, like 1 a.m. Moscow time. And apparently that call, it was a similar tone.

Right. And it's interesting why it's Macron that has kind of stepped up to fill this void. I mean, first of all, you have Boris Johnson, not exactly in a... He's not in good, not a good domestic political situation. Not in great standing right now, not a lot of credibility with his own population, let alone the world community. Of course, you know, Merkel is no longer there. And Macron also has his own election that he's looking towards. So trying to step into this role and his tone has also shifted some. I mean, last week he was very much, you know, we believe in a diplomatic solution. A diplomatic solution is on the table. This is the direction

we're going in. Now the French foreign minister said in a statement that the acts and the words of Russia do not align and warned Russia against any further violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. So there's definitely been a huge shift in tone from the Russians since we last spoke with you last week. Major escalations in terms of level of tension and sort of potentiality of an imminent threat. But, you know, there are a lot of questions left unanswered about exactly what it is the administration is trying to get us to buy here. Yeah, that's right. Okay, let's go ahead and move on to Canada. That's also a very dynamic, confusing situation. In this particular one,

we brought you the news on Thursday that the order had been given by the Canadian Prime Minister after declaring the Emergencies Act and invoking a state of emergency, suspending civil liberties and beginning financial, basically, warfare upon the people who were protesters who were unallowed to speak there. So the police and the authorities there began clearing out some of the areas over the weekend in the city of Ottawa. It was very troubling, Crystal. We saw reports also that they banned the media from coming in.

They actually put out official statements from the Ottawa police saying, media, you're not allowed within this area, keeping them out. Some of the footage here was troubling. There's been a lot made of this footage. People said that a woman was trampled. That doesn't appear to be the case,

but there were horses that were used in order to kind of clear the area. We have some of that footage here. If you're just listening, just stick with us briefly so that the people who are watching can look. Let's go. Oh, come on through. Come on through.

What is happening here? Wow. What is this lady doing? Trampling. Trampling horses. Come on through. What is happening here? Wow. What is this lady doing? Trampling. Trampling horses. Trampling. Stop it. Stop it. Oh my God. Oh my God. Get the fuck down.

They just trampled this lady. They just trampled that lady. They just fully trampled that lady. They just fully trampled that lady. They just fully trampled that lady. They just fully trampled that lady. Oh, here's the lady. Here's the lady that was trampled. Yeah, the lady got fully trampled by the horse. So the woman doesn't appear to have been stepped on, but she was knocked over. That's what What are you doing? What the fuck is wrong with you? What are you doing?

So the woman doesn't appear to have been stepped on, but she was knocked over. That's what apparently all this came down to. Still, obviously, people in riot gear. Another thing that's been happening, Crystal, in the city of Ottawa is that the police are going by and checking everybody's identities, being like, who are you? Do you need to be here? Where are you from? Yeah. If you're still here within an hour, I'm going to arrest you.

They're doing inspections of businesses, making sure that everybody is a local resident there. You know, I saw some guys throwing cameras out of people's faces. It's effectively locked down the city totally. And in order to, you know, not only keep additional protesters from arriving to, you know, bolster the people who already. But also, as we've been covering, this was a highly organized protest from a sort of logistic standpoint. You had people who were faring in food, people who were bringing in diesel in order to keep the trucks running.

And so they've cut off those supply lines also. So, I mean, they're arresting the protesters, they cut off the supply lines, and of course they froze as much of the money, lock the bank accounts as possible to try to completely freeze this thing out. Yeah. And then on top of that, we continue to see and I'll be talking a lot about this in my monologue, which is more about Bitcoin and crypto. But we are talking here about full scale financial warfare on anybody conducting in these protests. The Ottawa police chief actually spoke yesterday

in which he said, not only are we financially freezing the accounts of the people who are involved, but we will continue to do so in the future for many months to come. Take a listen. If you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you

and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges. Absolutely. This investigation will go on for months to come. It has many, many different streams, both from a federal financial level, from a provincial licensing level, from a criminal code level, from a municipal breach of court order, breach of court injunction level. It will be a complicated and time-consuming investigation that will go on for a period of time. You have my commitment that that

investigation will continue, and we will hold people accountable for taking our streets over. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean, that's completely nuts. And as you said, this is not just like cancelling bank account, cancelling mortgage, cancelling car loan. Complete debanked from the Canadian financial system, which is truly nuts. And then what they're saying also is like we're going to continue to look and to do so. I just can't get over their weaponization of like terrorism financing guidelines to compare a wire transfer from Saudi Arabia to a hijacker to some normal person in Nebraska. Like grandma in Kansas.

Grandma in Kansas being like, here's 50 bucks. I support what you're doing. They're like, this is foreign money coming in. I mean, like I said, I have a whole thing about how this shows you that we need much more better ways in order to get away from this level of financial warfare. But what we wanted to focus on as well is kind of the export of this protest as an international movement. We saw some flare-ups in Jerusalem, some flare-ups in New Zealand. Now there's a lot of talk here in the United States as to whether there will be a trucker protest or a similar level of protest against restrictions. And already,

even though there's only talk of this online, and there's not yet a substantial group that's big enough, here in the capital of the United States, let's put this up there just a couple blocks from where we're filming this segment, the Capitol perimeter fence is coming back before the State of the Union. Why? Because of the trucker freedom convoy heads for Washington. Now, once again, this convoy, which was supposed to start out in California,

doesn't even seem to be all that big. To be honest, I mean, it doesn't have nearly the same level of salience just because we don't have even close to the same level of restrictions nationwide here in the United States. In fact, I believe almost every mask mandate in the country is set to expire within the next two weeks. Most people in the West are basically opening up. Boris Johnson just this morning lifted all coronavirus restrictions. But what we have here in the US is that even the inkling is enough to trigger a full-scale crackdown with

the Capitol fence going back up, which was a scar on the city. And second was that I just read that all D.C. police vacation was canceled for March 1st. So they're calling in the full, you know, force of metropolitan police. I guess the Capitol police, you know, these idiots, they can finally show up, possibly do something and earn their pay. But, you know, these idiots, they can finally show up, possibly do something and earn their pay. But, you know, it's not outside the realm of possibility.

They call in the National Guard, all for nothing. I mean, from what we can tell, it's nothing. It reminds me of the freakout before that supposed, like, QAnon. Yeah, the QAnon thing.

March, it was like the real inauguration day. Yeah, or whatever, which turned out to be nothing. I mean, I tried to look in to this thing because I didn't know it's like oh maybe there really is a thing that's happening and i look too it was originally the first reports i saw said oh it's going to start in california and could disrupt the super bowl that didn't happen no it didn't happen at all and that one was the original report was like it's going to start in california they're going to

drive across the country they're going to arrive in California. They're going to drive across the country. They're going to arrive in time for Biden's State of the Union. That doesn't seem to have materialized whatsoever. And then as I was researching this, I found another potential protest that the dates are fluid. They have different routes. None of it has actually come to fruition. Not to say that there isn't something that could come together, but the quote that I saw online was at this point, it's more aspirational than reality. And I do think that at this point, and maybe partly because of what we've watched unfold in Canada,

cities and states are moving to undo mask restrictions, make sure schools are open, lifting vaccine passport mandates. There's a major loosening of restrictions, even in blue states and blue cities. So they're just like, what would you even be really protesting at this point? There's nothing new coming from the federal government. There aren't many in place still at the state and local level. So there just may not be quite that sort of spark and fire to protest against pandemic restrictions that are already going away here in the U.S. I do want to say just going back to the footage of, you know, the police crackdown and especially because I do think this is like a low bar. But there was a lot more restraint from law enforcement in Canada than we've seen in our own country. I saw only two reports of potential injuries from the police still doesn't make it acceptable whatsoever. But the complete sort of like holistic use of tools that they've

