Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/8/24 Post State Of The Union Reaction w/ Krystal and Saagar, Ryan and Emily

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

The Breaking Points team reacts to Biden's 2024 State of the Union speech. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? and subscribe today. his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024.

You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it.

Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show.

All right. So we, of course, have been listening to Joe Biden deliver the 2024 state of the union. We've pulled a few of the notable, most notable moments, I guess we would say. Ryan has joined us at the table now. And since we haven't heard from you yet, Ryan. Kyle's asleep. Kyle's chilling. I'm jealous.

Kyle's brunette again. In any case, what were your sort of top line takeaways? Do you think he met the moment? I mean, I'm so sick of these things. The whole country feels you on that. Okay, so he looked like less old than he normally looks. True. For a while.

A bit. For a bit. Sort of flagged there at the end. But it's like, okay, good. And the press is going to talk about that for a couple days. But it's like, so what? So he looked less old than he normally looks like on one night.

The American people are not stupid. Like they know, 90% of them thought he was too old before the speech. 90% of them still think he's too old and think that he like gave a decent speech and was like hopped up on the right stuff. And wait another day and there's going to be another video clip of him looking just insanely too old.

So just from a, just if we're going to do the optics horse race part of it. Yeah. I think everybody on CNN and MSNBC was going to be talking about how great a job that he did at delivering like sentences off of the teleprompter are missing the fact that the American people are not idiots. Larry Sabato already said it was a quote home run. Right. It's going to get good reviews. But you're down by 30 runs and it's the ninth inning. And he tweeted. So Larry Sabato said that about halfway through the speech. And I actually think that's an important kind of dividing line. It did seem Donald Trump tweeted that the meds were wearing off. That's an actual Trump truth social post. It did,, Donald Trump tweeted that the meds were wearing off. That's an

actual Trump truth social post. It did though seem like Joe Biden, as he got more comfortable behind the podium, was trying to mix it up as you had sort of Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Freedom Caucus people yelling back at him. He had some exchanges that if he weren't as old as he is, might've gone better for him. But it was horrible. I mean, it was like he had built up this momentum and then he lost it because he spent his capital trying to go back and forth with Marjorie Taylor Greene. And actually the perfect symbol of that is Marjorie Taylor Greene gave him the Lake and Riley button. That's the name of the girl who was killed in Georgia recently.

And Biden had it on the podium with him. And then he said her name wrong. And he had his name right in front of him. There were crazy coughs and other things. And then he did illegal. Then he said illegal. I was illegal. I mean, that was probably politically astute.

OK, so I did see Jonathan Martin made a good point on Twitter. He was like, imagine watching the Democratic debates in 2019 and the way that the entire party, including Joe Biden, was talking about immigration and then hearing him in the State of the Union say, not even a legal immigrant, an illegal. Any illegal, right. It's been against the AP style since 2013. But otherwise, that part was actually pretty pro-immigration in general. It was just that one rhetorical slip. I mean, I just think that there—first of all, I think the policy on immigration and the, like, hey, Donald Trump, we want to argue to the American people that you're literally a fascist on the border, but also why don't you work with me on implementing your fascism at the border is a foolish, foolish, insane strategy. And I think the foolishness of that strategy was reflected in that moment where he's trying to, on the one hand, act like he's as much of a hard ass as the Republicans, like I will be just as cruel at the border as you are. And on

the other hand, still trying to do the liberal leg, but we want to welcome everybody. It doesn't make any freaking sense. And then when he goes off the prompter and does this trying to mix it up, first of all, it's a hot mess on every level, right? You're holding your breath the whole time like, oh, where is this going? It is hard to watch because you know he's going off the rails. It doesn't really totally make sense. He's using the wrong name. He's using this sort of like antiquated know, antiquated pejorative that is completely verboten, you know, left of center. Yeah. And so it's it's a mess. But I mean,

listen, if this was Obama delivering this speech at this level tonight, everyone would be going. That was an utter catapult. That's a good point. There's something wrong with Barack Obama. What has happened to him? Because it's Joe Biden. Like, yes, the CNN people are going to make him sound like he was amazing and it was perfect and it was like FDR and Reagan and whoever rolled up into one. But he did do better than the expectations that were set for him. And I think for him tonight, that was all he really needed to do when we're just talking about the horse race and the optics. Let me zoom out a little bit just from the structure of the speech because we kind of skipped ahead to immigration. And I actually think it's a key point is I actually have a time code here in front of me. So Biden began speaking somewhere between like 9.15, 9.25.

