Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/27/25: Tesla $400 Million Coverup, Saagar Rips Trump 'Gold Cards', Near Plane Crash, Tapper Gaslights On Biden Age Coverup, Bezos Bans Anti-Oligarch Speech

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Ryan exposes Tesla $400 million coverup, Saagar rips Trump 'gold card' plan, terrifying near plane collision, Tapper gaslights on Biden age coverup, Bezos bans anti-oligarch speech at WAPO.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve

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unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Let's get to Tesla, shall we? Because this is in terms of some of the fallout overseas. And actually, this is the curiosity of, as Elon becomes more political, yes, his wealth is extraordinary and all of that.

How much of it, if it declines, will affect his overall performance, his Doge extraordinary and all of that. How much of it, if it declines, will affect his overall performance, his Doge, you know, image and all of that? I genuinely have no idea. I tend to think Tesla is still his baby. It's the center of gravity of all of his net worth and power. But maybe he just doesn't care anymore. He's realized enough gains. He doesn't care about the company. So Tesla, I was looking, makes up about a third of his net worth.

So it's certainly significant in terms of his wealth. And right now it really is struggling. I mean, the stock price is way down. I'll put this up on the screen. And I mean, Tesla stock is really, I saw someone describe it as basically like a meme stock. I mean, the valuation doesn't really comport with reality anyway. And now they have this huge drop in sales. And that's part of what is driving this drop in terms of the stock price. Let's put the next piece up on the screen so I can explain more of the numbers behind the drop in sales. In Europe in particular, Tesla sales have dropped almost by half, 45% year over year. And if you just look at the EU, it actually has dropped by half year over year. So back in January of 2024, they sold some 15,130 Teslas in the EU.

This year, it was only 7,517. Now, you may say, OK, well, maybe EV sales overall are declining. Not so. EV sales year over year are actually up. It's just Tesla sales, which are way down. I do think a lot of it has to do with him becoming this very toxic, partisan political figure. And you have to remember, he weighed in. I mean, obviously, he's like controlling our entire political system at this point.

But he also intervened in Germany. And the sales in Germany are down something like 63%. So it's an even greater drop. He also was meddling in the UK. There's been a drop there as well. And there's been sort of a general European rejection of this foreign billionaire richest man on the planet trying to meddle in their politics. And also you have to think about the kind of consumer who is typically buying an electric vehicle. Most of them are liberal or lefties. So to have someone who is so closely associated themselves

with Trump and the AFD and, you know, waiting in on the grooming gangs debate in the UK or whatever, that's going to be a problem for the Tesla brand. Now, there are some other factors that I think play into this that aren't just about Elon's politics. Although, like I said, I do think that that is a significant part of what is going on here. One is, as we've been discussing, BYD is selling fantastic EVs. And so he's got more competition in terms of the electric vehicle market. And then the other one is people are potentially waiting for there's like a new model of the car that's coming out in the spring. You probably know more about that than I do. So maybe they're just waiting and holding off for like the latest new thing to come out. But I don't think it's deniable at this point that his brand is a big part of this drop. There's also a

drop in China that I would probably attribute more to the domestic competition. Yeah. And there's about a 13 percent drop here in the U.S. of Tesla sales. And of course, they also have just become this very visible symbol of him. So you've had Tesla owners putting those bumper stickers on that are like, I bought this before I knew Elon was crazy. You've had some instances of vandalism. I don't know how widespread that is, but like cyber trucks getting spray painted with swastikas and Tesla charging stations being spray painted with swastikas, et cetera. So it has become this kind of like touchstone of resistance, visible symbol of him, et cetera. And it is significant to his net worth. But I wish I thought that it would like matter and sort of check him and that this is like really going to hit him where it hurts.

But the truth of the matter is, as long as he's in control of the federal government, he has all of our tax dollars backstopping his net worth. And I do think his primary, at this point, ideological goal and company passion is more SpaceX and the goal of getting to Mars. So I don't know if this is going to mean anything to him or not. Very possible. I'm not sure. We reached out to Doug DeMuro, by the way, to try and get him back on the show to talk about the Chinese EVs, because I saw a video of him just talking about how good they are and about why he's like without tariffs. And if we have pure capitalism, he's like, we're going to get destroyed in this market. So I'm actually really has changed significantly. They cut a lot of their prices for this. If there is lessening demand, it could feed more into that. They still have the production on their side as opposed to every other company.

There's still big questions as to whether the Trump administration will continue some of the EV incentives that are there. It's actually a big open question as to whether Elon would even want those EV incentives. No, he wants them to go away. Right, because it would subsidize the competition, which, let's be honest, not as good and has way bigger production problems. So it's much more of a subsidy for Ford, GM, and for the big three automakers than it is for Tesla, which has a proven, you know, it has factories, it has charging stations, it already has like the biggest market share out of all of it. So it would only make even more of a reason to invest or to buy a Tesla. No, I think he sees it as a benefit.

Yeah, which it mostly is. For the EV credits to go away, he sees it as hurting his competitors more than it hurts him. And, you know, I do think it's important to remember like Tesla benefited from huge amounts of government cash. They were really on the amounts of government cash. They were really on the verge of going under. And Elon personally begged the Obama administration, the emails that Elon's, the emails have been released of him really hat in hand. Like, we have to get this loan. That enables them to be able to buy the factory in Fremont and live to fight another day and build up this, you know, successful car company. The other thing I didn't realize, this is all from those Washington Post reporting.

