Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/15/22: Ukraine Diplomacy, Economic Fallout, China's Crossroads, Anti-War Protests, & Media Propaganda feat. Matt Taibbi!

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

Krystal and Saagar break down the NATO leaders going to Kyiv for diplomacy, Russia's economy tanking, China at a crossroads, anti-war protests in Russia, Biden blaming Putin for inflation, wartime authoritarianism among liberals, the end of globalization, the case for nationalizing US oil, and an extended interview with Matt Taibbi on all things US propaganda and Russian history!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/Matt Taibbi: https://taibbi.substack.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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And again, guys, go to Breaking breakingpoints.com in order to subscribe. Thank you all so much. We love you and we appreciate you. Enjoy the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of big stories this morning. We're going to update you, of course, on what's happening on the ground in Ukraine. Some new diplomatic efforts, also the fallout in the Russian economy. In addition, massive drop in the Chinese markets. It's really quite stunning. So we're going to talk to you about that and what is going on there. A truly brave protest unfolding on Russian state TV. We will bring you those details as well as protests from some of the citizens in

Ukraine that are now in Russian occupied territory. So a lot of courage and bravery there. We'll break down what's going on for you with Joe Biden, some new polling there and his messaging and some insane comments on The View, like total McCarthyite authoritarianism. I mean, it really is wild what is sort of just being casually put out there in the public space. We also have Matt Taibian, excited to get his take. Of course, he lived in Russia and is a Russian speaker, actually. And it'll be great to hear from him on how he views all of the events that are unfolding. But we do want to start, as we have been, with what is unfolding on the ground in Ukraine, to the best of our knowledge. Yeah, this is always a difficult one.

And, of course, we've been trying to do these battle updates every show just to give you guys an idea of what's happening on the ground. It can be difficult because what's happening on the ground has been relatively static now for the last couple of days. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. By the way, that static nature may not be a bad thing. So it shows you that there remains intense fighting there in the city of Kiev and around there where Russian forces continue to try and surround and take the capital. Over in the eastern part of the country, Russian forces fighting their way to more of the larger towns. I'm not going to try and pronounce that particular one. But it matters because they're trying to envelop a piece of the Ukrainian resistance.

And then down in the southern part of the country, Russian-backed separatists have been gaining more ground in Donetsk. However, all of this could be a prelude of what we're seeing in this type and the style of warfare over the last couple of days to a possible diplomatic solution. I don't want to get anybody's hopes up, but a couple of data points were out there that made me raise my eyebrows, and I talked to some people, and they generally agree with it. So let's go ahead and put this video up there on the screen. This is a very important video because what you're watching there is the bombing of an aircraft production facility near the city of Kiev. That's the Anatov aircraft plant. Now, why exactly did that happen? Obviously, it's to deny the enemy. But also, Russia is attacking the defense

industrial base of Ukraine. This is not just, this is just the latest example of that happening. A lot of military analysts, Crystal, were looking at that with some puzzlement because they're like, well, in one way, if you are an imperial conquering power, you don't necessarily want to destroy part of what is going to what you'll be able to take over. The industrial capacity. The industrial capacity. On the other hand, as you transition to more of a civil war type phase where it's just a war of attrition, this would, of course, make sense to deny the capability of the enemy. And Michael Kaufman, he's an analyst who we've been looking to and has been quite spot on really in the last couple of months.

Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Here's what he says, and it's been quite spot on really in the last couple of months. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Here's what he says, and this is fascinating. I have come to think that the Russian military is interpreting demilitarization quite literally as a secondary war aim. They are increasingly targeting Ukraine's defense industrial capacity in strikes. So why does that matter? Here's why. Remember, a key part of the Kremlin's demands of Ukraine in any peace which is that their definition of demilitarization can change. They say demilitarization is nearly accomplished. So what do they mean by that? This was a couple of days ago. What they mean is that if they wipe out what they claim, at least to the eyes of the world, are the offensive capabilities of Ukraine that they found threatening, it would then open the door for a peace process,

where at the same time, Zelensky would have to guarantee no entry into NATO and into the European Union, and then no new offensive weapons capabilities. So they are coming in, destroying the defense industrial base. They could then use that as the pretextual definition of demilitarization. And that opens up all kinds of interesting diplomatic possibilities, which could signal a much closer end to this conflict than I think a lot of people had thought, including myself. Yeah, I certainly hope that that's the direction that we are headed in. I did some digging. Other people seem to be familiar with Antonov or else they were just pretending to be familiar with it, but I was not. They're

pretending. Other people buy their planes, actually. Yeah. So it's actually, so it was a Soviet era company that, of course, when the Soviet Union collapses, Ukraine takes over. It becomes a state-owned enterprise. They've built over 20,000 planes. They're sold typically in sort of, you know, the region, the former Soviet republics, also some to the developing world.

They're typically like these large cargo planes. And some of the commentary I saw online was that China and India use some of these planes are probably going to be a little bit irritated that now, you know, the capacity to create new parts and those sorts of things has been degraded by Russia. The other explanation here is that, remember early on, we saw some analysis that basically said, and I think this was some of the propaganda coming out of the Russian regime, even, that they were going to destroy Ukraine and effectively said, like, if we can't have it, no one can. And so when you see this just sort of indiscriminate bombing and degrading their

defense industrial capacity, That also fits alongside of that narrative. At the same time, there's breaking news this morning that's quite significant. I'm curious your take on this. There are three European leaders who are actually traveling by train to Kyiv to meet directly in Kyiv with Zelensky. Those are the leaders of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia. According to the New York Times here, they crossed into Ukraine this morning, hours after a series of loud pre-dawn blasts shook Kyiv. Now, on the one hand, obviously, that takes some courage. Obviously, it's a very bold sign and show of solidarity. However, it's also very dangerous. Kiev is, you know, a city that...

Under constant attack. All three of those countries are in NATO. I mean, those are NATO heads of state. Right, exactly. So on the one hand, you're like, that's courageous. But also, if anything happens to these leaders... Then we go to war. Then we go to war. So, you know, all for the sign of solidarity here. But this is an extraordinarily risky maneuver, not just for these individuals, these leaders of these countries we're seeing a lot of international solidarity that's happening across the world stage. These NATO leaders, probably their safety would be guaranteed. I mean, look, if you're Russia and you're shelling that city when there's three NATO heads of state in there, you're crazy because if a already like a, I mean, that's, you know, akin to like the Archduke Ferdinand or whatever getting killed. That's it. That's the, you know, domino that falls and then the entire thing is going to go.

That's exactly what I thought of, too. On the other hand, it could be that this is a delegation not just of solidarity but of a secret negotiation in saying, hey, look, like here's how we could work it out whenever it comes to NATO. Those three countries you just listed all share at least some border or form a relationship with Russia. So they could also broker some sort of deal or at least say, hey, you know, we can give you some security guarantee even if you do say NATO. Obviously, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. Zelensky is doing a big soft power campaign. He's going to be addressing the U.S. Congress virtually. He's addressing the Israeli Nesset virtually. He's going to be addressing the U.S. Congress virtually. He's addressing the Israeli Nesset virtually. He'll basically take any meeting that possibly can

across the world. So I don't know if in and of itself it is an important thing. On the other hand, we do know, Crystal, from reporting that NATO is likely to have an unprecedented meeting sometime next week in Brussels, where President Biden would most likely attend. So this could be a prelude to basically going to have face-to-face talks before we have an actual meeting of all the NATO heads of state. Wow, that really is a pretty significant development. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to say that they're not brave,

but you're putting us in a dangerous situation. You're putting the whole world in a dangerous situation. There are ways to show solidarity without creating such incredible risk here. And what they say they're doing is offering financial help to Ukraine. Seems like something you could do via Zoom. Also, the show of unequivocal, the European Union's unequivocal support is what this is about. So, again, I mean, you have to admire the bravery. You have to expect that if they're going there, they feel like their safety is assured and can

be more or less guaranteed. But this is war. Nothing's guaranteed. Literally nothing's guaranteed. Yeah, I mean, a Fox News reporter was just, he was, you know, injured yesterday. Exactly. In the city. That's exactly right. I saw some, I know some of the people, specifically Trey Yanks, who's a reporter in Kiev right now, and I was looking and reading a little bit. What they were saying is there's no front line. The whole city is just constantly being shelled, bombarded no matter where you are. So it's not like they may even be intentionally targeted. Look, I would hope personally that there is some sort of deconfliction line where we call the Russians or they call the Russians and they say, hey, we're going to be there and you know what happens if we die. So possibly there could be a ceasefire of some sort of that.