deployed here to make sure that these protests cannot continue is incredibly chilling and deeply troubling. You have what effectively happened here is the moment that these protesters threatened capital by blocking those bridges and making it hard for the auto plants to churn out cars at a time when, of course, supply chains are already strained. That was when the switch was flipped. Because up to that point, very little had been done, honestly. They were sort of allowed to occupy the city. They were allowed to do their thing. They were allowed to protest. And then the minute that capital was threatened, boom, finances freezed. The city is shut down. They, you know, they're threatening to seize their trucks and confiscate them and use the money to pay off businesses. I mean, just completely insane actions and also insane potential plans. And so, you know, if you're on the left and you're thinking in terms of something like,

what would a general strike look like? This should be a real warning for you. And it doesn't matter whether you support the things that these individuals were protesting. It doesn't matter if you like these specific people. Completely irrelevant. The trigger here was when capital was threatened. So if you're on the left, like it should be very clear to you

that these are aggressive authoritarian actions of the state that you should absolutely stand against. And our own government was involved in pushing the Canadians to do this because it was Biden who calls Trudeau. And then all of a sudden, all of these actions are ultimately taken. We've pointed out before that the Canadian public is largely on the side of these incredibly authoritarian and draconian measures that have been put in place. That is even more troubling because, and this is

something that Glenn Greenwald was pointing out online, sometimes authoritarianism is popular. And that's what makes it even scarier that you can have a situation where the public is clamoring for these types of clampdowns and lockdowns. We saw this in the wake of 9-11. Same spirit of, yes, let's, like, whatever it takes, Patriot Act, do it. That's why you have a constitution in place to protect people's rights, even when you have public sentiment that because of some sort of either real or perceived threat coalesces

around these draconian authoritarian responses. So that's just my word to people on the left. They had, they arrested. So some of the numbers here, the federal government has frozen two and a half million dollars at least of funds. The three of the leaders of the protests were arrested for, quote, mischief, which is basically like you're doing something we don't like. That's like in the there's not exactly a law for it, but we just don't like it. And we want to make an example of. Yeah Yeah, that's like in the Wild West.

They would just arrest somebody and be like, we don't like you around this town. Right. That's basically it. Mischief. I mean, look, this is why we have a Bill of Rights. And, you know, Canadians, you can tell me all you want, but look, there are clearly a lot more avenues in your country in terms of the law for the government to truly be able to do whatever it wants. The debanking aspect is the part that truly, that's where I felt like I was taking crazy pills, honestly.

And, you know, we pointed this out during Floyd and even now. It's already illegal to occupy a city. You don't need to declare an Emergencies Act. Like, that's not illegal. You have everything that you could possibly need if you wanted to. There's no need in order to justify all these draconian measures. They did it because they can. That's it. I mean, really, that's what it comes wanted to. There's no need in order to justify all these draconian measures. They did it because they can. That's it.

I mean, really, that's what it comes down to. So to me, we have to take away their ability to do it at all. And to watch them, you know, debank these people, especially people who are, look, one guy, he's on the street. He's like, I'm just going to get a coffee. They're like, where are you from?

He says, I'm from Alberta. They said, you can't be here. Smacked the phone out of his face, said, you're not going anywhere. And if I see you again, I'm arresting you. I'm like, oh my God, that's completely crazy. This is broad daylight. Same thing with these businesses. They're doing business license inspections. And what they pointed out in that clip we showed you, when they say provincial licensure, they mean your ability to drive. They mean your car insurance. They mean your ability to have a living.

I mean, can they take that all away from you because you participated in a protest in supposedly the free West? I don't know. I mean, I see this as one of the most dystopian things I've seen in a long, it's like a dream. I can't believe it's happening in Canada. And the fact that so much of the population is on board with it just adds to the dystopia. You know, that's being offered. Authoritarianism is often very popular. Yeah, I mean, that's true, right? I mean, again, we've seen it here in the wake of 9-11.

We've seen it. I mean, we've seen it at times, you know, with regards to coronavirus. Like, it is not the case that authoritarianism is always unpopular. Oftentimes it is actually popular popular and that makes it more dystopian to watch what is happening there. So again, I think, listen, I think now the thing to watch for here, because they basically have all the protesters cleared out in Canada, as far as we can tell based on media reports. Now the thing to watch for here is what is the like security state freak out around potential protests that haven't even materialized here?

And just to be super specific, there hasn't even been a request for a permit to protest put into D.C. government. Yeah, that's right. So that's how sort of speculative the potential protests here are at this point. And yet the fence continues to go up. Amazing. Love it. All right, let's go ahead and move on to the CDC. This is a really interesting story here from the New York Times, but it's very important. I also think it's funny the way that they framed it. They're like, oh, this just continues to happen, fueling questions. It's like, no, no, it should fuel questions. That's the whole point. Let's put it up there then on the screen,

which is that the CDC is not publishing large portions of the COVID data that it collects. Now, specifically, for more than a year, the CDC has collected data on hospitalization for COVID in the U.S. and broken it down by age, race, and vaccination status. But it has not made most of the information public. In fact, when the CDC did publish the first significant data set just two weeks ago, it left out numbers for, quote, a huge portion of the population, which is 18 to 49-year-olds. In other words, what they did is they basically rigged the data to say, hey, boosters work really well for adults who are younger than 65. But then they leave out all of the ability to actually parse that. So hold on a second.

You left out the vast majority of the U.S. population in order to try and use and sell the public on booster efficacy? I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I think if you're old and if you have comorbidities, you should probably get a booster based upon what I can tell. But it's very clear here that they had data which contravened their public narrative, and so they're just not releasing it. And you said this too at the beginning. This is the stuff of people's dreams who believe in vast conspiracy theories. And I mean, what, how else can you describe it? You have the government agency here, government agency here, which does have data on all of this. You know, for a long time, we had the excuse of, oh, state data, you

know, it's hard to compile. They basically got it down. They have it all in terms of age and race and vaccination status and everything. And then they just simply refuse to release it. And actually, to their credit, while I believe Israel has done some absolutely bonkers stuff with some of its mandates, the four shots, et cetera, they still do release their actual public health data, which gives us the insight to look at what's actually working and what's not. Well, and that's what's crazy is if you've been wondering, like, why have they been so dependent on Israel's data?

Especially boosters was a big, you know, we kept looking, sorting through the Israeli data to see the efficacy of boosters. It's because our own supposedly, you know, number one in the world health agency is hiding. They have the data, but they're not sharing it with anybody. And it's not just on boosters. So they wouldn't release the data. They left out numbers for 18 to 49 year olds with regards to efficacy of the booster. They also had come under fire for not tracking so-called breakthrough infections in vaccinated Americans, focusing only on individuals who became ill enough to be hospitalized or die because they didn't, apparently, I mean, this is all you have to read between the lines, but apparently they didn't want people to know how common breakthrough

infections were, even though, again, they had that data and didn't share it. Apparently, the American Academy of Pediatrics have been asking for the proportion of children hospitalized for COVID that have other medical conditions. So you can understand, OK, what's the risk for a healthy child versus what's the risk for a child who has other comorbidities? Wouldn't provide that data. They also, the Pediatrics Academy also has repeatedly asked the CDC for an estimate on the contagiousness of a person infected with COVID five days after symptoms began. And one of the folks with the Academy finally got the answer from an article in the New York Times versus from the CDC. And so, you know, there are justification here. And I just think this is, this is too perfect. And this has been the problem with these public health agencies and also with

Dr. Fauci from the beginning. It says the agency has been reluctant to make those figures public because they might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective. It's not your job to psychoanalyze the public. It's not your job to be the politician spinning the data or hiding the ball. It is just your job to disseminate the information and then let us all handle it. I mean, and you've done so much damage in terms of now. You don't think this is going to fuel people's worst fears and anyone who's, you know, who is skeptical of the vaccine? I mean, this is their, this is a dream for them to be able to say. Look, Crystal, if there is another pandemic, let's say the, in terms of its mortality rate is 10 times higher. I still, I'm not going to believe

these people for a long time. I don't think I'm the only person. I mean, I would literally have to know and see people falling dead in front of my face to be like, all right. Okay. You know, maybe I'll hear him out a little bit. That's not how I felt two years ago. This is exactly the same as at the beginning of the pandemic when Fauci says masks don't work. No, I agree. And it's the same. And after the fact, I mean, he even admits it because he thinks he's doing the right thing.

