Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/17/23: DC Debates Leaker Hero Or Traitor, Media Spins Leaks As Russian OP, Desantis Abortion Bill, Thomas Hiding Billionaire Real Estate, Pelosi Smears Feinstein Critics, Fox Tries To Settle Trial, GreedFlation, Dave Ramsey's Debt Couple

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss the debate in DC on whether the Pentagon leaker is a Hero or a Traitor, the Media spinning the Pentagon leaks as a Russian Op, DeSantis signing an unpopular abortion bill in the dead of night, Trump burying DeSantis with Gross "Pudding Fingers" ad, Justice Clarence Thomas caught hiding billionaire real estate payment, Pelosi smears Feinstein critics asking her to resign as "Sexist", Fox News desperately trying to settle the Dominion lawsuit before trial, Krystal looks into a big bank economist saying that "Greedflation" could end Capitalism, and Saagar looks into a couple that called into Dave Ramsey's show with advice on their massive debt that reveals a dire warning for all Americans.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/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Indeed we do. Lots that is breaking this morning and this week. We have the very latest with regard to that Ukraine war leaker, what he was charged with, and also updates on the media witch hunt against him so we will get into all of that also shots fired more shots fired between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump this comes as DeSantis signs a relatively extreme six-week abortion ban into law down in Florida what would that mean for him and his electoral chances Justice Thomas new revelations this morning and over the

weekend about additional ethics violations. I think the very latest is now he's saying he's going to have to amend his financial disclosure. So we'll give you all of those details. Renewed calls for Dianne Feinstein to retire. And Ro Khanna, who kind of, you know, he's a fellow Californian. He kind of led the charge and being honest about, hey, maybe she should step aside since she literally can't do her job. Some real backbiting and nasty quotes about him in the press. Pelosi sort of insinuating he's sexist. Others doing the same. So we will give you all of those details. And the Fox News Dominion trial was supposed to start this morning. It has now been pushed back a day till tomorrow because it looks like Fox News is trying to settle before this thing ever goes to trial.

They are very afraid. I am a little surprised they didn't make a harder push for a settlement before we get to that point. But anyway, we'll get into all of those details as well. Before we do any of that, though, Spotify video still out there for you guys. That's right. It's still available for everybody. Breaking points, premium subscribers. Everybody's been taking advantage of it, or at least a lot of people have,

so go ahead and sign up if you wanna be able to watch the full show on Spotify, as well as the unlisted full show on YouTube that we provide to all of our subscribers. You guys are really helping us out as we are scaling up, building the new studio. It's been quite a journey, and we will be able to show it to everybody,

so I'm very excited to show them that. It's beautiful, guys. It's a beautiful thing. It is beautiful, I can't wait for it to be here. It's beautiful, guys. It's a beautiful thing. It is beautiful. I can't wait for it to be here. It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. Let's start with the Pentagon leaker.

So Crystal and I both pulled some extra duty over the last couple of days to bring you guys the breaking news updates. We have the official charges against Jake Tera, so let's go ahead and put that up there on the screen. He was officially charged with two separate counts of unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. Now, keep in mind, these are just the first charges that were

made against Tahira. He's the 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman who has been charged here with leaking that classified information over the course of an entire year on his private Discord server with a bunch of his, I guess, shitposting gaming gun friends, is probably the best way to put it. Yeah. So what does that tell us? Well, it's a holding charge. One of the most important things to understand is that every document that Tahira actually distributed is technically, it could carry its own count. Now, one of the numbers that I have heard so far is that the Washington Post is in possession of the most amount of the documents that they got from one of the original people on the server. That's about 303 documents.

Each of those could carry a case up to 10 years. So, you know, that's possible, like the most 3,000 years. Also, from what I've been able to understand, Tahira, while he was an Air National Guardsman, he was actually called up to active duty at the time. So could face separate charges for acting in this capacity while in active duty. That also explains why he had the top secret security clearance as to be able to access some of these documents. That, of course, is also a big question.

How does a 21-year-old even have access to this? Turns out they gave him the access, and he can just pull it off the classified Internet. There are, of course, a lot of questions about how exactly a guy like this can— I mean, because if we look at the pictures, he not only was searching for stuff that had nothing to do with his job, he was taking it, like downloading it basically, onto his work PC, printing it out, and then taking those docs home, and then taking photos with a DSLR camera. And then presumably, I don't know, either shredding it or something. So I didn't even know it was that easy to print.

And then he did it for over a year. Crystal, since February of 2022 is when he started. Yeah, I mean, because when you have that high level of top secret clearance, you're supposed to only access things on even then on a need-to-know basis. It's not like you get that clearance and then it just opens up the whole world of whatever documents have that level of classification. But, you know, apparently he was able to access basically whatever he wanted with that clearance, and frankly, I'm glad that he was able to

because I think we learned a lot from what he was with that clearance. And frankly, I'm glad that he was able to, because I think we learned a lot from what he was able to reveal. I asked our friend Bradley Moss about the initial charges and to back up what you were saying, Sagar, he said, I think this will be supplemented with additional charges. This was in my view, an arrest him now and neutralize the threat step, in his words.

They will almost certainly supplement as they iron out the full details of the records he leaked. They have to separate the actual records versus ones that appear doctored by third parties. So these were the charges that they had ready to go, sort of locked in airtight, and that'll give them time while he's being held to flesh out, you know, exactly the full extent of what they are likely to charge him with. Correct. And so this has big nighted a big debate online, which I actually do think is an interesting one to weigh in on. As you said, yeah, it was good for us.

At the same time, like, listen, he made an oath. He said he wasn't gonna do it, and he did it. So this is one of those, like, is he a hero or not? And I think it all comes down to motivation about the capacity that he was, and also just to assess the information on his face as opposed to him. Those are two actually kind of separate debates. Marjorie Taylor Greene kind of ignited this. Let's go and put this

up there on the screen. She puts this out. Jake Tahara is a white male Christian and anti-war that makes him an enemy to the Biden regime. He told the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more. Ask yourself, who is the real enemy? A young, low-level national guardsman or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation against nuclear Russia without war powers? So this, of course, ignited just full-scale discourse crystal. Everyone was calling her celebrating a traitor, saying she was wrong for celebrating him as a hero. Lindsey Graham joining several of his other colleagues and fully denouncing Marjorie Taylor Greene. Here's what he had to say. Yes, the system failed. This is a major failure.

And those who are trying to sugarcoat this on the right, you cannot allow a single individual of the military intelligence community to leak classified information because they disagree with policy. I don't know what led to this airman's actions, but he's done a lot of damage to our standing. What they're suggesting will destroy America's ability to defend itself. That it's okay to release classified information based on your political views, that the ends justify the means. It is not okay. If you're a member of the military intelligence community and you disagree with American policy and you think you're going to be okay when it comes to leaking classified information,

you're going to go to jail. So that's the full scope of the debate. A lot of Democrats and media figures also joining their condemnation of Marjorie Taylor Greene. And I'm trying to put this in two separate categories, which is like, look, once again, dude broke the law, no question about it. Also in terms of his motivation, from what we can see here, let's put this up there on the screen from the Washington Post, he was called the new digital generation insider threat, aka Gen Z, the inevitable emergence of a class of people who seek not to cause political chaos,

but rather to live life online apparently as they can with little regard to rules that they consider to be old-fashioned or outdated. I basically think anybody who grew up on the Internet qualifies for that. Now it's a threat to national security. I guess I'm also a threat. I mean, in some ways, a threat to national security. So if you look also from within the profiles, he would get upset that people were not reacting inside the group. He's like, guys, I'm not going to keep posting classified information. You're not going to give me the reaction that I want.