I also wouldn't put it past them in order to try and fire around the city while they're there in order to send a little bit of a message to them. That's right. Yeah, wow. Three NATO heads of state inside an active war zone. That's a big— Not a great situation. That's a big development. I mean, hopefully, once again, we can look at the two data points that we had pointed to.

Zelensky, in a couple of interviews of late, basically saying NATO is off the table. Russia changing its definition of demilitarization. That would, I believe, open up the door for some sort of diplomatic settlement where Ukraine agrees to give up the Donetsk Republic and the Luhansk Republic, as well as recognize Crimea, but then Russian forces withdraw. They get to save face and say, hey, we demilitarized Ukraine, and then they don't have to deal with a massive insurgency on their hands. At the same time, don't get your hopes up too much. This could just be the prelude, and then whenever talks fall apart, that's when things get really nasty. We're still very, very, very early in this conflict. Yeah, and that's one of the things that's unusual here is that the Russian propaganda is just so full of lies and complete fabrication of what they're even up to that's impossible to know.

They're changing it constantly. It's impossible to know what their goal is or what their endgame is. So everybody trying to read the tea leaves on that. It's a tough situation. Yes, indeed. And to that point, there's, let's go ahead and put A4 up on the screen. This is the Ukrainians emphasizing some of the shift in tone and tactics. This is from Ukrainian Pravda basically saying, you know, they've shifted more to talking about demilitarization, that language about denazification has seemed to have lessened, which is good because that was just sort of like an open-ended attack on Zelensky or anyone that they saw as a Ukrainian nationalist.

And then the last piece here, as we reported yesterday yesterday there were talks between the Ukrainian delegation, Russian delegation remotely. And as that was going on, Russia continuing to attack. And we did not get any specific signs out of that meeting that there was progress. But as Sagar was saying, there are some little possible hopeful movements on both sides of the equation that, you know, God willing could potentially bring an end to this conflict. Let's all pray for the safety of those heads of state. Yeah, indeed. This is going to be a very different show the next time that we do it. Indeed. All right. So we also wanted to look at what is going on within the nation of Russia as these extraordinary sanctions start to bite. Let's go ahead and put

up the first element, which is some of the reaction from Putin and from the Kremlin. They have signed, Putin has signed a law to seize foreign aircraft and redeploy it for domestic use. This goes along with something that he had threatened, saying basically, listen, Western companies, if you're going to leave here, we're going to take your stuff. And this is the first instance where they seem to have acted on that. According to this article, it says Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing Russian airlines to keep foreign aircraft for use on domestic flights. That's according to a Russian state news agency. You know, this means that if

they already were sort of leasing these foreign aircraft, they're now going to seize them and continue to fly them, even though those Western companies have pulled out of the nation. This doesn't completely solve their problem, though, because as you guys probably know, planes need a lot of maintenance. They need a lot of parts. They've got to be kept up to, you know, perfect conditions. And so you have sanctions that forbid maintenance. They forbid updates, support, or the supply of spare parts for planes. And, you know, ultimately, as things degrade over time, that could pose a risk to passengers as well. the Russian economy in fairly dire straits. Let's put the Yahoo News piece up on the screen here next. The IMF is the latest organization or analyst to say that a Russian debt default is no longer improbable. This is a direct result of our sanctions on Moscow's, on Russia's central bank. They say their international managing director said on Sunday that it's no longer

an improbable event. They are scheduled to pay $117 million on two dollar-denominated bonds on Wednesday. Now, if the country is unable to pay those dollar-denominated bonds, so they're supposed to be paid back in dollars, then they do have a 30-day grace period to make a payment before they are technically in default. Russia has said they're going to start paying their debts in rubles, but the bond doesn't allow Russia to pay their obligations in rubles. So even if they paid in rubles, they would still technically be in default. Of course, they have been down this road before, and it is very ugly when a country defaults on their debt.

It's not good whatsoever. We also had a projection from Goldman Sachs that Russia's economy could shrink by 7% as a result of the Ukraine sanctions. And it's actually an interesting thing to contemplate. On the one hand, the way that we've been talking about it and considering it, we did drop a financial nuke, quote unquote, on Russia. On the same – and look, I don't want to diminish it. A 7% contraction in a Western developed economy is a catastrophe for your quality of life and for a lot. On the other hand, it's only 7%, right? This isn't necessarily the same Treaty of Versailles or whatever type reparations that are being levied upon Russia. So in a way, I think we might actually have the

worst of all worlds. We exhausted a lot of financial options with very little off-ramp. Their economy will contract by 7%, but they're still going to have 93% of their capacity. That's pretty good if you think about it relatively. Their industrial base remains intact. Yes, their trading relationships are down, but it's not like they're totally isolated. The Europeans continue to buy their gas and their oil. India and China also looking like they'll be willing to purchase some of their goods. So this is very much not a North Korean state. This is something that could conduct a limited type of business, much more so than Iran. So maybe we just cut Russia off from the Western financial system.

And now their economy, while yes, they're going to have to pursue high levels of autarky and they won't be Western anymore, they'll be a lot more like a traditional Eurasian power with a geopolitical relationship to the South and to the West, or, or to the east. Anyway, all of this is a long-winded way of saying that we may have exhausted our entire financial playbook and not actually levied the amount of pain on Russia that a lot of people might think. I don't think that they're considering that 7%, while yes, is bad and very bad for the people who live there, it's not a catastrophe. So to put it in understandable terms, I looked this up, and during the Great Recession, our GDP fell 4.3% from its peak. That was the largest decline in the post-war era. So we fell 4.3%.

This projection is 7%. So you're talking about significantly worse than what was a whole lot of pain during the Great Recession. But I think to your point, it's survivable. And so what you've done is you've inflicted mass pain on the Russian public who had nothing to do with this war, didn't ask for it. And you've created more incentive for countries like Russia and China and others to build an alternative financial architecture so that next time we go to use sanctions, they're going to have even less of an impact. And you are very unlikely with these measures to really accomplish anything in terms of your goals vis-a-vis Russia. In fact, if anything, and this is, you know, I've been talking to Igor Kotkin.

He's a Russian socialist who is there in Moscow. And so he's able to give me a little bit of a perspective of how people are feeling there and what it's like in the city, at least. And according to him, and this bears out, you know, there are historical parallels, this is helping to ease some of the pressure on Putin and shift it to the West because people do genuinely feel sort of under siege. They see the hypocrisy of, well, you guys invaded Iraq and we didn't sanction you. They see the sort of Russophobia hysteria that we've been tracking here. And so you really are, if anything, sort of making it more difficult to accomplish your goals or to persuade any slice of the Russian public that was ultimately persuadable. In terms of the vibe on the ground,

according to him, he said, there's not like a mass panic. And partly that's because you have this very powerful state propaganda of like, we're all good. Everything's fine. So there are some longer lines. Prices have gone up, especially in things like electronics. Things have skyrocketed like 100%. But there's been a lot of pressure to keep kind of essential like food and those sorts of goods at a reasonable price level. So there have been price increases, but not nearly to the level of things like electronics and things that are, you know, just directly imported. None of this is born from me being like, oh, we shouldn't punish the Russians at all. It's more about, well, what is the efficacy of

what we are actually doing? That's it. And so, look, a 7% contraction, like I just looked it up when you're talking about the Great Recession. The Great Depression was a 30% contraction. So we're talking about a one-third of the Great Depression. Well, what exactly does that mean? And then also in the terms of the long-term prospects of Russia, but also the domestic populace, which is that the hope was that you make life so miserable for the Russian people that they cause political problems for the Russian government. I don't think a 7% is going to do that. I just simply don't. It's enough of a pinprick in order to make it hurt,

but not enough in order to make you an existential crisis. And I mean, that was our strategy in Iran. It didn't work. That was our strategy in North Korea. It didn't work. That was our strategy in Cuba. It didn't work. So even if they were causing, you know, 30%, 40% GDP shrinkage,

we just haven't seen a track record of sanctions being deployed in a way that is actually effective in accomplishing our foreign policy goals. In the meantime, you are creating a lot of pain for, you know, people who really aren't to blame here. You can't on the one hand say, oh, it's just the Kremlin and the oligarchs who control of everything in public really has no say. And then on the other hand, you know, make everybody sort of complicit in their actions. So both from a moral perspective, there's an issue, but, you know, you could potentially justify it if it was going to bring an end to the war and if it was going to keep contagion from spreading. And so I think when you look at it tactically, you also find

the strategy to be quite wanting. Well, I just think that people should calibrate expectations because if we, you know, if you were to ask your average person on the street, they'd be like, oh, man, we threw everything we did. And I'd be like, well, what if I told you you only contracted by 7% and that they're going to continue fighting and then build out this alternative ecosystem? They'd be like, hmm, well, I didn't know that. Is there any more that we can throw at them? Here's the answer. Like not really. Like there's some on the edges but not – to the point where if the Europeans are gonna continue to buy gas like very much

You can do about that So when you put that all together we might have just created a situation where they're gonna be more Autarchic and they're definitely gonna suffer But they still have the capacity almost certainly to run this war as long as they possibly need to there's a lot of cope that I See online. Oh rushes folding. Listen. This is a great power They got a lot of oil and they have millions and millions and millions and millions of people, especially if you look at their history. If their backs are up against the wall, these people will fight literally to the death

if you want to go and learn some of that. So I would never count out the Russian people. I think their capacity for suffering is more than any possible civilization on Earth relative to everybody else. And so we just really need to consider what we're getting ourselves into. You deal with winters like that every year. That creates a capacity for suffering. Listen, I've been to the Baltics in the winter. I don't know how you people do it out there. This is depressing.