The other thing I didn't realize is a third of Tesla revenue actually comes from selling these like EV credits. And it's not just federal. A lot of that is state too, because California, of course, has very stringent emission requirements. And so Tesla, as an EV, zero emissions, they can then sell their credits to other automakers who need to be able to lower their emissions. So they sell and trade these credits on the market. That makes up about a third of their revenue. In fact, the first year that Tesla was profitable at all, it was all because of these state and federal credits that they were able to sell. So, I mean, this is really the story of Elon. He benefited massively from government, taxpayer subsidies, dollars, loans, contracts, etc. But now that he's made it into this post position, he wants to pull up the ladder

and make sure that other companies can also benefit from that kind of industrial policy, which is why he would be perfectly happy to see the EV tax credits go away because he thinks that will hobble his competitors here domestically. Now, I'm sure what he doesn't want to see go away are the ban on importing BYDs. I think that he will make sure that that restriction on the market stays in place. For me, it's not about Tesla. It's just, it's true. We just can't allow that. We're going to destroy our entire car market. I mean, if you, and this is one of those where the car industry in America is maddening and yet necessary, both from a jobs perspective, but just from the ability to manufacture. I personally, if I had the choice, there's no question in my mind I'm buying Xiaomi or BYD, but I'm not going to. Like as an American consumer, and this is where I'll even,

you know, argue against my own freedom. I shouldn't be allowed to because our manufacturing sector, those jobs, it's just too important to the United States and to our future defense capacity. And I don't begrudge the Chinese, you know, good. If anything, I admire you, your ability to prop that up in a 15 year period. We can learn from it. We should absolutely study it and see what we can do to copy it. But yeah, I mean, this is not even about Tesla. I'm just like, we cannot let these companies go bankrupt. Like World War II is often overused. But, you know, if you look back in the day, the ability for those GM factories to overnight go switch to war production is super important. Yeah. And when you lose that, then you become the country that we are right now, which is a husk of what it used to be, that produces nothing and has 25% of its GDP riding on Jensen Wong's motorcycle jacket, which I don't want to live in that world.

Right? No, I don't even disagree with you. I don't even disagree with Elon getting that loan at Tesla at a time when he needed it. No, I think it should have come with requirements for workers to unionize and things like that. What I object to is that the industrial policy he benefited from, he wants to now shut off the tap and spigot when it comes to his competitors. So in any case, there's another piece of this that is really important, which is Ryan and DropSight did a fantastic job breaking the story about this supposed $400 million contract for armored Teslas coming out of the State Department. So, you know, they just looked at, like, the list of procurements, whatever.

They see this contract. It's the largest line item. And lo and behold, it is for Teslas, $400 million, the largest contract coming out of the State Department. So let's put the story up on the screen. This was Ryan's original story. Now updated, it says armored Tesla was forecast to win $400 million State Department contract after Trump's election. So after this was discovered, then they went in and changed the language so it no longer said Tesla. It said armored electric vehicles. Then the story was that, oh, actually, this was initiated during the Biden administration. And the number wasn't 400 million.

It's really 408,000, something like that. So that was their story is like, oh, actually, this started under the Biden administration, and we didn't have anything to do with it. And this isn't going to happen anyway. Now we have another piece of the story. NPR did this reporting up on the screen. So they were able to obtain the original State Department document that shows the Biden administration was not awarding a $400 million contract. They were awarding only $483,000. And sometime after Trump was inaugurated, that amount got boosted from $483,000 to $400 million. So either this is an extraordinary clerical error that just happened to ignore to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars to the dude who is currently running the federal government.

Or they intentionally went in to try to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into Tesla and basically got caught. Now, this amount of money, by the way, just so you understand how much this is in the context of these State Department armored vehicles, and this would be to like armor up Cybertrucks. A bunch of experts said this may not even make sense to use Cybertrucks for this purpose anyway, but putting that aside, this would mean that they were replacing all 3,000 armored cars and SUVs around the world that are used to transport diplomats, VIPs, other officials working for the State Department, replacing all of them with Cybertrucks, which are expensive, and then armoring them, which is also, you know, another, let's say, $80,000 to armor these things up. You have to, like, go at that incredibly maximal approach to even come close to the $400

million that Elon was set to be, you Elon was set to have sent to him. So it really looks like a potentially massive scandal and very clear example of self-dealing and just theft and robberies, effectively, of the American taxpayer to take this $483,000 contract and just secretly boost it to $400 million. So worth a lot more investigation here because, like I said, it's either a very convenient clerical error or naked robbing of the public purse by the dude who is running the government right now. I'm going to go with the job for Doge.

This sounds like a good job for Doge, doesn't it? Well, Ryan's reporting seems to have spiked the deal. Yes, and this is another thing. Journalism matters. Ryan really is the GOAT in terms of his ability to sniff some of this stuff out. And if you think about his track record, I've been seeing it recently. It's not only stuff like this, but the Romanian election. I mean, huge amounts of DropSite reporting is responsible for Elon himself and Mike Benz digging into the Romanian USAID connection.

And it's amazing. SunSite is such a new outlet. It's a brand new thing. They're just like already essential. It's amazing. It's just incredible. So anyway, that's what we stand Ryan here over. Ryan Grimm may have single-handedly saved the government more than the entire.

No, I'm talking about. Yes, here. He could save the government here and he could save the government of Romania. I'm talking about he's probably saved more money, like actual money, for the federal government than the entire Doge, Elon Musk project, etc. It would be possible. Let's blow this last one up here from USAID. This was flagged by Pedro Gonzalez. He's always an interesting figure.

I'm not so sure, though, what to make of this. So he says, do you think Musk went after USAID because of its woke or because his rival had just recently scored its first federal contract? Is it possible he's using culture war stuff to mask an agenda? So apparently in August of 2024, OpenAI had revealed its first agency customer for ChatGPT Enterprise, which was USAID would use the tool. And then apparently it was canceled by the USAID cuts that were there. I'm not so sure if that one is or is not, you know, the agenda that Pedro flags, but it does get to the whole idea of like conflict of interest,

you know, in the first place. It's like, if you're going to have like personal agendas and Stargate and all this other stuff, then how can you be sure that this is being done, you know, for correct purposes? As I said, I'm a Claude guy. I'm not a chat GPT person, but I would just, you know, ask that we would try to reward a contract based on some sort of competitive bid or not even have open questions in our mind. This isn't the biggest scandal, but it is still important. It's still

important. It's just important to realize how many, whether this was the motivating factor for Elon going after USAID or not. The fact that we have to question that, that's the point. And with USAID in particular, you have that. I mean, we know he despises Sam Altman. They're locked in legal battles. He goes after him. They're, you know, fighting over the origin and the development of OpenAI, et cetera. So certainly convenient for him that this contract is, I'm sure at this point, completely spiked, dealing a blow to not only someone that he has personal animus towards, but also to a significant competitor. And I think Elon cares a lot about

winning the AI race himself. So you've got that. You've got, apparently USAID was also investigating the like Starlink Ukraine situation that was going on. So you have that as a potential motivating factor as well. And then also, as I mentioned to you, USAID was involved in like backing the end of apartheid. You may hold a grudge over that as well. We don't know. And maybe it was none of those. Maybe none of those factored in. The fact that we have to ask and we don't know, and he has so many personal interests intertwined in almost all of these agencies is a problem. It's a big problem in and of itself. And especially because Trump has just given him free reign to really do whatever he wants. And some of the moves do seem just naked self-deal.