He did not mention immigration until 10.08 p.m. And that was well within some 45, 50 minutes into the speech. The vast majority of the people who watched the State of the Union only watched the first 15 to 30 minutes. So the construction of the speech was basically to front load the issues where he has the best approval rating on from Ukraine to the economy, a lot of the drug pricing stuff. Yeah, that's right. So I actually have the list in front of me. It was Ukraine, January 6th, IVF, Roe versus Wade, making fun of Republicans for cheering on was Ukraine, January 6th, IVF, Roe versus Wade, making fun of Republicans for cheering on infrastructure money,

then drug price, then student loan, then tax cuts for the rich, then immigration, right? So now we're at 10 p.m., we're well past the time where a lot of folks have turned the television off, and then Israel comes after that. So he saved, and we've consistent polling, we've reflected here on our Tuesday show, the number one issue that Biden is underwater, immigration. Number two is Gaza. Ukraine, somehow, don't ask

me why, people haven't been watching enough Breaking Points, is his top issue. So that's what he decided to lead with. And we actually have a clip of that, I believe, that we can show you. I will just say, I am personally offended and stunned genuinely that the State of the Union about the United States of America began with a tirade about Ukraine and why we should fund a foreign war, which is I personally think is insane. And he tried to capture some Reagan-esque tear down that wall energy and contrast himself with Trump. That's right. We have a clip of that. So, guys, if we can go ahead and play it, let's take a listen. But now, assistance to Ukraine is being blocked by those who want to walk away from our world leadership. It wasn't long ago when a Republican president named Ronald Reagan thundered, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Now, now my predecessor, a former Republican president tells Putin, quote, do whatever the hell you want.

That's a quote. A former president actually said that bowing down to a Russian leader, I think it's outrageous, it's dangerous, and it's unacceptable. Take a note of Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney standing up for that one. But again, I mean, I really wonder what you guys think. I understand that, yes, he has a 46% approval rating on Ukraine. But I mean, starting off the State of the Union on why we must fund more aid to Ukraine just seems completely crazy to me. The actual political hit that he had, IVF, which we will get to in a little bit and on Roe versus Wade, did not come some 17 minutes, Crystal, into the speech. So we had Ukraine and then we had January 6th. January 6th, look, I think it's annoying to litigate whatever, January 6th, three and a half, some years later, but politically it has played for him in his contrast with Trump. But he was really trying to

stretch that into the top. And I thought, I mean, look, I'll just put it this way. It was a choice. It was a choice to start on Ukraine. Normally, I feel like I'm pretty decent at taking my own personal view of situations out of my political horse race analysis. But I cannot abide this man at this point, given the facilitation of genocide that is going on as we speak, trying to speak in moral language about Ukraine. Like, I just can't. It's always been hypocritical. We've always known that that was, you know, a farce and covering for a lot of other things that are going on. But given the, you know, full, full pass and the unconditional support and the, hey, Netanyahu, do whatever you want that he's given. I cannot take that context away from that moment and him now trying to use this flowery

pro-democracy bullshit language about Ukraine. No, that's a good point, actually. It's very discontinent with the policy. And the through line of the Biden administration has been not understanding what's going on with their base and with people who are just livid and shocked and appalled at what he's doing. And so for them, I don't think they understand how when you start talking about,

like, how dare you give a foreign leader unconditional support in its invasion of a helpless people how like that's outrageous that so many people would hear that like well yes exactly how dare you yeah like why but then he doesn't mention it again for another hour he knows that he knows that god's israel's terrible for him that's why he has it at the very back end of the speech right but he doesn't understand how it connects to that. Well, and here's here's what's been interesting, too, is actually, you know, they have stopped using a lot of the language like a lot of his, you know, State Department ghouls and whoever have stopped using a lot of that international rules based order language because they know how blatantly hypocritical it is. Right. I mean, how many clips have we played for members of Congress and whatever that's like, oh, you knew it was a war crime then, but now suddenly you

need a lawyer, you need 15 independent experts in 13 years to figure out whether it's a freaking war crime when it's right there in front of your face every single day on TikTok. So there is some awareness in the administration that they have lost the ability to talk in those terms. So that was why I did find it sort of shocking that they started with that and tried to re-embrace those terms. I mean, remember, on his way here, he had to go the long route around to avoid hundreds of protesters

who were outside saying, your legacy is genocide. So this speech didn't just fall out of a coconut tree. There's a context. Thank you for that. This is an interesting point about even their media strategy, because going into this, they were like not leaking, but they were doing a lot of interviews, Jeff science and other people about how this was going to be Biden's reset that people have quote Trump amnesia. They don't remember how bad things were under Trump because Biden is still sort of purportedly digging out of the COVID hole. And so people just don't understand that Joe Biden has,

you know, made this recovery go up, even though, of course, what they're not telling you is that up is relative to what it came down from when COVID happened. And what's interesting, again, is that this is not how it works anymore, that if you front load a speech and you're hoping to minimize the damage with voters who are upset about your policy in Israel, or you're hoping to minimize your damage with people who are upset with your policy at the border, because he also saved that way for last. As you mentioned, two things that he's pulling the worst on. It doesn't matter anymore because to your point, Crystal, these clips, we play these clips. These clips go viral on TikTok. We're about to go. We're about to go. I was just going to say, the first half of his speech for Joe Biden, he didn't seem like he was half asleep.