He admits that, no, we wanted to save the masks for people who are on the front lines. It's not your job to lie and manipulate people or hide the ball here. It's your job to get out the data people or hide the ball here. It's your job to get out the data. And if the public can't handle that or deals with it in a bad way, then we have to address that down the line. But this is absolutely abysmal. I mean, I think what we can say is that we haven't only been dependent on the CDC for data. We have data from health agencies and from research around the

world to show us the efficacy of the vaccines, to show us the death rate for different subpopulations, to show us how much more at risk the elderly are. But the fact that our own public health agency that is supposed to be, you know, the premier, the best in the world, has been sitting on this data that could have helped us tailor our response, that could have helped us understand for ourselves in our own lives what risks to take, what decisions to make, what to do with regards to our kids. I mean, this is an absolute bombshell story, and it's despicable that they've been hiding this data. Yeah. I mean, $1 billion they've been given to modernize its systems in order to track data. But I don't know if you

will remember, remember Dr. Deborah Birx, who ended up working for Donald Trump and eventually left the administration. She put in her memoir that whenever they approached the CDC, they're like, hey, here we have all this money. You guys can update your tracking stuff. They're like, no, we're good. We don't need it. Yeah, they outright rejected it at the time. It basically had to be forced upon them by Congress. I think there's a couple of things happening here. The immense amount of hubris to think that, oh, well, we just know better.

And that's it, which is we can hide the data and we can spin it whichever we want. In a free and open society, and especially in the age of the internet, they can lie to you, but we have the data. We can go on. It doesn't take a genius to read Hebrew. You can just go on and be like, okay, well, human beings are generally the same, so here's how it's working over there. Same thing in New Zealand or South Africa, wherever. Information travels fast, especially in the age of online.

When we see that, they seem to think that they can just continue to manipulate the public and that we're not going to find out that they're lying. And then they end up admitting that they are. Everybody knows that it's very clear that the original promises on vaccination, on masks, and so much more did not turn out to be true. And here's the thing. I don't begrudge. I think it was a noble effort to try to do it. But soon it became a sinister effort to try and force everybody in order to take up something, which is clearly not working the way that they promised

to. That doesn't mean that there weren't legitimate benefits. And look, I think a central tenet here of our show is trust people to make a decision for themselves. We can explain to you, be like, look, it's going to dramatically reduce your risk of hospitalization and death. That seems pretty worth it to me. Some of the promises on transmission and all that didn't end up working out to be true. Same with the masks. Masks, you know, wearing in June of 2020 when you didn't know that much compared to August of 2020, substantially different. Same on school closures. I'm willing to even give them the benefit of the doubt in the beginning.

But around what, October? We knew almost everything we needed to know. Yeah. And it's now a year and a half later. Even by the time it was, you know, time to reopen the schools in the fall. Oh, yeah. I think almost everything we needed to know. Yeah. And it's now. Even by this time, it was time to reopen the schools in the fall. I think we had enough data to know. But it really does go to a central theme of this show that you were just alluding to. I mean, this is as anti-populist as it gets. Oh, yeah.

100%. We elites and experts know better. And so don't you worry about it. Don't ask any questions. Just accept that you're going to get from on high what our decision is for how this is all going to go. We're going to control the information. We're going to decide what we think the population can handle, what sort of information they're capable of sort of parsing through and dealing with, rather than having a real democracy, which is where, you know, you have the information available, where there's transparency, and where there's a public debate, which yes, sometimes is messy,

sometimes is uncomfortable, sometimes people who are wrong have a say in it, right? But that's what a democracy is all about. And, you know, the greatest principle of our country at its greatest ideal is sort of that populist belief that people are capable of self-government, that they're capable of evaluating that information, engaging in public debate and thinking through whether it's, you know, response to a pandemic or whether it's to monetary policy or any of the other weighty issues that we have to think about in terms of how we move our country forward. You can't outsource it to experts as much as they would love to claim the power and say, hey, we're just crunching the numbers here and pretend like they're not making their own value judgments, that they're just doing the calculations and working through the spreadsheets and doing the equations to come up with what the correct answer is. There's no substitute for a public debate that involves the values and the priorities

of the population, which are going to be, you know, there's going to be tension. It's going to be messy. Sometimes people you don't like are going to win. But ultimately, that's the thing that I have faith in and that I think we have faith in here. I have a lot more faith in that than in the CDC. Than in these people, Lord knows. Let's go ahead and move on here. Speaking of vast conspiracies, this is, as you alluded to, Jean-Luc Brunel. He was an associate of Jeffrey Epstein, the head of a modeling agency accused of supplying thousands of girls to Epstein. He's

been held in a Paris jail since December of 2020, whenever he was trying to flee to Senegal, where he said he was going on holiday. And since that time, he's been awaiting trial as investigators were looking into him and accused him of sexual assault of a minor. Well, over the weekend, he was found death by hanging in a cell. Let's go ahead and put that up there on the screen

in this Paris jail, which is apparently one of the jails reserved for some of the highest criminal offenses in all of France. Now, there were some initial reports, Crystal, that the cameras were not working. So let's put that up there. Let's go and put the next element up there. But we looked into this. It turns out in France, they just simply don't have video cameras in their jail system. They believe in human rights or whatever. Whatever. Okay. So there was an initial report there at the time, which I also believed in retrospect, too good for true. It was a little too on the nose. A little too on the nose, even though that is what happened whenever it came to

Epstein himself. Look, Mr. Brunel, just to give the background, was introduced to Ghislaine Maxwell in the 1980s. He was the head of these modeling agencies called M2 Model Management, which had funding from Epstein. And he is the person who would supply Epstein with a lot of these modeling girls who he would say, Epstein would say, oh, I can help make your career. You know, I know Jean-Luc Brunel, all of this. Why don't you give me some sexual favor? And that's how he victimized and traumatized so many people. A European angle has long actually been unexplored. There were some hints of this in the financial services department of New York, state of New York, fining of Deutsche Bank. And in that, they detailed, you guys can go back and read it,

I did a whole thing on it over at Rising Rising, they're detailed all of these sketchy wire transfers to Europe, which were almost 100% for purposes of human trafficking, like in Eastern Europe, to Russia, to well-known madams. And the bank and the compliance department basically knew what was going on and continued to let these wire transfers go through all across of Europe. And it's specifically to guys who like Jean-Luc Brunel, who helped supply a lot of these women to Jeffrey Epstein. And in France and in Eastern Europe too, they would use these modeling agencies as grooming agencies to like acquire these women and kind of, you know, look at them and then use them to supply them to Epstein for use of human trafficking. And, you. And so many of them were victimized.

A lot of them had come forward to, in terms of detailed how exactly the scheme all used to work. He had been accused also by Virginia Gouffre, who is a true hero in this story, showing us how many of these people were working together. But yeah, I mean, he just ends up dead in a French prison. They claim it was suicide. He's been there since December of 2020. We don't have the same level of insight as we did in the U.S. in terms of Epstein. You know, he has the former cellmate

who's a cop or was a cop. And, you know, we know from Michael Bodden's assessment that there are bones broken in his neck, which are not consistent with the death by, which are more consistent with death by strangulation and not with death by hanging. I don't think we're going to get the same level of insight into what's happened here.

But look, I mean, the guy ended up dead. We can tell you for a fact, it seems that he was deeply intertwined with Epstein's human trafficking network. And a lot of financial transactions have gone and confirmed that. So just another bow tie, I guess, on the whole situation. Yeah, I mean, this dude was effectively Epstein's pimp. He was a pimp.