So look, he didn't have a principled motivation. Now, okay, that's fine. So I wouldn't, I think like Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg had genuine political motivations to expose lies What bothers me, Crystal, is that the entire discussion is around the individual, Jake Tahara, and not around the documents themselves and what he exposed to the point where I'm like, I don't really care about this guy. I even think the debate around this guy is almost foolish. We should talk about like long range weapons to Zelensky and U.S. special forces on the ground in Ukraine. Yeah. So the debate about him and whether or not he is a whistleblower, whether or not he's a hero, it's almost like a philosophical debate, which I do actually find interesting to think through. And I'll get to my thoughts on that in a moment. I mean,

I think Marjorie Taylor Greene's tweet is stupid because she, I mean, this is conservative identity politics peak where it's about always white male and Christian. And that's why the state's going after it. Please, please. I mean, reality winner, right? Julia, it doesn't matter whether you're white male, Christian, black, white, brown, purple, yellow, gray. It doesn't matter. If you embarrass the state, they're going to throw the book at you. They will build the jail on top of you. And it's important to keep in mind here, too, there are classified leaks authorized by the Pentagon to the press all the time. Do those people go to prison? No. Is Joe Biden going to go to prison for mishandling classified? No, he's not. Is Trump? Maybe. Possibly. We'll see what happens with that one. But it is very selective who they decide to go after.

If it is an unauthorized leak that embarrasses people in power, they will build the jail on top of you. That's the core point. To put out the, he's white, this is just a complete distraction from what the actual issue is. Lindsey Graham, obviously, you know, they always, whenever any of these revelations, oh, this is a dire threat to our national security. This is going to destroy our ability to protect ourselves. That with all of the revelations that we have had from Assange, Snowden, going back to Daniel Ellsberg, that has never been the case. They always oversell how damaging the leaks are. And they already, like, to me, some of the things that were revealed were incredibly important, incredibly revelatory, showed the way that the government at best has been misleading us and really more directly has been lying to us about the state of the war and how our allies feel about it and whether or not we have men on the ground, by the way. But they're trying to downplay this already and say, oh, this really wasn't any big deal.

Like, it's fine. It's not going to have a big impact. So you can't have it both ways where it's both this dire threat to national security, but also, uh, this is no big deal and we're not really particularly worried about it. So anyway, that's that piece on whether or not he is a whistleblower. I actually don't know what I think about that because he clearly didn't intend for these to be widely circulated. He just wanted to, you know,

I guess the best way you could put it is he wanted to inform his group of buddies there who he was kind of the leader of, a bunch of young men, some of them at least underage, so these are like teenage boys in some instances. He wanted them to feel like they were in the know. He was trying to educate them and bring them along and gain their trust. And so the fact that he

didn't intend for it to have a larger political impact, perhaps that means he's not technically a whistleblower. Does that change the impact and the fact that we get to benefit from the knowledge that he sort of accidentally put out there in the world. No, of course it doesn't. And that, to your point, Sagar, is the most important piece. Who he is, his motivations, how it got out there, all of that stuff, to me, is like way down the list from what is actually contained in the documents and what they actually mean. And the fact that in, you know, in my view, having more transparency and more honest assessment of the war in Ukraine and what's going on there is nothing but a benefit to the American people. On the other hand, and we're about to get into this, you know,

the way the media has reported on this, certainly the, which their primary focus has been like outing the leaker and bringing him to justice, et cetera, et cetera. But they've also been very selective in the way that they've reported on these documents and have effectively done the work of the national security state by focusing on the pieces that will most play into the hands of people who want to push a more hawkish stance towards Ukraine. That is why, once again, let me put out the call. Anybody who's got access to the extra docs, we have 53 of them. There are 250 more that appears

only the Washington Post has. If you have any insight into those, please contact us and please let us know. Because what has come out from the reporting around the 53 documents was exactly as you said, oh, the points have come out. Oh my gosh, Ukraine's air defenses are in dire straits. And then writing it up in such a way where it's like, obviously the answer is that we should send more. Then we find a little thing in there that says that Ukraine attacked a Russian plane in Belarus. By the way, everybody's like, of course Ukraine has the right to do so.

Sure, but inside of our own U.S. intelligence agency assessment, they violated internal orders because they thought it would escalate tensions with Russia, which raises questions, how much control does Zelensky have? Number two, the Ukrainian president who we are wiretapping because we don't trust, saying he wants longer range missiles so he can

strike deeper inside of Russia. Not one mainstream media outlet wrote that up. Not one. In fact, the only framing around that- That is so revealing. Only framing around it was US spying on Zelensky, not Zelensky wants long range missiles to increase bombing on Russia. That's pretty freaking important. And then the level to which that we were going to plotting like coups essentially in Israel and South, uh, in the South Korea to be like, Hey guys, like all these plots and sophisticated schemes to try and force them to send weapons to Ukraine. You're like, this is insanity. So put all those things together.

Those are major stories, and even on the South Korean part. Headline the Times and everybody else goes with is not about the plots to force them to send weapons. It's like US spying on South Korea, which is one of those no shit. Yeah, they know that, we know that. Everybody just likes to have plausible deniability. Ever since the whole WikiLeaks thing came out and we're like tapping Merkel's cell phone.

If you're a U.S. whoever you are, if you're a world leader, you should assume your phone is tapped by the NSA. That's not the actual story here. The story is about what we were trying to do to those people and why we were gaining that information specifically so we could try to force them to do something. Which one of the stories that came out of the docks is we were successful. We did force them to secretly send some hundreds of millions of dollars in ammunition to Ukraine. And by the way, that's a big problem for them in Seoul. They are not happy. The opposition party in South Korea is outraged about this. And the president, you know, seems to be shrugging it off, but I can guarantee you like us creating political problems for him at home is a huge, huge story. So all of that has

been ignored. And I think that is a good segue then to the second part is at the end of the day, the New York Times, the Washington Post in concert decided here that it was more newsworthy to report on the identity of this leaker, Jake DeHara, than it was on the documents themselves. Now I've seen some people say that this is the dishonest line of questioning. Let me again be clear. The vast majority of the stories that the Washington Post published prior to its investigation into the identity of Jake DeHara, as well as the New York Times, were based on those 53 documents that we had access to and everybody else. I'm not saying they never did stories on that. What I am saying is that when they had access to new information, specifically the Washington Post, the new information that they chose to use that new information to go after the identity of the leaker and not instead publish

stories about all of the new stuff that they exclusively had. If we had those in our possession, Crystal, we had number one, maybe we would get to the identity, although I'm not sure yet. Identity here, and then 250 docs. What do you think we're going with for the first week? Docs, docs, docs, a whole team. We're going to be reporting it out and saying for comment and trying to make sense of all of it. That's not what they chose to do. They chose to hunt this guy down. And Glenn Greenwald spotted a very revealing tweet from the New York Times military correspondent. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, where he says, quote, the New York Times worked feverishly to find the identity of the guy leaking top secret documents on Discord. Ironically, if the same guy had leaked to the New York Times, we'd be working feverishly to conceal it. Now, why does that matter? Because really it seems that Tahira's crime

was not leaking exclusively to the mainstream media. His real crime was shit posting on Discord, then it all getting out there and allowing people like us to make sense of it and having some accident, people on Telegram, wherever. The entire internet effectively had access to some of these documents. That then appears to be like what the main beef was. And for that crime, for making Ukraine look

bad, basically, they have decided to hunt him down, which is stunning and crazy. And it just shows you, too, like they don't believe anymore in actual 100 percent transparency in any of these conflicts. They really don't. You know, what we just discussed around the way that they're selectively reporting the documents, even that we can compare our reporting to theirs. But more so, like, if you just put out the raw stuff like WikiLeaks or, you know, like Jake DeHara, or at least inadvertently like Jake DeHara did, well, then they're going to hunt you down and they're going to go after you and they're going to turn against you, which I just think is an insane twist for the paper

that once took the Pentagon to court all the way to the Supreme Court in the Pentagon papers, which remains one of the most significant cases in U.S. history. It's also part of a multi-decade, I guess, trend among our preeminent news outlets in this nation to target their firepower at like random, relatively powerless individuals versus institutions that are truly powerful. I'm not saying they never do that. Yeah. But if you look at the choices that had to be made here, even a vast institution like the New York Times has limited news gathering resources. They clearly put all of their firepower towards finding Jack Tahira. That was the focus. That was the goal. They wanted to be first.