So low bar, but he cleared it. Good for him on that. And then as it started to start, speech keeps going. It obviously is slipping a little bit. But I think some of his really sloppy exchanges, he made a personal decision. We were following the transcript of the speech. He made a personal decision to engage constantly with his hecklers. I don't know where you guys stand on this. I don't really have a problem with hecklers. I like the British model. I think actually a lot of them, I think the American

people- Well, they both seem to like it. Yeah, that's clear. There's a feedback. Personally, my number one issue is decorum. It's decorum. That's what I vote on. Look, my number one issue is dress code. Who is the most decorous? But not decorum. He was so upset about decorum.

I am so upset about it. He was upset about the hats and the phones. Yeah, I'm so upset. But he loves the heckling. Anyway, you're a hypocrite. Yeah. But anyway, that's not how this works anymore. All of those clips, you know, if he was hoping to save the border for last and stave off some problems with different voters, those clips are going to be viral as hell.

The Gaza clips are going to be viral as hell. It just doesn't work like that. Yeah, that's right. In the Internet era, everything is forever, whether you put something at the end or not. I mean, I still think it was obviously a political choice because 27 million people tuned in last year to this. It was the only political event to break the top 100 broadcasts. Very likely, it will get very similar ratings this time around, especially since it is an election year. You know, kind of going back to the political hits, quote unquote, you know, if we have to

at least play the parts where I think that he definitely scored himself good points is he was cogent, I would say, relatively because he was sticking completely to the script. He didn't seem as off and he wasn't coughing as much and losing his place and slurring his speech in the first 45 minutes. And he actually stuck it a little bit on Roe versus Wade and on IVF. So we do have, guys, if we can play the next clip here where he directly addresses the Supreme Court

on Roe versus Wade, which I thought was a smart strategy given the way that his base feels about it and how it has animated so many voters. So guys, why don't we go ahead and play that next one? And with all due respect, justices, women are not without electoral power. Excuse me, electoral or political power. You're about to realize just how much you get right. And Ryan, he also—

It wasn't delivered super cleanly, but, you know, it was a good line. Listen, as you said, what did you say in the beginning? We're grading on a curve, all right? We're grading on the silent generation curve. One line I still can't believe from the speech is I was born during World War II. I'm like, you should probably just never remind people.

We are literally, I am watching documentaries on Netflix of World War II in color, which is so amazing. By the way, great document. That new one is so good. Yeah, it's awesome. But we have to colorize footage from whenever the president of the United States is born

today. A little bit nuts. But Ryan, we were talking, we were like, wow, that was his real hit, was on IVF and on Roe versus Wade. So again, saving it a little bit for the middle part of the speech, but calling directly, he's like, let's legalize IVF right now and pointing to one of the women in the balcony. You had a good idea of how Biden should have constructed his speech. Right.

Half joke, but not really, because at this point, what do you have to lose? If I were his speechwriter, I would have given him a one-page speech, and it's IVF and Roe v. Wade. You get in there, you talk about those two things, and you're like, bye. That's it. And antitrust. And they force us to just talk about how he did that. Yes.

Not even antitrust because once you start doing antitrust. You open a can of worms. But a shrunken can of worms. Those worms just keep coming. You do IVF and Roe. Yeah. And then you just lay it on the table that it's like, look, I am running for re-election. You think I'm way too old for this job.

You think I'm doing a genocide. But the Republicans are crazy and they do the, they're going to ban IVF and Trump. And be like, look, that's it. Don't pretend like you're offering anything. That's smart. He didn't say Trump's name, by the way. Well, I wanted to make the point, though, that especially the early part of the speech, and this was obviously a very intentional choice to try to make Biden look feisty and vigorous and all that. It was very aggressive. Yeah, it was.

It was very, you know, I'm coming after you. He didn't say Trump's name, but he said, you know, the former president, my predecessor, et cetera, et cetera. It was, especially the first portion, was a campaign speech. And, you know, so he hits him on Putin and he's going to let Putin do whatever he wants. And then he hits him on January 6th, hits him on abortion. And you're the one that put these justices on the court and, you know, was really trying to take it to him and show that he still has the ability to credibly do that. So I think it was,

you know, very conscious to try to demonstrate that he had this fight and this level of aggressiveness that he's able to bring to the table, at least when it's scripted in a teleprompter and he's had a whole cocktail of whatever drugs they gave him before he stepped down. They already have Joe Scarborough weighing in. He says it's Biden's best speech, underestimated again. I mean, that is the direct audience for what this is. Yeah, that's interesting because I've seen among the sort of commentariat reactions that are like this and reactions that are like Amy Walter, who said this feels more like something one would hear at the DNC than a State of the Union. He has already mentioned his quote unquote predecessor in negative terms two times in the first few minutes. Danny Plotka, American Enterprise Institute.