Providing him, according to Virginia Giffray, thousands of girls. There's another allegation, just to give you a sense of how utterly depraved and despicable this man was. He allegedly provided three 12-year-old girls to Epstein as a birthday present. That's what we're talking about here. And the allegations against him weren't only with regard to Epstein. He faced his own allegations of alleged rape,

of minor and sexual harassment. And it also, you know, this seems like this was Epstein's pattern is using these modeling agencies. Because you'll recall the connection with Les Wexner was he was the founder and owner of Victoria's Secret. And there were also, you know, apparently Epstein was pretending that he was with Victoria's Secret to get access to the girls there as well. And so, you know, with these modeling agencies where they're getting these girls who are in desperate circumstances, sometimes in war-torn regions, who are told, you know, we're going to make you a star and you're going to be

able to come to the U.S. and you're going to be famous and you're going to be on magazine covers. And they are completely at the mercy of scumbags like Jean-Luc Brunel. I mean, this has been a long time in Hollywood. This is just like the worst iteration of that. That's exactly right. It really came true. You're preying on these young girls who are being taken away from their families. I mean, separate apart from Jean-Luc Brunel, remember there have been exposés about the sort of like, you know, the boarding houses that these girls were put into and the abhorrent conditions.

So you take these young girls out of their homes, away from their families. You promise them riches and fame, and they're in this completely vulnerable position where they are, for exploitation. And then men like this just completely take advantage and abuse them. It's absolutely horrific. And of course, however his life ended, this of course means that he won't have his day in court. We won't have any more information about what the scheme looked like, who else was victimized, who else enabled it, who else was involved. And so that's why, you know, no one's going to shed a tear for the end of this man's life. But that's why this is a disgraceful turn of events. His legal team, I'll say, says that his decision to end his life was not driven by guilt, but by a deep sense of injustice, Sagar.

So, yeah, that's the other thing. Whenever they say a decision to end his life, like, if you were his legal team, wouldn't you want a more fulsome investigation? Like, why are you getting in on the narrative that, you know what I mean? Yeah, the official line coming from the French authorities is that while there weren't cameras in his cell, there were cameras in the hallway

that showed no one entering or exiting his cell, and I guess he was alone in there. So that's what they're saying is, look, it has to be suicide because no one else was in there. So that's the official line. Okay, sure. All right, slightly less tawdry affair, but also not great. Disgraceful situation over there at CNN. We have new details. Got another update. About exactly

why Jeff Zucker and his mistress, Alison Gollis, were ultimately fired. Let's put this tear sheet up on the screen. CNN executive, that's Alison Gallis, was ousted after discussing interview topics with Andrew Cuomo, who was governor in internal investigation, found that a top executive, Alison Gallis, had extensive communications with then-Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Effectively, this piece just confirms what we all completely expected. Because you'll recall, Alison Gallis was not only a top executive at CNN piece just confirms what we all completely expected. Because you'll recall, Alison Gullis was not only a top executive at CNN expected to take over that network after Zucker left, she had previously served as an aide to Andrew Cuomo. So we knew that they were connected and had ties. What the New York Times is saying here is that before interviews, she would correspond with Cuomo and get from him what he wanted the interview topics to be. She would pass it along to the team and his brother, who was conducting the interviews, and then they would all go according to the script.

So here's some of the specifics from the report. They say this is the script. So here's some of the specifics from the report. They say, this is the lead, they say, on a Saturday in March 2020, as COVID-19 was invading the U.S., Governor Cuomo went on CNN for a live interview. Among other topics, he was asked about a possible government-enforced quarantine of New York that had been floated by President Trump. It was a newsworthy topic, but its path onto viewers' screens would turn out to be controversial and highly consequential for the future of one of the world's most powerful news networks. Before the interview, Cuomo had told senior executive Alison Gallist about subjects he'd like to be asked about on air. Ms. Gallist then passed along the topics to CNN producers and reported back to the governor, done, she wrote. They found a massive cache of communications exchanges between Gallus and Cuomo.

There were multiple times where, you know, every single topic that the governor wanted to be asked about, they reviewed the transcripts, and sure enough, he gets asked about them. And just so you know, let's go ahead and put this Ken Vogel tweet up on the screen. This is the kicker. This is the kicker of this whole piece. The internal investigation's findings are especially notable because CNN journalists have repeatedly attacked Fox News personalities like Sean Hannity for having an overly close relationship with Republican leaders, in particular, Mr. Trump. Brian Stelter wrote an entire book about that. And it's a worthy topic of consideration. But somehow, now when it comes to CNN, their anchors, when this is all exposed, they're not upset that their own

bosses were engaged in the same behavior. They're just upset that the corrupt bosses were let go. So it's pretty extraordinary. And, you know, not a lot of details here about exactly what Zucker's involvement was, but I think you can surmise, given the relationship between him and Gallist and his own coziness with the Cuomos, that he also knew what was going on. And the whole cover story about,

oh, I resigned because of this affair. No one cared about the affair. This was the real thing that was going on. I i mean this is outwardly and blatantly corrupt and actually it almost makes me feel bad for chris cuomo because he's like hey you fired me you knew what was up right and not only that you helped me you were also just as complicit in using our platform to cover to not only cover for but but in order to boost my brother's public profile. And what they point to specifically, like you laid out, it's unbelievable because you have it right there in writing.

It'll be like, the governor wants to be asked about this. And she replies, done. Done. I mean, what? Like, look, you have to disclose that. I mean, they should not be scripting your interviews. I mean, you can say like, hey, he would love to be able to do this, but they're outright just saying, hey, he wants to be asked

about this because he wants to make this announcement on your show. And they're like, oh yeah, absolutely. And not only that, helped him craft his public statements and using so much of their platform in order to boost his image at this time, remember, of how critical this was whenever old people were dying in nursing homes. Well, and I think we should explain to people how this process works because what they're saying is oh, this is standard standard protocol there's always communications between guests and between the team about what the interview subject is going to be and there is obviously when you're booking someone there's some conversation about hey, you know, here's generally the topic and what we're going to cover. But for the subject of the interview, especially a powerful public official who was being floated as a presidential contender at the time, for that person to dictate the terms

of the interview, no, no, that is not remotely acceptable. That is way beyond the bounds of any sort of journalistic ethics. Just imagine, just imagine if the shoe's on the other foot. And I mean, I think this probably did happen over at Fox News where Trump says, hey, I want you to ask this, this and this. Everybody would see this is blatantly corrupt. You are supposed to be there to hold power to account, not to recite the scripted questions that they have prepared for you. That is literally like state media level propaganda that they're trying to pass off as, no, this is standard journalism. This is how we do things. It actually reminds me a couple of times. I can tell you before I interviewed Trump, there's always a negotiation process.

They're like, we would really like to ask you, you ask about the border. And I'm like, yeah, maybe. Maybe I will. I'll give you straight up. They also tell you, we don't want you to ask about this. So my very last interview with Trump, it was a day, I just had to, I forgot her name. E. Jean Carroll, who was, I think she was famous or something like that. And she accused Trump of rape.

And so before we walked in there, Sarah Sanders takes me and the other guy who was interviewing Trump with aside. And they're like, don't ask about E. Jean Carroll. We were like, we didn't say anything. We were like, yeah, sure. And you know, and then at the end we were like, so what about E. Jean Carroll?

And he makes, he wanted to talk about it, by the way. So he gives us this, I can't remember. He goes, first of all, she's not my type, which is certainly a classic Trump. But that ends up leading the news. And we're on our way out. She's like, you just had to ask about that. I'm like, yeah, I'm doing my job. It's your job.

It's my job. We can also give you insight here. We've tried to book politicians on this show. And their office is like, well, he only wants to talk about this. And we'll be like, well, we're not going to only stick to that. So take it or leave it. And they leave it. And I won't tell you who it is. But that happens more often than you would think. A lot of times these politicians will say, well, this is what we want to talk about because their press office and all these people are trying to push this

narrative. And hey, look, if I find it interesting, yeah, okay, we can talk. But everything is on the table if we want it to be on the table. that is always a massive point of contention. Anytime you interview a politician, it's also why, uh, we are very reluctant usually in order to book them whenever they try to push that because we have our conditions very clearly. If you come on this show, we will ask you whatever we want. And hence a lot of them don't necessarily want to come on, which is part of the issue. You have to go into the interview, assuming that this person is never going to come back. Yeah, right. Yeah.