I mean, the $400 million Tesla contract, obviously nakedly self-dealing if that was intentionally changed. That's insane, right? Insane levels of corruption. You also have attacks on very specific offices within agencies that happen to be the ones that were going after Tesla or going after SpaceX and investigating them for, you know, alleged infractions and violations. So some of it just seems very difficult to deny,

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So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get to the golden visa. I felt compelled to weigh in on this.

I did not realize that Ryan and Emily were going to be so supportive of what I think is such a trash program. So let's go ahead and play Trump's words first about how this is all going to work. And then I will give you some analysis. Let's take a listen. Does this reflect a view on your part that the American immigration system has never been properly monetized as you feel it should be? Well, not so much monetized. It hasn't been properly run. I get calls from, as an example, companies where they want to hire the number one student at a school.

A person comes from India, China, Japan, lots of different places, and they go to Harvard, the Wharton School of Finance. They go to Yale. They go to all great schools. And they graduate number one in their class. And they're made job offers. But the offer is immediately rescinded because you have no idea whether or not that person can stay in the country. I want to be able to have that person stay in the country. These companies can go and buy a gold card and they can use it as a matter of recruitment. At the same time, the company is using that money to pay down debt.

We're going to pay down a lot of debt with that. And I think the gold card is going to be used by not only for that. I mean, they'll be used by companies. I mean, I could see Apple. I've spoken with Tim Cook. And by the way, he's going to make a $500 billion investment in the country, only because of the results of the election. And I will tell you, the people that can pay $5 million, they're going to create jobs. They're going to spend a lot of money on jobs. They're going to have to pay taxes on that, too. So they're going to be hiring people.

They're going to be bringing people in and companies in. Okay, so let me just go off on this a little bit. So let me give you guys a list of the countries that currently have so-called golden visas. This is not a novel idea. It already exists across Europe and most Caribbean nations. So we've got Portugal, Spain, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Ireland, Italy. We have St. Kitts and Nevitz, Dominica, Granada, Antigua, Barbuda, St. Lucia, and then there are a few other countries, kind of like in America, where we have something called investment programs and others in Australia, New Zealand,

in Singapore as well. Now, what do all of these countries have in common? They are either failing European nations with massively high unemployment rate, which are selling access to Russian oligarchs and or rich businessmen across the world to the Schengen area and to the protection of the European Union, or they are tiny little Caribbean nations, which are basically selling citizenship for tax haven purposes, mostly used by crypto people and or others who want to escape the grid. Now, why would you auction off the most powerful passport in the world for $5 million to a global elite class whose only purpose of buying the so-called golden visa would be to use the United States as a tax haven for their ill-gotten gains and or to launder money

in our country? Now, maybe you could justify that, but we already have a massive problem here of specifically these types of global individuals who rape their country's economies, bring it here for what purpose? To park money in the world's greatest and safest economy. So let me give you guys some figures. In Miami today, 20 to 25% of Miami's real estate market is owned by foreign nationals. In New York City, it's 10 to 15% of the overall market. In Los Angeles, it's 5 to 10%. In luxury areas, it's actually more like 15 to 20%. All of these are held specifically by the types of shady characters that we don't want in our country. So this is part of the problem that we have in terms of our amazing cities, places like San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, places

Americans maybe should be allowed to live, are dominantly driven, especially at the luxury level, by these filthy rich foreign nationals. It's not fair, both to the Americans who, you know, make this country and or hold this citizenship, but worse, the type of person who buys the golden visa is the exact opposite of like who you would want. And it also perverts the idea of citizenship itself. Citizenship is not supposed to be bought and sold like an auctioneer's passport. The purpose of a citizen is to have obligation to the country, not just to be bought and sold like an auctioneer's passport. The purpose of a citizen is to have obligation to the country, not just to look at it as some sort of tax purpose. Now, if the Caribbean nations and all that want to do that, fine. You guys got to make money somehow.

We are the world's richest and most powerful nation. So that's my long screed. The golden visa is a preposterous and stupid idea. The current investment visa is plenty fine because it actually requires business investment, which would allow job creation and all of that to happen. That's the way that Australia and a few other countries do it. But even then, again, I have seen this program so perverted by the ultra-rich oligarch class. And in America, if we're going to sell our passport, this is my final thing, we need a much bigger number than $5 billion. It needs to be like $100 billion. And that money needs to have a proven track record of actually going to its citizens,

and they shouldn't be allowed to buy up a shit ton of real estate. So that's the end of my long rant. I just think it's disaster. It will massively, if this were to go into effect, can you imagine the real estate markets in Los Angeles, in Chicago, in Miami, here in Washington, D.C.? What do you think these people are going to do? American real estate is the gold standard market of the world. That's why they already park their cash here through all these shady LLCs. We don't need your money. You know, we don't need you, you know, at all. You guys can stay in Cyprus or wherever the hell you're from. Yeah. I mean, this is another, this is like sort of an extractive parasite class of global elites. And to your point, I'll just add this. In Spain,

they actually rolled back their golden visa program, which was initially put into place in like 2013. And the reason that it became really unpopular and they rolled it back is because of exactly what you said. It was associated with like criminality and money laundering, and it helped you drive up the already high prices of housing in major cities. So, I mean, this has already been somewhat of a problem in places like Miami and New York, where so many of the condos are just permanently vacant because they're owned by these various oligarch-like billionaires from around the world who are never there. So, it really does sort of, you know, strip the vitality out of communities. It drives housing prices up and encourages and facilitates illegal activity.