They were clearly in this race with the Washington Post who had found the discord people and they were getting some information about the guy. But they didn't have the exact identity. And so the New York Times, rather than feverishly working to obtain all of the documents that were posted to the server and rooting through them and finding out what was most relevant, what was most dissonant picture being painted by these secret documents versus what the government is actually telling us, rather than doing that, they train all their firepower at this individual who is, in fact, I mean, he's going to be powerless now. Like, he's going to be, like, this is it for him, basically. He's probably going to spend the rest of his life in prison is very likely what's going to happen here. So that's where you decide to turn your focus and just think on, like,

newsworthiness. Is it interesting to know who the leaker is and the discourse? Yeah, it's interesting, right? Human curiosity, sure. Is it incredibly important in terms of whether or not we're going to end up in World War III and what our top officials are saying behind the scenes and the reality of how that war is going? It doesn't even come close to comparing to the newsworthiness of what he actually revealed. So it shows you how twisted the priorities of these news outlets have truly become. And the thing is, is after they get the guy locked up, now it's a

party. Now they actually are reporting on some of the exclusive stuff that they have. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. They had two, at the very least, that they've put out. Leaked documents detail up to four additional Chinese spy balloons and Taiwan highly vulnerable to Chinese air attack leaked documents show. I mean, look, this is clear cut in my head. Those two are way more newsworthy as stories to put out before you go after the leaker. And now they're celebrating.

And actually, Glenn made an important point, which is they did the exact same thing to Edward Snowden. They both won a Pulitzer Prize and patted themselves on the back for their coverage of the Snowden documents, but then also editorially took a turn against him as a leader. You cannot have it both ways. You have to stand up for people,

specifically in the press, for the people who are going to give you information. Now, once again, and I've seen some criticism of that too. They're like, you shouldn't encourage this. Listen, that's not a crime. That's our job, actually. It's the government's job to stop you. They have laws on the books to try and prevent you to do so. You're going to do your thing. I'm going to do my thing. And I think that's the part where that has somehow been lost in translation. Yeah. Because clear. OK, especially that Chinese spy balloon story that is topical, relevant to a very recent political controversy, ongoing tensions, et cetera, with China. How do you

not publish that as one of the first stories that you have? Yeah. Instead of the identity of the discord guy? Yeah, it's nuts. Although I would, and I do think that that is highly topical and way more important than the identity of the Discord guy, let alone the next piece of reporting that we're about to show you is now they're tracking down every person along the train, along the trail that happened to share these documents as well. But I also would say like it also fits with the pattern of them focusing in on and reporting exclusively on pieces that serve a hawkish narrative too.

I'm not saying it's not newsworthy. I think it should be reported out. But some of the pieces like what you were talking about earlier, Sagar, how Zelensky, we had to tap wiretap Zelensky because we don't trust him. And what we find out is that he wants to use the long range missiles he's been begging us for to strike deep inside of Russia. The only thing that's holding back is the fact that we haven't shipped those particular weapons yet. That also seems like it'd be important to report on, and that somehow gets completely

vanished in a race. Oh, absolutely. So let's go to this part, which broke last night and is one of the weirdest things so far now to come out of this entire thing. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. From the Wall Street Journal, an exclusive story. Social media account overseen by former Navy non-commissioned officer helped spread secrets. So they highlight a social media personality known as Donbass Devushka, which translate as the Donbass girl. It turns out is not, in fact, a Russian girl, but is, in fact, a former U.S. Navy veteran who served at the U.S. Naval Air Station until late last year, even as accounts that she had established and supervised

glorified the Russian military and the paramilitary Wagner Group. Not gonna lie, that is definitely super weird. She did confirm that she was the administrator of this persona and acknowledged even raising funds and hosting podcasters under that name. She was one of the people who did, and actually, I know a little bit about her because of the telegram. I'd seen that she was one of the first people to at least get her hands on some of those initial documents, share some of those screenshots that were then put out onto Telegram.

But again here, the journal is focusing in on her. They also didn't even do any exclusive reporting. Her identity was revealed online by a bunch of pro-Ukraine guys known as NAFO. You can find out everything you want about that on Twitter if you're interested. But the point, I think, Crystal, is that what they are doing here

is tracking people down in the chain of how the documents themselves came to be exposed where I'm on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and I don't see a single story, not one story about the documents. Not one story. How can they possibly square that? So we're going on to, and again, sure,

by the way, just anybody who's online could have found out about this. You don't need the Wall Street Journal because all these NAFO guys have been talking about it. And I even follow a few of them. I was aware of it even before they went ahead and published this. But now it seems that the narrative is that this somehow was like a Russian influence

op with the distribution. Like, no, it wasn't. It was just people noticed that there are docs out there and then people who are journalists did their job and went to go find them to try and make sure that we could publish whatever was noteworthy within them. That's it. Yeah. Such a crazy development.

Well, I'm sure there were a lot of folks who were very disappointed that the actual leaker wasn't some sort of Russian misinformation plot. Yeah. So I guess this is the next best thing that they can go. Yeah, this is the next best thing.

You're right. And by the way, for those of you who might think I'm a Russian shill, this actual Russian shill has me blocked on Twitter. Yes, she has you blocked. So the real Russian shills hate me.

She doesn't have me blocked, so I guess I'm the shill. Congratulations to all my worst critics. But, yeah, I mean, I just look at this and I'm like, okay, the Washington Post got their little piece of the reveal the leaguer action. You know, they were the first up when they talked to the Discord people. Then the New York Times got the real scoop, you know, unearthing this guy's identity. And it was literally that same day that the feds arrested him. Yeah.

Like, I mean, they directly assisted in the federal government tracking this man down. So I guess Wall Street Journal just had to get their little piece of the action here and at least find out who it was that then shared them to the wider audience. There's an interesting, if people know the documentary Citizen Four, it's free on YouTube, about Snowden. It has the behind-the-scenes footage of Glenn Greenwald and what's her name? Laura Poitras. I never know how to pronounce it. Anyway, Laura and Glenn in their initial interactions with Snowden.

And one of the first things that happens when the moment they get into the Hong Kong hotel room is Snowden specifically is like, I don't really want the story to be about me. He's like, I know that we will eventually get there, but I want to leave it up to you. And there was kind of a conscious decision that Glenn made in that moment to publish one of his first stories on the Guardian website, which did not talk about Snowden, because it was only after Snowden's identity became public that then it was a major circus around that, and

it wasn't about the documents. And Snowden himself was actually very aware of how much the media was going to focus in on him and his identity specifically. But I thought it was important that when we bring Glenn's criticism of all this, this is a guy who did it before. He literally did this and did it in probably the best way possible, which was information first, then leaker and talking about the discussion there. Yeah. And I mean, there's also, I think, a real ideological valence to the way that the Washington Post, New York Times reported on the identity of Jack, always foregrounding the fact that he is like, you know, he's right wing ideologically and he's a gun enthusiast. He's a racist now. Posting racist memes. I mean, listen, I don't know what memes he was posting. It may well be true. clear attempt to turn their liberal audience against this man rather than foregrounding the

value of the information that he has allowed all of us to access whether he really intended which doesn't appear that he did for this information to get out or not um whether intentionally or accidentally he's done us all a great service and you know i appreciate it for anybody who puts information out there and makes us more informed, that person did us a good service. And I think to the public, too. So, look, my heart goes out to the guy just because, look, 21 years old, your frontal cortex is barely developed. Obviously, I'm not saying he didn't know what he did was wrong. And obviously, he broke his oath and all of that.

But, man, it's sad. It's sad when young kids spend their entire lives in jail. So we'll see how it all works out. Let's go to Ron DeSantis here. Some major developments in the state of Florida, where we had brought you the news before that the six-week abortion ban was making its way through the Florida legislature. Ron DeSantis had indicated previously he was going to sign it. Now, the circumstances of the signing themselves, though, indicate a little bit about how much DeSantis, he and his team know exactly how popular this is. Go ahead and put this up there on the screen, as they say here. Does not exactly scream confidence in the politics

of the band that DeSantis enacted it in a private ceremony announced by tweet at 11 p.m. Eastern time. On a Friday, too, wasn't it? On a Friday. That is about as Friday news dump trying to cover up as much as possible. They went out of their way to make sure that there were only women who were at the ceremony. But listen, I mean, I don't think that you can really avoid. Also, there was no press conference, and Ron has never met a camera that he doesn't love. Yeah, he loves himself a no press conference, and Ron has never met a camera that he doesn't love. He loves himself a good press conference. He loves himself a good press conference, and we're going after CBDCs or CRT.