And that's a real problem. It is. And these people who are going to give those politicians exactly the interview they want are part of the problem because if their expectation was no matter where I go and no matter what journalist I sit with, I'm going to get asked tough questions, then they wouldn't have the luxury of just like denying access to anyone who's going to put a difficult question to them. But when you have, you know, the head of the network and his mistress playing, you know, giving you, okay, yes, we'll give you exactly what you want in the interview and your freaking brother is going to conduct it, that was the only place that he did interviews effectively. So they had this exclusive access to him that they protected by

giving him exactly the scripted topic questions that he ultimately wanted. So it not only harms, obviously, the coverage at CNN, but it's part of a bigger problem that makes it so that, you know, that no journalist feels like they can ask a tough question because that person is never ultimately going to come back to them. And there are only a very few, basically nowhere is exempt. Maybe the New York Times because they're so big. Maybe the Washington Post. But independent outlets like us, even random cable news shows, random Sunday shows, these politicians don't feel like they have to ask tough questions about and answer tough questions about anything that they can just go on and get their sort of like, you know, patty cake scripted puff pieces from their journalists of choice. And the sad thing is that those people who do those patty cakes interviews are exactly the ones who get promoted because they get access, because they get these little scooplets, because they're playing in the circle of the people that they see as their peers,

rather than actually doing their job of holding power to account at a time that was absolutely critical. And it makes our job hard, right? When we're like, we don't want to do that type of thing. The whole point of the show is that we're not cable and we don't feed into that stuff. And then the politicians don't want to come on miraculously because that's part of the issue. And, you know, it goes to the real fear of being and put in an environment where you have to be a normal person. This is why it's always so funny. Sometimes people, cutouts will approach me to be like, so-and-so wants to go on Rogan. I'm like, that's not going to happen for you, dude.

Number one, you are not an authentic person. You don't have three hours of things to say. He would tear you apart. I don't mean in a mean way. It's like, if you had to sit there and try to reveal to the world who you really were with your scripted answers, it would just fall apart instantly. I'm like, you're only made for the cable news. You do that for eight minutes. Exactly. You're only made for the cable news edifice. It all starts to fall apart once you meet. And if you ever meet any of these guys in person, it's very, or women, it's totally, you know, gender neutral when it comes to what the swamp really looks like. Yeah, look, CNN giving us everybody in the business a bad name. I will reiterate again, their talent is not upset about

this. Their talent is upset that they got fired for doing this. They are just as corrupt. So whenever they accuse anybody else, just remind them that they're guilty of the exact same thing. And they didn't actually care. What they really care about is ratings, tearing the country apart, and demonizing the other side. Also, they can make money.

They're shameless. They want to be famous. That's all they care about in this world. And they're really just ruining this country. There's no other way to say it. Pretty remarkable. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, I've talked about Bitcoin a few times on this show. But to be honest, I've always been reluctant to deliver the case for it, mostly because there's a lot of scammers out there. I never want to be associated with them. All I have in this

business is your trust, and I've never, ever wanted to take that. I also don't think it's necessarily appropriate for a guy who talks about the news and tries to be objective when delivering it to you to then be recommending something that he personally has a financial interest in. So here are my disclosures. Do not take any financial advice from me. And please remember, during this monologue, I personally have been holding Bitcoin for several years. And that does, of course, cover my thinking. But the reason that I am doing this today is because crypto and its world has now crossed into the news realm that we care about on this show. And when Canada, in its violent crackdown on the Freedom Convoy protesters in the city of Ottawa, has declared full-fledged financial warfare on dissidents.

Now, as Crystal has laid out here already, Canada's financial warfare includes the ability of the government to make banks start canceling loans, closing bank accounts, closing transactions of those that they suspect are protesters. It includes canceling mortgages, car loans, a full-scale unbanking akin to what we see in communist China. And just like China, we see that war extend to the cryptocurrency world as well. A common reframe in the Bitcoin or crypto community is that money is the foundation of all power. In fact, the history of currency and money itself is fascinating. Empires taking great care to mint coins and to force their subjects to use them as a means of power projection, as a means of taxation, and as a means of controlling all of commerce. If you think about it, you really can't do anything without money in our society or our economy and haven't been able to for hundreds of years.

You see that starkly with the fundraising for these Canadian protests. Oh, it's a cause that people believe in, so people can just donate. Well, you can, only if the donation website will let you. Boom, then GoFundMe just seizes the money. Actually, they tried to even donate it to a different charity. Sure, you can try and send it via a Christian website, GiveSendGo. Oh, oops, Canadian government, they're just going to seize all that money. The most idealistic promise of Bitcoin fundamentally is that it is censorship free money through its proof of power on the blockchain and the inability of somebody to take it from you without your private keys in the best case scenario. We'll get to that. And it was born

for moments like this. As many people stepped up and they're sending over 20 Bitcoin worth nearly a million dollars to the truckers, along with a variety of other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, Solana, and many other coins. But we found out too, with the Bitcoin heist that I broke down recently, even in the West, we are free only to a certain extent in the world of cryptocurrency. Just listen to Canada's Deputy Prime Minister lay it all out just so nonchalantly. So you're confirming that accounts have been frozen, both personal and corporate, but you're not releasing the information. And the actual follow-up is, I'm just wondering whether the bank accounts will be targeted of individuals who donated to the Give, Send, Go and the GoFundMe campaigns. Are they considered designated people under the Emergencies Act, meaning that their credit cards could be cut and financial services

are targeting them as well? Okay. So the names of both individuals and entities, as well as crypto wallets, have been shared by the RCMP with financial institutions. And accounts have been frozen, and more accounts will be frozen. Crowdfunding platforms and payment service providers have started the registration process with FinTrack. In terms of the specifics on whose accounts are being frozen, you now have the regulations. The financial service providers have those regulations as well, and they, working with law enforcement, will be making the operational decisions. So, per Canada, not only are bank accounts fair game, but crypto wallets themselves. They're being targeted for freezing. In fact, it's not just the government in Canada that's like the Stasi.

Ontario residents, who hate the protesters, jumped into the action and won the first ever case in Canadian history, allowing the government to seize crypto donations worth nearly $1 million. Now, as a crypto advocate for situations like this, it is troubling. It shows you that you are only as free as the government lets you, even when it comes to crypto, especially for people who are buying crypto and storing them with major exchanges like a Coinbase or any of these other trading platforms. Unless you're storing your keys in cold storage or on a USB drive, in reality, it is not as censorship resistant as it claims. Now, as my friend Joe Weisenthal writes over at Bloomberg, it is time for Bitcoin to become a better tool for money laundering.

Now, that's a tongue in cheek as many Bitcoin critics look at it simply as a way to buy drugs online or to practice illicit transactions, but it actually is the opposite. For Bitcoin to be truly a tool to circumvent the powerful and to guarantee a fundamental and private right to transact in the 21st century, it actually does need to become a better and less surveillable tool. Does that mean criminals will use it? Yes, it does. And well, that sucks. But criminals, they use anything at their disposal,

including large sums of cash. You don't see people maligning cash that way. Now, something some of you might have observed over the last few years is I've become a little bit more libertarian. It pains me to even say that, given my hatred of many libertarian economic positions, but I'm talking here socially and societally.

Two years ago before COVID, I would have told you it is imperative that a government not have the full ability to be circumvented by a cryptocurrency because it would diminish the legitimacy of its power and because dissonance could use it. And now I'm literally telling you the opposite for the same reason that I would have been against it years ago,

for a widespread and full usage that is not able to be tracked. I've watched the organs of the state of the supposedly free West be used to crack down now on peaceful protests of a serious issue. Here in the United States, we've seen the COVID regime marshal its way into every aspect of our lives. We've seen the Department of Justice brand angry parents domestic terrorists, and we continue to see the expansion of state surveillance power encroaching closer and closer and closer into the lives of its own citizens.