So not a great direction. Yeah, I just can't stand it. You know, I was thinking about it. If you want to now, I don't I'm not saying everybody should be able to retire or whatever, but in the most beautiful place in America, I acknowledge supply and demand. But when you look at the most at the crown jewel places in the United States, places like La Jolla in San Diego. And the average home price is like $7 million. You're like, okay, so who the fuck are you? And you start digging into it. And you're like, oh, so a bunch of Saudis

own this, this, and this. Same thing in Beverly Hills. They literally make a joke about it over there, about how all the people there are from Saudi Arabia or who are foreign nationals who'd use it as some sort of plaything. Do you think it should be a plaything? My modest ask is it should be a plaything at least of American entrepreneurs, okay? And not necessarily of the global elite

class. We've basically, same with Miami. I love Miami. I think it's a cool place. Wouldn't want to live there, but it's nice. Should it really just be the playground of South American criminals and or like oligarchs who are afraid that the Argentinian or Brazilian government could fall and seize their money at any time? No. It's not right. And then people, what happens? You start to get pushed out more and more and more. And your city just becomes like a haven, an extractive place where people drive in from the burbs to serve some Chilean oligarch. It's like that's not how America is supposed to work.

It's not a real city. It has no character or name that, or it becomes like ultra segregated and in some sort, what's that movie I'm thinking of? The Matt Damon film, Elysium, Elysium. It becomes some sort of Elysium type place. That's already the case, in my opinion, for all of all these other places. Good luck. You know, it's like it's not going to happen.

You can be filthy rich and you're still competing against some Saudi prince. I just don't think it's right. And that's the problem I have with this golden visa program. And as you said, a lot of the places that have implemented them, they hate the type of people that end up buying this. It's been Portugal hasn't liked it either. The EU is really discouraging it because. Right, because you're selling access to the European Union. I mean, you're just basically selling out your country. And then it also

has not raised that. If Trump's all, it's going to raise trillions. No, it's not. That has also not panned out in any of the countries that have tried it whatsoever. So I don't need some Russian oligarch or whatever coming over here and buying even more property in Williamsburg or in Tribeca or Manhattan. Those places are plenty

expensive as it is. Anyway, all right, so my rant is over. Screw the golden visa. We don't need it. You guys can stay wherever you are. Let's get to Southwest, shall we? Yeah, so air travel has been obviously a consistent concern over the past several months and even going back years. We've been tracking how, you know, the decline in air safety and how nervous people are now to fly. And this image I'm about to show you is not going to make you any less nervous. Let's put this up on the screen. This is a near collision as the Southwest plane is landing at Chicago Midway Airport. And just as it's about to touch on the ground, it has to pull back up to avoid this freaking private jet that then is taxiing down the runway in front of it.

So quick thinking and quick acting by this Southwest pilot. Kudos to them. You can see it here in slow-mo just how close they are to a horrific collision. But that was not the only incident where this occurred within 90 minutes. And we can put this next piece up on the screen with some of the details here. Within the span of 90 minutes on Tuesday morning, two airplanes, one at Reagan National, which was just the site of that horrific, deadly passenger plane crash just a couple weeks ago, and the one we just showed you at Chicago's Midway International Airport, both were forced to abort landings to avoid collisions, according to federal aviation

officials. So an American Airlines flight that was arriving at National Airport from Boston was making its final descent, suddenly had to cancel its landing, climbed toward the skies, accelerated away from the airport. The last minute move allowed it to avoid colliding with another plane that was about to take off from the same runway. And that's according to the FAA. The airplane's pilots were told to scrap the landing by an air traffic controller to ensure separation was maintained. And then the incident that you just saw around 8.50 a.m. Central Time, the pilots of Southwest Airlines Flight 2504 traveling from Omaha had to cancel the plane's landing at Chicago Midway after a business jet entered the runway without authorization. So two insane and terrifying incidents.

Like I said, kudos to both of those pilots for being able to make those maneuvers. My understanding is the one that you saw in Midway was a bit of a closer call than the other one. But both of them, it's like, what the hell is going on here? And in addition, Katie Pavlich, we can put this up on the screen, she was on a flight headed to some conference, and she says her flight was just about to take off, and the pilot slammed on the brakes. Upon departure, we were seconds from being off the ground. Terrifying incident.

Apparently, Saugers, she updated and said this was some sort of a mechanical issue or failure. I don't know what the hell is going on. Of course, you know, this comes amid the backdrop of air traffic. The FAA has not been immune from Doge cuts. They say that they aren't firing any air traffic controllers, but a lot of the support staff, it's been reported, have been, some of the support staff have been let go. You've got now Doge engineers, or sorry, yeah, SpaceX engineers affiliated with Elon running around this place and continuing to have terrifying incidents like this. There has been a shortage of thousands of air traffic controllers for years now. You know, I have no doubt that there are some federal government agencies that should and could be trimmed down and, you know, too much staff or whatever. The FAA is not one of them. This is one where you really need to staff up. You really need to invest because air travel safety matters to people. And all of these incidents are horrifying. Well, what's interesting about air

travel is if you think about it, it's got the, it's got a very different permission structure than almost everything else. The number of acceptable accidents is what? Zero. Yeah. It's so even with a failure rate of like a minute percentile, it's still too high. And it's one of those where you need to have the hundreds of billions of dollars that flow through the airlines and that the bedrock of like international travel and all is built on is when you get on a plane, it's not a problem. And so that's why even events like this or like 9-11, for example, can wipe out an entire sector of the economy. And it's one of those – it's just fundamentally different. I mean you and I are a business.

Like we operate on a very different risk profile, right? Like we can absorb various different hits or we can think and take risks, et cetera. You can even do that in a car. As a society, we've just taken and accepted like we're going to have like X amount of fatalities a year. And like that is what it is. But it's different for airlines just because it's like control thing in terms of who's in power, but also just because if you started to see like cascading events and all that, it would remove and suck complete trust out of the system. So that's where I worry about the most.