She's voting on decorums. That was a problem for her. A very neoconservative person says, like literally has the Israeli and Ukraine flags in her bio. She said, what Biden doesn't realize is how much he now reflects Trump's legacy. Angry, hate-filled, partisan, without hope, just vengeance and some random untruths about the economy.

So I've seen a sort of bifurcated reaction from the chattering class. I think that's so stupid. This is the State of the Union before the economy. So I've seen a sort of bifurcated reaction from the chattering class. I think that's so stupid. This is the State of the Union before the election. It is a campaign. It's a campaign. No shit, what are we all doing here? Do we remember Trump's speech?

I agree. I remember Obama's as well. Obama's 2012 thing, that was a huge campaign kickoff. The Supreme Court thing was unusual. The Supreme Court thing was unusual. Roe is the major deciding read. That's the main thing that's getting even more of a crawl out to actually vote for them. The Amy Walters of the world are this centrist DC class that used to kind of squat comfortably between the two parties.

And now it's more difficult for them because the MAGA wing, they don't have a spot there. So it's hard for them to pretend. To both sides it. They can't both a spot there, so it's hard for them to pretend. To both sides it. That they can't both sides it as well. So they have to figure out ways to not look like they're Democrats, because they have just become Democrats, whether they want to admit it or not.

So one way to say, well, I'm not a Democrat, this guy, how, this is the State of the Union. A political. Yeah, he's the president. He's the top political figure in the country. He's running for reelection. He'd be an idiot not to do that. I mean, this is always gets back to the strategy.

He was very shouty though. Look, he was. Yeah, he was shouty. I mean, look, that's what it takes for him to be able to speak clearly. So, but that's that. I mean, again, that's very intentional. Listen, the floor, the bar is as low as it could possibly be. Okay.

But the whole thing, I'm sure they coached him up like, be loud, be energetic. And so that's why he comes out there and he's screaming at us. Don't riff too much. Yeah, well, that part wandered off the rails at the end. But I mean, in a way, too, the fact that you bury your toughest issues at the end when the meds are wearing off and you're starting to go, is not actually a great strategy. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin,

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

and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father?

Well, Sam, luckily it's your Not the Father Week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, My father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up.

So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible

secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So, do they get the millions of dollars back, or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other.

It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it.

Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Since we're talking about decorum, it's as good of a time as any to show this little Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Biden interaction. This is as he's walking in, you know, he's doing the grip and grin with all the gathered members of whatever. Marjorie's there. She's in her red MAGA hat and she has the what is Lake and Riley. Is that right? That's right. Pin that she's trying to put in his face. We've got a reaction from the president that caught a lot of people's attention. Let's take a look at that. So that that face is what everybody. Well, I guess we don't have the clip of this, but what it was and there was a noteworthy part

where he held it up. And this is what we referenced in the beginning. And he, cause she was shouting his name. She was interrupting him whenever he was calling for the passage of the bipartisan border bill. And he was like, say her name. And he actually took out the pin. He said, yes, it's like in Riley, as you said, he referred to, he said, yes, she was killed by any legal where I did see some, uh, some gasps. I mean, even me, I was like, wow, I can't believe a democratic president just said that. Yeah. It has. Yeah. What did you say? Has it, it hasn't been canon. I think in the lexicon. We do actually have a portion of that, but the internet was reacting to that face. Okay. So that's why we wanted to show the face. That was funny. There's a lot of internet reaction to that, but we do have a portion of the immigration ad lib that we can

show you guys. This is D4 control room, if you could run that. Lincoln, Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That's right. But how many thousands of people being killed by legal? Wow. Yeah. I mean, again, genuinely crazy. Yeah. And it went on from there uncomfortably.

But yeah, it was the reason why I was uncomfortable, as Emily noted, is he didn't know the name properly. And then he was like stumbling kind of through it, didn't know what he was doing. I mean, electorally. In front of him on the pen. And I know the point he is trying to make there, which is that the native born population has a higher crime rate than the immigrant population. Yeah. So but then when you're in the position of being like, yeah, well, how many people do regular Americans murder? It's like, well, that wasn't made in the most artful way possible. And that's when I started, you know, getting nervous.