All that stuff is actually popular. This one, well, I think he knows exactly what it is. Six-week abortion ban in the state of Florida. And this is really fascinating because, as we already know, currently, this is just the Florida, University of North Florida, late February. Seventy-five percent of Florida residents are either, quote, somewhat or strongly opposed to the bill, including 61 percent of Republicans. And I think this is always important to underscore where these people are so hamstrung by the evangelical right on a national political level and specifically in a Republican primary that they really see more downside from pissing off an activist portion of the base than people who are probably going to go along somewhat or even the median

voter in terms of the politics of it. And there is no question in my mind, this is the single most unpopular thing that Ron DeSantis has ever done. And interestingly enough, it's one of the only ones though that he's being cheered for amongst conservative media figures and not any of the criticism. But we know electorally, this is a nightmare. It's a disaster. People in Florida do not support this. People nationally also really don't support it. I know the arguments about why should political polling, et cetera, from the evangelicals who support this stuff. Listen, that's your right. You can believe what you want. I'm talking about purely on a political basis. Yeah. It's clear that this is not popular in that state. And we know for sure nationally. Yeah. Oh, it's devastatingly

unpopular. I mean, it's up there with, you know, the things that have been like defund the police. Right. It is almost as unpopular as something like, you know, imagine if a national Democrat actually passed defund the police statewide into law and is seen as a top contender for the presidency. Like, you know how you would view this. That's basically how you should view this as well. But there is such a powerful and very organized constituency within the Republican base, even though it's a, you know, a pretty small minority of the Republican base that actually wants this level of ban passed. They may be open to like 15 week ban or something like that in the Republican base, but six-week ban is basically a complete ban.

Most people don't even know they're pregnant at six weeks, right? There are exceptions here for rape and incest, so just to get into the specifics of the law, but you actually have to prove that you were raped. You have to prove that the child is a product of incest, which is, you know, in and of itself sort of like dehumanizing and, you know, sort of grotesque. So it is a very extreme law that has been put into place, which politics are really important. And the reality of it is also really important. And the way that the reality is going to make it

even more politically unpopular, I think, is noteworthy here as well. But, Sagara, to your point about the way that this is such a difficult issue for Republican politicians because of where the public is versus where this group of highly organized activists are, which have really been a driving force within the Republican Party for years and years, new presidential contender Tim Scott has really sort of wrapped himself around a wheel with all of this. He clearly knows how unpopular things like a six week ban are, but he also knows that he's got pressure from this, you know, activist base inside the Republican Party. He's always framed himself as very, very,

very pro-life person. But when he first announced for that, he was forming his presidential exploratory committee. He had asked by a number of reporters what he would do at the federal level. Would he pass a national abortion ban? Is there other legislation that he would support at a national level? And he was a mess in terms of trying to respond to any of this. Take a listen. Yes, sir. Would you support a federal ban on abortions?

I would simply say that the fact of the matter is when you look at the issue of this, take a listen. Yes, sir. Would you support a federal ban on abortions? I would simply say that the fact of the matter is when you look at the issue of abortion, one of the challenges that we have, we continue to go to the most restrictive conversations without broadening the scope and taking a look at the fact that I'm 100% pro-life. I never walk away from that. But the truth of the matter is that when you look at the issues on abortion, I start with the various important conversation I had in a banking hearing when I was sitting in my office and listening to Janet Yellen, the Secretary of the Treasury, talk about increasing the labor force participation rate for African-American women who are in poverty by having abortions.

I think we're just having the wrong conversation. And he goes on from, I mean, you brought up Janet Yellen, like literally what are you talking about? And that reporter, I think, is a Newsmax reporter, like, pressed him, and he continued to just sort of word salad his way through it. And that was not the only exchange he had on this issue where he just fell flat on his face. Right. Yeah. Let's go and take a listen to that. It was with Ali Vitale over at NBC. Now he is completely doing an about face after a pressure from the base. Here's what he had to say. But is six weeks the right mile marker?

Well, the people have decided that their elected leaders have the opportunity to do so. So I say absolutely. As the culture of life is being protected, we should celebrate that. States will have different varying views on that. States will have different varying views on that. But yes, if I were president of the United States, I would literally sign the most conservative pro-life legislation that they can get through Congress. Even if it was six weeks? I'm not going to talk about six or five or seven or 10. I'm just saying that whatever the most conservative legislation is that can come through Congress. Well, most conservative that would come through Congress. I mean, it pretty much ties him into even a ban. You know, if they're like, theoretically,

let's say they nuke the filibuster and they agree on a ban and it gets through a Republican House, is that something that you would sign? He's now opened himself up to that. Good luck. I mean, this is what I always think whenever I look at this. You know, for all the talk of defund the police,

which is extraordinarily unpopular, Republicans appear to have found their own defund the police. Unlike Dems, I guess, are sticking with it. Like really leaning into it. Till the end. We'll see. Hasn't worked yet on a single statewide ballot. Every single statewide or local race that has come onto abortion has gone the Democratic

way. It's been a massive electoral disaster for many Republicans on the ticket all the way down to the county level I've seen in some cases. In terms of Ron DeSantis, too, this is an interesting one where there's this whole idea that he's more electable than Trump. But Trump himself, I don't think he's even close to Ron DeSantis on this issue, despite having appointed the justices for that overturned Roe versus Wade, which is a good segue, I think, to our second part here, where Trump is in secret meetings with the religious right, is trying to convince them, we all need to shut up about abortion. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Trump has been holding private meetings with religious figures to remind them about his

abortion record and to ensure their support. However, instead of thanking Trump for his role in repealing Roe versus Wade, the leaders are pressing him for commitments that go beyond what he is comfortable with and that he thinks voters will not allow him to get away with. According to two participants who have been in meetings with Trump, Trump has warned leaders in these conversations that Republicans, quote, risk losing big, in Trump's words, unless they follow his lead. He has warned leaders to shift their own messaging, telling him to always emphasize exceptions

to bans, and in the case of rape, incest, or threat to the life and the mother, Trump has stressed in his 2024 plan it is necessary to prevent Democrats from painting him as an extremist. He has also conceded that big losses have already begun and for several weeks vented to confidence that GOP is, quote, getting killed on abortion or, quote, on the abortion issue. So there's a reason, once again, that Trump did not mention abortion one time. Not once did he mention Roe versus Wade in his 2024 announcement. He also didn't mention Stop the Steal. Internally, he knows exactly what is the least popular that he is tied to. And I think that you compare this to his previous, to his contenders like DeSantis and Tim Scott,

and then you also compare them on the issues of Medicare and Social Security, issues where DeSantis and Tim Scott or Nikki Haley and all these people are to the right of him. Trump is much more of the centrist candidate in some ways in this race outside of, I guess, his own personality. But that's always been the point, that he is electable. He's much more electable in many ways than some of these other traditional Republicans. Yeah, and in some ways, the damage on this issue in terms of the Republican Party has already been done, even as Trump is trying to persuade religious right leaders, which good luck with this, that they need to not push for anything more at the federal level.

I mean, they view this, this is not my view, but they view this as like a genocide, as an atrocity that's unfolding. I mean, some of them are not just political actors. They have a genuine moral view on this. And so they are not going to be satisfied with, oh, we'll let California do what they want and let Alabama do what they want. And there's actually a new poll out

that has polling both on the abortion pill that was, you know, they put in an injunction that the Texas judge did and the Supreme Court said we're going to let things stand as they are right now and allow access to this abortion pill in states where it is legal. It shows overwhelmingly that Americans think it should be, the pill should be available in states where it is legal. But it also shows in that same poll that a majority of Americans already think

that it is the Republican Party's plan to ban abortion nationwide. So regardless of little messaging tweaks or them trying to say, oh, we really want to leave it up to the states, regardless of the fact that you haven't had, you know, 100 percent of Republican elected officials or anywhere close to it say that they want to push for a nationwide abortion ban. This is already where a majority of the public, it's relatively 50-50 right now split, but this is where a majority of the public believes that the Republican Party wants to take things. Yeah, it reminds me again of the defund conversation. Everyone was like, no, I don't support that. And a lot of voters were like, well, you know, like you used to use the word valence earlier. That's a very important one.