And I just think what we're watching here, it's not a doge issue because this is like a decade-long thing. It's about lack of prioritization by the government. It is also a lot of privatization and financialization in the airline sector, a lack of oversight over probably the last 20 years, like when we talk about mechanical failure and all that. And it just culminates where it's kind of like the Chinese EV thing. One day you just wake up and you're like, oh, shit,

maybe these planes are not nearly as safe as they used to be. So it both happened over a long period of time, but it also wasn't that, you know, it wasn't that long ago that we didn't have incidents or questions like this all the time. It could be a matter of information, but I do still think it's unacceptable to have things where they are right now. Of course. And, you know, the way it relates to Doge is because the whole ethos of Doge is privatization, is stripping the government down and outsourcing everything. And that is the ideology that has led to the FAA being so bare bones that you're short thousands of air traffic controllers. That is the mentality that led the FAA to basically outsource their own safety

regulations to the industry, where they're effectively regulating themselves. Oh yeah, this plane is safe no problem don't worry about it that's the mentality and the ideology that led us to that place and now doge has put that ideology on steroids that's why it matters and it's also you know i mean this is a perfect emblem of as you were saying soccer like when you're running twitter and you cut a huge proportion of the staff and the Twitter spaces with Ron DeSantis fails, like, that's really bad for Ron DeSantis. And it did not help him. It was embarrassing for Elon. It was really pathetic. And then, you know, Trump did his spaces as well, and it also didn't go all that well.

But no one's going to die, right? Some functions of government are absolutely critical. They're critical for life and death. They're critical for food safety. They're critical for veterans benefits. They're critical for, you know, elderly people who are relying on that Social Security check. They're critical for moms who are showing up at the hospital, have a baby and who are on Medicaid. decade, it shouldn't be run like a business because sometimes the results of failure are truly, truly catastrophic. And so, you know, this is a primary emblem of that where the core ideology of privatization and strip the government down that is being pushed by Doge is exactly how we got to this place where people are now second guessing air travel in a way that has never been the case in my life. I mean, I can speak for myself. Like, I don't want to get on a plane right now.

Well, because it's not just this. It's near misses. It's the Boeing shit. Exactly. It's the blowout. It's like, I mean, as I look. And the crash that happened in Reagan. I still think people should get on a plane.

It's good for you. Get on a plane and go and travel. I've flown plenty since all of these crazy things. Am I clutching the thing a little bit more? Am I looking over in the window? Yeah, thinking about it. Just making sure and be like, all right, you know, what's going on here every time we land? Yes. I mean, even that just makes it so much less of a pleasant experience. Yeah, I used to get on a plane and not think about anything. And they actually interviewed a dude who was on this plane that had to quickly like take back off, the one at Reaganagan national and he was like i was already really

nervous because of the crash that just happened here and i was feeling the sense of like okay we're only we're two minutes to landing like we're almost there it's gonna be fine he's kind of white white knuckling it and then just before they touched down this sharp um you know um ascent in and he's freaking out he's freaking out. He's freaking out. I'm sure everybody on that plane was absolutely freaking out. Like, what the hell is going on? So, yeah, it makes you so that if you're on the fence, you're like, I don't really want to sit there in terror for several hours. I'm not really in the mood for that.

I'm not an adrenaline junkie. It doesn't help that every single day I drive past 66 crosses or whatever, which is for all of the people who died on that Reagan flight. So if you live in the DMV area, there's, yeah, it's like a literal, I mean, it's a good thing, you know, obviously to remember. Yeah, at a memorial. The people who died. Sure. It's just every day I'm like, oh, man. You just see the, start the planes come in.

There were actually a bunch of people from my little town that had been coming back from a hunting trip. Really? That. I actually read about that. back from a hunting trip. Really? I actually read about that. Yeah, a hunting trip. They were like contractors, like, you know, working in the construction industry. And so, yeah, that hit close to home for sure for a whole lot of people. But, you know, it just gets into your head. And even though you could tell yourself the statistics, oh, it's safer than, you know, you're safer there than you are driving in your car to get to the airport or whatever.

But when you're up in the air, it's a different kind of a vibe. You want to know that, like, okay, everything is locked in and they got this under control. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.

In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders.

I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's

mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and we need to talk. It's tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack

of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now?

Yeah, cause I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like,

yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like, he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general.

Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get on to Joe Biden. So this, just had to put this one on the show because it's like a little bit too perfect in terms of the way that this all works. So obviously, what was the greatest scandal of the Biden administration? If you're a Republican, you're going to be like, oh, Hunter Biden.

It's like, no, it was the fact that this senile, dementia-ridden old man was basically given a free pass up until six months before Election Day. Up until it was undetailed. Yeah, up until he melted down in front of all of our eyes. And that we basically had like some shadow morons like Jake Sullivan and others run the entire United States government. It was genuinely like a Republican fever dream of reality. And yet, now we're allowed to talk about it. And that's perfect in terms of a new book that's being released. Let's put this up there on the screen.

It was announced yesterday from CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson. It's called Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Okay. And actually, if you read the book jacket, it's even more shocking because they talk specifically on the back of the book where they're like, it wasn't a bad debate. It wasn't a cold. It was a systematic campaign to cover up. Yeah, here I have it in front of me. What the world saw in the 2024 debate was not an anomaly. It was not a cold. It was not someone who was under or overprepared. It was not someone who was just a little tired. It was the natural result of an 81-year-old man

whose capabilities had been diminished for years. Biden, his family, and his team let their self-interest and fear of another Trump term justify an attempt to put, at times, an addled old man in the Oval Office for four more years. What was the extent of it? Who knew? Was it a conspiracy? We will let the facts speak for themselves. They say What was the extent of it? Who knew? Was it a conspiracy? We will let the facts speak for themselves. They say it was based on 200 interviews with Biden officials. So I want to split the difference here. For Alex Thompson, as people know, we had Alex Thompson on the show, legit dude. Now, did he call out the Biden stuff as much as I would have liked? No. But was he ever denying the reality of Joe Biden being an adult old man?