And then he's like this killed by an illegal. And Trump, you think you think we're so innocent? But yeah. Wait, but he was right. no but Trump was right yeah yeah come on yeah yeah like they're both right yeah that is going to be mega viral though yeah undermine any attempt that his administration made and it's because he went off script he didn't have to go off but Emily we know that I mean those attempts are already of course done and the other thing that happened there is uh James Lankford senator who worked on that bipartisan bill, which was, you know, legitimately very hard line in which Trump came out and was like, no, I don't want this to pass because I want to use this as an issue in the election. Lankford was the sort of lead Republican negotiator on that.

And so when Biden is there saying this is the toughest border security bill that any president has ever tried to push through. Lankford actually mouths that's true as his Republican colleagues are booing and, no, that's a lie. Marjorie Taylor Greene doing her thing and whatever. I think it's a big cope from Lankford. Yeah, I personally think it's a cope. If people want, we did an hour and a half long debate, Crystal and I, about this bill.

People could go watch it for themselves. It's also relative. What's what's what you know, what is a bill that has been tougher? Well, OK, what I would what I would come back to is just is really this is on the politics of it. I've always agreed with Crystal is if you care about the board, I care about the board. Emily, you do, too. It's one of those things where it's like, yeah, we don't trust you, Biden, period. And the story, like even with all this other shenanigans, of the people who work for you and all the other things that have happened in the last interim three years. You actually, I think at this point, if you're a border voter, like you're just a Republican, 100%, like you're gonna vote for him or you're gonna vote for Trump or you're just not gonna vote for Biden on this issue, period. Now, can he move some

like independent vote or anything on this? I genuinely don't think so. I think his best, his best possible effort- So you wouldn't say that there was another bill that was tougher. You're just saying, I don't trust Biden to implement a tough bill. Well, okay, but this is what I'm saying about the bill. We've had legislation introduced in 2017 that was much tougher under Trump. There was one that- HR2 is what the Republicans wanted. HR2 is what the Republicans have passed. Yeah, it didn't pass. No, well, no, it did pass House of Representatives. Right, but it wasn't made into law. Right, well, this one didn't pass either. Personally,, it did pass House of Representatives. Right, but it wasn't made into law. Right. I mean, listen, personally, I'm delighted that it was blocked.

I'm just saying, you can't say it's the toughest one because there's a billion other bills out there. The point is— Theoretically, H.R. 2 can pass, too. But think about this. You know there's no way in hell Democrats would vote for this shit under Trump? Sure. Not a fucking chance. Oh, well. way in hell Democrats would vote for this shit under Trump. Sure. Not a fucking chance. Not a chance that they would have backed this bill with no path, nothing even for DACA,

for the Dreamers. None of that. Well, what about the next, under the next Trump, I'm not, maybe, look, maybe you're right, I don't know. I think the politicians are managing it. So that's why. What if under Bush, the Democratic Party, the New York Times had an amazing poll on this on how Democrats have moved way more than Republicans in the last, just the average the average vote in the last, like, 20, 30 years, just on immigration,

is what I'm talking about. And I think that's what's, for Republicans, that's what to me was interesting about Biden actually being willing to take the pin for Marjorie Taylor Greene and then go back and forth. I just saw it as so emblematic. But you guys are also acting like this is some, like, open borders down. Him, the most honest, like, positioning that you get from him when he blurts out something like an illegal killer. I mean, this is who he's been throughout his career. He's not some lib on this issue. But that's like the whiplash that people get with Democrats. Genuinely disaffected people will look at this or people who care about the border and they don't feel like Democrats have dedicated enough time to it and haven't been willing to take tough steps to it.

That's why I thought the moment was so emblematic. Like Biden took the pen from Marjorie Taylor Greene. He tried to interact with her. He thought he was interacting with her in good faith, which is in and of itself a weird thing to think. Well, I think he was trying to flip it is what I think he was trying to do. He was trying to get the political one-ups. But that's sort of all of it in a nutshell,

that Biden wants to try to please these two unpleasable blocks. And he thinks he's the only one who can do it. Like I alone can fix it. Just think about, okay, so the two areas where Biden has the worst approval rating right now. Immigration and Gaza. Immigration and Gaza. Right. And in order to try to appease a group of people who, you're right, are Republicans and are not voting for him.

No, it's not going to happen. People who, for, you know, the border and the quote unquote immigration crisis is their number one issue. They're not voting for him. He is willing to abandon everything he said on the campaign trail and literally reach out his hand and say, Donald Trump, work with me on this issue. On Gaza, he's willing to pretend like he cares and do literally nothing to change the policy because it's the pressure from the left. I mean, it's so illustrative of the contempt with which the Democratic Party holds anything that they see as coming from the left.

They just hold it in complete and utter contempt. And they delight in screwing up. It's the total opposite. On the Republican Party side, I think they go to great lengths to try to please and cater to their base. But the Republican base would say the Langford negotiations was the biggest middle finger they ever got from the political establishment. But then they backed away from it when they got pressure from the base. They backed away when Trump said, hey, you need to- 100% agree, yeah.

