Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/31/22: Russia-Ukraine War Strategy, Domestic Production, Hunter Dealings, CNN+, Homeownership Crisis, Coal Miner Strike, & More!

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

Krystal and Saagar break down the latest Ukraine war updates, Biden invoking the Defense Production Act and strategic petroleum reserve, Hunter Biden corruption details, CNN+ failed launch, Madison Cawthorn's claims of DC degeneracy, home ownership becoming unattainable, America's military future, and one year of the Warrior Met Coal Miner strike!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/Support Coal Miners: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/UMWAStrikePantry https://umwa.org/umwa2021strikefund  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots to get to this morning. First of all, we can't bury the lead here. I know you guys are super excited.

CNN Plus officially launched. We'll give you all the details of what you need to know about this groundbreaking moment in American television history. Yes, and just so people know, we have no say in the ads that go on our podcast. They're dynamically inserted, just like YouTube ads. And apparently, CNN has been buying ad space on breaking points in order to try and appeal to this audience. Good luck. As we'll tell you.

Good luck. You guys can let them know what they think about that. In addition to that monumental story, we also have some really significant things with regards to the Biden administration making some moves, both on the Defense Production Act to try to generate the supplies we need for electric vehicle batteries, also releasing a monumental amount of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We've got new, finally, the media admitting what we've been saying all along about Hunter Biden, and they finally verified the contents of the laptop.

Oh, my God, I'm so shocked that it was actually authentic. That's so crazy. Madison Cawthorn, not pleasing people in this town. We'll give you all the latest of what is a strange and sad tale. But we want to start, of course, with what is going on on the ground in Ukraine. Yes, that's right. It's been very difficult in order to parse what's happening on the ground. So we're going to do our best here. Let's put this up there on the screen. So initially, what happened is that Russia framed its withdrawal from Kiev and Chernev as a trust-building exercise.

But it appears to have provided a justification for retreats that Russian forces had already made in the face of Ukrainian counterattacks. There's been a lot of parsing about what exactly is going on there with Russian movements around the city of Kiev. Now, on the West, we've been saying, and the analysts had said, that they had stalled there, that the Ukrainian attacks had pushed them and made it so that an assault on the city was not going to happen. Now, there's also some counter-analysis, which we're going to bring you in a little bit, which said that they never actually intended on doing this, that they wanted to go ahead and hold forces up there while they consolidated their gains in the east. It's very difficult in order to parse those things. But here's what the West is saying.

Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from France 24 over on the European continent. What Western officials there in Europe are saying is urging caution over Russian vows to scale back military operations. It's seen as an effort in order to either spin what was already a strategic withdrawal in the light of overwhelming firepower and of attacks and death, but also it's possibly a strategic ability in order to make sure that the Russians are in order to counter attack or even put pressure in different areas of the battlefield. And this is something which, again, in the West, what the Pentagon is going with, this is what they're telling reporters,

always take that with a grain of salt, Put this up there on the screen, please. Which is that Pentagon's Kirby, he's the press secretary there, said that reports that Russia is pulling out of the region around Kiev, quote, we believe this is a repositioning, not a real withdrawal, and quote, we should be prepared to watch for a major offensive against other areas of Ukraine. So this was originally framed by the Russians, Crystal, as a show of good faith in the negotiations of what were happening with Ukraine in Turkey. Now, originally, we had shown you in our last show that there appeared to be some good strategic headway there. Zelensky saying that neutrality is definitely on the table.

The Russians, at least, you know, on a little bit, making clear that demilitarizationality is definitely on the table. The Russians, at least, you know, on a little bit making clear that demilitarization wasn't really on the table. No more talk of denazification and really just demanding Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk. So if that had been the case, then we would be in a better area. But with this current strategic withdrawal and some new comments Zelensky made just this morning, it's actually much more up in the air than that. Yeah. So basically, to boil it down, there's three possibilities here. One is the Russians are telling the truth and they are doing a strategic withdrawal as a trust-building exercise to try to come to a deal. Right. Based on the fact that we don't actually see that happening

on the ground, that seems highly unlikely. Scenario number two is that as Kirby and U.S. government is basically saying, they are couching their withdrawal. The fact that they've had military struggles in these regions is like, oh, we're doing a good thing when really they're sort of defeated and they have to withdraw and they don't have a lot of other options. So they're trying to frame it as like, no, no, we really we could keep going, but we just don't really want to. The third possibility here is that it was always their strategic intent to basically draw the Ukrainian forces out and force them to keep their military engaged on these fronts when their real objectives have to do with the eastern part of Ukraine and with this land bridge to Crimea. And that is what, there's a thread going around by Scott Ritter. Let's put this up there on the screen. And I consider this, you know, at least within the realm of possibility, which is that in terms of arrow war and maneuver warfare, for those scratching their heads in confusion, dusting

off their dress uniforms over the news about Russia's strategic shift, you might want to re-familiarize yourself with basic military concepts. What Scott here says is, strategically to facilitate the ability to maneuver between the southern, central, and northern fronts, Russia needed to secure a land bridge between Crimea and Russia. The seizure of the coastal city of Mariupol

was critical to this effort. Russia has now accomplished this task. What he says is that maneuver warfare is more psychological than physical and focuses on the operational rather than the tactical level. And that what they were trying to do, the Russians, according to Scott's analysis, was to tie up a bulk of the Ukrainian force up near Kiev, away from the Mariupol, and that they've now accomplished their core military objective. I think this is true in part. What I would say is they tried to do it, but they didn't bring an overwhelming amount of force to bear.

They hoped it would work out. And then, like all military operations, they have a plan B, which is retreat to your secure sectors down there in the east. I don't think, though, that they never did not intend on taking Kiev. I mean, even Western intelligence said Kiev is going to fall in three days, right? So, you know, some of this is too cute by half in terms, not Scott specifically, but others who are saying, oh, well, they always intended to do this. I'm like, I think they actually did want to take the city, but they also had as any military operation, a plan B. So the core thing that you need to know is that this could be, could be a strategic withdrawal by the Russians. It also could be a repositioning to launch into other major offenses within the country. And in terms of their core military objectives in the east, in Crimea and the takeover of the city of Mariupol,

they have accomplished at least one of their major objectives in this military operation. It doesn't mean it's a success. Obviously, in terms of the grand strategic, Russia becoming a prior state, establishing a land bridge between Crimea and the east. Was it really worth it? I wouldn't say that. But some Russia defenders and in the Kremlin, they might try and spin it that way. Yeah. And I mean, I don't think that we should totally ignore the fact that some of their objectives here going in, they are likely to accomplish. I mean, look, Ukraine was already to say, all right, fine, we're not going to do NATO. They didn't have to like launch a war to get that promise. Zelensky was already tiptoeing right up to the line of basically indicating to them, this is on the table already. But in addition to that, I mean, Russia definitely is in a position

now to more dictate the ultimate terms of however this thing ends. And the real sticking point is going to be over what happens to this territory in the east, what happens to Crimea. Last show we brought you, Zelensky made some comments that were pretty interesting. First of all, in the talks that unfolded this week, they basically said those pieces, we're just going to put off the table for now in terms of how we handle these territorial issues. And, you know, Ukraine obviously very strongly saying, we're not giving up any of our territory to this, you know, aggressive invader. However, Zelensky did signal, and he said this outright, that he recognized any military effort to take back those regions was tantamount to what he called World War III. And so it could be on the table that, all right, we're not going to recognize

your right to these regions or that these are independent regions now in the East. However, we're also not really going to do anything about the de facto situation on the ground. That could be where we're heading. However, there's still a lot of reason for skepticism that this thing is anywhere close to a conclusion. And that's just the sad reality. The new comments you alluded to before from Zelensky coming out this morning, he says Ukraine is at a turning point. He also says there is no concrete progress on talks. He says we don't believe fancy word constructions. We believe in what happens on the battlefield. He also added we are fighting for freedom over tyranny, and that gives us the right to ask for tanks, planes, and artillery.

So what Zelensky is saying is, listen, we had talks this week in Turkey. So far, no real progress on that front. And then we have the Russians, this is Lavrov, saying, go ahead and put this last element up here. He says, on the other hand, yes, we've made significant progress, and there's positive movement. He says Ukraine has recognized the need to give up on NATO. That part is true, but also that Keele understands, quote, the issues of Crimea and Donbass are settled for good. I do not think that is in fact the case. I do not think he is telling the truth. Yeah. So there's a lot of posturing that's happening. As we said, I've tried to warn people before. There are many Zelenskys. Zelensky in the West, where he's asking for NATO no-fly zones in World War III.

Then Zelensky in Russian, whenever he's talking to actual Russian journalists. He's like, yeah, we'll negotiate on NATO, all of this. And then there's Zelensky at home. So trying to parse all three of those different Zelenskys, luckily for us with the Internet, we actually can see all of that, shows you this is a very dynamic situation. I've said this before. Something that we spent a lot of time on in graduate school was looking at ceasefires. Ceasefires mostly fail. But the more attempts at a ceasefire that you have, the more likely that one will eventually end up working in the long run.

So you're seeing here the swings and the ups and downs of what peace negotiations and posturing and all of that look like in the middle of a hot conflict and a war in Ukraine. Exactly what Russia is doing, we are not sure. It could be both an actual withdrawal per the immense amount of casualties that they suffered. It could also be a strategic withdrawal they planned the entire time. They have accomplished some of their military objectives, at least in part. Where do they go from here? Will they say, all right, this is enough? If we were to believe Scott Ritter's thread, then fine.