Like, well, you know, in terms of valence, like, I think that you should sympathize with it more than don't, and that's unpopular, and I'm going to penalize you for it. And that's basically the same thing that's happening here with abortion. And it also comes on the heels of an outbreak of open warfare between both sides. The Trump super PAC has released a new ad going after Ron DeSantis calling him pudding fingers in reference to a report that DeSantis didn't have a spoon on an airplane and ate pudding with his fingers, here's what they had to say. Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don't belong. And we're not just talking about pudding.

DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements. Like cutting Medicare. Slashing Social Security. Even raising our retirement age. Tell Ron DeSantis to keep his pudding fingers off our money. Oh, and somebody get this man a spoon. I mean. Traumatized by that ad.

Okay. Yeah, definitely weird. This is the new Amy Klobuchar eating a salad with her comb, which is equally disgusting imagery. Obviously, this was targeted more to an online audience for fundraising and all that to get a rise out of him. Although, watching it again, it was sort of targeted at both. Sometimes campaigns will put out ads that are more just meant to go viral online and generate fundraising, which I think the pudding reference, like, a lot of people aren't going to get. But the Social Security and Medicare messaging, on the other hand,

that is for a general, broader audience, for persuasion, not just for generating fundraising. So I think it's kind of designed to do both. Yeah, I agree with you. And the DeSantis one, the response has just been incredibly weak. This is what they came up with for their first attack ad on Donald Trump. Donald Trump is being attacked by a Democrat prosecutor in New York. So why is he spending millions attacking the Republican governor of Florida? Trump's stealing pages from the Biden Pelosi playbook, repeating lies about

social security. Here's the truth from Governor Ron DeSantis. We're not going to mess with social security as Republicans. What did Trump say? Entitlements ever be on your plate? At some point they will be. We will take a look at that. Trump should fight Democrats, not lie about Governor DeSantis. What happened to Donald Trump? Never back down. Inc. is responsible for the contents of this. I mean, look, like, I guess on the merits, fair, but it just didn't, it seemed like a weak ad. And I've also seen other ones that DeSantis has released or the DeSantis has released or that DeSantis Super PAC has released. What did they say?

Basically attacking Trump for caving to the gun lobby. They were like, Trump doesn't really have the back of the NRA. And Trump was literally speaking at the NRA the same day that they released the ad. And the NRA put out a tweet calling him a lifetime like gold member. So clearly the NRA still really likes Trump. I don't think you're gonna convince NRA put out a tweet calling him a lifetime like gold member. So clearly the NRA still really likes

Trump. I don't think you're going to convince NRA members that Trump was somehow bad. I just don't see it. I also think the framing of that, like he didn't just follow lockstep with a powerful Washington lobby is off, right? If you want to say he's not protecting like, you know, people's rights and he failed us in various regards where you're talking about the actual people he failed, not that he like let the NRA down. I don't know. I thought it was weird framing. I also think, listen, the thing with any sort of political attack is it has to be believable. And I just don't think that the Trump isn't pro-gun enough or the NRA doesn't like him enough attack is really going to land with a Republican base. I don't think it has enough believability about it.

The issue with Trump and attacking him is always the fact that, you know, the things that most of the population really hates him for are kind of popular with the Republican base. Yeah, exactly. They love him for that. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, the thing that people really overwhelmingly object to is like, you know, to his rejection of the norms and his nastiness and his personal vindictiveness and all of those sorts of things. But, you know, good luck selling a Republican base on that's a reason to move away from him. I just, you know, I don't think that that's ultimately going to sell. And that's why they're struggling to come up with some sort of a coherent attack against him that's actually going

to land and not lead to actually a giant backlash against you. Because that's the other thing that we've seen is when DeSantis tries out any of his little passive aggressive jabs, there's a huge backlash against him. I saw a smart analysis about how part of what is so impossible for him is that his theoretical coalition is peeling away people that still like Trump, but just, you know, for whatever reason, think he'll be better, less chaos or whatever, but they're still pro-Trump and people who are like in the Liz Cheney vein of just totally anti-Trump. And this is a coalition that is very difficult to figure out how to pull together because they have really different ideologies and really different views of the country, really different views of Trump, obviously, and what his time in office actually meant and what his accomplishments or failures were. So I think it makes it really hard for DeSantis to try to figure out how to navigate these waters.

I think you're right. I've always thought it's an impossible task, and that's part of the reason why I don't think it'll win. But look, I guess we could be wrong. We'll see. There's no doubt about it. That's where the race stands, at least right now. Yeah, that's what makes it interesting.

All right, we have some new developments with regard to Justice Thomas. Last week, we brought you that extensive ProPublica report about how over literally decades, he was receiving elaborate gifts and going on fully paid vacations courtesy of this one billionaire named Harlan Crowe. One of the trips to Indonesia alone, which, you know, he flew there on a private jet and sailed around on a luxury yacht.

That one trip alone would have cost him half a million dollars if he had paid for it out of pocket. Every single year he's going and staying at this dude's private resort. None of it disclosed, none of it on his financial disclosures, which, you know, it definitely should have been. Well, now we have another piece that in some ways is even more clear cut. This is also from ProPublica. Let's put this up on the screen. So they say billionaire Harlan Crowe, which is the same dude who was like sailing Clarence Thomas all around the world, he bought property from Clarence Thomas and the justice did not disclose the deal. Now, the reason I say this is clear-cut is this is a very clear-cut violation of the ethics code and the legal requirements

of what justices are supposed to disclose. Any real estate transaction where money exchanges hands over like $1,000 has to be disclosed. There are very few exceptions, and this particular transaction does not even come close to meeting the definition of any of the exceptions. So let me read you here some of the specifics they say in ProPublica. In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crowe's companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia, was not a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just a single story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of

the deal, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives. The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican mega donor to the Supreme Court Justice. The Crow Company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners, Thomas, his mother, and the family of Thomas's late brother, according to state tax documents. Now, here's the law. A federal disclosure law that was passed after Watergate requires justices and other officials to disclose the details of most real estate sales over $1,000. And again, this was for about $130,000. He never disclosed the sale.

Four ethics law experts say this appears to be a violation of the law. Thomas didn't respond. Harlan Crowe did respond. He said that he had purchased Thomas' mother's house where Thomas spent part of his childhood to preserve it for posterity. Quote, my intention is to one day create a public museum at the Thomas home dedicated to telling the story of our nation's second black Supreme Court justice. You know, in terms of the relevant laws, the intent of Harlan Crowe here really doesn't matter, but that's his explanation of the transaction. And I also thought this was an important analysis from another legal ethics

expert who said the failure to report the transaction suggests Thomas was hiding a financial relationship with Crowe, especially when you add it together with the fact that you had the failure to disclose all these vacations and gifts at, you know, high level of value over years. Here you have an actual exchange of money, very clear cut situation here. And this also not disclosed. The very latest I saw this morning, Sagar, is that Justice Thomas plans to now amend his disclosure forms to include this transaction, which is a recognition that, you know, he screwed up by not doing this. But I would also say, you know, this comes on top of not just the latest pro-public revelations. Justice Thomas has had to amend his financial disclosures many times in the past because of not because he wants to do it willingly. He discovers an error that he's got to clean up. No, because reporters forced him to. He didn't

disclose his wife's employment details at a number of conservative organizations for years, like the entire early 2000s, basically. He didn't disclose that employment until, again, reports came out and forced him to reveal what was going on. And we even have another piece that we can show you as well from The Washington Post. This one, again, you might say is less of a big deal. I don't know, depending on how you read it. But the fact that it comes on top of all these other revelations just paints a picture of someone who is willfully hiding the reality of his financial situation. So their headline here is that Clarence Thomas has for years claimed income from a defunct real estate firm. What happened is he was receiving income

from another real estate firm. That one goes under. They form a new related company, but it has a new name. It's incorporated in a different way. There are different people who are involved and he never changes over to the new company. So to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, he is, you know, his financial disclosures are effectively hiding the real company that he is benefiting, receiving this financial benefit from, which, you know, can be significant if there are people involved, a business in front of the court, et cetera. So that's the very latest. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that there's just no way around it. Like when you pay a guy for a house and you don't report it, that's pretty bad. It also comes down. This is such a this is the other thing. Private real estate transaction is one of those where did he

pay fair market value or not? I mean, there really is, it's a tough one to assess because in 2013, Harlan Crowe bought a pair of properties on the same block for a total of $40,000. But in this case, he paid $133,000 for four separate properties. And then, you know, again, whatever your intention, well, it's pretty odd because let's say you are preserving it for posterity.