And here's the thing, is I just don't think you can deny. I am delighted that they killed this bill. Now I don't think anything's going to happen. The things that are more likely to happen is Trump gets in again, whatever he does through executive orders, which is quite significant what he could do. That's what's likely to happen. But in terms of, you know, actual legislation passing, no, they're not going to get another bite at the south. It was purely political. Because why would Democrats help him? Because at that point, it's Trump's problem. Exactly. That's exactly right. The same reason that Republicans were like, sorry, Biden,

this is your problem. And at the same time, Democrats have completely abandoned any sort of moral high ground that they had on this issue. And they've just like accepted the Republican argument, which is why I think it's, you know, both a moral and political disaster. I will stick with what you said, you know, immigration debates and all that aside, I think that a point that you're making is important about political constituencies' ability to exercise power. And the border, because it's interesting, because if you look in the past, the Republican base was basically, the Republican base has wanted immigration restriction for like 70 years or whatever, like for as long as the modern coalition has existed. Screwed, screwed,

screwed, gang of eight, over and over again. They were finally able to extract actually some blood on Eric Cantor. And then with the Freedom Caucus from there, plus the rise of Trump, you have Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, and all these other people who disavow their previous immigration policies and basically meet Trump where he is. And then you get to the status quo of today where the base is able to kill a border bill. The problem, and I mean, there's a myriad of reasons why it's maybe what this is. I actually want to know what you guys think. It's for some reason we haven't seen the ability for the left to exercise that same level of political power until, look, maybe today's the breaking point, right? Because we have uncommitted that actually

is a genuine political force. And I mean, I think that the calculus, and this is where I probably defend the two of you and have stuck up for you also for my, when my centrist Biden fans get very upset at the things that you say is they're like, you just say Marshall. It's not just Marshall. But Trump would be so much worse. I'm like, yeah, but they're trying to extract a pound of flesh to show that they can. And it's like that just hasn't really happened a lot with the political left in this country. There is a knee jerk assumption that really started with Bill Clinton. Yeah, right.

That the way to win is to kick the left and posture like you're, you know, to adopt a lot of the Republican position, like on welfare and on NAFTA and all kinds of other things. And Biden is the symbol. He is the poster candidate. That is his ideological bearing. Very true. Yes. I mean, you know, I keep, Mark Lamont Hill said this with regards to Israel and how they were, have been so clueless about what a problem this is for them electorally, which has been obvious from the very beginning. But if you've been in Washington 50 years, in that 50 years, it has never been a political problem to be too pro-Israel. And so him and his little bubble of people who have similar like 50 year careers in Washington, D.C. and all of these

things baked in. They're just not able to adjust to any other assumption. They're not able to realize that there are certain areas where actually the left wing position is incredibly popular and you would benefit from adopting that position. Now, I do want to give some credit to the economic portion of this speech, which I thought was well crafted. I thought it emphasized I thought it was good. I mean, it was very like made in America. It was very sort of like economic nationalists in a way that I think lands in a real populist way. a lot of time talking about specific proposals to help make housing more affordable, both for homeowners, aspiring homeowners, and renters. He talked about using antitrust to go after these big landlord companies that are basically rigging the markets and use it. He didn't get

into the whole algorithm situation, but we actually covered it on the show this week. Using the antitrust division to try to crack down on price fixing in the rental market, which is increasingly a huge issue. You know, I thought there were some genuinely good things there. It's hard for me, though, you know, it's just hard for me

to really give him credit on any of this when Gaza and what's happening there just looms so large over all of it. What do you think, Ryan, about this pound of flesh, like the ability

for the left to exercise power? Well, I think fundamentally one problem is that the hard right is so much bigger in the United States than the hard left, or whatever you want to call them. Like just the structural and the material conditions that exist here in the United States do not set up a situation

where you're going to have a big left. You had one in the New Deal because you just came out of a Great Depression and the US was not yet like the global empire like riding astride across the whole planet like and the the success of the left out of the 30s and 40s was was their own undoing and so They did you still have the numbers. You can do some tactical things here or there, but you're gonna be stuck.

But yeah, despite that, the great tragedy of this genocide, well, not the great tragedy, it's many layers down, but one of the tragedies of the genocide that Biden is overseeing is that it has just stained his entire legacy of economic populism, which as Kyle was saying, like before, you know, before the speech, he would be defending, I would be defending, you know,

there's so much that you can say about it. The fact that prices jumped and are still high and rent is still a huge problem is Itself kind of a cloud over everything else that he's done. But everything else he's done is not nothing like low on a low unemployment rate, you know late labor militancy You know cash in people's pockets like the economy overall in last like three years as a result of the kinds of things that the left has been pushing for years. It is headed in the right direction, but you're not going to find anybody who's willing to like celebrate. Yeah, I mean, how much would I have in another timeline without Gaza? I've been talking about Sean Fain being there and the union wins and the pro-acts getting a call out and, you know, all of that.