This actually gives the Kremlin the ability to say, good, we're good. Let's wind this thing down, try and bring Russia back into the community of nations. I don't think that's very likely at this point, given just geopolitical situation. But that just goes to show you that we're at a real turning point in the conflict. It's been almost more, it's been exactly, I think, more than a month now. It's been six weeks. Yeah, six weeks almost since the invasion actually began. And within all of that, we can now understand that things are either moving towards a bloody military stalemate or some sort of ceasefire. I very much hope for the ceasefire and the peace, but the stalemate, I would say, is equally likely. There's one other thing that Russia has gotten out of this thus far,

although at a grave cost in terms of the economic pressure and warfare that has been brought to bear on them and on their population, which is they really have found out who's going to stand with them in the world, even under the greatest duress. So, you know, if they wanted a test case of whether China was really going to provide them sort of that limitless relationship and support, I think we all have our answer here. And that sort of information, look, it's valuable for us to know, but it's also valuable for them to know. So that's kind of the sad and depressing state of affairs. There was one other piece here that we wanted to cover and, you know, sort of give you our thoughts on. Let's go ahead and put this next element up on the screen. This

is coming from our deep state. So take that. Take that for what it's worth. But U.S. intelligence, according to The New York Times, is suggesting that Putin's advisors misinformed him on Ukraine. Let me read you for a little bit of this article here. They say the intelligence, according to multiple U.S. officials, shows what appears to be growing tension between Mr. Putin and the Ministry of Defense, including with the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who was once among the most trusted members of the Kremlin's inner circle. They go on to say that he seemed genuinely unaware that the Russian military had been using conscripts in Ukraine and that drafted soldiers were among those who were killed. Again, that's according to U.S. officials. They also said that Mr. Putin had an incomplete understanding about how damaging Western sanctions had been on the Russian economy, sort of more skeptical of that piece.

And he's put two top intelligence officials under house arrest. We've seen that reported a couple of times, but that that move, so basically when he was unhappy with how things were going and felt that he hadn't gotten accurate information or that they hadn't been accurately prepared to launch this war, he puts these two top intelligence officials under house arrest, that that further contributed to a climate of fear. So it didn't make people more like, oh, now I'm going to tell them the truth. It made them more like, now I'm going to be even more cautious about what I do and what I say. Again, it's the U.S. intelligence community. They obviously have an agenda. So you always have to take that for what it's worth. However, is it crazy to think that this sort of autocratic person has a climate

of fear around him and a bunch of yes men who just have been telling him for years what he wanted to hear rather than what the actual reality of Russian capabilities was. No, I don't think that's crazy to imagine at all. And in fact, you'd have to be surprised if it was anything other than that situation. Yeah, I've been trying to think about this. It goes against the grain of how I thought, but also I didn't think Putin was going to invade, period. And the reason why is I thought he was a much more rational actor than he clearly is. So within the realm of possibility where he literally did invade Ukraine and did something which cast Russia as a pariah state and which had overwhelming backlash on their economy, this does seem within the realm of possibility. It's very clear that his information environment led him to believe this was going to be a good idea and accomplish his objectives relative to what he thought that the cost was going to be.

In this particular case, again, my gut wants to tell me there's no way this is possible. In the age of the 21st century and the internet, how can the leader of a nuclear armed power and one of the great powers of Europe not have total access to information? On the other hand, does this fit with authoritarian despots who are stuck in a tough situation all throughout history?

Yeah, it does. So it's very hard to parse, obviously, what is true and what is not. I think also, you know, you can compare it to, I'm not saying that this is like the same or identical, but Trump has managed to delude himself on a lot of things. And we have a lot freer and more open information ecosystem that he could avail himself of if he wanted to.

But his priority was always on having people around him who were going to tell him what he wanted to hear. Yeah, I saw it firsthand. And so that fed into a lot of delusions. Look, this is basic human nature. People are very susceptible to believe in the narrative that they ultimately want to believe. So I don't think it's crazy to think that there's a similar sort of information bubble around Putin where he isn't getting the real, certainly going into this, wasn't getting the real analysis of what was going on. You know, they were spending all sorts of money, I'm sure, on like soft power in Ukraine so that when they launched this, they were telling him, yes, Mr. Putin, there are all kinds of collaborators on

the ground just waiting to welcome us, waiting to aid us. They couldn't tell him that, you know, that money was wasted or stolen. So again, take it for what it's worth. It comes from the U.S. intelligence community, but I also don't think it's crazy to imagine that this is in fact the case. It's interesting. There was an interview with the mayor of a city. I think it was Mariupol, but I might be misspeaking. We don't have this element. I literally just saw it this morning, but it was a Ukrainian mayor who'd been taken captive by the Russians. And now he's out and he gave an interview and something that he said in the interview, which I found very interesting. Again, look, this guy's also spit in propaganda. So you take this for what it is. But he said these Russian soldiers had no idea what was going on.

They said, we're here to denazify. And he said, okay, there's no Nazis here. I mean, of course he has an interest in saying that. We don't know what's true. The second thing though, is he said, they said, okay, we're here to protect Russian speakers. And the mayor was like, we all speak Russian. 95% of us speak Russian. Like, are you protecting me? Right. And then the third thing they said was, we heard that you are tarnishing the reputations and harassing veterans of the Great Patriotic War, World War II, who fought. And he said, no, we don't. We honor them every year in a parade here in the city.

So he put all those three things together. And it just shows you the average Russian soldier who was doing and accomplishing this, they're living in a whole new world. I believe it when it comes to them. I just find it incredible that somebody like Putin, who has access to the world's greatest information and the ability to compile all this stuff. And Russia famously has some of the best spy networks in the world. Is he truly that crazy? Look, at the same time, in the history of the Soviet Union and Russia, a lot of czars and a lot of commissars in the Soviet Union have repeated the same mistake again.

Look, we have a lot of delusions about our country, too. Totally. So, you know, I think sometimes it's easier to evaluate the world than it is to evaluate yourself. Yeah, maybe you're right. Your own country and your own regime. He may have fallen prey to that. evaluate the world than it is to evaluate yourself, your own country and your own regime. He may have fallen prey to that. There's one other little tantalizing quote unquote news item that we'll put up there for you. This is another take it for what it's worth kind of thing.

This is from the Daily Mail. They're reporting that Putin and his high command may already be hunkering in secret nuclear bunkers after Kremlin spokesman said Russia would use nukes in face of existential threat. We brought you that comment where he refused to completely rule out nukes and would not take nukes off the table. This, again, comes with a researcher for Bellingcat, which does receive U.S. funding among other funding sources. And they're saying that they're tracking the flights around Russia. And what they've seen is that there have been flights going, movements of planes used by top Kremlin officials show Putin may be in a hideaway near Surgut in western Siberia. That's the claim. His defense minister, who's been mysteriously absent, is also believed

by this report to be in a bunker near Ufa in the Urals. That's 725 miles east of Moscow. And so, again, this is based on tracking the movement of his plane. They say we see very frequent flights to Ufa. I think that's how you say it. I really have no idea. Knowing that there are also protected bunkers in this region, this gives us an obvious answer about his place of residence. And they're using similar information of tracking state planes to make this insinuation or this sort of projection of where Putin might be and what he might be up to. I don't know. The reason we bring it to you is because even if there's like a 1% chance that this is true, it's obviously extraordinarily ominous if Putin and any of his top leadership are already hunkering down in bunkers. That's the thing. We don't know what this

man is thinking. I mean, he already did something incredibly irrational. So now, I mean, everything really is on the table. And that's what makes everything kind of terrifying in terms of what his mindset is, what information that he's getting, and more. This really does test some of the most basic theories of how to behave as a nuclear power and the safeguards that you have to have in place whenever it comes to nuclear war. So I'm going to be honest, I'm worried about it.

I don't fully believe it. Bellingcat obviously has not the best track record in terms of what's going on. But Instagram data and others that people had looked at with the relatives of some of these people showed them in the area. That I do believe in terms of what the report says. So, look.

They can't get like the oligarchs. They can't get the oligarchs to stop posting on Instagram. Teenage kids or whatever. I get it. I do the same thing. Stop posting their lavish lifestyle on Instagram as they're going into the nuclear borders. I, too, cannot resist posting pictures of my cat on Instagram. It is what it is.

It's okay. All right. Let's go ahead and move on here. It is what it is. It's okay. All right, let's go ahead and move on here. Everybody always asks us to bring them good news. Well, finally, here is some. Biden is poised to use Cold War powers to boost battery metals. Now, it's a little odd that Bloomberg phrases Cold War powers as the Defense Production Act, but whatever. I guess that's what it takes here. The reason that this is important is that the Defense Production Act, but whatever. I guess that's what it takes here. The reason that this is important is that the Defense Production Act is the ability of the U.S. government, as we saw under the Trump

administration with Operation Warp Speed and other pandemic-related matters, in order to use the federal government to encourage third-party sellers and commission actual industrial capacity in order to build something which is considered strategically important to the security of the United States. We've been talking a lot here about supply chains and batteries and electric vehicles specifically. There has been a race for over 20 years over the supply chains, over batteries. The United States has lost that race. We have no chance of winning it, at least in the near term. The only chance we have is to be competitive 15 years from now. I did a Realign podcast once with a guy named Steve Levine, one of the world's experts on US battery supply chains. And he was apocalyptic in terms of how reliant we are on China. And a

previous report that we brought you here on the show, let's put this up there, from the New York Times, who did actually an excellent investigation several months ago in November about the power struggle over cobalt rattles the clean energy revolution. And what they point to there is this Chinese scramble for the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's cobalt, which is a vital piece for electric vehicles and batteries. And actually, in terms of the Congo's cobalt, which is a vital piece for electric vehicles and batteries. And actually, in terms of the actual supply chain here, the Chinese have been going all over the world and buying and controlling many of these mines. So I'll just read you here what exactly is processed, the most key elements in terms of electric vehicles. Copper, 40% of the world's copper

is processed in China. Nickel, about 35% of the world's nickel is processed in China. A lot of it also comes from, Crystal, Russia, which apparently we're not doing business with that nation anymore. Not doing great. Three ties with them. Cobalt, over 65% of the world's cobalt is processed in China. Rare earth metals, over 85% of the world's rare earth metals are processed in China. Lithium, about 60% of lithium in this world is processed in China. So when you consider both production and then process power, we are nowhere. We're not even on the map for any, a single one of these. It's been a total disaster. Part of the reason why, even in the Build Back Better plan, Biden was like, let's build electric vehicle highway.

You can't build a highway if you can't build the vehicles. This is part of the problem that we have and why Elon Musk has to go and kiss the ass of the Chinese because they have built this huge electric battery supply chain there. All the rare earth metals, the processing power, the ability of the factories, we have none of that. Now, what this Defense Production Act would actually do is make it so that we could build processing power and the domestic production of key materials. It's all about both refining and the production of those materials in order to make it so that we can build the stuff here at home. And especially in a transition period away from fossil fuels, which will probably take 25, 35, 40 years. In that time, we have got an immense amount of work to do in order to build this up.