Then, well, wouldn't you wanna sell the house after your mother has died? Because now it looks like Harlan Crowe was actually making improvements to the house while his elderly mother was living inside of it. I mean, that's a little bit of an in-kind help. You know, listen, I mean, it costs a lot of money to take care of old people. They want to stay in the house. Like, you want to make improvements to that. Now you've got a billionaire who's paying for that. Now it's something that's off your chest.

It's like, well, technically not a direct exchange, but definitely a major benefit to your quality of life. It's possible that he does, you know, make one. But at the same time, he bought two empty plots in the area and then sold them off from his property because he said that the developers were gonna build something that kept the historical integrity of the neighborhood. It's like, well, hold on a second. You said you bought them to preserve posterity. So why did you buy the empty lots then? Just because the Clarence Thomases had them

and I guess they needed the cash? Like, what's up with that? I mean, and then you include the Washington Post story where he's clearly just not abiding by the letter of the law. And I think that really matters. I mean, everybody was talking about that with the Harlan Crowe one. They were like, well, he didn't technically have to disclose it. I'm like, listen, like you really think it's chill to be going on half million dollar vacations? Like, do you really think that is okay? If you're a conservative and RBG was doing corrupt stuff like that, which she was, would you really be okay with that?

No, you wouldn't. Or Stephen Breyer or any of these people. All of this needs to be out in the open so that we have transparency. And if they do vote in a way that appears to align with their actual financial interests, then at the very least, you should be able to know that and Congress should be able to take action if they want to. So I personally find it disgusting, a lot of the defense of this. It is just clear-cut, you know, appearance of corruption and possible corruption itself. I don't know another way to say it.

No, I mean, that's right. And listen, if it was one little slip-up, you could go, you know, you could extend some grace, right? Like, okay, everybody messes up. Even Supreme Court justices who are supposed to be, like, the final word on the law of the land, even they could slip up on the financial disclosure reforms. He fixed it. All right, let's move on. But you're talking about infraction after infraction, like failure after failure to the tune of hiding literally millions of dollars

in benefit that he received from Harlan Crowe in particular. But you had him hiding the employment details of his wife. You had him failing to report reimbursements for trips to speak at law schools that he had to amend his 2020 forms for. You have now the real estate company screw up. You have him not reporting the $130,000 he got from this property sale. And you're so right, Sagar, that this is like actually a pretty classic, clear cut, standard operating procedure of potential corruption. Matt Bevin, the former Kentucky governor, he got caught in a similar kind of a situation where he had a real estate transaction with one of his largest donors that appeared to not be at fair market value, which is like, oh, this is just a way of you like straight up giving money

to this individual. Now, is that what's going on here? We don't know. But guess what? The public deserves to know. You have a legal requirement to know. And at this point, with so many screw ups over the years, there has to be a fulsome investigation because you have to look and go, well, what else is going on here that we don't know about that journalists haven't been able to get their hands on to force and shame him into actually updating his forms and disclosing the reality of what's going on here. So yeah, this is utterly disgraceful. It's also insane that Supreme Court justices do not have a code of ethics the way that every other judge in the entire country does. And very clearly, that needs to be instituted immediately. And there needs to be a full investigation of what other sort of financial

entanglements Justice Thomas may have. No question about it whatsoever. Okay, so the other piece we've been reporting on is Senator Feinstein, who's the oldest member of the Senate, has not been doing her job. She hasn't been in Washington for votes for ever since. Actually, since we last heard from her was, you know, she decided not to run for reelection, which she immediately forgot about and had to be reminded of by her aides. So ever since then, she hasn't been in Washington in able in order to vote on anything. She's on a really key committee, which is the Judiciary Committee. They need her vote in order to move forward with any judges. And, you know, everybody has basically kept quiet about this. I saw a bunch of Democratic senators on Sunday get pressed about whether or not she

should go ahead and resign so that her seat could be filled and Californians could have a second representative. Kirsten Gillibrand was like a hard no. I respect her. I admire her. She's great. I can't believe you're asking this. Two others sort of hemmed and hawed and wouldn't really say anything about it. Congressman Ro Khanna, to his credit, who is a fellow Californian, he has been very clear in saying, you know, this is outrageous and it's time for her to resign. Like, you know, in a respectful way. But he was asked again about this on Fox News and he stood his ground. Take a listen to what he stood his ground. Take a listen

to what he had to say. Only in Washington would you get criticized for saying something so obvious. I have a lot of respect for Senator Feinstein, but she's missed 75% of votes this year. She hasn't been showing up, and she has no intention. We don't know if she's even going to show up. She has no return date. In contrast, Senator Fetterman has said that he's going to show back up on April 17th. So it's one thing to take medical leave and come back. It's another thing where you're just not doing the job. The reality here is there's the sense, well, you need to have a deference to these senators who've served so long. How about a deference to the American people?

How about an expectation that if you sign up to do one of these jobs, you show up? He's right. Well said. There's no question. You know, actually, and I'm not defending Fetterman because I also do think it's crazy to get elected and leave for two months. That said, with Feinstein in particular, the damage is actually worse to the overall Democratic. If you're a Democrat, you should be outraged. Here's why. She's on the judicial committee. She cannot vote to put judges go forward. Now, Crystal, what was one of the main things that Trump did while he was in office? He used the Republican Senate to stack the federal judiciary with Mitch McConnell. Chuck Schumer wants to do the exact same thing. The Senate is in standstill. Here's the other thing. Feinstein tried to say that she was being responsible. And he was like, I have asked Senator Schumer to let me take off the Judiciary Committee and put somebody else on. Guess what, guys?

You need 60 votes to do that. You really think the Republicans are gonna be like, yeah, cool. Yeah, we wanna get all these liberal justices on the bench. They're like, Feinstein, if you want somebody to replace you, you're gonna have to resign. Otherwise, we're gonna sit here and watch you guys squirm for months. And, you know, this is valuable time. This is where you need every single Democratic vote in the committee even to be able to advance it to the floor before they're able to move it forward. So really, Feinstein is standing in the way of one of the only clear-cut victories that a Democratic president can have in divided government. So, again, if you are a Democratic voter, you should be outraged at this woman.

And obviously, I mean, LGBTQ rights, what happens with abortion, like any number of decisions are happening at this federal judge level that are very important to Democratic voters. The way that Roe, in particular, has been attacked over his like honest and reasonable comments on this has been astounding. Take a look at this from Nancy Pelosi. Put this up on the screen. So she said that anyone who was calling for Feinstein to resign was basically sexist and it was politically motivated. What she said is, quote, it's interesting to me. I don't know what political agendas are at work that are going after Senator Feinstein in that way. I've never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that way. So did she say Ro Khanna's name directly?

No. Does everyone know who this is about? Yes. And that's why I really give Ro credit here because Nancy Pelosi is, first of all, another fellow Californian, very influential, obviously, in California, but in the country overall and still in the Democratic caucus,

even though, you know, Hakeem Jeffries has now got the title. She still really runs the show in terms of the Democratic Party. And she is basically flat out calling him a sexist for saying the obvious thing that this is really detrimental to California. And it's really detrimental to, you know, Democrats who want to have their like-minded judges on the bench. But that wasn't all. Politico published this incredibly bitchy piece that had sounded a lot of similar notes with all of these like anonymous quotes.