Also no. He took it seriously. He did a lot of reporting about it. And actually he was one of the only critical Biden reporters the entire time about how shit was really going on on the inside and about how people were terrified, really, of Biden's age. And so when Biden dropped out of the race, he was a go-to for here on this show and for a lot of other people. Tapper, though, is a whole other story in terms of CNN and how they treated the Biden age allegations until it became undeniable. We're going to show people a clip in a little bit, but I just think it's ridiculous that Tapper is acting as if he was some sort of like lone voice out there trying to tell the truth when he was just as complicit in attacking people

who were bringing up Biden's age as all these other idiots in the mainstream media. So I'm gonna read the book, I'll be honest. And honestly, Jake- It's gonna be a blockbuster. Jake, please still come on the show. I wanna talk to you about it. We can talk about this face to face.

Alex, I know he'll come on, well, at least I hope so, after all of this. But I don't know. I just feel like if it's a little too cute right now to put something like this out there and just act like you had no idea the whole time. Jake, you're one of the best source reporters in Washington,

man. Like, if you wanted to, you could have. But you just decided not to. Yeah, I think that's for me the biggest question because we're going to show a clip that is really bad about him being, oh, he has a stutter. It's like, oh my God. Anyone who engaged in that is like, should be automatically-

Yeah, stutter discourse, you're done. If you believe that, you're an idiot. In fairness, that was back in like 2020. It was stupid then. It was early. I mean, obviously we know how we covered it at the time, right? It was stupid then. It was early. I mean, obviously, we know how we covered it at the time, right? It was so obvious. If you looked even in 2020, if you compared him then to when he was vice president, it was very clear this was not about a stutter.

This was about, this is an old man. And guess what? Aging only goes in one direction. You're not going to get younger over the course of your time in the presidency. So anyone who wanted to see the signs could see the signs. But even beyond that, because he wasn't the worst of the mainstream press in terms of, you know, covering up even into the, you know, his presidency and running for reelection, whatever. There are some clips floating around of him challenging Karine Jean-Pierre on his age and concerns around that, et cetera. But I think your point is a really important one, which is that, like, you are deeply entrenched in the firmament of D.C.

You are very well-sourced. You keep those relationships. Like, did they trick you? Did you, were you part of the cover-up? Like, how did this get by you to the extent that it did when, you know, just regular Americans across the country, Democrat, Republican, Independent alike, were able to more accurately understand the extent of his decline than the Washington Press Corps and Jake Tapper being one of them.

So that's my question here. Like you said, that being said, I'm going to read the book. I have no doubt it's going to be a blockbuster. I know probably Alex wanted to have Jake on it because it will also, like, they'll get every media appearance they could possibly want to with this. And it's kind of amazing to me that it still is not seen as the massive scandal that it truly was. I mean, this was a gigantic cover-up. And if you're someone like me who's very upset about Donald Trump being back in the White House, you should care the most deeply. Because I think if there had been a Democratic primary process that people have been allowed to run and voters have been allowed to truly make a

choice, Democrats would have been in a much better position going into this election. And given the closeness of the election, I think it's reasonable to say it's very likely they would have prevailed. So yeah, it's going to be interesting to read. It's going to be interesting to see who knew what and when. But I have some questions for Jake Tapper, like for you. What did you know and when? Why weren't you asking questions? Why weren't you really taking it seriously? Were they just able to trick you? Or were you, you know, part of sort of intentionally hiding just how bad the extent of the decline truly was?

Absolutely. So with all that, let's take a listen to the Tapper clip. It's from 2020, but this is him on Biden's age. How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that? First and foremost, I had no idea that Joe Biden ever suffered from a stutter. I think what we see on stage with Joe Biden, Jake, is very clearly a cognitive decline. That's what I'm referring to. It makes me uncomfortable. You are. You are. No, uncomfortable. You are so amazing. It's so amazing to me that try and figure out an answer, a cognitive decline. You're trying to tell me that what I was suggesting was,

I think that you were mocking his stutter. Yeah, I think you were mocking his stutter. And I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline. I would think that somebody in the Trump family would be more sensitive to people who do not have medical licenses, diagnosing politicians from afar. Plenty of people have diagnosed your father from afar, and I'm sure it offends you, your father-in-law from afar. I'm sure it offends you. You don't have any standing to say- I'm not diagnosing him. What I'm saying, Jake, is that we can clearly see that Joe Biden is struggling at many times on stage. And it's

very concerning to a lot of people that this could be the leader of the free world. That is all I'm saying. I genuinely feel sorry for Joe Biden. I appreciate it. Yeah. How do those kids, those persons inflicted with stuttering feel? This is the sanctimony, the attitude. That's the problem, is that people like us and others, any reasonable person, was able to just be like, yeah, I don't think so. He's like he miraculously had a stutter that materialized in 2020, even though he's been on a camera for 45 years. And I personally saw Joe Biden at a campaign rally in 2012. That is the Biden in my head. And I remember seeing him in 2019 and just being like,

oh man, I attended Joe Biden's, as a journalist, very last speech as vice president in 2016, which again is in my head three years later. And I was like, dude, this is totally the different person back then. And as he was president, it was the most openly discussed thing by anyone who was not connected to institutional media. And this is the type of bullshit that they used

to basically silence and to smear people who were bringing up the most obvious. So like, as you said, I'll buy the book, okay? I'll buy it. You got it. Sorry, but- I will buy it. You got it. Sorry, but. I will buy it. You got it.

Hopefully, maybe they'll send us a review copy. Some of us. We're going to have to pay. Yeah, that's true. Since we're, yeah, we can probably get a free review copy. But maybe, honestly, at this point, I should just buy it after this point of talking about it. But the point, I guess, of all of it is just to say you had the opportunity to know. You did definitely participate in all of it is just to say, you had the opportunity to know. You did definitely participate in all of this.