So I do want to applaud the Biden administration here. This is an excellent use of the federal government's powers. It's exactly what we should be seeing for years on end. And I think it's better for all of us. Look, the cheaper we can make electric cars, and it's all about price, the cheaper that we can get it, we need company-neutral tax credits, unlike the ones that are currently being proposed, and drive the price down for the average consumer in order to use in their day-to-day commute, the better off that we're all going to be. But it's going to require a total redo of our entire supply chain. So I'm very, very heartened to see this. Yeah. And by the way, I mean, this has downstream effects. So people who are able to switch to an

electric vehicle, and by the way, there's massive demand right now, as you can imagine with how high gas prices are. If they're able to buy the electric vehicles that they want, then that takes more pressure out of the gas market and makes gas prices lower for people who still have, you know, traditional gas powered vehicles. I can tell you from personal experience, you basically can't get an electric vehicle right now, which has more to do at the moment with supply chain issues and in particular chip shortages, because the electric vehicles also take more chips than your average vehicle. So there's a lot of problems to work out here. I mean, I think this is to be applauded. I don't want to take away from it.

But it's also a thing of like, this should have been done under the Obama administration. I mean, we're like, we're decades late here. And we're so late to the game. The most that this could do is sort of like kickstart, you know, a little bit of production here. Also, we should temper our expectations because what they say in this Bloomberg piece, which I still don't really understand why they framed

it as cold war powers. It's weird. But anyway, the president's signature is a big signal, they say, but it's incumbent on the Congress to appropriate dollars that are commensurate with the challenge because the DPA, the Defense Production Act, is a, quote, small piggy bank, considering it must cover sectors from aerospace and defense to the automotive industry. So president's signature, you know, him taking executive action, that's good. Now we need Congress to appropriate the funds. We will see if they actually do that. Yeah. And that's part of both the CHIPS Act and a lot of other stuff that's happening. Let's put this up there also from the Guardian. A great piece also that needs consideration, which is that the battery arms race and the Chinese monopolization

of this is really stunning. I mean, I just read you some of those numbers, but it's important because also it can show you what Chinese soft power, look, I'm not saying our soft power is great, but Chinese soft power in Africa is not pretty. And they quote a lot of Congolese miners here talking about how they're overworked, they're treated completely terribly. Quote, they like to raise their voices even for a small fault. You are punished. The Chinese are there to control the Congolese. This is a worker who actually works at one of those majority-owned Chinese mines in the Congo and is controlled by that country. And why it matters is that they've been playing the long game here for a long time. I mean, their batteries, I've even heard friends who live in California who have access to some of these Chinese electric cars.

Let's be honest here. These are great cars. They're very, very good functional cars. They have a long range. They drive really well. I mean, look, you know, Tesla's awesome. But we have to be honest here that real competition is coming down the line. And given the fact that apparently we don't believe in tariffs anymore in this country, it would not surprise me whatsoever in order to see a Chinese electric vehicle company take significant market share in the United States, especially if they can drive the price down. This is also such a missed opportunity from the Trump administration, because, I mean, for all his talk about China, on the things that would have actually mattered, sleep at the switch.

I mean, I think part of that just comes from, you know, he's a fundamentally unserious person. Yeah, but the people who work for him, they should know. Right, and I think part of that also, though, is because you have so much, like, climate denialism and this, like, for a long time, the idea of electric vehicles was, like,

this sort of smeared as this liberal hippie dippy thing. To his credit, I think Elon Musk has helped to change that impression with his just like shit posting online. But whatever. I'll take it. Yeah, if that helps like move the entire country in a better direction, that's fine. But this is if they actually wanted to compete with China, stand up to China, forge a different type of relationship, these are the type of things that they would have been doing. And I think it says, you know, it's revealing, not that it's surprising, that they weren't engaged in anything significant that actually would have positioned us in a better place.

Like you said, look, this is the tip of the iceberg, but this is exactly the type of stuff that we need to see. We need to set these precedents in Washington, get the Congress moving, and actually begin production. Because if we want to win any semblance of the future, do you guys like paying, you know, in L.A. where I was, $6.50 a gallon? No, it's totally crazy. We need to have it so that you have the ability for actual middle class and poor people to buy electric cars. I would say that that is the biggest hurdle right now. Right now it's a luxury vehicle.

That's fine. If you can afford it, it's awesome. But we need to make it so that it's downstream and an actual cost effective and make the companies then invest in that big time. So this is a very small step in that direction. We want to applaud it. So let's move on to the next part of here. Another important thing that the Biden administration is considering doing today, although I have some mixed quibbles with it. Let's put this up there on the screen. The United States currently is weighing the largest ever draw from the Emergency Oil Reserve, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This has not yet been announced, but what the administration is considering and the announcement could come as soon as today is the release of one million barrels a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Now, there's a couple of things that are

important to note here. Will one million barrels a day make a difference? Yes and no. So crude oil on Wednesday still is trading at $105 a barrel. Now, the issue here is, of course, oil is a global market in the way that it's priced. So will one million barrels a day significantly have an impact on price? Energy analysts are mixed. At the same time, it is still important for the administration to do something in order to lower the price of gas. So I went ahead and I asked a couple of energy analysts late last night whether this is a good thing. So here's what one says. I'm not going to quote him directly. He says, the one good thing is that they're supposedly planning on doing it slowly rather than one big shot.

However, if it is not paired with other efforts to fix the imbalance, then they are not going after the systemic problem they have in the oil market. So part of the issue, as we've explained, and I'll do it just very briefly again, is that basically investors in Wall Street financed 10 years of shale oil drilling here in America. They took a bath because of COVID, and they lost over $500 billion. So right now, high oil prices and the high profits the oil companies have, that's paying back the investors for all the cash that they lost previously. We've already had oil company CEOs say, we would not drill if oil is even $200 a barrel. Pioneer's CEO literally said that on live television. Why does that matter? It means there is a capital imbalance in the oil market. Only the government can fix that.

We have not yet seen any effort in order to fix that specific part. And that's going to require some pain on the oil companies part too, to be like, hey, your guys are going to have to drill. We're going to have to make this up. You can't just reap massive profits off of us. But there's none of that conversation happening yet. We had that guy, Skanda Amarnathan. He had a plan specifically using the SPR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, in order to help set price and fix some of the imbalance in terms of drilling, which also has a sunset so that you don't finance these oil companies for the future.

So it's a tiny little step. It's kind of like the electric vehicle thing we just talked about. It's a tiny little step in the right direction. Is it going to lower price to like $3.50 a gallon or $3? No, it's not going to do that at all. Upon the news that they were considering this, prices did drop. Market prices did drop. So that shows that they think it will have some impact.

Right now the numbers are the U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels of oil a day. So when you're thinking about 1 million barrels, I mean, it's still. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, it's something, it's something. And I think probably it's honestly greater significance is in the political messaging. As you said, people are telling pollsters, and this is really across the board, that the Biden administration is not focused on the issues that they care most about, that the number one issue that they are concerned about that is eating into their budgets, making it impossible for them to make ends meet is inflation. So this is an attempt to say,

look, we're doing something here that's significant. It's more than has ever been done before in terms of releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. So we shall see. I mean, the probably more significant to the price of gas is the fact that you have these new lockdowns in China. Oh, yeah. Reducing gas consumption because, I mean, that's what happened, of course, when we had COVID across around the globe and lockdowns with regards to COVID is you had prices just drop through the floor. I mean, at one point, like going negative on oil futures and it was crazy. So that will probably have more of an impact.

And we have already seen gas prices tick down a little bit through no doing of the Biden administration. On the other hand, the fact, as you covered, Sagar, on Tuesday, the fact that you do have these lockdowns in China makes all sorts of other parts of our supply chain completely screwed up. And then you layer on top of that looming food crisis that Biden says is, quote, going to be real, going to be real because of the war, because of sanctions and all of this. And it's still a pretty grim landscape. Biden just has this terrible ability to be like, yeah, this is bad, but then do nothing about it. I mean, look, I just gave him credit for the DPA and for oil. I think that's great. But we need

some real strategic plans here. Everything from them is totally half-assed. Not just for the DPA and for oil. I think that's great. But we need some real strategic plans here. Everything from them is totally half-assed. Not just for the next month, but for the next decade, for the next 20 years. Yeah, there's so much that we have. This is the moment when you could set us up. I mean, you know, that's the one thing when you have this kind of crisis and the stakes are really clear and people, you know, really get how all these pieces are so fundamental. And you're just kind of tinkering around the margins, nip and tuck on this and that thing. It's wildly insufficient. I can't be the only one. I recently checked my power bill. That thing is completely out of control. So there's a lot of people out there, people are paying a lot of money, both the pump

in terms of food, in terms of gas. I mean, this is all stuff that really adds up for normal folks. So this is the time when you could do something about it, but we're broken record whenever it comes to that. Indeed. All right, let's move on to Hunter Biden. So this is a fun one. Basically, the media, two years later, has decided, okay, now it's time to acknowledge the Hunter Biden laptop is real. I suspect, and I think you do too, it's because the federal grand jury is hearing these cases very seriously, and he might actually be criminally indicted. Yeah, they can't deny it anymore. So they can't deny it anymore, so they've got to get out ahead of it a little bit. Because the Biden Justice Department has now validated the laptop, so they can't play dumb anymore.

They can't play dumb anymore. So now everybody's like, oh, actually, you know that laptop that we all said was fake? Oh, yeah, that's actually totally real. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is from The Washington Post. So there's a lot going on here. The Washington Post says, Inside Hunter Biden's multi-million dollar deals with a Chinese energy company.

The subhead, a Washington Post review confirms key details and offers new documentation of Biden family interactions with Chinese executive. And what they point to specifically is on August 2nd, 2017, signatures were quickly affixed from Hunter Biden and Chinese executive Gong Wendong. And within days, a new cafe bank account was created. Within a week, millions of dollars started to change hands. However, within a year, it would all begin to collapse. What they point to is a previously known, and we will get to that, deal between Hunter Biden and the CEFC China Energy Corporations, which has direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party. That Chinese energy conglomerate paid $4.8 million to entities that were controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden, the brother of the president.