Again, these ones going directly after Ro Khanna, which he hit back at, too, by the way. Put this up on the screen from Politico. The headline is Dianne Feinstein digs in the senator's confidants and allies scoff at her detractors and are firing back. So let me read you a little bit of this. They say Feinstein's allies view the calls for her to quit as laced with ageism, sexism, ideological disputes, and unchecked political opportunism. And there's considerable anger being directed at her detractors for not exercising patience during a difficult time while showing her the respect

they think she's earned. Here's one of those anonymous quotes from some California Democrat. Ro Khanna has no influence on her whatsoever. Feinstein is not going to respond to pressure. And they also suggest in this piece that Ro's real here are, they've got this like 4D chess thing laid out where he's backing Barbara Lee for Senate. Yes. Apparently Gavin Newsom said at some point if he was going to make an appointment, he would appoint a black woman to that Senate seat. So the idea is that Roe is trying to push out Dianne Feinstein to get his preferred candidate in the Senate, even though Barbara Lee herself has sounded actually very different notes on this whole question. I don't know. I find it a little bit far-fetched to believe that he's engaged in this like 4D chess, not even

on behalf of himself, but in behalf of some candidate that he's endorsed. Yeah, this is nuts. What are you talking about, lady? Listen, the whole thing is insane. The fact that he's being attacked, it just shows you that even one of the most clear-cut, nutso cases where this person should not be in this job whatsoever, that because of institutional reverence and identity politics, they're going to bat for her. Pelosi in particular, what a disgusting comment. Seriously, disgusting.

It really enrages me. And I actually think the way rose said it is so perfect the narcissism of all of these politicians to think that it's all about them and like oh be patient with her she's earned respect etc etc it's like no what about the reality of what this means for californians for Democrats across the country who want to see a certain agenda perform, like you just discard that for the narcissism of this one aging senator? Yes. That's an insane way to view our political system. But so many of them do view it that way.

And by the way, they've trained plenty of liberals to view it that way as well. Irony always says, you know, politics has been transformed into this, like, vehicle for our political class's own personal ambitions rather than, in their own, like, personal, like, journey of self-discovery, rather than what it's supposed

to be about, which is delivering for the American people. So, anyway, the way that the Democratic Party has responded to Roe on this is grotesque, and lucky enough,

we've got him booked for tomorrow. We'll have him in studio so we can ask him about it directly, assuming, you know, with Congressman, it's always a little dicey. So hopefully he'll be able to make it. But we should have him in here for you tomorrow. Yeah, I think it'll be fun.

OK. All right. So the Fox News Dominion trial was supposed to start today, but the judge in fault has now pushed it to tomorrow amid reports that apparently Fox behind the scenes is really pushing to try to settle this thing. Let's go and put the second element up here first, guys. This is the Wall Street Journal report. E2 put this up on the screen.

Fox News defamation trial delayed amid network's push to settle dispute. They go into some of the details here. They say they've made a late push to settle the dispute out of court. By the way, you know, Wall Street Journal aren't owned by Murdoch. So probably pretty reliable information that they're getting here from whoever their source is. People familiar with the situation said Sunday, as with any case, the parties also could choose to settle at any point during the trial. They have some of the analysis here. They say legal observers say the Dominion case could prove to be a notable counter example to prior attempts to go after news organizations for reporting things that turned out to be inaccurate. The company comes to trial writing momentum. They're talking about

Dominion. The presiding judge has already concluded that Fox News and Fox Business did, in fact, broadcast false claims about Dominion, voiced by both network hosts and Trump associates, including Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, who appeared as guests. So that was actually really noteworthy in a pretrial decision that Dominion doesn't even have to prove during the trial that the claims were false. That's being taken for granted. Fox no longer has that defense available to them. And there were a number of other decisions that went against Fox, including they were sanctioned for not accurately portraying Rupert Murdoch's role and title at Fox and also for not being forthcoming in Discovery and handing over to Dominion all of the relevant documents, text recordings, etc. So, you know, we'll see how this goes. It's very difficult

to prove this sort of defamation case against a news organization, as it certainly should be. You have to prove what's called actual malice, which is that you knew that what you were saying was wrong and you intentionally did it anyway. So the reason as a high bar is you basically have to get inside of these producers and hosts and the whole news organization's heads and reveal, you know, and persuade a jury that they really knew this was wrong and then they went ahead and did it anyway. So it is a very difficult bar to clear. But sounds like Fox is nervous enough, given the fact that they're trying to settle, or they just don't want the embarrassment of the public trial. But I think they've got to be nervous about the actual potential legal decision that would be made here. There's been movement on both sides,

because I'm not sure if you saw, but they amended their legal filing to say that they would not present jury with claims for alleged lost profits. And originally, they were just seeking lost profit damages of not less than $600 million. So they're having the price of what a potential settlement could be, and that could also be an easy way for Fox to come in and just say, all right, look, we're going to pay up. Let's just take care of this. We'll never know how much they paid, or at least officially. I'm assuming it will come out.

Another thing that is important for people to understand, as I have been learning a little bit about this, in some cases, I don't know in specific cases, when media organizations settle, insurance companies pay for it. Whenever you go to trial, then actually it comes out of your actual budget. So it is possible that they could have some defamation or legal liability insurance that would kick in here. And it may even be also that their insurance companies, you know, to the extent that they

might have a burden sharing agreement that they have signed here, is basically pressuring them, being like, we're going to drop you if you don't go ahead and settle this case because we don't want to expose our liability in the future. Just an important thing to note about how a lot of media liability insurance actually works. It's one of the reasons why in some cases where they do face jeopardy, they just go ahead and settle it because they don't actually have to pay for it. It comes out of your insurance policy. Well, this is also a public company. Who knows what shareholders are pressuring them to do as well? I mean, because this has already been hugely embarrassing for them. I think the most embarrassing revelation that has come out is how powerless they are, you know, how little influence they actually have with the Republican base at

this point and how threatened they really felt by these sort of like junkie upstarts, One America News Network and Newsmax. So to me, in terms of a business perspective, that's probably the most embarrassing thing. And you can't put that cap back in the bag. But needless to say, if you go forward with a trial and you have the specter of some of your top hosts who have huge brands and provide your company with huge value having to testify on the stand, first of all, that's a huge circus. And second of all, that's a huge risk you're taking in terms of the brand of your company. So we've been waiting for a while now for like, why aren't they just going to settle this thing? Because if it goes to court, even if they end up prevailing on the other side,

it could be incredibly damaging to their business and their brand. To show you how bad this has been leading up to the trial and how a number of important decisions have already gone against Fox News with regards to this trial, Howie Kurtz, who's their media reporter, he's got his own show, I believe it's on Sundays, he had previously been told he couldn't report on this at all, which he commented on publicly. He was unhappy that he'd been given this dictate, like you can't report on this publicly. Apparently, they've lifted that dictate because he did do his own breakdown of what he described as a very rough week for Fox

and also revealed he had plans to travel to Delaware to directly cover this trial himself. Take a listen to what he had to say. The trial in the high-profile Dominion voting systems lawsuit against Fox begins tomorrow in Delaware. And let's face it, much of the mainstream media is rather openly rooting for Fox to lose. I can assure you that I will provide fair and down-the-middle coverage of this $1.6 billion suit about coverage of false election fraud claims in 2020, despite the fact that

I work here. And with that, it's been a very rough week for Fox. million suit about coverage of false election fraud claims in 2020, despite the fact that I work here. And with that, it's been a very rough week for Fox. Judge Eric Davis imposed a sanction on the network, said he would likely start an investigation of whether its legal team withheld evidence, and would very likely name a special master to handle that probe. One part of the million's objection that Fox didn't disclose that Rupert Murdoch has two titles, chairman of Fox Corporation and executive chairman at Fox News.

That one basically an honorary title. Abby Goldberg, a now-fired Fox producer from Rhea Bartiromo, who has filed a separate lawsuit against Fox, said in the filing that she had audio recordings of Bartiromo pre-interviewing Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Dominion accused Fox of withholding that evidence, but a Fox spokesperson said the network didn't even know about these tapes until March 20th, then accessed Grossberg's phone and provided them within 15 days. That's not all. In other pretrial rulings, Judge Davis undercut part of Fox's defense. The judge said Fox News cannot argue that it carried false allegations of election fraud by Trump allies because they were newsworthy.