There's one other piece of this that I want to introduce in the conversation, which is that our own financial system has made it much more difficult to go after the people who are actually complicit and to blame, which is Putin and his oligarchs. I mean, so many of these people, the way that they shelter their funds is using like Delaware shell companies. And what's the other one? The South Dakota that's now the big hotspot for like laundering money and shell companies and hiding what you're doing. And so since we have, this country, made the financial system so opaque and so easy for people to hide their assets and hide their wealth, it makes it so that we have

a lot fewer tools in our arsenal to actually go after the people who are complicit and who should pay a price and who should feel the pain. So that's another important piece of this. And of course, we haven't seen any movement from Biden or certainly the Republicans or anyone in Congress to change that system, to make it more transparent so that we could have levy much more effective and direct sanctions, targeted sanctions. Okay, let's go ahead and move on to China. This is obviously, again, a very important geopolitical relationship and how exactly everything is shaking out, nobody knows. Let's go put this first thing up there on the screen, which is that the U.S. has apparently told its allies that China has signaled an

openness to providing Russia with military support from the Financial Times. Now, Moscow requested equipment, including surface-to-air missiles. Keep in mind, the Chinese deny this, the Russians deny it, and the Americans are leaking it from a State Department cable, and it's probably an authorized leak. So as to the actual efficacy and all that of this, the amount of truth involved in this is up for debate. That being said, what they continue to say from the U.S. side is that the Chinese have signaled a willingness to provide military assistance. declassified as much as possible in order to, you know, basically remove the act of surprise from the Russians and also to use it as diplomatic leverage against them. And to undermine their propaganda. To undermine their propaganda. It's very likely that they're doing the exact same thing here if the intel is true. So just because it was true once does not mean it's necessarily true. Again, always keep that in mind. The five different types of equipment that they're asking for, surface-to-air missiles, drones, intelligence and related equipment, ISR, armored vehicles, and vehicles used for logistics and support.

Now, as we said yesterday, the Russians don't technically need any of this stuff. They're asking for it very likely in order to bolster the diplomatic ties between the two countries. The Chinese military views very fondly any military that it's fought side by side in. This is part of the reason that they have kind of, they call them blood brothers with the North Korean army, because they look very fondly back at the civil, or sorry, the Korean war, whenever they fought against the Americans. And there's a ties forged in blood, which is very important to them. The Russians obviously know this too, and they're probably trying to get at least some sort of similar type relationship from the Chinese, but China obviously has to walk a tightrope. And let's put this next one up there on the screen because it just shows you how confusing the situation is. China, however, through its state media propaganda outlets, has signaled a disinterest in providing weapons

to Russia for a brutal Ukrainian campaign. The reason that this matters is that all eyes were on Global Times and specifically Hu Xishin, who is an editor over at Global Times. I read Global Times all the time. And this is part of our reason we've been talking about state media, because I know that they specifically talk in English in order to try to signal us both their most diplomatic talks, but also kind of their most hawkish elements. And that's what Global Times is. It's like the attack dog of the Chinese Communist Party. So to see the attack dog himself say in this opinion piece that the Biden administration's move was arrogant, but that as a major military power, Russia does not need to ask China to provide substantial military assistance.

He says this, quote, moreover, China is not obligated to promise nor to export arms to Russia, he said in a video. Now, this matters because if he's going to say that they are under no obligation to do so and that they have no promise to do so, and that's the most hawkish element of Chinese state media, that in and of itself is a data point that we could point to and say, well, the official arm of the Chinese regime is saying, or at least pushing the public towards thinking that they don't need to do this. That doesn't mean that secret shipments may not happen. That doesn't mean that they may not have been like, yeah, maybe, but what are you going to do for us? So it's a complicated

situation, but it would change the situation on the ground. Yes. Well, let's parse the language here a little bit too. Another piece of what they say is as a major military industrial power, Russia does not need to ask China to provide substantial military assistance for the limited scale war in Ukraine. Now, what we do know is the Chinese have previously provided Russia not with arms, but with supplies like tents, winter coats for some of their conflicts along their border. So, you know, if you look at the U.S.'s wording, they talk about general military assistance. They don't specifically say arms. So you could read this as basically in a certain sense going together as they may provide that sort of military assistance, things like supplies, tents, coats, those types of items, but not actually provide arms, which would be kind of consistent with how China has behaved thus far with trying to kind of straddle the fence.

Right. Because the minute you provide actual offensive weapons, that's a very different thing than providing winter coats. So as I read this, that seemed like one potential possibility, you know, one potential possibility. But basically, we're just trying to present both sides of what's being said here. The Chinese are saying basically, no, the Kremlin, of course, is denying that they even asked because it's very embarrassing for them that they would have to go to anyone at this point and ask for anything. This should have been, oh, they thought this was going to be over in just a matter of days and they still aren't making significant progress towards Kyiv. But, you know, the White House saying that the Chinese did signal their

willingness to provide military assistance, that's kind of very careful language. Not saying when, not saying what, not saying how. Right. And the U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met yesterday with the Chinese foreign minister for seven hours. We didn't get all that much of a readout necessarily. Let's put this up there on the screen. Yeah, like a tiny little paragraph in terms of what they're willing to tell us from a seven-hour meeting. Jake Sullivan met today with Chinese Communist Party Politburo member, okay, I'm going to skip his title, Enro Mitali. His title is half of the paragraph. Their meeting followed up on the November 15, 2022 virtual meeting. Mr. Sullivan raised a range of issues in U.S.-China relations

with substantial discussion of Russia's war against Ukraine. They also underscored the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the U.S. and China. So a whole lot of nothing that came out of that meeting, and we still, or a whole lot of nothing in terms of what they're willing to tell us about that meeting. I would love to have been a fly on the room. The main thing that we also need to emphasize is that China is in a very precarious situation economically. They cannot risk even one-tenth of the sanctions that we've levied upon Russia. I'm going to be doing a lot more on this in my monologue. It's what that means for us. But in terms of what it means for them, let's put this up there on the screen. It is total

carnage out there on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. They are having some of their worst days since 2008. They're having massive panic selling. Their stock equities here in the United States are down by like 70-something percent. They have a major real estate bubble, all kinds of crazy financialization and short-selling bets on the nickel markets. It's been kind of fun to watch. But yeah, just look at that graph for those of you who are watching. But they're falling off a cliff over there. They got themselves a big old problem in terms of speculation and financial markets. The CCP is trying to run in and backstop as much of the market as possible. But whenever we cover that Evergrande crisis, this is just a very similar kind of slow roll cascade to something that could be really, really bad. So just consider that

they're in a precarious economic situation where if they were levied with some sort of sanctions or if their trade took a hit, boom, they're done, especially given the COVID situation with them right now. It would put them in a very, very, very tough situation. So it's an interesting development. China has to choose between being a Russian-aligned power explicitly against the West, even though they are, and we all know it, they haven't explicitly declared it so, and they still have reaped arguably more than anybody else the benefits of the Western international-led order. Oh, no doubt about it. On the other side, they could choose to keep with that because it's been so economically lucrative,

kind of leave the Russians out in the cold and play some sort of diplomatic game. But whatever course they decide, if they do choose to broker a peace, that's a realignment of the global order. If they do choose to side with the Russians, well, everybody gear up because that's not going to be a fun hundred years for us to live in. And if they choose to side with us, then the Russians are definitely toast in the long run. So it's all three. They have become a great power, obviously, in their own right. And whatever course they choose will definitely determine the course of history. Yeah, I mean, that's what was so significant about the essay that we brought you yesterday.