Court documents and newly disclosed bank statements, as well as emails contained on a copy of a laptop hard drive that once belonged to Hunter Biden. And what they specifically point to is that Hunter Biden's laptop was confirmed by the Washington Post. Very interesting. You know, it was confirmed the day he didn't deny that it was his. Okay, all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Oh my God.

All the hallmarks. This is the same outlet which ran these types of stories. And what they point to is that the CFC deal became one of the most lucrative, if short-lived, foreign ventures that Hunter is known to have pursued. The post-review draws in part on an analysis of the hard drive of the laptop computer. And I think that what is so important here is that this, is this the most important thing in the world? No. Okay. In terms of the evidence within the story, have they directly connected Joe Biden to that? No. Although

you can go read that email from Tony Bobulinski around the big guy and specifically connected to a China deal. But here's the basic fact pattern. The president's son and the president's brother received millions of dollars from the Chinese Communist Party and used those dollars in a slush fund. Oh, and also didn't pay any tax, allegedly, did not pay any of their taxes on any of this. That's pretty sketchy. Now, do you think that they did it out of the goodness of their heart that the Chinese Communist Party is wiring the former vice president's son and now current president's son all of this money. My personal favorite, Crystal, was whenever they did not pay his bills, Hunter actually threatened to sue them in Delaware court and specifically said, just so you know, I know all the judges in Delaware.

Yeah, because they questioned, that little detail is funny too, because they questioned one of the expenses that he was trying to get reimbursed. Last show, we brought you how, you know, he was getting money that was for a car for like $150,000 sports car. A Fisker car. Yeah. I don't even really know what it is. That's how fancy it is. But yeah, so he was clearly using this to fund an insanely lavish lifestyle, allegedly, according to, you know, some of the investigations with the grand jury, maybe not paying his taxes on some of those things, certainly getting behind on his taxes. And I think in terms of political relevance, like it's very obvious here, guys, you don't need a direct connect to Joe Biden. It's plain to see that James Biden and Hunter Biden were not getting these gigs and having these millions of dollars thrown at them because of their competence or expertise. It's all because of their last name.

And that is blatant corruption. Did Joe Biden directly have anything to do with that? We don't know. We don't know. But as we talk about with corruption all the time, just the appearance of this type of corruption is so incredibly damaging, especially when, look, he's the president of the United States. Obviously, our relationship with China is extraordinarily significant. Obviously, our relationship with Ukraine now, extraordinarily significant. So these are no small things. As you said, is it the biggest story in the world?

No, but it actually is really pretty damn significant. And here's the other part of it that we have to point out, which is that, yeah, the Washington Post has a few new details here, putting some like, you know, meat on the bones of this story. Is this a new story? No, no, it's not. I mean, we knew the general outlines of what was going on here for a long time, and they just couldn't be bothered to actually dig in and do real reporting on what was going on until now when their hand is forced by the fact that he may be facing criminal liability and actually facing potential indictment over these things so they can no longer sit on their hands. There was a window in the past. Remember, we dug up some of the old stories from Politico and whatever that talked about Biden family corruption. 2019. So there was a time when it was on the table. Yeah.

And then you had this whole long stretch where suddenly because it was clear he was likely to be a Democratic nominee. Oh, now you can't say anything. You had even his primary rivals, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and others, totally pulling their punches on insinuating any sort of corruption. Well, remember when Bernie like chastised and disciplined members of his campaign team and his surrogates like Zephyr Tichon who wanted to go in the direction of talking about Biden corruption. The media obviously, you know, was all ready to go and sort of like smear you as unfair and right wing and you love Trump. If you brought any of this stuff up, then they go and completely hide it in the general election. And it's disgraceful. So listen, none of this is particularly new, but it is significant

to know that there were these big deals with significant players around the world who clearly whatever they actually got, they clearly thought they were getting access and influence. That's right. I wish I could play for you guys that famous clip. I've played it on Rising before. Last time I played it, though, podcasters, listeners complained because it's all in Chinese. But it's a Chinese professor basically being like, we know how to work the America. You Hunter Biden, you know what was going on there? He literally does this in terms of joking about paying these people off.

And just look at how the Post frames this. Let's put this up there on the screen from the reporter, Matt Visor, who actually covered Biden on the campaign trail. The audacity. Thousands of emails purportedly from the laptop computer of Hunter Biden are authentic. Oh, really? That can be verified through cryptographic signatures. Oh my gosh, I'm so surprised. Shut up, cryptographic signatures. If it's fake,

then they can say so. And guess what? It's been two years and they never said anything. Matt was literally on the campaign trail with Biden. And if I sound angry, it is because, Crystal, you and I spent months talking and dissecting this. Are we huge fans of Trump? No. But we understood the utility of telling people the truth at the time. Go ahead and put my tweet up there on the screen. I was enraged about this yesterday. That Hunter Biden report is two years late. The details of the Hunter connection to China's CEFC, they've been there since September of 2020. I went back and actually watched some of our coverage from that exact date. I put my monologue there, which is, it was all out there for the entire world to see. The Senate Intelligence Report gave us all of the details. And actually, media, if you're interested, he also got a wire transfer for millions of dollars from the richest woman in all of Russia. So I know Russia, you know, skepticism is hot right now. That's a good

story for all of you. I've already talked about it. I mean, the details of these bank transactions, of the CEFC, of Rosemont Seneca Partners, which is old business, of his BFR holdings, I can go on forever. I mean, it's amazing to me the way that these people conduct themselves. They give him a complete pass. They even had the gall to report, Hunter says, that he's no longer involved in his Chinese company. Oh, but as I know, and as anybody who can read a security file knows, he owns 10%. So if you're no longer involved, but you still own something, do you not still have a direct financial stake in a Chinese private equity giant, which by the way, also financed

some of the technology in order to imprison Uyghurs in China? This gets no scrutiny. We've gone through all of the details. If anybody wants, they can go back two years ago, watch all the coverage that we did on rising from the very beginning, 2019 onward. All of the details of Hunter's business dealings have been out there. And it is personally infuriating to me to watch these people rediscover this all in real time. James Biden shouldn't get a pass here either because, and that's the other thing is this isn't like a new pattern of behavior from the beginning, 50 years ago with, you know, Biden's senatorial career, there were these sorts of, you know, trading on his name and improper financial relationships swirling around him with his family. So this is like next level kind of stuff when you're dealing with the Chinese

government and when you're dealing with Ukraine and all of these things. But this type of pattern of corruption has been there from the beginning. I want to read to you a little bit from that Washington Post piece that's like, oh, now we've authenticated some of the emails, how they frame it. Because remember, even though now we've got the New York Times and the Washington Post admitting because the Biden Justice Department has validated and they're using the contents of this laptop, they've now admitted, OK, it's probably OK, it's authentic. But here's how they frame it. And I think in an attempt to get out of having to issue any sort of apology for the past complete dismissal of the laptop, they say many Republicans have portrayed this data as offering evidence of misbehavior by Hunter Biden that implicated his father in scandal, while Democrats have dismissed it as probable disinformation, perhaps pushed by Russian operatives acting in a well-documented effort to undermine Biden. Then they go on.

The Washington Post's forensic findings are unlikely to resolve that debate, offering instead only the limited revelation that some of the data on the portable drive appears to be authentic. So even in this piece where they're saying, yeah, guys, it's real, they're still trying to say, well, we don't really know. You know, the Republicans say this, the Democrats say that. We can't really tell. So we'll just let you decide. Here's what's better. I just found Washington Post from the day that I did that monologue. Here's what they wrote. GOP's Hunter Biden report doesn't back up Trump's actual conspiracy theory or anything close to it, except your own paper just validated that conspiracy

theory. And look, I understand that when Trump touches something, it's annoying for him to be on the same side. But guess what? That's how the truth works sometimes, especially when you're in the media. And I'll never forget this moment from the presidential debate when Trump specifically pressed him on Hunter's dealings, Biden. And Biden said that the report, which has now been validated, has been, quote, totally discredited. We know for a fact now, even by the MSM standards, that he lied during that debate. Let's take a listen. And he didn't have a job until you became vice president. Once you became vice president, he made a fortune in Ukraine, in China, in Moscow, and various other places.

He made a fortune. My son. And he didn't have a job. My son, like a lot of people, like a lot of people we know at home, had a drug problem. He's overtaken it. He's fixed it. He's worked on it. And I'm proud of him. But why was he given tens of millions? But he wasn't given tens of millions. That is totally, totally, totally discredited. Totally discredited. It's not totally discredited. I just read you the proof from The Washington Post even. And it was it was true the day that he said it. And he lied to all of our faces. Did Trump lie to us? Yeah. Did he lie about his corruption with Saudi Arabia and with foreign leaders staying in his hotel? Yeah. Is Jared corrupt as Hunter? Yeah, maybe more so, to be honest. And in a much more influential position of power, too. Does that mean that it's okay when Hunter does it? No, it doesn't. Corruption is bad. I cared about it from the day I came to D.C. and saw it all around us and the way it shapes the world that you have to live in at home. So that's where my righteous indignation comes from. We covered this and did our best to treat it sensitively at the time. And we're like, look, that doesn't mean that gives Trump a pass, but this is a real thing. And nobody was honest about it. just how large their operations are. The mainstream is just not that good at their job

because they're too ideologically blind to be able to actually tell the truth in a way that is honest and fair and timely. So I think that's maybe the most important thing to take away from all of this is that they just aren't particularly good at doing what they're supposed to be doing. And that's not because they're not smart people or capable people or that they don't have the

resources. It's because of their ideological blindness that leads them to, you know, just completely fail and whiff on stories like this. You know, the other thing that I was trying to remember, remember when Elizabeth Warren, so she, her campaign in the primary, she was making this big push on anti-corruption and she just launched this big like anti-corruption thing. I do remember this. And then she got pressed. $10 million ad buy. Yeah, big ad buy. And she was like, this was her thing.