But it's just like, you know, it is an incredible tragedy because, you know, before Gaza, I was out there saying, listen, it's not just a lesser two evils vote. If you look just at antitrust and you look just at labor. And just at wages. Like wages now are growing faster than prices. And they have been for several years. And especially at just at labor. And just at wages. Like wages now are growing faster than prices. And they have been for several years. And especially at the lower end. If you care about checking corporate power, the people he put in place in key positions have done a great job. And they've been aggressive.

And it's been groundbreaking. And it's been a real break from the Clinton-Obama Democratic Party, and obviously wildly better than, you know, Trump had a bunch of union busters in at the NLRB and the antitrust was not doing anything different than what was being done before. So those pieces are undoubtedly better under Biden. You know, I don't think that they've done a great job selling it or whatever. It's long term, while you have a lot of pain for people that is very present and very real right now. And on the economic

front, you know, I've long said that dropping the economic pieces of Build Back Better and allowing all the COVID social safety net stuff to expire. I mean, that was a huge moral disaster. It was a huge political disaster. And it's a big and I think undersold part of why his economic approval ratings are so incredibly low. I just want to mention Jeff Stein flagged some of the economic policy that was in the State of the Union, highlighting manufacturing, auto construction boom, which is real, reducing drug costs by taking on big pharma. I mean, that was kind of like they did a little bit there. It's a kind of thing, but whatever. Two million new affordable homes, $5,000 per year for first-time homebuyers, universal preschool, Pell Grants, cutting student debt, expanding ACA subsidies.

So, I mean, some of those things are very neolib, but it is this kind of like populist economic focus. Chip Zetkin, who you talked about. Yeah, that would have given people something to focus on, hold on to, highlight, if not overshadowed by the E4's working. He started in Ukraine. I mean, to your point, he started in Ukraine. I can't get over it. When we were listening to him talk about housing, I was thinking to myself, like, this, if you had written this for the beginning, if you had, like, really written this as an introductory

part of your speech, I mean, I get it. I kind of doubt myself on this now, though, Emily, because I would have said the same thing. But that message of just like January 6th and MAG is a bunch of crazy weirdos, it works. It works for them. I'm an abortion. Yeah, exactly. The people don't trust them on the economy. They're not going to take credit for it.

They haven't done enough of the short-term stuff. They don't trust them on that. They're not willing to give you long-term checkboxes when you're getting screwed. Age is huge. I think age hangs over the economy too. Age hangs over everything. Absolutely. Because it's like, all right, yeah, okay,

I do like that wages are going faster than inflation, et cetera, but like, I don't trust this guy over the next four or five years to like deliver more. And I've talked about this before. Kennedy, I mean, had, in terms of like the inexorables, like he had the vigor. Like that was the whole thing. That was why he was like a new- But he was also on a cocktail of drugs.

Yeah, that's right. But nobody knew it, okay? Like people didn't know he basically had late stage Parkinson's and would have died if he had been reelected. Make presidents look sober again. So I do have to say this. We are going to be transitioning soon. I've flagged this before to our premium only live stream.

It will be available to premium members. You have a few more minutes if you want to sign up at breakingpoints.com. We'll be doing a live Q&A, which is on a separate live stream that we've emailed to our premium subscribers. If you want to be able to get access to that, guys, can we put the graphic, please, up on the screen? Breakingpoints.com. Very generous discount going on right now. State of the Union, 25% off there. So take advantage of that. We've got links everywhere and you can go and visit yourself. So maybe last thoughts, I guess. You've been saving any gems for later? Some gems? Well, look, we'll see. It's up to them. It depends on what they ask. We should mention that Trump has been responding on Truth Social.

Oh, that's right. Presumptive nominee as of this week. And he has been slamming Biden for coughing the entire I mean, it was weird. Yeah. So Trump, the sort of master of the aesthetic. Oh, yes. That's what he's been on is interesting. Joe Coffin. Joe Coffin? I mean, it was weird. Yeah. So, I don't know, but Trump, the sort of master of the aesthetic in the TV. That's what he hugged in on is interesting. Joe Coffin. Joe Coffin.

Oh. And that works on multiple levels. Yeah, C-O-F-F-I-N. Coffin Joe. Coffin Joe. I like him. That's not bad, Ryan. That's not bad. I might tweet that out.

I might try and see if the answer is true. I may try and socialize that. Well, I saw he was trying to take Hillary's old, the crooked Hillary thing, and give that to Joe. And I was like, really? We're recycling nicknames now? Come on. That only works for Hunter.