Oh, right. From a state-aligned thinker that was basically making the case, look, we're trying to be neutral and there is no neutrality. That's just not a place where you can possibly stand. All of our actions, abstaining and the Security Council votes and those sorts of things are being interpreted as siding with Russia. So do we really want to be in this place of being part of the sort of pariah block of the world with, you know, Europeans and the U.S. sort of more aligned, more united than they've been in a long time? Do we really want to be explicitly on the other side of that ledger? And I think that's what they're contemplating right now.

And the reason we keep trying to read these tea leaves and trying to figure out as best we can and predict as best we can, what they might do is because if anyone could end this conflict, it would be them. I mean, if they really put pressure on Moscow and pulled their support and we're not going to back them in this outrageous war, that would force Moscow's hand and force them to make some concessions at the table and hopefully be able to come to some sort of negotiated settlement. So they really are the key player in all of this for the immediate future. But also in terms of that longer term geopolitical alignment and understanding what the world is going to look like a year, two years, a decade from now, this is the moment. Absolutely. We wanted to bring you something that is absolutely extraordinary, which is that on the main live evening newscast in Russia, this is like their main news hour propaganda central. who worked at that station burst onto the broadcast with an anti-war sign. It's in both

Russian and English. And she says, you're going to hear it in Russian, she says, stop the war, don't believe propaganda. They're lying to you. Let's take a look at that. So for those who are just listening, I mean, it's an amazing moment because you see the, you know, the newscaster doing her thing in like a live newsroom, looks like cable news, and swim bursts on in the background. She's got her sign. She's saying no to war. And then, you know, that continues for like two seconds and then they cut to some other image and I'm sure pull her off of the set. She also released a prerecorded statement. And by the way, the reporting is she has been detained and Lord knows what her fate ultimately is going to be, especially with the new quote unquote fake news laws that they have passed, allowing years of jail time for anyone who even calls this a war

or an invasion. Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. So her name is Marina Avsyanikova, I'm going to go with. Let's go with that. Sorry, guys. Marina, she's the woman who ran onto that live state TV news broadcast. She recorded a message beforehand. In it, she says her father is Ukrainian. She calls for anti-war protests. And she says she's ashamed that she worked for Kremlin propaganda and she denounces the war absolutely. There was a sort of informal translation that was floating around online. Part of what she said, it was a well written and well delivered statement. She said,

we are Russian people, thinking and smart people. Only we have the power to stop this madness. Go protest. Don't be afraid. They can't put us all in jail. So an incredibly brave stand here by Marina, knowing full well what the consequences could be for her. Yeah, she knew that she was going to be arrested. She literally said they can't arrest all of us. So that's just incredible to watch. And look, we shouldn't exaggerate and say that this is, you know, the dominant feeling in Russia. Right. It's probably the minority feeling.

Yes. But that doesn't mean that there aren't good people who are speaking out against the war inside of Russia. And I think that that is what is so compelling. At the same time, we should remember that there are now Russian-occupied cities inside of Ukraine, and they are not facing the, you know, we'll be greeted as liberators that they thought. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is just an image from the city of Kherson. There is no, as the, I mean, this is obviously a photo put out by somebody who wants you to see it, but go ahead and put it up there. You can see this massive crowd just assembled there in the city

square bearing the Ukrainian flag, and that's in a Russian-occupied city. That's only the latest of the similar type of images. We have the same thing in terms of a video that continues to see people fighting really back against the occupation with some Russian soldiers who are getting very skittish. They are now facing the problems that we faced in Iraq. In Iraq, we took over a country with 150,000 troops. It was a cakewalk, as they predicted. And they were like, oh, now we have to run a country of millions of people. That's pretty scary. And they're meeting that fear right now. Let's go and take a look at that video. So, yeah, I mean, you can see that that's not a good situation. It's very jumpy.

Things can pop off at any moment when it's like that. You know, you have some 19-year-old conscript Russian kid. Like, what does he know what to do? He might get scared. Then you've got all these Ukrainian civilians who are going to be fighting back against this. Look, you know, once again, it's difficult to find out. There's a blackout of Internet and of electricity in some of these cities, so we don't have a full picture of what's going on. But any of these demonstrations, they pose a big problem to the Russians whenever it's

happening. You only have, you know, you can deal with it the way the Soviet Union did, which is arrest everybody, send them to a gulag. I don't think that works in the 21st century. Or, you know, you're going to have to find some sort of peaceable settlement with the actual civilians. And I don't really see that happening either. So, we're in a tough spot. Yeah. That was extraordinary, especially because it was happening in Melitopol, which is, you know, that's a city where they reportedly kidnapped the mayor. There's video of him being taken out with a bag over his head, and God knows what's being done to him now, and a Russian puppet mayor installed in his place.

And so just to see people, I mean, going up to these soldiers with gigantic guns and fearlessly telling them exactly what they think of what they're doing. It is incredibly brave. It is incredibly courageous. And so, you know, these are the people who really deserve to be highlighted, who are standing against this war and doing everything they can to stop it and bring peace. So we're going to continue to highlight those examples that we see because it really is heartening. At the same time, we wanted to bring you some updates on the political situation here at home. There's a new polling previewing 2024 that we thought we would bring to you. But actually, it's in some ways not as bad for Biden as I thought it could be. Let's go ahead and put

this up on the screen. So if you had a rematch, Biden versus Trump, at least according to this pollster, it would be effectively a tie. 44 for Biden, 44 for Trump. Now, if you had Trump versus Harris, he wins. If you have Trump versus Hillary Clinton, he also wins. So even as lackluster as Biden has been, he still is probably the best that the Democrats have to offer. And by the way, this same pollster had asked the same question a month or so ago. And at that time, Biden had a little bit of an edge over Trump. So he's kind of faded somewhat. And, you know, one thing that was interesting here in this particular poll is they dug into how people felt about his handling of Ukraine. And they were generally fairly positive. Got decent ratings there. But when you ask voters if they agree with the statement that, quote, Biden's mismanagement of the withdrawal from Afghanistan has emboldened countries like Russia and China to be more aggressive. 61% of voters

agreed. And that is the line that you hear from Republicans all the time. And let me also say that type of sentiment is exactly why these wars last for so long, because every politician knows they're going to get hurt the moment that they do the like, you know, the dovish thing and pull us out of a conflict. They are only ever rewarded really by the media for the most hawkish behavior. And so you see even now with some quite hawkish moves made by the Biden administration, still the drumbeat is always you have to do more. You have to be strong. You have to do more. So I just thought that was an interesting note here. At the same time, the Biden administration is leaning all the way into this idea that inflation has nothing to do now with anything except what's going on with Russia.

Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Make no mistake, the current spike in gas prices is largely the fault of Vladimir Putin. It has nothing to do with the American Rescue Plan. Back to Wall Street, Wall Street estimated that the, and the San Francisco Federal Reserve said, analyzed it, said the Rescue Plan contributed only 0.3% to inflation. 0.3%. That's coming from the Fed. Rescuing our economy didn't cause this problem, but we're working to fix it. You know, Putin inflation. So here's the thing. Good luck. Look, he's right to say that the American rescue plan is not really the issue, but we all know that inflation and gas price rises were happening before all of this in Russia.

So people aren't stupid, you gotta level with them. I mean, they can handle a nuance and complex situation. So I actually thought the messaging that he had before, like that he just had in the State of the Union, about hey, there are some people who wanna deal with inflation by basically making you poorer so you can't buy anything. That's not my plan. My plan is to actually build on our infrastructure and fix our supply chain and take these corporations to task. That is a much better message than what I

think is, you know, they're looking for this sort of cheap and easy ability to shirk any sort of responsibility here. And I, you know, people know that Russia is obviously complicating the situation, making it worse. They thus far are willing to, you know, engage in some financial sacrifice because they think it's going to help the Ukrainians. But I don't think that this is going to sell with the American people when we all know that prices have been going up for a long time. I completely agree with you. It's not going to sell. The best inflation tested message the Biden administration ever had, per their own internal polling, was that the best way to deal with inflation is to build more things in America

again. True. And I'll be talking in my monologue specifically about how China's idiotic COVID zero policy is about to make all of us a lot more poor, even though none of us actually signed up for that type of system. And just to give you an idea of how devastating this is for the Democratic Party and for Biden specifically, go and put this up there, which is a Wall Street Journal poll, which is that non-white voters right now are the most likely to say that high inflation in the last four decades is triggering a major financial strain in their lives. And that is giving Republicans a massive edge with them relative to their previous position. Of course it makes sense, which is that non-white Americans are disproportionately more likely to be poor.