In that environment, I think it's a national emergency that we don't have better ways to circumvent the financial regime. And I'll leave you with this dystopian warning from the Canadian police. If you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges. Absolutely. This investigation will go on for months to come. It has many, many different streams, both from a federal financial level,

from a provincial licensing level, from a criminal code level, from a municipal breach of court order, breach of court injunction level. It will be a complicated and time-consuming investigation that will go on for a period of time. You have my commitment that that investigation will continue, and we will hold people accountable for taking our streets over. We have a lot of work to do to ensure that the state cannot wage financial warfare like that upon us. It won't always be pretty, but whatever that is, we cannot allow it here in the United States or for anybody else for that matter. And that's the thing, Crystal, I mean, I know you're skeptical of crypto as well. I mean, look, I get it. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today

at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, this is how it started. So I got my first child tax credit payment today, which means the government has officially paid me more child support than my baby daddy ever has. so tiktokers they're posting about getting their first child tax credits, but this now is how it's going. The child tax credit, which was enacted with great hope and even some seeming bipartisan support, was left to die in the cradle, expiring in December and leaving our most vulnerable families without what had been a rare and precious lifeline. The predictable result? Millions of kids plunged into poverty over the span of a single month. Between December and January, nearly 4 million additional children were pushed into poverty.

That represents a month-over-month increase of 41%. We should be horrified at our nation's callousness, how easily we're distracted by shiny objects of CRT debates or AstroTurf podcast controversies, that we barely notice when something so critical to millions of children is pulled. And this, of course, comes at a time when our kids have been subjected to so many burdens and so much trauma. We closed their schools, we forced them to mask for years, and now we pulled the financial support that kept a modicum of stability. It is truly shameful. And it's worth thinking about what the hell happened here.

And when the policy was first enacted, Democrats announced it with great fanfare, highlighting the massive benefits it would provide to children and how it would help us catch up to our developed nation peers in terms of how we treat our kids. Today, today's the day that we say to the parents of America, help is on the way. In the end, government's always about whose side are you on. Clearly everybody up here is on the side of children, on the side of family, on the side of the future of this country. In the United States of America, where we have the moral obscenity of the highest child poverty rates amongst our peer nations, we are finally doing something significantly to cut that rate of child poverty in half and ending the savage injustices that are heaped upon families. This is an incredible, historic day.

They thought that the policy would become a new untouchable third rail program, something like Social Security. After all, over 90% of kids were actually eligible for the benefit. And guys, it was stunningly successful. This New York Times graphic shows the change in checking account balances throughout the pandemic. It tells the tale. Each of the stimulus checks injected a huge lift. But you can see significant spikes in account balances every time one of the child tax credit payments hit. And contrary to the welfare queen concerns of Joe Manchin, who worried that parents were spending the money on drugs, in reality, the tax credit was overwhelmingly spent on food and other basic needs. This study

from the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University found that the most common uses of the money were for food, essential bills, housing, and school expenses. What's more, childhood hunger fell 24%. They also found that the credit had no impact on whether or not people were working. There was literally only upside. Dems were so confident in the program's political benefits that they slated it to expire after less than a year. They calculated that there would be a public uproar if it expired, and either Republicans would be cowed into going along with it, or the Republicans would find themselves on the wrong side of a politically potent issue with Democrats riding to the rescue. Democrats could then hold themselves down as saviors to America's families, giving voters a potent reason to keep them in power in the midterm elections. Marvel, if you will, for a moment at the cynicism of intentionally scheduling a critical lifeline

program to expire just because you think the battle over extending it will be politically advantageous for your team. Disgraceful. But of course, the politics did not play out the way Democrats had hoped, and ultimately the child tax credit was drowned by a confluence of culture war and cowardice. First of all, the polls on the program were not all the Democrats had dreamed. A December poll found plurality support

for extending the program, but just barely. According to Morning Consult, 47% wanted a year-long extension while 42% disagreed, and a majority of voters stood against a permanent extension of that credit. But, as is often the case, the polls may not have really captured public sentiment about the program or the politics of its expiration. As I showed here last week, voters who were receiving the benefit abandoned Democrats in significant numbers once that benefit went away. People are funny. If they're asked in the abstract about cash payments, they may think of those who they imagine as undeserving of such support. But when their own worthy household is denied that check, there's hell to pay.

Not to mention, opposition to the program came from groups that did not benefit from it. So they didn't have much of a stake in the fight, and they were unlikely to determine their vote based on it. But for the families that desperately depended on those payments, the child tax credit checks may have become their top issue and a huge deciding factor in who they would vote for or whether they would vote at all. You can see a similar dynamic right now with pandemic policies. Overall, the public actually still supports some level of continued restrictions.

But the people who are opposed to those restrictions are much more invested in the fight and likely to vote based on their pandemic stances. Unfortunately, though, the backlash to the end of these checks has been really quiet. There's no trucker convoy shutting down auto plants and occupying American streets to make sure that kids have enough to eat. It's not an easy culture war fight, so none of our usual outrage generation machines on cable news or social media are geared up to create a public spectacle around it. The people who depended on the credit

and who entertained for a moment that maybe the D.C. political class could actually do something for them, they are now returning to their previous long-held cynicism. The other reason Democrats have made an affirmative choice to allow millions of kids to sink back into poverty is because inflation has ushered back in a new era of deficit hawk politics. Republicans and their corporate allies have successfully convinced

quite a few that the real problem causing inflation isn't that corporations are price gouging or that their own extreme free trade gamut has led to vulnerability as critical supply chains were moved overseas and just-in-time production was implemented. No. The real problem is that poor people had a year or two where they were somewhat less desperate. The White House has tacitly bowed to this message. After all, they supported the end of all pandemic programs. They didn't fight to extend pandemic unemployment benefits. They are set to restart student loan payments, and they can't even decide whether or not it's a good idea to point out that corporations are using inflation as an excuse to further jack up prices. Jeff Stein recently reported on the divide

in the White House over whether to lean into the populist economic message that corporate price gouging is screwing over Americans. So they're not comfortable calling out corporations, but they are comfortable fighting inflation by robbing our kids of the ability to have regular meals and the lights on in their home. What a disgrace. Of course, everyone already knows that as a result of these choices and a whole lot more, Democrats are on track for a historic shellacking. And this, too, has shifted the ground here in Washington. For Democrats, now isn't time to actually pass policy that helps people. It's the time to find a scapegoat for those coming losses. The left will once again serve in the role as

whipping boy, blamed for the party's focus on culture when, as I laid out last week, it's the woke corporatists who dominate the professional ranks of the party that are wholly responsible for the current embrace of hollow identitarianism. And that, my friends, is how a wildly successful program was killed by cynical political calculation, culture war, neoliberal economics, and corporate media distractions. And it really is sad, Sagar, that you have this program that was actually... And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now, we have Paul Prescott. He is host of The Jackman Show, which I have to put a giant plug in for. I think you guys do such great work and such intelligent commentary over there. You can find it on YouTube. Paul is also running to represent