It doesn't work for Ryan. You tried that. It doesn't work as well. So, okay, last thoughts from everybody. Ryan, what do you got? No, that's all I got. All right, that's it. Come on, Jerry.

You got it, Joe. It wasn't a joke. It was serious advice. Oh, yeah. Insulting. Insult serious advice. A freaking insulting advice. My last thought here is, you know, we had that moment with the report that came out that was talking about elderly gentleman, poor memory. And there was this moment of panic.

And Ezra Klein is writing a piece in the New York Times and Nate Silver is echoing it. And you're, you know, getting kind of a little bit of a D.C. freakout going and getting conspiracy theories about maybe they're getting ready to slide Kamala into his place or something like that. All of those murmurings, I think he did enough in this speech that I agree with you. It's over. Unfortunately. I mean, listen, again, we've talked a million times. The bar is really low.

But I'm sure on CNN they're over there. Selling him is the greatest orator of our time right now. Jim Messina said all questions are answered. Yes. He's good. There you go. If I had a question in, it would have been answered.

Yes, Joe. I completely agree with you, Crystal. This is it. The Biden age discourse, they have enough. My prediction that I'll try and hear is that they are going to try and do as few debates with Trump as possible. We will be lucky if we get one. And I think this is exactly why. He can have one shot. He can have one thing think this is exactly why. He can have one shot.

He can have one thing where he can read off. He can have the note cards prepared. But three is just not going to cut it. Trump, smart in trying to pressure him and highlight that. But the proof from this speech is the Super Bowl strategy was correct. Don't put him on the Super Bowl. You play him once. You get him pretty good, 30 minutes or so.

And that's it. And you cut his ass off. Don't let him go out there. But it doesn't work because people aren't stupid. It doesn't work because people aren't stupid. But look, they work before. You play the MAGA hits. It works on CNN because they are stupid.

You play the Roe versus Wade hits, and you just hope and pray in November. That's your only possible strategy on dragging you through election year. So that's my prediction and my kind of closing thought on this. Emily? My closing thought is I just think there were some moments that were genuinely really, I don't want to say unprecedented because nothing is ever unprecedented in the United States Congress. But there were moments that were unusual to anyone who's watched the State of the Union on television, which I think started with Harry Truman.

The sort of break into quorum, which again, I don't have a problem with. But that was Biden going back and forth. I think all of that is going to overshadow the planned scripted rhetoric that came out of the White House that had actually some real, just from the perspective of political strategy, some real highlights. They did a good job with some of these lines. They did a good job talking about some things. But I think because of those places he went off script, he tried to interact with Marjorie Taylor Greene. He tried to go back and forth, chop it up with people who were shouting in the audience. And in the course of that, he made some – he had some gaffes.

He was coughing a lot. He said something about Moscow at one point, getting drugs from Moscow. I think honestly all of that is because we live in the viral clips economy going to overshadow their best efforts not to have that happen because he decided to go off script. Well, for my final thought, I'll tell my old man story. To your point, back in 2010, I was in the gallery when Joe Wilson yells, you lie. I had just written a profile of Joe Wilson for Politico like a couple months earlier. That is genius.

You looked like a gal. The traffic on that must have been insane. And not just that. When he yelled, he's a total back months earlier. That's genius. The traffic on that must have been insane. When he yelled, he's a total back bench nobody. And the whole press core is like, who just yelled, who just yelled? Because then you couldn't bring your devices in. I'm like, that was Joe Wilson.

Everyone in the gallery is like, who is Joe Wilson? Dude, genius. I'm like, read my profile. Why did you profile him? He's real. Why did I profile him? I mean, he had a whole bunch of kids serving in Iraq. Okay.

I don't know. Go Google Joe Wilson. We'll look it up. We'll look it up. A little homework for everybody. It was in Politico. I used to do feature profiles. All right.

So here's what I'm being told. It's a fun story. Premium guys, premium stream. There's a separate stream for premium subscribers. If you sign up in the interim, go and check. We have emails and all of that. You'll have a link. We're going to stop for like maybe like two minutes or so.

Everyone will take a drink of water. Premium chat. What I'm going to ask is that you guys start putting your questions into the box so that we can have some immediately when we start going. But to the public, thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate you. I think we hit like 20,000 or so at the top here.

That was pretty cool. That's a lot of public. That was a lot. I think that might be a record for our State of the Union stream. So it's been three years here. Crystal, it's been great. It's kind of amazing.

We started over there on our piddly little set. Now we're here. We're looking at us. Now we've got counterpoints. So you guys have done an amazing job. The premium subscribers, you guys helped us build all of this.

So just thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Breakingpoints.com if you can help us out. Otherwise, premiums, we will see you all. Just give us a few minutes. We'll take a drink of water and we'll do our Q&A live in the chat. So there we go.

DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son. But I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family

and millions of dollars. Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children.

Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now.

Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.