Inflation is a tax upon the working class, and specifically upon the poor. Gas prices are a tax on rural working class Americans as well, all of whom are also likely to not be white. And you put that together with the fact that almost half of incomes, less than $60,000, are reporting major financial strain, while just 13% of those making $150,000 are to do so. The current Democratic Party's base are those people between 60 to 150,000, the 135,000 crew to the 400,000 crew, the wine wams and all those people of America. When I say base, I mean the cultural base, not necessarily the voting base. These are the people traditionally who have voted for them. And they're all talking within the story. They're like, hey,

look, he literally says, Uncle Joe has put us on a diet. I like to have a steak once or twice a month. I can't do that now. Stevens is a registered Democrat who voted for Barack Obama for president and then Trump in 2016. But he said he's more likely right now to back Republicans because of inflation. Look, the guy voted for Trump, so take that with a grain of salt. I would just say, though, that people don't fit the typical identity politics mold and they're getting nuked by inflation. And the Biden administration, you know, blaming it on big bad Putin. It's just not going to work no matter what. You could say we're going to build things in America again. But guess what? It hasn't presented a single plan before Congress build back. But imagine presenting before a major global crisis the exact same plan as you had before.

What type of innovative thinking is that? It's idiocy. That was one of the things we talked about on the State of the Union night is like, okay, are you – did you really scrap the old speech? Right. No, you didn't. Use this moment to bring people together and paint a portrait of how we're going to deal with this crisis and how we're going to make, come together as a country, make ourselves strong. We're going to invest in renewable energy, you know, nuclear green new deal or whatever, like pull it together. And we're going to make things in America. I agree with you that that would land across the board with Republicans,

independents, and Democrats. In fact, there's a dude who's quoted in this Wall Street Journal piece who's going to vote for Republicans who said exactly that, that he's like, I think the problem is that we don't make anything here at war. I mean, this is something that this is a nonpartisan populist sentiment that the Biden administration like two weeks ago started to sort of play with. And now they've just rejected it in favor of, oh, it's all Putin's fault. So I don't think that this is a smart direction for them to go in. And I mean, you can't say enough what a missed moment and opportunity it is, because you do have people right now sort of really wanting to do something and recognizing the perils of the systems that we have built and how they have made us more vulnerable. And there is no effort whatsoever to kind of build on that current moment and energy and

consensus to do anything. And so as a result, you know, according to this poll, you have now Hispanic voters saying they would probably or definitely back a Republican candidate for Congress over a Democrat by a margin of 46 to 37 among Hispanic voters. That's devastating. And just back in November, when already there'd been a lot of Democratic erosion among this group of voters, the two parties were tied. They were tied and that was considered a disaster. Now they're losing by nine points. And by the way, there's also been some erosion among black voters. They favored a Democrat for Congress by 35 percentage points. That's still a lot, but that's down from 56 points that they favored Democrats back in November. So

support for a Republican candidate among black voters rose to 27 percent when it stood at 12 percent in November. I mean, these are like Democrats can't forget about the midterms. They can't win anything with these kind of numbers among working class black and brown voters. And so they better figure out something that is going to signal to these voters that they take their concerns seriously and they're actually doing something about it, not just trying to blame shift and treating you like an idiot that you didn't notice that prices were rising before now. Yeah. I think that all those, this is the thing about why they're having such a missed opportunity. They could actually propose something ambitious. And okay, let's say you want to break

the logjam. The only way to do it is to put something that has actual bipartisan support and then dare, you know, the Susan Collins, the Joe Manchins and all of them to vote against it without giving them any sort of excuse. I went ahead and checked. There are several Republicans on the record who are pro-nuclear power. You know, I didn't know that South Carolina gets like half of its power from nuclear. They have all kinds of these power plants down in the South. Tim Scott is pro-nuclear. Okay, go to his office. Let's talk about it. I mean, there's all kinds of different things that you could try to talk about and then say, hey, Joe Manchin, you're really going to vote against this? Really? Okay, go ahead. You're going to deny clean power, clean,

cheap power to the people of West Virginia? Be my guest. These are the types of things where when you would actually put them on the spot, it could change the whole map. And more importantly, you would show the American people you're trying to do something about it. But right now, look, there's been a temporary drop in gas price. Thank God. It's like, I think, 10 cents, whatever, drop in the last couple of days. Take what we can get. We'll take what we can get. It's still above $4 a gallon. Brent crude is going below $100 a barrel. There's a lot of different reasons for that. It could still spike up to $150. It remains unclear exactly what's happening. But people are paying a lot of money for food, for gas. These are all areas where we could have more cattle in America. all these cattle from Uruguay or whatever? Or why exactly do we have it so that we're importing all this oil from Saudi Arabia, who we don't like, and we have to go hand in hand over to the king who slaps him in the face and doesn't even accept his phone call? Everybody's willing to have that

discussion, but nobody's willing to give you an answer right now. And in that environment, the Dems are toast, and the alternative is always going to win, and that's the GOP. My warning to the GOP would be, though, if your message is do nothing about it, which is mostly what it is whenever you're in power, then good luck because then the Dems are going to win. We have this endless cycle of nothing. Their message in some corners is even worse than do nothing. If you're listening to the Rick Scott plan, your message is let's actually tax working class people. It's like a throwback to the whole Mitt Romney,

47% are the takers kind of nonsense. So good luck with that, y'all. See how quickly that changes these dynamics back in the other direction. Okay, let's go ahead and move on. This is not just about The View. This is about a repulsive and disgusting McCarthyist sentiment, which is sweeping elite liberalism. At The View, it just goes to show you that elite liberalism is now being channeled into their popular cultural elements and trying to spread this message to the masses. So let's go ahead and start with this from The View, where they call for a literal investigation by the U.S. government into people who are questioning the official government narrative on Ukraine. Let's take a listen. Oh, and look, I but I think that's an incredibly relevant question. And I think DOJ, in the same way that it is setting up a task force to investigate oligarchs, should look into people who are Russian propagandists and shilling for Putin. That's being, if you are a foreign asset to a dictator, it should be investigated.

In fact, I remember when Tulsi Gabbard, and I even hate that we're discussing it because I think to myself, who is this woman? They used to arrest people for doing stuff like this. If they thought you were colluding with a Russian agent, if they thought you were putting out information or taking information and handing over to Russia. They used to actually investigate stuff like this. And I guess now, there seems to be no bars and people are not being told to hate Putin. This is disgusting. They used to arrest people for stuff like this.

Right, and this started with Mitt Romney, Let's go put this up there on the screen. Who says, quote, Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives. Look, here's the thing. We don't know a goddamn thing about what's going on with these Ukrainian biolabs. And yeah, there's a lot of propaganda on both sides that are flying around about them. That being said, treason is a crime punishable by death. And that is what you were accusing

a member of the U.S. Armed Forces of. Even worse, you can disagree with somebody without saying that they are a traitor to their government. Yeah. Look, we live in a free country with freedom of speech where people can and should be allowed to basically say whatever they want. I will go as far as saying that if somebody is parroting straight up Russian lies,

they should still not be prosecuted for treason. You know why? Because that's happened before in the Civil War and World War I and World War II and the Vietnam War. And in any of those cases, we were better off for having free and open discussion rather than censoring any outright opinion that we don't agree with. That's the cost of living in a free society. And if you're actually confident in what you believe, then you don't have to go around accusing people of treason. So like we said, regardless of the merits, to put this out there in the minds of millions of people is so incredibly dangerous. They're calling for the use of the state against their political opponents. It's insane. It is insane.