And don't be coming around here acting like you're some, you know, Seymour Hersh or whatever, sniffing out the greatest story in the world. Like, you're not, and it's fine. Did he engage in any cheap fakes discourse? I don't know. That would be truly unbelievable. I'm not one of those Twitter discourse guys who goes back and, you know,

checks everybody's past posting history and all that. But on this one, I just think it's egregious to act as if you were a forward-facing person with credibility. And I actually feel bad for Thompson because he genuinely was on the story at the time as opposed to Tapper. But I get it. It's Washington. You need to make some money. So we wish you the best. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left.

In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to

continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator

to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and we need to talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah yeah because i bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too so his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good.

Like, that's what's really important, and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy, or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we got one more media story for you guys. This is actually pretty significant. this tweet indicating that he is going to end the Washington Post's tradition of publishing a range of viewpoints on their opinion page and is only going to basically push a pro-oligarch agenda exclusively. Not that it's a surprise that that's Jeff Bezos's preference, but pretty interesting to make it just completely brazen. So let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is the message that he sent to all the staff and journalists at The Washington Post, which, of course, he owns. But also he put this out on Twitter. He says, I'm writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.

We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics, too, of course. But viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. But today, the internet does that job. I am of America and for America, proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. A big part of America's success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical. It minimizes coercion and practical. It drives creativity, invention,

and prosperity. I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admired, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him if the answer wasn't hell yes, then it had to be no. After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift. It won't be easy. It will require 100% commitment. I respect his decision. We'll be searching for a new opinion editor to own this new direction. I am confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I'm excited for us together to fill that void. This makes me basically short circuit because what I want you to understand is when Jeff Bezos,

the owner of Amazon, talks about free markets and personal liberty, he doesn't mean like, you know, for example, the freedom of his workers to be able to form a union or to go to the bathroom when they need to. His drivers to have enough of a break to not have to pee in a bottle while they're delivering packages. When he talks about free markets, he does not mean the type of free markets that would lead to Amazon being broken up because it's a gigantic monopoly that has rigged its own algorithms. That's not the kind of free markets that he's talking about. What he's talking about is for the ability of him, an oligarch, to have unbridled power and freedom for himself in unlimited coercion and exploitation when it comes to you. That is the agenda that he is talking about pushing here. And it is, you know, also quite noteworthy coming after he blocked the endorsement of Kamala to try to curry favor with Trump. Is it Trump's inauguration?

It's completely trying to suck up to him. And, you know, Trump has obviously handed his administration over to the richest man on the entire planet, the preeminent oligarch of all oligarchs. And Bezos is basically saying, I'm going to get rid of any of these hippies and liberals who might criticize that direction and make sure that when the CFPB is gutted, they're on board with it. When the National Labor Relations Board can't issue rulings as has been done, they're going to be on board with it. That's what this is actually all about. I completely agree. And the thing is with Bezos is I also just think there's a lot of Elon envy going on here in terms of his personal gel.

My analysis of Bezos is that he is humiliated by the whole democracy dies in the darkness stuff previously and or didn't pay attention, either or. He wants to fire many of the people who work for him who he thinks are too woke or are embarrassing or whatever. But the problem is, is he doesn't just come out and say it. And so he invents all of this cockamamie bullshit that we're all supposed to believe. So for example, we're no longer going to endorse any candidates miraculously in 2024, right? So we're going to create this like principal standard when everyone's like, dude, we all know what you're doing here. Same thing, personal liberty and free markets. Okay. Surely from a business perspective, if I want personal liberty and free market opinion page, who am I going to the wall street

journal under, or sorry, Jeff Bezos at the New Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal, which has a century of standing up and literally carving out this niche for itself, or the Financial Times. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go for the latter, just as a consumer. So what, in an office space meme, Elon way, what do you do here? What is your purpose here? It's like the purpose here is to serve your own personal end. And okay, that's fine. It's your right. You own the paper. You can do as you would like.

But spare us your sanctimony. Spare us all this fakery. Spare us this idea that you care about personal liberty and free markets. You don't care about personal liberty and free markets. You don't care about personal liberty. You're the second largest employer in the United States who routinely cycles through all of these people, discards them as trash, you know, has completely realigned our markets, lobbied against free market,

like true free market principles. I mean, just, you know, stop. Just stop this idea that you believe in free speech. Do you know how many conservative books and others were banned on Amazon? Remain banned, actually, up until I think two weeks ago. There was a Ryan Anderson who is a guy who wrote a book about some transgender issues. His book was banned on Amazon for five years and only recently was reversed, obviously, as a result of this. I'm just saying, like, it's capricious.

It's done in a nature where it's all up to his own, like, personal whims. So just spare us, dude. Please. Like, stop pretending. Also, many people pointed out the irony of backing supposed personal liberty and free speech at a time when you're censoring your own, on your own platform, saying those viewpoints aren't going to be allowed here anymore. I mean, this is where I get it. It's preposterous. You can employ who you want. Is that censorship? Like, no, not really. But the point is, is that you're doing it out. What do you believe? That's what I just come back to. Was it democracy dies in the darkness, which you did under your leadership? Was it reversing the editorial direction and hiring a British tabloid guy to rebuild your business? Because if you want

a new business, let me take it from somebody who owns a media company with you. Don't do this. This is really stupid. Who's signing up for it? Anybody who wants this viewpoint subscribes to the Wall Street Journal. And why would they trust you? Anybody who wants this democracy dies in the dark and stuff has already canceled and has decimated your subscription business. So you're using this effectively as a propagandistic tool to bolster your own net worth and to curry favor. Okay, fine. You know, you're actually just in the right tradition of William Randolph Hearst and all these other people from the days of old, but they were a lot more explicit about it. Whereas you're trying to dress it up and all of this principle and I'm holier than thou. We will never just endorse one candidate or another.

It's like, oh my God, like just shut up. And remember how after being, oh, we don't do endorsements anymore. People can decide for themselves. Then they weighed in with endorsements with that agency head. You're exactly right. The cabinet picks, it's like, what?