And then she got pressed on like Biden corruption and she had no idea what to say because she was so, she really had deluded herself into thinking that, oh, even if I don't win, maybe I can be vice president. And so, you know, she had nothing to say about it. Bernie had nothing to say about it. The media completely protected him. And it did him no favors, because if this had all been hashed out during the election, then, OK, it's not really a story anymore. Like the voters got to have the information. They got to make up their minds.

And I'll tell you, in all likelihood, he's still president of the United States. But because it wasn't dealt with at the time, now this hangs over him, this huge scandal hangs over him like a cloud that is unresolved at a time of national peril and incredible global crisis. It's really just so completely infuriating. Okay, let's get to the fun stuff. Yes, indeed. All right. You guys have been waiting for us to talk about CNN+. We've been waiting as well. All right. So let's start with the most important part, which is the part that has to do with us. Has to concern us. Which is that, okay, we do not have anything to do with the ads that are placed on our podcast. It's very similar to how things work on YouTube, where they just insert ads. We do have some say over, like we've told them, no fossil fuel, no pharma, no banks.

That's right. So we do have some say over saying, like, absolutely, these people cannot. But we did not include CNN Plus in that list of no-nos, frankly, because it didn't really occur to us. I never thought it would be an issue. So according to you guys, let's put this first element up on the screen. Some of you are getting served CNN Plus ads at the beginning of Breaking Points on Spotify,

which is hilarious because they are obviously too stupid to know that our audience is going to give them negative return and nothing but scorn for their money spent on our podcast. Our audience exists because they suck. And so, as I put it here, if they want to help support the show

in order to point out how awful they are, be my guest, okay, people? But it does show you that they are desperate. They are absolutely desperate in what is going on. That tiny little tidbit

is, of course, absolutely hilarious. But in terms of the actual thing, the product has launched. So how's it going? Let's go ahead and put this next one up there on the screen. This is especially funny. Look at what they are doing, Crystal. They are doing the tried and true, trying to juice their initial signup numbers to fake how many people they actually have. And as we're pointing out here, they are discounting the product to half its price, $2.99 a month, in order to try and induce as many people as possible to

sign up. Save 50% for life. Save 50% for life. The question is how long the life of CNN Plus is ultimately going to be. Exactly. And that's a really good point. And here's the thing. I went ahead and I read in Puck News last night that CNN Plus's initial projection is they need 2 million people to become subscribers in the first year. 5 million over three years. Forget it. And that is at these rock bottom fake prices. Here's the thing. If you have no confidence in your product, this is not retail. This is content. Content is flat. In terms of discounts and all that, we don't have to have sell-through. Business people know what I'm talking about. The way retail works is you discount off-season, sell-through rates, inventory.

That's not how this stuff works. The way it works here is if you have a product that you value, you sell it at a price that you think is fair, all of this discounting that's happening on their part, it shows you they have no confidence in their actual product. Yes. They're throwing it away in order to juice their initial sign-ups and then fake it to the advertising industry and say, see, we have X hundreds of thousands of people who are signing up. Yeah, paying you $2.99 a month, they had to hire hundreds of people.

They have thrown so much money at this thing. Probably maybe millions. Because you think about, oh, absolutely. Because, well, first of all, and I'm going to get to, we did not actually watch their content. Because there was no way in hell I'm giving them even $3 of my money. But somebody did, and they did a review, and we'll tell you about that in a minute. But from the pictures of it, like, the sets are really elaborate. I can tell you that's very expensive.

We can tell you from our experience. Even though the talent that they brought in shouldn't be expensive, it is. You know, Chris Wallace is a big get. They reportedly tried to get Rachel Maddow for, like, $20 million. She ends up staying at MSNBC. Apparently, they also tried to get Ari Melber, another primetime host over there who would have to be paid millions of dollars, I'm sure, to come over. He ultimately decided to stay where he was at MSNBC as well.

You've got Casey Hunt. Some of these people that they acquired are not inexpensive. This is a lot of money to throw at talent, to throw at the technology, to throw at ads that are going to be completely worthless to you on our podcast, to throw at the set. They have made a huge investment in this thing. And then to, on day one, have to mark it down to half price to come anywhere close to what your projections are. And by the way, I still don't think they're going to come anywhere close to what your projections are. And by the way, I still don't think they're going to come anywhere close to what their projections are. And we have some reporting on that as well.

Because if you're saying they have to get to 5 million subscribers, that's like not that far shy of what the New York Times digital subscriptions is at. Actually, wow, that's completely correct. They're at 6.8 million based on what I just was looking up. So, you know, you're trying. And for all like New York Times fault, like obviously they have been intelligent about their digital offering. In the news for 10 years. Yeah. Oh my god. Right. So,

this is. When you put it that way, that's insane. So, people are gonna pay, 5 million people are gonna pay for, like, an extra hour of Wolf Blitzer doing the same shit that he does for free on your, like, on regular CNN. I cannot believe it. People are gonna pay for Anderson Cooper's parenting tips or Jake Tapper's book show. Like, come on. I mean, this is the most insane business attempt that I have ever seen. Here's another just like silliness of this. They're apparently selling the first moment as an NFT, which also, okay, so first just like cringe hilarious. They're going to sell the first 29 seconds of five things with Kate Baldwin.

It will be sold at $50 each. So, guys, if you're interested, you better hop to. I'm sure those things are flying right off the shelf. But, you know, the way that they talk about this internally is like this is the most historic moment since Ted Turner's launch of the network. That's how much they have invested in it. And it's just clearly a disaster. Look, it gives me a lot of confidence in what we're doing here and building out something new. We've built the audience now over several years, building it out and adding some of the component

parts without doing the complete boondoggle of what they're doing over at CNN. And look, I have some bone to pick too, also with the content. I mean, the Anderson Cooper parenting show, I actually looked into it. So Anderson's show is parenting advice as a working dad. And I just, look, I have no disrespect for Anderson in terms of what he actually does when he goes to Tahrir Square in the middle of the Cairo protests. Actually good at what his job. But the idea that the heir to the Vanderbilt fortune who is a single dad has anything in common with a real single dad who is working several jobs or a single mom, that's ludicrous. I'm sorry. Like, what's your problem? That the nanny didn't show up on time or that you had, you know, your shift schedule went off and that your caregivers, you know, got their schedules

mixed up. I'm not diminishing that it's probably not still hard to be a single dad when you're a multimillionaire. But it's not exactly a relatable situation. You're literally the heir to the Vanderbilt for it. It reminds me of when Sheryl Sandberg was trying to get parenting advice, remember? And she'd, like, built down a whole nursery next to her, like, sweet office. Yeah, I'll just do that. When her nanny would be there full time with her kid and we're like, oh, yeah, everyone can just accomplish that. That's going to make it super workable.

So I didn't know that that was the framing of the thing. That's what bothers me. You know, there are actual single parents out there. I've met some of them who really suffer and they have really a big problem and they're not rich. They don't they can't relate in any way to your experience of being a multimillionaire television host of living in New York City. And you kind of have the audacity to try and sell that to people. I think that's completely ridiculous and insane. Same whenever it comes to all of the other offerings that they have.

Jake Tapper's book club with Dolly Parton. Wow, I've never seen an interview with Dolly before. Might as well pay for it. I can't say anything about that because I would love to have an interview with Dolly Parton. Yeah, sure. But she's been interviewed a million times for free. You can go listen to her

on any podcast. I think also it's just like, remember some of the reporting after Zucker was out was about how internally there were a lot of questions about CNN Plus because this had kind of

been Zucker's baby. Yes, that's right. And even some of their staff were like, I mean, Jake Tapper's fine, but like, are people really so enthusiastic about Jake Tapper that they're going to sign up for his book club? All of this is a way of saying like, they have no idea what they're doing in this space. And I think

it's very revealing because number one, they clearly know that their traditional business model is under threat. Is it still wildly profitable? Yes. But they also can see the writing on the wall. Their demographic is super old. They're under threat from the whole array of content, not just news content like ours, but other options that are out there. Younger generations are not signing up for traditional cable packages. So they know they have to do something, but they have no idea what that might actually look like to provide some sort of valuable content that people would believe in.

That's really the thing. And be willing to sign up for. I mean, that's what we find with our subscribers is, you know, as much as we try to give them, you know, access to things early and special interviews and AMA that we do and all of that, what they're really here for is because they believe in the mission. They believe in the project. They believe in what we're trying to build. Who believes in what CNN Plus is trying to build? And also, what are you even trying to build? Because that's the

other part of it is the content is incredibly scattershot. It doesn't provide really any sort of value add to what is already on the channel. So who is your target audience here? We've got the USA Today review. Go ahead and put the USA Today screenshot up there. So they say watching CNN Plus's first day. So what are we doing here? Hint, talking about Will Smith. This person, brave individual, went ahead and watched the first four hours of CNN Plus. They say, so what are we doing here? Brian Stelter asked at the outset of his show, Reliable Sources Daily, in case there wasn't enough reliable sources, which gets very poor ratings, even on his normal CNN channel. They decided to give him a daily show on CNN Plus Tuesday morning.

I was asking myself the same thing at 4 a.m. Pacific when I tuned into the kickoff of the new streaming platform. After watching the first four live shows on the platform, the answer to Stelter's question was clear. They were talking about Will Smith. Before the launch, the biggest question about CNN Plus was why it was needed when the CNN network can be viewed on TV and online. After watching the first four shows airing on the platform Tuesday morning,

that question changed, replaced by a new one. What would they have talked about if Will Smith hadn't slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars? I think it's a perfect encapsulation because it's exactly the type of story that people who know nothing

about alternative media would think like, oh, this is the hot thing that we should really lean into that people just want endless takes on. And so they're just chasing whatever they think is going to get clicks and views rather than actually having any sort of like identity or meaty value generating offering. Like, did you really need more Will Smith takes? Was that something that you were really dying for out there? Was that a need that was unmet? No, of course not. No, it wasn't.

And I think that this is the point, which is that whenever we spent years building this up and understanding what exactly both people want and also inventing different ways. I mean, some of our union coverage was not popular in the beginning. Actually, it was pretty unpopular. We just did it anyway because we believed that it was important. You have to build a constituency around things sometimes.