And I recall, I seem to remember during the Trump 2016 campaign when, you know, the Locker Up chant, there was a lot of concern about, you know, vindictive use of the state to criminalize your political opponents. And I would just say, yes, that was grotesque then. And it was, is grotesque now. What's really shocking is that you have this whole panel of women who are supposed to have, you know, ideological diversity and not one of them is like, hold on a second. That's a little crazy. Wait a second. We're now calling, like casually calling to arrest Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson because they said some things we don't like. Like, what are we doing exactly here? desire to be like on the right side of history and get it right with regards to polite society and be tougher and stronger with regards to doing the right thing, how that can quickly slide into, yes, authoritarianism and fascism. I mean, you see it really unfolding right now in real time,

where some of the most grotesque xenophobes, people like Eric Swalwell, who are just casually calling to like ban every Russian student from the country. People are calling for, you know, banning any Russian ownership of anything and kicking 20 year old piano players out of concert. I mean, this sort of mindset is really exposing something ugly and dangerous. So yeah, this is an extraordinarily bad direction for things to go in where you can't handle someone saying something that you don't like, that you think is untrue, that you disagree with, that you think sounds a little bit like some other country. And so you can't handle that. You have to actually criminalize and jail them. What kind of, like, again, you know, we talk a lot about democracies around the world and being a democracy and believing in democracy. Like, what type of a democracy is so self-conscious that you can't deal with a couple people having a different point of view and saying things that

you don't like? Even things that may be offensive, even things that may be completely wrong, you can't handle that. I also like the moment when she acknowledges, like, you know, we're actually just giving this point of view more attention right now. Yeah, well, yeah, you're right. They do that all the time. They did this with Trump, too, all the time. I can't believe we're talking about this. But then we're going to spend the whole show talking about this. Yeah, and, you know, of course, so many people are crawling out of the woodwork. Peter Strzok,

you guys might remember him, the FBI, the disgraced FBI agent who had an affair. And then all the texts, obviously, that were at the heart of Russiagate. Look what he put out yesterday. Let's put this up there. So he compares Tulsi Gabbard saying, quote, Ukraine isn't actually a democracy to Tucker Carlson saying, quote, not isn't actually a democracy, to Tucker Carlson saying, quote, not that Ukraine is a democracy, and says, not are they coordinating, rather, who is coordinating? All right, look, you freaking genius. It does not take a coordination to state the basic fact that, yeah, Ukraine is a corrupt country. Ukraine did have some problems in terms of corruption,

crackdown on domestic political opponents, and more. And having an argument as to whether that's democracy or not, okay, that's fine. I think it's up in the air. But that should be part of the discussion, especially when people like him are saying that the United States has a responsibility, basically, to engage in war on behalf of that country. We should then talk about, like, who are our allies? What do they really stand for? And obviously, it's a very gray area in all of this. And I don't think that the Ukrainians are, you know, I'm not saying here that the Ukrainians deserved it. I'm not saying that the Russians aren't the bad guy in this situation. I think that they are. I'm acknowledging that life is very complicated. And they are accusing anybody who's even stating that basic fact, or sure, even in both of these cases and you're seeing a call for political, basically

government violence and use of the state in order to criminalize any alternative opinion or explanation, which should be allowed in a free and a vibrant democracy. It's some real tinfoil hat kind of crap that Peter Strzok is alleging here. But everybody's primed for it. I shouldn't say everybody. There's a lot of. But everybody's primed for it. I shouldn't say everybody. There's a lot of the population that's primed for it after years of Russiagate conspiracy where you were seeing like a Kremlin agent

and the hands of Putin manipulating every single thing that was happening in our politics. And apparently in the Canadian trucker convoy as well, we brought you that too. I mean, listen, it's not hard. Engage with what they're saying. My issue is I don't know why there's a fixation on the democratic norms or lack thereof in Ukraine because it doesn't justify, like, I don't see how that changes the situation with

what Russia is doing to Ukraine. So I do think the whole conversation is a bit of a distraction. But you can also just directly engage with it. You know, there is significant corruption. They are a sort of fledgling democracy. There have been troubling crackdowns on political opponents. There's been troubling crackdown on independent media. By the way, we can also say we've got our own issues with democracy here in this country and the will of people not being represented there. Is that hard? No, it's not. It's, you know, I mean, and we give these people like, we give people so much power by pretending that they're so important that we can't even allow them to have a voice or a platform whatsoever. We have to criminalize them.

They have to be traitors. The penalty, I mean, isn't Mitt Romney saying that Tulsi Gabbard should be put to death? This is literal insanity and part of the mass hysteria, which is extremely dangerous, that we have been tracking here as well. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, when the history of the 2020s is written, they will look back at this month specifically as when the world truly woke up to the dangers of globalization. You would think it might take a global pandemic, two years of depending on your peer adversary for critical medical supplies. But really what it took was the outbreak of a war in Europe combined with a massive supply shock brought once again by the Chinese government. The Russian effects on the economy at this point are all well known. High gas price, high fertilizer price leading to food, and possibly double-digit inflation in food products for the developed world, as well as

a very likely shortage in wheat markets. And while devastating as that will be for many people, it is just a drop in the bucket compared to what could come. Russia, after all, is only the world's 11th largest economy, and they mostly just export petroleum products. Russia, after all, is only the world's 11th largest economy, and they mostly just export petroleum products. China, on the other hand, is the whole ballgame. Even 10% of the Russian economic sanctions against China would have a cascading effect on the global economy. And while sanctions haven't touched them yet, the idiocy of the Chinese Communist Party is about to have a massive impact on the global economy and us here at home. China, despite being responsible for the spread of COVID in the first place, has remained duly committed

to COVID zero policy and has the authoritarian chops to back that up. So they have instituted full-scale lockdown and quarantines across the country. They will even strand people with nothing in service of trying to shut down the virus. They had even strand people with nothing in service of trying to shut down the virus. They had moderate success with that strategy until Omicron appeared. And now, when COVID zero meets Omicron, we are seeing a massive impact on our own supply chain for goods that we consume at home. Yesterday, we saw that news that the Foxconn has forced to halt production at its Shenzhen facility over a Chinese-imposed lockdown over the entire city. This has a massive impact, first, obviously, on the Apple iPhone supply chain. But more than that,

it is a symbol of even more inflation to come here at home. Shenzhen has a population of 17 million. It is being shut down over 60 coronavirus cases. 60. These people make the branch Covidians here at home look sane. The Shenzhen facility for Foxconn is the second largest facility in the whole country. Exactly how long is this lockdown going to last? Totally unclear. Look, according to the city of Shenzhen's own government, they are the largest exporter of goods from all of China, with $300 billion in goods just last year, with a large percentage of those goods related to consumer electronics, from phones, processors, audio-video equipment, basic electoral components. We are talking about one of the most strategically important cities on the planet for production that exists in the year

2021. Here's the thing. This lockdown on the city, it's totally up to the government of China when it's going to stop. They have not cared yet about economic consequences when pursuing this idiotic strategy. China is restricting inter-country travel, keeping millions of its citizens restricted to the areas that they are from. And in a way, I feel for them. China has not actually done a very good job of vaccinating their elderly population. And they have a very, very vulnerable elderly population health-wise. Combine that with reverence for the elderly in China, and you see a government with more incentives to keep lockdowns forever. Of course, the casualty is going to be U.S. global inflation in terms of consumer

electronics. It's now even more likely to spike, highlighting the dangers of globalization and allowing a critical part of your supply chain of the future to be wholly determined by the whims of a government which also loves nothing more than to see our country suffer. What's worse is that inflation is only likely the tip of the iceberg. Just yesterday, the Chinese stock market plunged more than it has since 2008. It is being described as a dot-com level bust over there. Because of our policymakers, we are likely to see financial contagion here at home. Multiple Chinese companies are included in funds traded by major stock exchanges, including some held by the most prestigious pension funds here in the U.S.

Great, right? Yeah, totally great. In fact, Wall Street upped its investments in Chinese stocks last year. They were returning well relative to our markets, right? Yeah, except yesterday they are now down a combined 72% on U.S. exchanges. Yeah, you heard me right. We are on the verge of what feels like a collapse of a global order, a financial order, but really an order of our lives. We have ordered our economy around the cheapest and most efficient stuff in the chase of endless profits. In some areas of life, that's nice. The iPhone is cool. My flat screen TV is cool too. But you know what's not cool? Paying nearly $5 a gallon and now having a huge portion of the public unable to

afford the comforts of the everyday life that they were promised and also being threatened with legitimate poverty over inflation. This is a turning point, but the problem is that there is no one to turn us in the right direction. Biden is absent, leaderless. His successors and subordinates are perhaps the only people in Washington more clueless and useless than he is. And on the other side, just full-scale culture war. Nobody is proposing the ambitious program America needs to get ourselves the hell out of this mess. Look at our own eyes at the state of the world. Has there ever been a better time to build here in America? Develop long-standing plans in our energy policy? At least a call to the

better angels of our nature to avoid war and have a prosperous peace? To make the pitch that we squarely to the American people, our 30-year experiment with being reliant on others is over. It's time to turn to ourselves. Unfortunately, we are missing this opportunity. And in the meantime, the people who will suffer most are working class Americans getting hammered at the pump, losing 7% of their wages to inflation, planning on driving less and being miserable at home. Soon, they won't be able to get a new TV to at least relax while watching their economy collapse. In pursuit of becoming a rich country for the few, we have made our poor more vulnerable. All we can do at this point is to at least have the courage to admit that we were terribly

wrong years ago and reverse course on globalization. I would say that we don't have a choice, but actually we do. It seems that we refuse to take it. Instead, we have chosen to be complacent and fake anger about whatever the next controversy of the day is for now. And unfortunately, that will probably doom us. That's really all I can look at the situation.