Pennsylvania's 8th Senate District. Welcome to the show, Paul. Thanks for having me. And also joining us once again, great friend of the show, Oren Kass, who is executive director of American Compass. Great to see you, Oren. Good to see you, Oren. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. All right. So we wanted you guys to talk about a new proposal, Oren, that you have been writing about. Let's go ahead and throw this tarot sheet up on the screen. It says, why the U.S. right wants to put workers in the boardroom, a Republican bill that proposes to give labor a new voice is a challenge to vested interests on the left and

right. You're talking here about a proposal from Senator Marco Rubio that would put a non-voting worker representative onto corporate boards. Can you just lay out for us what that legislation does and what you think it would mean for labor's interest broadly in America? Sure. I think the starting point is to understand that there's a weird quirk in American labor law that says the only thing you can have is a union. So we have the right to organize and join a union. But if you don't have a union, you essentially can't have any other form of kind of formal cooperation with an employer. And so for a long time, reformers, mostly on the right,

but some on the left as well have said, you know, that doesn't make any sense. There should be other options to still form cooperative relationships. And so what the Rubio bill does, and he introduced it with Congressman Jim Banks, and I think has about 12 Republican co-sponsors. So there's a significant chunk on the right that's thinking about this. What it says is, you know, management and employees can together agree

to set up what they call an employee involvement organization. It's basically a committee to get together and talk about issues in the workplace. And you can do that without a union. And if you do that, if you're a large company, you also have to give workers a seat on the board. So that committee, the workers there would choose somebody to represent them on the board of directors as well. And so it strikes me as a really important innovation. It shows, I think, you know, Republicans in the board of directors as well. And so it strikes me as a really important innovation. It shows, I think, Republicans on the right of center thinking more seriously about

what workers actually want and need. And I think it would be a real step forward for our labor system, which today sort of says, you can have a 1930s labor union or you get nothing. And so, Paul, you've been quite critical of this legislation. Why don't you go ahead and deliver your case kind of against it and why it doesn't fit a pro-worker perspective from your view? Yeah, I'll start by saying this. You know, if the choice was between nothing and

an arrangement like this, maybe I'd say, OK, this is better than nothing. But I mean, looking at the bill, there's kind of no there there to me. You know, it's a worker gets a seat on the board that's totally non-voting. And so I think it's kind of delusional and naive to think about corporate giants with all that they're contending with, with international capitalist competition, the wishes of their shareholders that they're going to follow the non-binding suggestions of these workers if they have no real mechanisms or leverage to force these changes. I just don't see that happening

without actual leverage and actual power. And in this bill, workers don't really have the power to collectively bargain and set standards for their jobs. And also, I mean, what is a little confusing about this bill to me as well is that I don't see how this actually changes current arrangements. So employers today, you know, there really are not barriers to them setting up similar type structures in their

workplaces. And actually many employers have. I mean, Japanese automakers in the U.S. throughout the 80s and 90s set up what's called quality circles where workers can make suggestions and input. Although after over time, it was realized what they were really doing was getting workers to figure out how they could work harder with less and less people and less and less supports. So I just don't see this actually increasing worker power in any sort of significant way, not like we've seen actual existing real trade unions do, not just in the past, but even today. Just a quick follow-up on that, Oren, before I get your response, Paul. You said this, between the choice and this, then fine. Give us then the ideal version of the Paul Prescott view. Well, I mean, well, let me say this.

So, you know, the period, the post-war period of the roughly mid-1940s to early 1970s, I think unquestionably, this was the time American workers had the most power and prosperity in our society. It's really hard to deny that. And this is the same period where union density was at its highest. I mean, at its peak during this time, roughly 35% of U.S. workers were in labor unions, most of them in the private sector. And labor unions had big influence in our society. So the more the labor movement has declined, the less of a And labor unions had big influence in our society. So the more the labor

movement has declined, the less of a voice workers have had in the workplace. And I think in that sense, it's kind of pretty simple that, you know, we know the tools that workers have used to build power, and that is strong Democratic labor unions. And I think there is a proposal on the table now. And I think if the right was really concerned about worker power, the PRO Act is sitting there waiting for votes. And to be clear, not to let Democrats off the hook because there are Democrats who are not voting for that. But that has real legislation to make it easier for workers to organize a union, to join a union, to actually increase their power in society. And historically, we have the data and actually even presently with existing unions to show this is what gives workers

voice. This is what allows them to raise their standard of living in a significant way. Oren, how do you respond to that? Because I think you'd have to acknowledge like it's fair for people like myself, like Paul, folks on the left more broadly to be skeptical that Republicans are actually interested in furthering worker power, just given the past three decades plus, four decades plus of history here. So the concern is, this isn't, if you really cared about worker power, why don't you join up with Democrats in some of the efforts, whether it's the PRO Act or even something that's more limited, that would bolster unions, that would bolster workers' ability to collectively organize. Is this just a way to sort of rhetorically signal that you're pro-worker

while not actually bolstering their standing in the workplace? Well, I think it's a fairly illogical and just sort of ad hominem criticism of the bill to say Republicans historically haven't been for worker power. Therefore, if it's a Republican bill, it must not be good for worker power. I think we have to look at what the bill actually does. And we also have to look at the very important changes that have been underway for some time now on the right of center. And so, you know, I think the problem is that in a lot of our political discourse, and certainly on the left of center, we've taken worker power to be synonymous with big labor and labor unions of this particular type. You know, there are plenty of ways in which Republicans have long been interested in worker power. If you take immigration restriction as an example, you know, the idea that we probably

shouldn't be essentially operating an open border and allowing unlimited, low-skilled, low-wage labor into the country is in part an argument about concern for worker power and the leverage that less-skilled American workers are going to have in the labor market. Now, unfortunately, Democrats, for other reasons, have no interest in talking about that. But it's, I think, certainly the case at this point that conservatives broadly and a lot of politicians care a lot about worker power. And the question is, what would be the right way to do that? The problem with the PRO Act is that it is just a big labor bill. It is just a bill designed to get more workers into the 1930s style labor unions, with the problem being that workers don't really like 1930s-style labor unions.

I mean, there's an enormous amount of survey data going back decades that shows that if you ask workers what would they prefer, an organization representing them run solely by workers or one run jointly by management and workers, by large majorities, workers say they would prefer something jointly run. If you ask them whether they would prefer something that has no power but cooperates with management or something that has power but is opposed by management, workers say they would prefer the cooperation.

And then when you start asking them about what unions do today, one thing you see particularly is they cannot stand the way that big labor is involved in politics. Big labor has become an arm of the Democratic Party, and the issues that they push often have nothing to do with what workers actually want. So it seems to me we should be creating a suite of options that let workers organize, that let workers have voice and representation in ways that are going to reflect their own preferences. And I'm not here to say we should get rid of the NLRA, the National Labor

Relations Act. If someone wants to organize and form a union, they should have that right. But let's recognize that that's down to about 6% of the private sector workforce. As far as I can tell, there are no recent surveys that actually indicate a majority of workers want to join a union. And under our system, if you can't get to majority support, you don't get a union. So I'd actually end right where Paul started, which is if the alternative is nothing, this is a good idea. And for most workers right now, the alternative is nothing. And so I think anyone serious about worker power and giving workers more options should want to give them this option too. Paul, let me get your response to that critique because I think this is actually quite salient.

You know, you have the American Compass survey of actual American workers by a three-to-one margin there. They say they would prefer a worker organization that focuses only on workplace issues and not one that is engaged in national political issues. To say also, we saw, and this is anecdotal, and we're not dismissing any of the screwery that was happening with Amazon, but there was a frustration by the actual black workers of Bessemer, Alabama, that they were even signaled to about BLM as opposed to actual higher wages, in part why they decided not to vote for a union, at least in that election, given all of the irregularities. So what do you make then of that critique, that big labor is essentially an arm of progressive cultural activism specifically, and that given that, it doesn't necessarily represent a lot

of worker interests? Yeah, there's a lot to cover there. Well, first, so going back to that American Compass survey, and so maybe I was reading something different, but I remember clearly the question was asked to those workers in the survey, you know, would you join a union? And the plurality said yes. And the second largest number said they weren't sure. And it was the third largest section that said no. And so that doesn't surprise me. And what that shows is, again, the plurality actually would. There's a large section that do not know, which does not surprise me, given that many people just do not know about unions now. But what happens during a union drive? You learn about what a union could do. Now, of course, that's balanced against what

management is going to do on the other side. But, you know, so those numbers do not indicate to me that those workers overall like do not like existing unions. And I think to go to this, you know, this issue of unions involved in politics, I think we have to be very clear. It's one thing to say, you know, political legislation that affects workers. And there's another thing to say, for lack of a better term, like woke politics. And actually, I think the reality of the labor movement today is actually they focus the vast majority of their resources and focus on administering contracts and negotiations. And actually, this is actually something a critique by many leftists that a lot of people on the left wish unions in the United States were more political, wish they took on more

social issues. But I got to tell you, the reality is that many of them actually do not do that. They do focus on political legislation that affects them, but of course they do. You know, the National Labor Relations Board matters. Right to work legislation matters for workers. So of course they're going to focus on those political issues. Just like the Chamber of Commerce, you know, they focus on their political issues and they by far outspend labor unions on these political questions. Now, it could be fair to say that, you know,