You have to believe in something. Yeah, and you have to stand for something, you know? And, you know, I can see within this that it is just a multimillion-dollar boondoggle. And really, if they really had courage, here's what they would do. They would say, we're not doing any more deals with cable, as in no more Comcast, NBC. We're going to put all live TV on the internet and let's see how it works out. That would be a gutsy move. But guess what? This is the innovator's dilemma. They can't do that because they make billions of dollars. They have too much invested in the current model. Way too much invested in the current model.

It's like Kodak inventing the digital camera in the 1980s. Technology was there. Everybody knew what was the future. But you make a whole lot of money on film and the shareholders demand profit and the parent company wants this. They have the inability to disrupt themselves. Only great businesses can actually do that. Otherwise, people like yours truly up here are the ones who are going to come and eventually eat your lunch. But I do want to put out a word of caution, and for us not to be too triumphalist here as they fall on their face, because they can't compete with actual alternative media

and the offerings that are really quality. And there are many, I think, quality podcasts, quality YouTube creators who provide really in-depth analysis. I know I've been relying a lot on, you know, that sort of analysis during the Ukraine crisis, going back through the history and military strategy and trying to understand what's going on. They can't compete with that. So what are they going to do? They're not going to just say, well, we just can't do it. No, they're going to try to rig the market. They're going to try to destroy the things that are out there that are good so that people have no other choice. And they'll also, listen, we'll never know what their real numbers are because they'll, you know, bundle it

with HBO or Discovery. And so you'll never actually know what a failure it ultimately is. But the fact that they're trying to play anywhere in our space, like anywhere close to our space, is a direct threat because Because again, they don't care about actually playing fair and like, let's just compete in the marketplace of ideas and provide good content. No, they'll win at all costs if that requires, you know, smearing all of Substack as racist or whatever they're going to, you know, unfettered conversations or smearing all podcasts or smearing all YouTube creators, they will do that. And we've already seen those tactics be employed. So that's my sort of cautionary note here is even though they suck, that doesn't mean that it's not going to be

really damaging. Oh, we shouldn't be. We should not be too rosy about it at all. Look, it's fun. I'm going to be honest, especially this part. Let's put this up there on the screen. CNN already bracing for layoffs. This is from Charles Gaspar the screen. CNN already bracing for layoffs. This is from Charles Gasparino. CNN plus employees bracing for layoffs as soon as May amid projections of lackluster sales of the new streaming channel. CNN employees say new streaming channel could be merged into a larger Discovery Plus as early as May unless subscriptions pick up from Fox Business. CNN responded and said that that's not true, that they're very happy with their launch. We'll see what the truth is. All reporting from inside the house indicates that the new

parent company does not like CNN+, that they are already scaling back its vision, and that Zucker specifically was the godfather of this thing, and that with him gone, that it is probably a goner, and it'll eventually get folded into the broader thing. It's funny, you know, on their marketing, they're marketing the hell out of the fact that you can watch Anthony Bourdain's show. Yeah. You can already watch Parts Unknown on HBO Max. You don't need CNN Plus to watch it. So the only thing that they have, and by the way, he's dead.

I mean, rest in peace. But like, it's kind of gross. And this was written in the Puck review as well, to use a dead man's image in order to sell subscriptions. I think that's kind of seedy, given that he's been dead for several years. It shows the pathetic nature of their offering, that that's the best they have to offer is something that is from the past and not what their new offerings are ultimately for the future. I do want to throw in there with regard to the Fox reporter who is reporting this information, which may or may not be true, but I'm going to go ahead and believe that it is true, because

I do think that their launch was a dismal failure based on all available signs. Fox's streaming effort has also been a completely dismal failure that they have also spent a lot of money on in terms of acquiring talent. All of them have, all three. Fox Nation, ECOC, and... The MSNBC one has also been, they just have fallen on their face because they all are subject to that same issue that you're talking about is they just don't understand

this world at all. Their traditional model is what earns them the bucks and makes them the money. And it's very standard, sort of like there's this standard concept in businesses that it's very hard if you're the legacy business to be also the innovator. And so they're not really able to pull it off. None of them have been able to pull it off, and it doesn't look like CNN is going to do anything better. That's right. All right, guys. Let's bring you up to date on Mr. Madison Cawthorn. So he has gotten himself into some very significant hot water with Republican party leadership over some rather casual comments he made on a podcast,

claiming that some members of his own caucus, that he has seen them, he's been invited to orgies, and he's seen them doing cocaine. Let's take a listen to the comments from Congressman Cawthorn. How much, in your opinion, because you've been behind the veil, is this a fictitious show or is this more closer to like a documentary? Is it that bad? So I heard a former president that we had in the 90s was asked a question about this. And he gave an answer that I thought was so true. And he said, the only thing that's not accurate in that show

is that you could never get a piece of legislation about education passed that quickly. And everything else is good? Aside from that, I mean, the sexual perversion that goes on in Washington, I mean, being kind of a young guy in Washington with an average age was probably 60 or 70. And I look at all these people, a lot of them that I've looked up to through my life,

always paid attention to politics, guys that, you know. Then all of a sudden you get invited to, like, well, hey, we're going to have kind of a sexual get-together at one of our homes. You should come. And I'm like, what did you just ask me to come to? And then you realize they're asking you to come to an orgy. Or the fact that, you know, there's some of the people that are leading on the movement to try and remove addiction in our country.

And then you watch them do a key bump of cocaine right in front of you. And it's like, this is wild. A sexual get-together. I like the way that he frames that, too. Okay, so those are the allegations. Yeah, so he said it. And let's just say his colleagues freaked out. Let's go ahead and put this So those are the allegations. Yeah. So he said it and let's just say his colleagues freaked out. Yeah. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. So apparently

what happened is that inside of a GOP caucus meeting, a congressman stood up and said, hey, I'm getting calls about people asking me if this is true about what Madison Cawthorn says. So Kevin McCarthy, the GOP leader, called Madison into his office. Here's what he claims. He claims that Madison Cawthorn admitted in a tense meeting that his claims about House GOP colleagues have done coke and invited him to orgies were, quote, exaggerated. And he said that specifically to Axios. Now, let's put this next one up there. Hold on. On that piece, just to be specific here, this is from that Axios report. He says in the interview, he claims he watched people do cocaine. Then when he comes in, he

tells me, this being McCarthy, he says he thinks he saw maybe a staffer in a parking garage from 100 yards away. Then he says, McCarthy, it's just frustrating. There's no evidence behind his statements. And when I sit down with him, I told him you can't make statements like that as a member of Congress. That affects everybody else in the country as a behind his statements. And when I sit down with him, I told him you can't make statements like that as a member of Congress that affects everybody else in the country as a whole. Yeah. And so then let's put this next one up there. McCarthy continued. He basically is treating him like a teenager. McCarthy says he told Madison Cawthorn during a meeting today, the freshman has lost his trust. He needs to take steps to turn his life around or else there could be consequences. He also says Cawthorn admits his

orgy and cocaine allegations were exaggerated and untrue. Now let's throw this next one up there on the screen. Madison's colleague in the Senate, Tom Tillis, the GOP senator, also unloaded on Cawthorn. And he said this, quote, I thought about the statement. If it's true, then he's got a lot of information to reveal. If it's not true, he's guilty of being untruthful. He adds, I thought it was a silly statement. It's not the first one. Is Cawthorn a problem, Manu Raju asks? At the end of the day, people in the district are going to have to vote for him,

and I would ask them to look at his record and ask what he's done since he's been here. Tillis continues, what is his track record of working on tough issues, and what's he done for the western part of the state? After his assessment whether Cawthorn had accomplished much, Tillis says, not a lot, in my opinion. So the knives are out for Mr. Cawthorn. Yeah. Now, apparently, let's put this next one up there,

just put a bow on it. Apparently, he told Roger Stone that Congressman Madison Cawthorn has told me he has not retracted his claims about fueled orgies amongst DC elites. Here's the thing. Do I think he was lying? Yes. But do they

protest a little bit too much, Crystal? The GOP leaders? Here's the thing that makes me angrier than anything about this is like putting us in the position of defending these assholes and like pointing out that, look, there are a million problems with these. Would I be like shocked if there was

like, you know know orgies or cocaine or whatever but you can't just make it up you have to actually have some evidence and then it doesn't make him look good either that apparently you know according to him this is all going around him on around him and he's not saying anything he's not doing anything like you're just letting it happen and then sort of like casually spill the beans on this podcast it's an absurd situation yeah i think that's right i just i i just gotta say they're protesting a little bit letting it happen and then sort of like casually spill the beans on this podcast. It's an absurd situation. Yeah, I think that's right. I just got to say, they're protesting a little bit too much.

Now, I don't think he's telling the truth. I do think he's lying in this particular instance. I know some pretty good gossip. Not enough in order to share it to millions of people here. It not is even close to what he's painting here in terms of congressmen and all that. But look, the whole Matt Gaetz thing, I mean, that was true. Like, that actually did happen. Yeah.

So it's not like— But Gaetz and Cawthorne are buddies. Right. So he's not— So maybe he is referring to him. He's not. I don't know. Yeah, well, is he blowing the whistle on Matt Gaetz here?

Yeah. I don't think so because I think that they're kind of allies, right? That could be right. And we're not referring to the blackmail thing, although apparently that turned out to be true. But in terms of—Gaetz has already admitted, you know, cavorting with prostitutes and a lot of this other stuff while he was actively a member of Congress. That being said, everybody in D.C. has known about that for a long time. And he kind of was an outlier. The hard partiers, everybody knows them too. It's not a secret. That guy, Duncan Hunter, who got indicted. The man likes his tequila.

I'll leave it at that. Was he the one who was using campaign funds for, like, fueling his lifestyle and whatever? Buying top-shelf tequila. That's right. And saying it was, like, things for veterans' benefits or whatever. I mean, it was disgraceful. Totally disgraceful. I don't know. My take on it

is I do think he's lying, but I also do think that there's a little bit too much protest. Well, I think it's very revealing what things really set him off. That's true. You know, because, I mean, you did just have Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gozar, like,

go into their white nationalist jamboree or whatever it was, and that elicits less of a response than this does. I mean, even the, like, you know, the stop the steal nonsense didn't elicit the response that this did of Madison, you know, floating that some people are doing cocaine and that they're like orgies and prostitutes or whatever he said, the key bump of cocaine. So, look, there's no winners here.