I mean, 2008 crash in China. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, Joe Manchin really does seem to lean into a just cartoonishly villainous persona. Not content with taking a bunch of corporate cash to sink the climate provisions and build back better. Now he's coming after any and all attempts to lean into electric vehicles. So here is the latest. Speaking at an energy conference in Houston, Manchin told the

crowd, quote, I'm very reluctant to go down the path of electric vehicles. I'm old enough to remember standing in line in 1974 trying to buy gas. I remember those days. I don't want to have to be standing in line waiting for a battery for my vehicle because we're now dependent on a foreign supply chain, mostly China. This kind of anti-logic is enough to make your brain explode. I hated gas lines, so let's stick with gas forever. And yeah, because of free market ideologues like yourself, China has jumped ahead of us in terms of securing the resources and manufacturing capacity that we need to build our domestic electric vehicle market. Maybe spend some time on that in your position as a United States senator rather than carrying water for the oil and gas lobby all day, every day. So Manchin lays out this galaxy brain position of prioritizing the terror of hypothetical battery charging lines instead of the actual gas lines that we've experienced. Or perhaps maybe he might be terrified of the obscene gas prices that the American working

class is just outright unable to afford right now. Or maybe the way our gas addiction keeps us tethered to terrible regimes like the Saudis,, I don't know, the terror of climate devastation which the country and the world is already experiencing. But okay, if the imagined battery lines are your waking nightmare, you'd think that you would be into investing in electric charging stations to avoid such a calamitous and horrible fate. Nope, he's not down with that either. Manchin told the Houston Energy audience that he had a, quote, hard time understanding such investments, saying, I've read history, and I remember Henry Ford inventing the Model T, but I sure as hell don't remember the U.S. government building filling stations. The market did that. The crowd reportedly erupted with applause. Manchin's comments are not just absurd, though. They're also extremely depressing,

because Joe Manchin is so much more than one politician bought off by the oil and gas industry, relentlessly pushing their propaganda. He is a living, breathing reminder of the fact that our security, our economic fate, and the fate of the whole planet are all tied to the actions of oil companies and their money. And it's a reminder that their interests have a stranglehold on our politics. It's a disaster, and one that has been made even more clear by our current predicament. As you probably know by now, here's the landscape. And you might have noticed gas prices in the U.S. are at record highs. As I write this, yesterday, Americans were paying $4.33 per gallon.

Our ban on Russian oil is not likely to help. In terms of other countries increasing output to lower cost, Saudi and the UAE are not taking our calls. Venezuela is still under sanctions and has degraded capacity anyway. And the renegotiation of the Iran nuclear deal is teetering on the brink of collapse. So how about our own domestic production? Well, these guys are certainly raking in record profits, so they could drill baby drill if they wanted to. But they don't. Exxon, Chevron, and Shell are among the 24 companies posting soaring profits in 2021, but uninterested in investing in increased production, instead padding the

bank accounts of mostly already wealthy shareholders while you suffer at the pump. So we got a situation where in the short term, we actually need these oil companies to produce more, and they won't. And then in the long term, we need them to produce less, and they also aren't going to do that. They're happy to engage in profit-maximizing capital strikes like what they're up to right now. But any transition away from utter deadly reliance on their product leads to an all-out offensive to kill any and all alternatives. They use their paid-off proxies, people like Joe Manchin, to prevent any sort of green options, even to the extent of bizarrely making the case against obvious infrastructure investments like upgrading the grid to accommodate more electric vehicles and electric charging stations.

So, what would a policy suite look like that could incentivize short-term production but disincentivize long-term production? Well, we talked to an economist yesterday, Skanda Amarnath, about his plan, and it's got some things to recommend it. Use the strategic petroleum reserve to smooth oil prices so that oil companies aren't afraid to invest now. Use financing mechanisms to further incentivize that investment. Use the Defense Production Act to deal with supply chain issues that are also holding back that short-term investment. But this doesn't really address the other side of the equation. Now, I can come up with lots of oil company bribes that might get them off their duff now

in the short term, but how do we get them to accept a managed decline later on when they are so gigantic and so powerful and so profoundly uninterested in anything other than their own profits? Oftentimes, the simplest answer is the correct one. If people are poor, you give them money. If they're sick, you give them care. If they're homeless, you give them housing. Rather than tweak and incentivize and hope to drive the result we want, we should nationalize the oil companies and directly achieve the outcome that we want, the outcome which is in the best interest of the American people for today and for tomorrow. As I mentioned yesterday, Matt Bruning of the People's Policy Project, he recently laid out

the logic. He wrote, private owners and investors are not in the business of temporarily propping up dying industries, which means that they will either work to keep the industry from dying, which is bad for the climate, or that they will refuse to temporarily prop it up, which will cause economic chaos. A public owner is best positioned to pursue managed decline in a responsible way. It's funny, Fox News' Harris Faulkner, of all people, actually came the closest accidentally to making the direct case for this of anyone on cable news. Take a listen. I think you're talking about red tape. And when I hear you say that, I think about one thing, Operation Warp Speed. Come on, we can do this. We did what the rest of the world couldn't with

the last administration in Operation Warp Speed. We wiped away that red tape. And I say we as Americans, right? And then we got vaccines, plural. Why can't we do that with oil? Yes, Harris, get the government directly involved. Really own Biden by taking it one step further and call for outright nationalization. Let's do it. Now, her comments are instructive because they actually reflect the fact that gas prices and oil production are a direct and vital interest of the American people. Energy production should be seen more like vaccines or public safety or, frankly, the internet. Essential public goods, where the public's interest is frequently at odds with the dictates of profit maximization. The sort of thing that shouldn't just be left to the whims of private

profiteers, but should be accountable to a democratic process and shepherded by a public owner. Production could be managed to smooth costs and set to decline over an achievable, realistic time horizon, all the time socking profits away so that the workers who are sure to be decimated by the industry's decline will be protected. Now, if you go to Senator Joe Manchin's home state of West Virginia, you'll actually see what the alternative looks like. It looks like ecological devastation and economic desperation. The failing coal companies, they left workers sick and they left them impoverished. The hillsides and the mountains stripped. The political system thoroughly captured and blocked possibilities for alternative economic development in order to hold that workforce captive.

Now, do I think that oil company nationalization is likely? Even in this moment when it's so clear that our nation's security, economy, and livable future are in the balance and that they are such incredibly villainous actors. No, of course not. It's socialism, etc., etc., etc. But, you know, UBI was once seen as fantastical, and it barnstormed its way into our suite of policy tools pretty quickly, so I guess, who knows? After all, nationalizing the gas companies would be a great way to own the neolibs, and if that can't bring us all together, I just don't know what can. The Joe Manchin comments were so profoundly depressing to me because it just shows you how... And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com.

Joining us now, the man behind TK News, Matt Taibbi himself. Great to see you, Matt. Good to seeibbi himself. Great to see you, Matt. Good to see you, man. Good to see you, Crystal. Sawyer, how are you doing? Very well. Let's go ahead and put your latest piece that we were all reading up there on the screen. You say, Orwell was right. From free speech to spheres of influence to our passion for endless war, we've become the double, 1984 predicted. So Matt, just give us your kind of overall view of how the war is being received and talked about here in this country. Yeah, I mean, I read this book every time I get really, really depressed. Does it make you more or less depressed when you read it?