And miraculously picked all the Washington choices and then we're like, oh, no RFK Jr. or whatever. Just so happens that Amazon wants to be a huge player in the healthcare space, right? It's like, in the same way we can talk about with Elon. I mean, remember also, the problem is the press always comes to their defense. And in a sense, like, their crocodile tears today are useless. I'm not talking about Jeff Stein, but I mean, you and I remember when Bernie Sanders pointed out the Washington Post ownership by Bezos, they were furious with him. They have never acknowledged oligarchy whenever it was used as a tool for the capital D Democratic Party. It's only now that

they're willing to talk about it. Part of the reason a lot of people don't even take them seriously and think they're full of shit, which I think is fine. But can we all just like come together now and be like, this is ridiculous. You know, this whole Bezos project, the way that he uses the op-ed page and all, there's no noble, you know, idea or any of this. And if anything,uckerberg's contortia and elon's like actions and bezos and all that just it tells us what they're all about so like let's just be honest that's the only silver lining is that it's no longer deniable it's like you know i mean because yeah that bernie thing really sticks in my craw because their coverage of bernie sanders was so negative and so dishonest that like total smears and fake fact checks and

all this stuff. And he said like, hey, maybe the fact that it's owned by this very wealthy oligarch, maybe that has something to do with their perspective on my democratic socialist approach. How dare you, sir, suggest that the one of the wealthiest people on the planet who owns the newspaper would have any say over the nature of their coverage. It's like, OK, all right. Well, now we see. We see what the reality is. We see what is entailed when you have oligarch owned media. And he's just effectively coming out and saying it.

So, yeah, I think that is the one silver lining is it is no longer in any way deniable whatsoever. And you asked, what does Jeff Bezos actually believe? We know what he believes. He believes in himself, his own self-interest, like whatever is good for him. That's what he believes in. That's why when he thought it was good for him to be part of the resistance and democracy dies in darkness. That's how he positioned things. And now that he feels this vibe shift and he wants to curry favor with the Trump administration,

he doesn't give a shit about the Washington Post as a business venture. He cares about it as a tool for his own power. And that has always, that is not new. That has always been the case. So same with Zuckerberg. You know, when it was cool to be woke, he was woke. Now he's moving his content moderation to Texas and he's wearing his chain and hanging out with Joe Rogan. Like these people are shameless in service of their own power and their own self-interest.

And that is what's going on here. Absolutely. Let me just roll through the rest of these elements. We mentioned Jeff Stein, who, you know, fantastic economics reporter there. He says, massive encroachment by Jeff Bezos in the Washington Post opinion section today makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there. I still have not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side of coverage. But if Bezos tries interfering with the news side, I will be quitting immediately and letting you know. Marty Baron had weighed in before.

Previous editor-in-chief of the Washington Post, very well known. We'll put this up on the screen from the Daily Beast. He says, there is no doubt in my mind that Bezos is doing this out of fear of the consequences for his other business interests. Amazon, source of his wealth, and Blue Origin, which represents his lifelong passion for space exploration, Baron wrote Wednesday, he has prioritized those commercial interests over the post and he is betraying the post's longstanding principles in order to do so. I think that is fairly undeniable at this point. And he also points out, which I didn't even realize, he says it was only weeks ago the post described itself as providing coverage for, quote, all of America.

Now its opinion pages will be open to only some of America, those who think exactly as he does. Also worth noting, Sagar, Amazon had floated that, what, $40 million Melania documentary. funneling cash into the First Lady's bank account to the Trump family bank account there, as well as one more way of currying favor. The Trump administration, pretty happy with this. You can put this tweet up on the screen. So this is Stephen Chung, his assistant to the president and White House director of communications with a little Grinch evil smile in reply to Jeff Bezos's note that he sent out here. And last piece I'll put up on the screen. This is from Saurabh Amari, who actually writes a newsletter with Emily over at Unheard. Ryan and Emily had him on the show recently. And he says, Jeff Bezos rebrands The Washington Post as the billionaire's think tank. And he says,

one of the world's richest men wants his newspaper to push policies that favor the rich. That's the upshot of Jeff Bezos' announcement today. Henceforth, the Amazon boss decreed his paper's comment pages will promote libertarianism, quote, free markets and personal liberty, and will not publish opinions

contradicting these central principles. While the story has a dog bites man quality, breaking tycoon prefers low taxes and weak unions, it's still a dismaying turn. Since the Wall Street Journal comment pages where I cut my teeth are also strictly committed to free market libertarianism, it leaves the New York Times opinion page as the only national print outlet where writers can argue for greater union density and more robust antitrust enforcement, say, or against Wall Street's hollowing out of the real economy. And I'm sure Stoller could spend hours regaling us with tales of how Jeff Bezos is the antithesis of someone who was committed to actual free market competition. So just coming out and overtly backing this pro-oligarch agenda

and also signaling like a right word shift for the paper in the era of Donald Trump. That's what I mean though. It's actually, it's not right word in a sense. It's just the most naked, like when you say personal liberty and free markets, it's really just a libertarian like mask off. Actually, it's not even libertarian. It's what corporate capture libertarian.

It's like corporate libertarian. And just openly saying it, you don't believe in personal liberty, dude. Like you don't believe in free markets. It's just the worshiping of those ideals and frankly, tricking a bunch of idiots into backing it so that you continue to get your tax benefit cuts, your, you know, preferential treatment, making sure that you don't face even modest workforce concessions. That's what this whole thing is. And look, I mean, in a way, thank you for telling us the truth. Finally, it was obvious for some of us. Perhaps it will be obvious to the rest of you. And maybe the corporate press will stop defending them. Although I highly doubt that because they're subject to many of the same pressures. True. All right. We will see you guys later. Make sure you

guys subscribe so you can watch the Rohit Chopra interview. Really looking forward personally to taking a look at it, supporting that type of work here we do at Breaking Points. Otherwise, we'll see you later. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right?

And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I also want to address the Tonys. On a recent episode of Checking In with Michelle Williams, I open up about feeling snubbed by the Tony Awards. Do I?

I was never mad. I was disappointed because I had high hopes. To hear this and more on disappointment and protecting your peace, listen to Checking In with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app,

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