There's no heroes here anywhere to be found in this story. You can't just make stuff up about people because you're trying to impress a podcaster. That I agree with. Have some cool populist image, which is clearly what he's going for here. Like, you can't just throw out wild accusations, and that's not okay. But it is interesting that this is the thing that really causes them to sort of go to the mat

and really significantly chastise him and come out and make these public comments, et cetera, et cetera. 100% true. All right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Guys, 60 Minutes recently put together what was really quite an exceptional piece on skyrocketing rents and permanent capital

buying up housing stock and putting the American dream firmly out of reach for millions of Americans. To be honest, it's equal parts enlightening and completely enraging. Leslie Stahl interviews a millennial couple who are giving up on ever being able to own a home, a housing economist for Redfin Real Estate, and a CEO of a company that has become one of the largest corporate landlords in the country.

Brace yourself now for world historic levels of corporate gaslighting from this corporate landlord. The majority cannot buy a home, cannot afford to buy a home, or don't have the credit to buy the home. So, for example, they may have student debt or they may have medical debt, and therefore they can't qualify to get a mortgage. And if they want access to a single-family home, which we think is incredibly important, this is the best way for them to obtain it. I think if you asked a lot of millennials, and that tends to be our primary resident,

they would probably tell you that they don't necessarily desire to own a home or to own a car. They've grown up in the sharing economy, and for what's important to them is lifestyle, right? And so if they can move into this, what we call a turnkey or hotel-ready home, and have a low-maintenance lifestyle, that's very compelling for them. Very compelling. We were told by the head of one of these big companies that people your age want to rent, that you're not as interested in buying a house. I mean, I think the American dream is owning your own property and having your own dirt that you own.

That's specifically why we moved here, was to own a house. I realized my first house is probably going to be a starter home. It may not be that dream house, but it's a house. It's a home. Now, our dream is now unattainable. It may not be that dream house, but it's a house. It's a home. Now, our dream is now unattainable. It's very, it's disturbing. Most people desire that single family home with a picket fence. And if they can't buy it because they can't afford it, their only option is to rent it. Yeah, but the investor is buying it. Yeah. And they're getting that wealth that normally or in previous years would have gone to the person living there. So what's happened to the American

dream? When we used to say that, it meant owning a house. What's the American dream now? Well, if we think the American dream is embodied in a suburban home with a yard and a white picket fence, then I think we're making the American dream much more accessible. Rent your American dream. You can rent the American dream. That is if you can afford the rent. I am losing my mind over this. Link in the description to watch the whole thing. It's definitely worth it. Now, this dude knows what he is saying is complete nonsense.

He even starts by citing the high levels of debt burdens that millennials are struggling with that are making it impossible for them to ever own a home. Right before he launches into his bullshit about how he's really doing them a great favor because actually millennials are dying to just be in the renter class for life. I also love his seeming assumption that they love the sharing economy, which has destroyed labor markets and made working life even more precarious for millions with few other options. Now you might say, well, look, it's not his fault that millennial debt levels are so high. So he's at least offering some access to a home that might not otherwise be available. But make no mistake that the mass

stampede of permanent capital into the market for single-family homes has been a disaster, and it has made the problem so much worse. In some markets, 30% of new home offers are coming from giant corporate behemoths. Overall, nearly 20% of homes were purchased by permanent capital. That is a record high. In Q3 of 2021 alone, investors snatched up 90,000 homes, which also marked a record high. Now, this is part of the reason why the average selling price of new homes has shot up to an eye-watering $511,000, more than half a million dollars. That is a 25% increase in just the last year alone. But sticker shock is not the only issue. A flood of investors

with all cash in hand has made it extremely difficult to get into the market if you don't have nearly the whole purchase price in cash just chilling in your bank account. And who has that? Certainly not regular wage earners who are trying to scrimp and save over years for that down payment. Maybe if you're college educated working in a white collar job, if you really noticed the grindstone for a decade, maybe you can pull it off, especially if you're able to pull off remote work, earning a coastal city salary while residing in a more affordable locale. But if you're a blue-collar worker, a service sector worker, a pink-collar worker, professional like a nurse or a teacher, forget about it. It's especially cruel that these are the very people who would financially benefit the most from being able to move to cheaper towns, but who must be on the job in person every day. Increasingly, the only people trying to get a foothold in the housing market with the sky-high

prices and all cash demands of today are the ones who can rely on mom and dad for help. This fact, the near necessity of intergenerational wealth in order to enter the home ownership class, it has massive and profound implications. So let me explain why. In a seminal book, Capital in the 21st Century, Thomas Piketty demonstrated that the return on assets is always going to be more than wage growth. So to put it simply, if you want to build the kind of stable middle-class wealth that we associate with the American dream, you've got to own assets. And of course, the primary asset owned by non-billionaires is their home. Good home, good neighborhood with good schools. That is the ticket.

As Ned Reznikoff points out in a fantastic new piece for The Nation, homeowners are not just more financially secure and less precarious, that personal and financial stability also leads them to punch above their weight politically. This political power helps create policy, whether it's at the Fed or through Congress, which is designed to supercharge the housing market, conferring ever-increasing wealth on the lucky class who's been able, through their age or through mommy and daddy's help

or other fortunate circumstances, to jump on that housing price escalator, building wealth and separating from the renter class, which is stuck on a treadmill, paying large and growing portions of their income to pay off assets for their landlords. The logic of ever-increasing house prices to satisfy existing homeowners will only widen this divide, cementing class divides across generations. So if your parents own a home, then they were much more likely to have the money to give you that down payment to own your own home. If not, you may as well be locked down forever. Now, all of this raises a very

provocative question. Are we actually thinking about the class divide in America all wrong? If homeownership is actually the key to wealth and inequality and homeownership is central to politics on issues ranging from taxes to schools to monetary policy, is it better to think of class categories in terms of homeowners and landlords and renters as opposed to the more traditional from taxes to schools to monetary policy, is it better to think of class categories in terms of homeowners and landlords and renters as opposed to the more traditional Marxist categories of labor and capital? That is actually Reznikov's thesis

in that piece that I just showed you. And it's also the thesis of a book that he cites titled The Asset Economy by economists Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper, Martin Konings. In it, they argue persuasively that the key element shaping inequality is no longer the employment relationship, but rather whether one is able to buy assets that appreciate at a faster rate than both inflation and wages. Now, that's, of course,

not to say that employment doesn't still matter. Of course, it does. Who's treated as human who's not at their workplace, who earns sufficient wages that they might have a prayer of acquiring assets even without mommy and daddy's help. But if assets are shaping inequality and economics more directly than wages, it makes sense to remodel our class categories to match this modern reality. Now, the potential political implications of all of this are extremely profound. I can actually just begin to scratch the surface here. I'm just beginning to wrap my mind around it, honestly. This frame positions home ownership as close to a right. It makes it absolutely critical that we impose stringent regulations on mass corporate ownership in the housing market.

It puts intergenerational wealth transfers at the very center of our escalating inequality. It would indicate that social stability requires maintaining a balance between the asset inflation that homeowners benefit from and the affordability that allows others to gain a toehold. And it provides a lot of insight into why the politics of those under 40 is so different from those Gen X and older. It's no secret that millennials and Zoomers are much more comfortable with socialism or even enthusiastic about it, that they back Bernie Sanders over Hillary and Biden and Trump by large margins. It's also no secret that these generations overall own less than previous generations did at the same age. So if you start to view our political landscape through this divide, you start to see it everywhere, from the culture wars to economics.

And the sad fact is that millions are standing on the shore, watching their dreams of home ownership sail further and further into the distance, left with the cold reality that the closest they will come to the American dream is renting it from the ghoulish gaslighter landlord who's there to assure you that endless precarity is actually what you really want. And Sagar, you know, I think it's really actually quite profound to think about the real divide in America being between... And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at?

Well, it's common sense these days to just say some version of, we've all gone soft. We never could make it through a war. I think there's a lot of truth to that. But I would also say the history of warfare, at least here in the U.S., is usually we start out with a decadent, foolish elite that leads the country into a disaster. They eventually get thrown out, and then the real meritocratic heroes rise up to eventually save us near the end of the war. Preferably, we just don't enter that cycle in the first place. But sadly, I think that we kind of are if war were to ever break out any time soon. I've been thinking about this a lot in the context of a recent thread from Michael Kaufman.

He's the military analyst, obviously, who we've highlighted here on the show many times. Michael's analysis shines in that he doesn't desire viral Twitter threads or MSNBC hits. He simply just wants to tell you the truth. And from the beginning, he has warned Americans, triumphant, that the Russian military objectives weren't being accomplished, that while that's true, they all, well, they were not 12 feet tall, also saying that the Russian military is four feet tall, it's not really right either. Michael, a few days ago, responded to the overwhelming sentiment among the commentariat that the Russian military had embarrassed itself, saying that while certainly true in part,

quote, this may prove an unpopular sentiment, but watching reactions to poor Russian potential costs in a high-end conventional conflict are overdrawn from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He continues, quote, undoubtedly, the United States is much better across the board at organization, logistics, integration, and tactics. That said, I am not sure we appreciate the challenge of taking on a sizable, competent force with high morale that's characteristically different from recent opponents. I wish I could emphasize that a thousand times. I've felt it in my bones since this conflict started. So many of our current commentary class has no experience with war. And even if they do, it's in the conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan.