It goes both ways. But in this case, you know, I was really thinking about the sort of effortless way in which we switched from being completely enraged about the unvaccinated to feeling,'ve had in the news in the last five or six years especially and what that's done to the national character and how similar that is to what Orwell was describing in 1984 where essentially he was saying that the ritualistic expressions of anger were designed to sort of keep people constantly in the present and to make them forget the past in any context that might be important to remember. And I think that's kind of what's going on with this Russia thing. You know, they want people to not think about a whole variety of background issues involving this story. And it just seems like everybody's in this kind of two-minute hate mode about the entire issue. Yeah, I think this is important, Matt, which is that this kind of freakout that we're seeing – and I'd like for you to bring your perspective as somebody who lived in Russia, at the most critical time, really, of modern Russian history, where everything seemed up for grabs. You had these rapacious oligarchs, and then there's a massive financial collapse, but now everybody has blue jeans and McDonald's. I mean, in the context of people there who you

know, probably some of your friends, you can still read or keep in touch with with them. How is this kind of Russophobia, kind of two-minute hate madness, how is that going to play over in Russia, given the trauma that they have been through over held responsible for the insanity of their leaders is, it's nothing new. On the one hand, they're used to it. But on the other hand, I think it's profoundly disappointing. And it's the end of a really a 30-year story about their disenchantment from the West. You know, when I first got to Russia in, it was still the Soviet Union in 1989. And when I studied there, I lived there for almost a decade. When I first got there, Americans were held in the highest regard. If you had a blue passport, you wouldn't have to pay for a drink anywhere. Everybody was anxious to meet you. And everybody was so interested in the West and wanted so badly to be part

of the democracy and the sort of capitalistic plenty that they'd been told about. They'd all listened to VOA. And then over the course of the 90s, uh when shock therapy was imposed in russia there was this steady disenchantment with with what the west was up to in that part of the world and i i think you know what putin was really his popularity grew out of the fact that he was the first russian politician of that era to to stand up to the west. Now, I'm not excusing that. I'm just saying that that's part of the explanation for his popularity as opposed to Yeltsin. Well, and it's interesting what you just said there, because you said there was an enthusiasm for the capitalistic plenty. That's what we were sold, like the McDonald's in Moscow and the, you know, the blue jeans and Coca-Cola and

all that stuff. But that there was also an enthusiasm for democracy. Didn't get that part so much. What happened? Why was the, I mean, I basically know the answer, but I want to hear your perspective. Why was the capitalism part, that part was fulfilled, but the other piece of the openness and the democratic reforms that would give ordinary Russians more of a voice in society right now, how did that fall apart? Well, I think it's actually tied to the economic part. There were two really important moments in the 90s. There was the referendum in 1993, which a lot of international organizations agreed was fixed in favor of Boris Yeltsin. It was very close either way, but he likely actually lost that election.

Then there were, in between, between 1993 and 1996-97, there was a series of privatizations where companies the size of Exxon and Microsoft, they were basically handed to cronies of Yeltsin for pennies in the dollar. And this instant oligarch class was created with our help. We heavily advised in the process of designing these privatizations. There was, in particular, a series of auctions called the Loans for Shares auctions that helped create the oligarchs that we hear about so much in the news. And we were instrumental in helping design those processes. And what happened in the wake of those privatizations is that, essentially,

there was a backroom deal that these people were going to be handed these companies and gifted enormous wealth in return for bankrolling Boris Yeltsin's political career and making sure that he prevailed in the 1996 presidential election. And so a lot of Russians, you know, they saw that there was this instantaneous, massive wealth gap. In a way, Russia was really a preview of what would happen in much of the West later. There was the discontent that we see in America and over Brexit and places like that, this idea of anger about the wealth gap and elites, Russians started early down that road in the mid-90s because of the way that society was designed in the wake of communism. You know,

we were so intent on smashing the old model that we, I think our advice helped create a kind of warped, almost like a parody style of American capitalism. See, I think this is very important because a lot of people just don't really know that much about Russia. They don't really understand how a guy like Putin is even popular in the first place and how his worldview, which look at the extreme, the paranoia and the restoration of the Russian empire, is rooted in a popular sentiment within Russia, which is we got screwed by this whole deal. And that is what gives him the power in order to enact perhaps his most outlandish efforts within the country. I guess from our perspective, Matt, is there anything that the West can do in order to restore good relations with the Russian people? I mean, like, how would we go about that if it were to even exist?

Yeah, it's a little late now, I think. Which is too bad because I think there was an enormous opportunity for Russia to at least be a strategic and economic partner. Even as late as the late 90s, early 2000s, I think that possibility was still there. People also forget that Putin was originally brought in to the government by Boris Yeltsin primarily because he had helped secure the flight abroad of his former boss, the mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, who was one of the most famous early Democrats in Russia. And Yeltsin was impressed by the fact that Putin had helped this guy escape prosecution on corruption charges. And so Putin was really brought in initially to help make sure that Boris Yeltsin would not be pursued on corruption charges because he was facing them at the time when he left office.

Now, after he became president is when he sort of turned on the West. But initially, he was one of ours. Like he was a person that most of the people, the Western commentators, the Western politicians, the diplomats in town. I mean, I was there during this time, the expats, they all were saying things like, well, yeah, he was in the KGB, but by the seventies, the KGB wasn't so bad. You know, that was kind of the attitude. And then suddenly, obviously, there was a big sea change about that a few years after he assumed the presidency, but not initially. I mean, there was like a three or four year period there where Putin was considered a good guy by much of the

American population in town, or at least a significant portion of it. Right. I want to get your reaction to this poll that I saw floating around. It's from YouGov, and they asked the question, which do you think best describes Russia? 42% said communist, 13% said socialist, 11% said capitalist, and 17% said something else. What do you make of that, Matt? That was basically what I made of it, too. It's so depressing. I mean, this is like the whole, remember that Donna Brazile tweet? What was it? Donna Brazile, she tweeted something about how the communists are still dictating the terms of the debate. This is during the Russiagate mess.

Oh, my God. Yeah, no, there's tremendous – it's almost like this archaic hangover from the Cold War era. And people have a really difficult time grappling with the idea that Russia and the Soviet Union are different countries and that the people there are, you know, there hasn't been communism in Russia in a long time. And Putin, although he has some nostalgia for the Soviet Union, he's not communist in any way that would be recognized. Right. He doesn't want to be communist. He doesn't want to be communist, exactly.

He likes the power of the Soviet Union and the world prestige and the sort of imperial nature of it. Exactly, exactly. But certainly not any of the economic aspects of it are not attractive to him. He's a nationalist. He's sort of a classic Pinochet-style sort of nationalist strongman is what he is. But communists, no. And it's kind of amazing that people, that that percentage of Americans still think that way. But I guess they do.

You know, use then the example of what happened in Russia and then bring it to our example here at home. We have calls now by popular figures, politicians, to jail or call treason, political opponents, any questioning of the official narrative, a total crackdown on state media, on channels, which, look, I mean, I personally, we find it useful personally to find as a newscaster to say, hey, this is what they're saying. This is what we're thinking. This is the Russian propaganda. This is the Russian propaganda, like just so you're aware. But this is what they think. And that could help you then calibrate. When you see all of this happening in the context of your experience in Russia and watching the crackdown and all of that happened, are you afraid?

Like, what do you think the consequences of this could be? I'm very afraid. I'm made very nervous by it. I was, again, I was in Russia when Putin really accelerated the crackdown against the media. It actually started much earlier under Yeltsin. And, you know, as early as 1994, there were important investigative reporters in Russia being killed by like exploding briefcases and things like that. There was a guy named Dima Holodov who was killed. But then in 1999, 1990, when Putin came on the scene, you know, there were friends of mine who worked at places like Novaya Gazeta who who were beaten and then eventually a couple of them were even killed for looking into things like the apartment bombing scandal. And at the time, there was a small minority of us who were saying this is a really bad indicator of what this regime is going to be like.

He's already beating and cracking down on the media. He's closing up companies like Media Most, which owned NTV, which was the last sort of independent TV station in Russia at the time. Now he's gone full bore into this much more extreme version of controlling everything or trying to control everything, you know, outlawing the use of the word war, for instance, to describe what's going on in Ukraine. And, you know, I would think, looking at this as an American, that this would be a way for us to sort of re-evaluate our own values and say, wow, this is what we don't want to be, right? Like we don't want to be Vladimir Putin, who's so desperate to control every piece of information that we're cracking down on

everything. And that's kind of what we're not seeing. I think what we're seeing instead is this desperation to use every tool imaginable to make sure that, you know, that not only the Russian point of view that Russian state media is not seen, but that individuals may not even express or even relay what the Russians are saying about a certain thing. And it's amazing to me that Americans don't even see the logical connection between something like outlawing BBC and VOA and Russia and taking RT off the air in America and Europe. Like, they don't see a connection between that at all.

It's amazing to me. Thanks so much for watching, guys. We really appreciate it. You guys are the ones who are supporting us. It's a perilous time. Crystal and I have been talking. We've never been more afraid of getting taken off of YouTube for something that we didn't even do. Or for trying to present the news in the most objective manner, especially at a time when we are trying to build up as many resources as possible, all these partnerships and expansion for the midterms to give you the best news possible.

So it's a terrifying landscape out here. You guys are the ones who enable it, and we really appreciate it. So thank you. Love you guys. Thank you so much. We'll see you again soon. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend.

I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line

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, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You experienced dad guilt? I hate it. She understands,

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