I think unions overall need to do a better job of communicating to their members of why they are getting involved in politics and why certain issues are important. But I got to say, you know, and I, you know, I take that critique about what happened in Bessemer. You know, I think that is fair. And, you know, Jane McAlevey, I think, wrote a really good kind of postmortem on that that got into some of those issues. But I will say overall, my experience has been that, you know, labor really does focus on those bread and butter issues. And again, for the very small amount of workers that are in these unions, which unfortunately is a small amount, you see the difference. I mean, by far, their wages are better. Their benefits are better, their job security is better. So even in this period where unions are admittedly on the defensive, are weaker, they still are delivering

for many members. And they do that by focusing on those bread and butter issues. Well, and Arne, you have approval of labor unions at its highest point since 1965. So two thirds of Americans approve of labor unions. And yet, because you have, you know, companies able to engage in incredibly aggressive tactics and just blatantly flouting the law frequent times, as we saw in the case of Amazon, and as we're witnessing right now in Starbucks, you have a very low level of unionization. At the same time, you know, one of the things that has happened is as Republicans shifted to taking an aggressive anti-union stance, of course, with Reagan and active union busting, of course, labor unions have moved more into the Democratic Party camp. But coming from, you know, having lived in a state like Kentucky, I can tell you

still at the state level, there are Republican legislators that support labor unions and that receive labor union support in turn. and side with Democratic politicians who are the only ones at this point, and they don't all consistently do it, but who are the only ones that, you know, really consistently back their rights to even exist? Well, just as a factual matter, I think of the history a little bit backward. There were, of course, a lot of Republicans, even at the national level, who were supportive of labor unions right into the 1990s. And it was after the Gingrich takeover in Congress when Republicans suddenly had a majority for the first time, you know, going back to the 50s, I think, that labor unions turned around and said, well, then that's it. We're just, we are going all in for the Democrats and abandoned Republican politicians who might have been pro-labor. So that's not to say certainly

Republican politicians haven't done plenty wrong as well, but there is plenty on both sides to point to in the problem of polarization that we have today. I think the broader problem, Crystal, with the way you framed the question is that you assume that the labor unions are themselves the interest that's relevant, and they're not. They're supposed to be representatives of workers. So the question isn't what the labor boss wants. I think that's fair. I think that's fair. But there are some really significant fights going on right now with UAW and Teamsters, two large and incredibly consequential unions that are exactly about what you're talking about, making the unions themselves more representative of the democratic will of the membership. So, you know, why not engage in some of those fights to make labor unions more accountable

to their membership, something I would certainly support, rather than providing this alternative mechanism that ultimately, you know, has no voting power on the board and doesn't offer the opportunity for workers to be able to collectively bargain. Well, I think that's great if big labor is actually now working on trying to more effectively represent their members. It's a shame that we've come to the point

where we have to sort of point to that and celebrate that instead of taking it for granted. But none of that addresses the question of whether other options would be valuable as well. And as I said, there's decades of research now showing that a lot of workers don't want a union. And what most workers would prefer is something more like what's in this bill. Now, I think there's a lot of other things we should also do to reform labor law. But to the extent that we're discussing this bill, and should people be voting yes or no on it, it seems to me I'm still not clear what the case is for voting no on it. I've heard a lot of things it could do that are good, that are better than nothing.

I think a non-voting board seat is still incredibly important. If you think about how boards work, very rarely is the issue one of a split vote coming down to one vote. It's about who's there, who's participating. It's about building trust. It's about the flow of information. So I'm still waiting to hear why we shouldn't do this. Go ahead, Paul. Yeah, what's the case for voting no? Well, the case for voting no is that it's clear how companies are going to use this. They're going to use this to box out unions and to further weaken their power and to muddy the waters for workers of what true representation is. And again, employers are currently not prevented from currently doing this.

And I mean, maybe I can end on this. I mean, if you want to talk about worker power to really improve their lives, we just witnessed in last year, two big private sector strikes at John Deere and Kellogg's. These workers fought like hell for something very basic, like increased wages, health benefits, end of two tier, not working, you know, insane shifts. They fought like hell. And they, you know, I think they were largely successful. But if they had to fight that hard just for that, do you really think having one worker, a non-voting seat on a board, the companies are going to listen to them? No, they constantly have to fight for these things. And having a union in those situations was the only way they were going to be able to win that

fight to at least get, and again, we're not talking about something crazy or 5% wage increase, no cuts at our health benefits. But that showed us yet again, that was the tool that could get them to win. And I just think it's delusional to think one seat where you can't even vote, that these big corporate giants are going to listen to workers. I've never seen it really in history. I'm not going to see it now, I don't think. Gentlemen, appreciate both of your perspectives very much. We're going to include the link to the report from American Compass for Oren and also the link to Jackman's show and Paul's Senate campaign, state Senate campaign, as well in the description so you guys can check out more.

But thank you both so much for your time and your analysis. Thanks, guys. It was really helpful. Thanks for having me. Yeah, our pleasure. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. We just appreciate your support every day. I was telling Crystal about this. You know, we recently started this TikTok account, Munch to Bysha Grin, but the Gen Z's wanted it. So we hire somebody. He's been running our Twitter or TikTok account. Phenomenal. Excellent job. We've

gotten 50,000 followers in just three weeks, which I'm told is pretty good by some of the teenagers who I've met before. And all of a sudden, our TikTok account has been locked for 24 hours. And the reason that we are giving, Crystal, is that we violated their community guidelines for hate speech. And the video that they are pointing to specifically is a video where we defend Joe Rogan. Now, I can tell you, and you can go and watch these videos for yourself, we at no time said the N-word. All we said was the N-word. Literally. We didn't say the actual word. At no time did we utter anything which could be construed as hateful in any way. Now, this is the, I believe, third community guideline violation that we've received on our account in just three weeks.

I wonder if it has something to do with some of the criticism I've made of the company in the past. Wow, that's psycho. And it's very clear that the TikTokers themselves are enjoying breaking points there. But look, I say this only as yet again an example as to why we rely entirely upon you with these premium subscriptions. We can be destroyed by YouTube overnight just Just to give people a monetization update, we had multiple segments which were demonetized on our Thursday show, which were not eligible for monetization until hours later,

after everybody watched it, including the NBC News airing neo-Nazi propaganda, including the CNN, Me Too accusation, none of them were able, available for monetization until hours after, which means that we can't make any money off of those videos. Once again, it's fine because we rely on you, but we're just trying to give you as open of a picture into the forces that you are fighting against.

It's all fun and games for the entertainment YouTubers and all those people who are out there, but when we talk about the real stuff, the real news, this is what happens to us. But we also have some good news for you guys that, again, your support has helped to enable, which is we are going to do a live show for the State of the Union.

Boom. Look at that graphic. It's happening on March 1st. We're going to do a pre-show. The speech is supposed to start at 9, give or take, so we're going to do a pre-show starting at 8. It's going to be me and Sagar, Kyle, and Marshall, so the whole Realignment KKF secular talk team will be right here in the studio. Kyle's going to be on his channel, too. So we'll do pre-analysis, we'll stream the speech live, and then we'll do post-analysis as well with a couple of special guests. So something we are very, very excited about, something we'll be doing more of this year, and that you guys made possible.

Big news possible, literally only because of your support, because it does cost money in order to put those live shows on. Even more, we're hiring some awesome new people. You're going to see some new faces on the channel. You already saw that Matt Stoller video as well. So look, we do it all because of you guys. You guys are loving the Stoller content. Yeah, it's doing really well. Even though it was about weed, which once again, whatever.

Guess I have to wear pro-weed propaganda on our own channel already. But that just goes to show you, I'm not going to censor anybody whenever we hire them. So there we go. Thank you all so much for your support. We will see you all tomorrow. Love y'all. Have a good one. This is an iHeart Podcast.