And look, those were strategic boondoggles on the part of the U.S. military and the U.S. government. But we still had overwhelming firepower. We never faced a conventional or committed worthy adversary. This has led to a massive overinflation of ego on the part of U.S. elites. It is precisely why people are so comfortable calling for a no-fly zone in Ukraine or putting the United States on the brink of war with Russia by advocating for the most maximalist of actions. First of all, these people in the media, they of course will never fight,

and their kids won't either. But more to the core is a glorification of war almost commiserate with how US elites thought about this all the way back in the early 1900s, before the horrors of the First World War were clear. At that time, the U.S. was rising. It should take its rightful place. Yeah, war is bad, but it's not that bad. And it's worth it if it accomplishes this or that aim, the Philippines, Cuba. Those feelings were overwhelming at the time. And now compare it to the Twitterati and the commentariat who seem to believe that war with Russia would be some sort of cakewalk

after how much they've embarrassed themselves in Ukraine. But they forget an important lesson. The United States has not engaged in this type of conflict since the Korean War or even World War II. And for those who don't read books, they forget the true horrors of what real war looks like. Wars usually last a really long time in the modern age. They require the enormous expenditure of human life to arrive at some sort of settlement. And worse, they expose the ego and the assumptions

of a class who usually at the top say, it's all going to be completely fine. American military analysts seem to believe that we would probably fare so much better in a conventional conflict. It might be true in part, but people forget one of the first major battles the United States fought in World War II was Kasserine Pass, where the United States suffered a humiliating defeat to Nazi Germany, lost a thousand men in the span of just a few days, and suffered an additional 5,000 casualties, not to mention Allied losses, which resulted in the delay of the Normandy invasion and a total reorganization of the U.S. Army. While the conflict in Ukraine is hopefully coming to some sort of end without U.S. involvement, given recent talks, I still have to just give one final warning on this. In 1939, Russia,

feeling emboldened by the collapsing of the European order, had a peace deal with Hitler, and the chance to grab some land, decided to invade Finland. A smaller, neighboring adversary, Sound familiar? Well, as I've talked about here on the show before, the Winter War in Finland was a disaster for the Russians. Nearly 100,000 of them were killed. They had to sue for peace after a humiliating defeat. And it's analogs in a lot of ways to what's going on with Ukraine right now. But somebody watching that thought, wow, look at these Russians.

They're useless in battle. We can easily take them on. How are they going to face a mighty army if they can't even beat the freaking Finns? That person's name was Adolf Hitler. And it was the impetus for launching Operation Barbarossa, the ending of the peace with the Soviet Union and the Nazi invasion of Russia. Their results are now well known to history.

The failed approach, fierce Soviet resistance to the last man, total war on the part of the Russians, Stalingrad, the eventual encirclement of what was left of the German army. All told, nearly 80% of Nazi casualties in World War II occurred on the Eastern Front, where they nearly lost 5 million troops dead and another 4 million captured. In other words, a poor Russian showing in an ill-advised military adventure

is not a good proxy for how direct conflict over something existential in stakes for how that army may end up. The hubris of Germany in 1940 is well understood within the context of those times, but they had warnings before them in Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Him too, invading after beating them and many other forces on the battlefields of Europe, but then finding out the hard lesson of losing the vast majority of troops during that invasion. I'm just going to end it this way, in the way I started. Yeah, the Russians are not 12 feet tall, but they're not four feet tall either. We would well remember that as we forge new ties. And for the sake of our loved ones and the lives of soldiers, we should do everything in our power to ensure that they must never suffer. Because history tells us often when we are overconfident,

they are the ones who are going to pay the most dearly. I've just been thinking about it, Crystal, in terms of the way that... And if you want to hear my reaction to Cyber's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. For quite a while now, guys, we've been tracking the coal miners who are on strike down in Alabama. Those are Warrior Met coal miners, and their strike is coming up now on one year anniversary. So these workers have been out protesting for better wages, better conditions now for a full year. And so with that anniversary, we wanted to bring in Hayden Wright to give us an update. I'm sure you guys recall,

Hayden is president of UMWA Auxiliary Locals number 2368 and 2245. And it's so great to see you. Good to see you, Hayden. Thank you so much for having me on today to talk to everybody about the Warrior Met Struck. Yeah, of course. So just bring us up to date. What's been going on since we last checked in? So we have been on strike since April 1st. So we're now right at a year. So for a lot of the guys, this was the last day that they actually stepped foot onto mine property. We've been standing strong. Pickets are back going. We have rallies every week.

We have a large rally and caravan planned for April 6th. So we'd love to invite anyone who would like to come out and show solidarity to come out and support us at Tenniel State Park at 11 o'clock. Yeah, and just give us an update in terms of the demands. And, you know, for some of the new people who might be joining us, it's been one year. What precipitated the strike in the first place? We're on an unfair labor practices strike. So, basically, back in 2015, 2016, Warrior Met, which was Walter Energy, filed for bankruptcy.

So in order to maintain the union and to save pensions for retirees, to keep union jobs here in Alabama, we had to take massive concessions with a bankruptcy contract because bankruptcy laws in this country favor the corporations over the people. So the judge let this company out free and clear. So while we maintain the same CEO, a lot of the same board members actually drove the company into bankruptcy. It was the workers who were actually forced to take major concessions. We lost $6 an hour in pay. We went from 100% insurance to 80-20 insurance with a 720 deductible per person. So those are huge things. Another thing that we're

striking for is to time off with our families because for the past five years, our spouses have worked six to seven days a week, 10 to 12 to 14 hours a day. So you never saw your family. And while Warrior Met claims that they offered nine holidays, in fact, they only offered three physical holidays with your family. And that was Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. If you were to outshift, you were still going in at 11 o'clock those nights. So you didn't even get a full day off with your family. Wow. The strut policy is insane.

On the fourth time that you had an emergency that you couldn't give 24 hours notice, you didn't have a day to take, you'd be fired. They didn't care if you wrecked on the way to the mine site. They didn't care if your spouse had gone into labor. They didn't care if your spouse had a heart attack, that you had had a stroke. If you were not at work and did not give notice, you would be penalized and then fired for it. That is completely inhumane. And we said we'd had enough. After five years of living that way, we said, no, we were just fighting for what we lost.

So that's what a lot of people don't understand is that we're not even asking for more. We're trying to get back what we had five years ago. Wow. Yes. Yeah. I think that's such a critical point. You know, Hayden, help us understand, what has the company done during this year? Have they brought in scab labor? Is there any movement in terms of potential contract negotiations and a settlement of this strike? Yes, they've brought in scabs. They actually started bringing in contractors and scabs prior to the strike. They also had our union members stockpile coal prior to the strike. So that's how they maintained there at the beginning,

the appearance that they were still running well. It's because that was stockpiled by union members before we went out on strike because the company knew they weren't going to negotiate. They knew they weren't going to offer a good contract. Since the strike began, we've been faced with numerous court injunctions seeking to limit our freedom of speech and assembly. To the point that back in November, we were actually issued a temporary restraining order, which barred us from being within 300 yards of Warrior Met property. And that's not, guys, people that have done anything wrong.

That wasn't specific people. That was a blanket order against all union members, all union affiliate, and all auxiliary members, and anyone that would collaborate with us. So even, for example, I know other unions we talk, if they would have tried to hold a picket for us, that could have also been held in contempt of court. Blatant violations of your person and their rights over and over again is what we've seen. We've had numerous vehicular assaults on members of the union with scabs and companies running into them with their vehicles, with police there. They have done nothing except escalate scabs into the mines.

I know that they've tried to hire and bring down scabs from Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Southern Ohio. They have billboards up in those areas trying to lure people here without telling them because, again, I care about all workers. They're not making it clear to them that on an unfair labor practice strike, they're legally not allowed to hire permanent replacement employees. So they're trying to lure people to take Alabamians' jobs, number one. But number two, they're bringing them down here in the hopes of finding this job that legally is a temporary job. Wow. So they're being unfair not only to you all, but to even these workers that they're trying to lure down.

You know, there was something else that we saw here. Let's go and put that second element up on the screen from the World Socialist website, that there was a gas explosion at a pipeline. Warrior Matt is trying to frame you all as having something to do with this gas line explosion. So not only have you been subject to violence on the picket line, being struck by vehicles, but now they're trying to say with no evidence that you all had something to do with this gas line explosion. Yes. First of all, I want to make it very clear that that is not even a Warrior Meth gas line. That's a Warrior Methane gas line, number one. Number two, Warrior Meth owns, I think it's 14 percent stock in that company.

So they don't even own a massive amount of stock there. And negotiations before we had been told were going better. So why would we have, when they're telling people that they're negotiating that, so why would we go and do something that would hurt our negotiations? It seems to me like that was either an accident in general, because we've had several storms in the area that could have been caused by kids not knowing any better, shooting off tannerites, something just scooping off, or it could have been a scab or a company employee that is scared the union's about to come back that wanted to cause this drama and outrage. So I can assure you that we had nothing to do with that because that has no benefit to us whatsoever. Wow. It's just amazing to me every time we talk about how little you guys are asking for and how much they're willing to fight on it. So we're very proud to have supported this effort in the

Christmas time. We continue to do so. We're going to encourage everybody to go and support as well with links down in the description and to the upcoming April 6th event. Thank you so much for joining us, Hayden, and taking time out of your day. I know you're on a tight schedule. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. And just real quick, if I would like to kind of get a shout out to RWDSU, who might get their union election count today. So that's why I'm actually wearing red today instead of our normal camo. It's in solidarity with them. So they might actually be holding a press conference later today if y'all want to keep an eye out for it. Yeah, we will look for that. Keep us updated, Hayden. Send our love and solidarity to everyone there. And if there's ever anything we can do to help, just let us know. Please do. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Great to see you. Thank you

so much. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. As we said during our lot, during our CNN block, look, we've really come to realize that we have to build a new ecosystem. The current one is crumbling. We know it's on its last legs. They're going to lash out in every way they possibly can. The only way that we can do it is to not make the mistakes that they did. We rely on you instead of the big corporations and others. So thank you all so much for your support. You don't even know how much it means. And more importantly, we're using your hard-earned money to build out the ecosystem and to make it so we can hire and build as much as possible

for the upcoming midterms in the presidential election. Their model is what it is. It's never going to change. Thank goodness. Trust in them is at record lows. Their ratings outside of, you know, Ukraine war coverage has been good for their ratings, but they're bottoming out.

They don't have Trump right now to rescue them. And they obviously know that their model is in jeopardy. That's why they're launching these like flailing streaming attempts because they know they have to do something. So they are never going to change. They're never going to get better. The best we can do is build something that is going to be an alternative, that is honest, that is not going to just rip this country apart the way that they do. So thank you for being part of that. We are so incredibly grateful.

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