Judge Davis said just because someone is newsworthy doesn't mean you can defame someone. In a ruling favorable to Fox, the judge said Dominion cannot bring up January 6th except in the most narrow circumstances because the Capitol riot is not part of the trial. I don't know. I don't know, Crystal. I just think that broadly looking at all of the facts of the case, they should have settled this a long time ago, way before the reputational damage of the text messages and the audio of the phone calls that have come out. I do also think a lot of it probably comes down to Rupert Murdoch's ego, you know, talking about previously Feinstein with 90-year-olds, he's 92 years old. And in poor health. Yeah, in poor, like, not just poor health, like, we read

off that list, it's like, bad back, like, anyway, I was telling you recently, I was reading this biography of Sumner Redstone, who was the billionaire CEO of Paramount, of a CBS Viacom. Yeah. And when they get to that age, the level of impressionability that they have around them and the assets that they have, they are so easily manipulative. Like, to be, they're so easy to manipulate that you almost feel bad for that, even though in many cases, much like Murdoch himself, they surround themselves with all these fiancés who are much younger than them and have access to a lot of their cash.

But the point was, and one of the points of that book was, that how many of the people in the apparatchiks around Redstone would use his impressionability at a very old age to try and pressure him into bad business decisions. And frankly, I see something very similar here. You do see that. That Gabe Sherman piece that we looked at last week had some of those details where it really looked like,

you know, Rupert would say whatever he wanted Fox News to do and he'd get kind of like a pat on the head. Yeah, everyone's like, that's nice, Rupert. And then Suzanne Scott would, you know, do whatever she thought was going to drive ratings. And I mean, that's just really clearly what happened here based on their own words. They dabbled in, let's be honest about the election.

Their ratings tanked. They freaked down about Newsmax. And then, you know, they turn on a dime. They're like, yeah, we got to, I guess we got to go along with the insanity because we've got no other choice. And now they're facing not only this particular lawsuit, there's also a $2.7 billion defamation suit from Smartmatic. They had to settle a different defamation lawsuit that was probably some random Venezuelan businessman that got smeared as all a part of this that they had to settle for.

Settle out of court as well. Now, are any of these sums going to bring Fox News down? No. Do they want to pay, you know, a billion dollar settlement or whatever? Of course not. It definitely hurts. There's enough money that it definitely hurts. But is it going to bring them down?

No. I think the biggest risk here is the reputational damage, much of which they've frankly already sustained. Yeah, I completely agree. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Fortune is reporting on a stunning warning coming from the economist of a large and storied investment bank. According to Albert Edwards, global strategist for Societe Generale, corporate profiteering has become so outrageous that it could trigger the end of capitalism itself. That's what he said.

Specifically, Edwards writes about how companies have used the excuse of inflation to jack up prices an astonishing amount, such that this greedflation is itself causing far larger price spikes than any other factor. He writes in part that, quote, after working in finance for over 40 years, I felt there wasn't much that could surprise me. Yet I find the unprecedented levels of corporate greedflation in this economic cycle astonishing. The latest release of U.S. whole economy profits data delivered another shock to my weakening confidence that the capitalist system is working as it should. Companies have used first the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine

to profiteer. At a time when social cohesion is already fraying at the edges, I think the sight of companies generating super normal profit margins in a crisis can only inflame social unrest. This is a big issue for policymakers that simply cannot be ignored any longer. But what to do? He continues, the end of greedflation must surely come. Otherwise, we may be looking at the end of capitalism. This is a big issue. Now, Edwards' alarm was triggered by a new set of economic data showing that even now, as there are signs of the economy slowing and after the Fed is engaged in a historic program of rate hiking, companies continue to rake in record profits. This is not how things are supposed to work.

If inflation was truly being driven by underlying costs, then corporate bottom lines would be getting squeezed just as hard as everyone else. Instead, we see larger corporations getting fatter than ever before. Just take a look at this chart. That top line there is profit margins, which post-2008, especially since 2020, just climb up and up and up. Labor costs are there in black and other input costs are there in blue. Since 2020, both do climb somewhat, but it is nowhere close to what is going on with profit margins. Workers get the tiniest of raises, which given inflation amounts to literally less than nothing, and yet they get all the blame for prices rising. Meanwhile, corporations drunk on monopoly

consolidation, government capture, and a demobilized population with record low union rates, they think they can just do whatever they want and everyone is just going to take it. Here's a pretty clear example of what I'm talking about. You know how you are still getting screwed on everything from eggs to milk every time you go to the grocery store? Well, as analyst Andrea Stano-Larsen notes on Twitter, actual food prices are actually down 25% from the peak, and yet we see no reflection of it in consumer prices. It's about time, they say, that we demand price cuts from our retailers. And the sad thing is, corporations betting they can price gouge with impunity and no repercussions, they've been correct. After dabbling with a little bit of

accurate rhetoric reflecting the role corporate profiteering has played in rising prices, the Biden White House gave in to pressure and instead adopted the standard workers are to blame analysis that has been pushed by corporate friendly economists. In particular, according to reporting from Jeff Stein, it was Obama economist Jason Furman and final boss of neoliberalism Larry Summers who persuaded Biden and co. that the very serious and very smart people did not think it fair to blame price gouging for inflation. If corporations were hiking prices, well, that was the free market. If workers were demanding higher wages, then that must be stopped at all costs, including throwing millions of them out

of work and sending the whole economy into a potential recession. Meanwhile, such radical left-wing institutions as the Fed were putting out research showing that wage increases represent a tiny fraction of rising prices, a point raised recently by Jon Stewart in his now-famous debate with Larry Summers. Take a listen. Basically happened to us as we had massive stimulus and an economy that could only produce so much. We had huge levels of demand and those huge levels of demand kept pushing up prices and pushing up wages. But ultimately it was you put too much water in the bathtub, the bathtub overflows. You put too much demand into the economy and you get high and rising prices. But the San Francisco Fed says that is,

demand is maybe 30 to 35% of the inflation. Wages are really around 20% of the inflation. There's a huge corporate profit aspect to it. There's a huge supply chain aspect to it. But our method for controlling it seems really much more focused on wages and employment. There's certain sicknesses you can have where there's a drug and it has side effects

and everybody hates the side effects and no doctor wants their patient to suffer the side effects. But if you don't address the sickness, you're going to have a bigger problem down the road. But the stock market assets have gone up 150 percent. CEO pay has gone up 1500 percent. Workers' wages haven't gone up at all. I think you're misdiagnosing the sickness. And Jon Stewart is precisely right there. Now, the reason Albert Edwards is so alarmed by this whole situation and sounding such dire warnings as to say capitalism itself could be brought down by greedflation is because we haven't really seen anything exactly like this in history. 40 years of market fundamentalism have left corporations with such power,

governments so impotent, and workers so weak that the whole oligarchic mess is in danger of eating itself, engaging in such abuses that societies resort to radical tactics and ideologies in order to bring the global behemoths who have devoured our world to heel. That is why, ever so tepidly, you're hearing a few very sober-minded economists call for policy responses that have been considered off the table for quite some time. A working paper by a pair of economists at the University of Massachusetts gently suggested governments stockpile commodities, institute price gouging laws, windfall profit taxes, and possibly even price controls in order to block the ever-escalating series of price increases. This analysis is echoed by Albert Edwards in that note, who is well aware of the history and negative view of price controls, but nevertheless

believes they might be necessary because, quote, something seems to have broken with capitalism. Listen, I don't know that greenflation is going to end capitalism, but there is no doubt that the abuses of unchecked capitalism have already upended our politics and those of nations around the globe. Just witness the protest waves sweeping nations like France, the UK. Witness Gen Z rediscovering the power of solidarity and unions organizing on TikTok. But as supposedly radical policies like price controls are raised, remember, the truly radical path is the one that we've been on, a nation, a culture, a world that is run exclusively for the benefit of corporations. And, you know, it's pretty astounding.

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, like everyone else, it's always enjoyable to watch somebody dumb get their comeuppance on social media. From F around and find out fight videos to those confronted with wrongdoing. I spotted though a viral clip this weekend making the rounds from Dave Ramsey's show that many were viscerally reacting to of a couple that has racked up a million dollars in debt. Many are shocked and making fun of the couple while they're in the wrong.

Their predicament actually though is much more common than people think and that's actually what makes it all the more horrifying. Let's take a listen to that. So you have $600,000 in what? $335,000 is about in student loans. We both have advanced degrees. And then a lot, the rest is really credit cards and personal loans. So you have $300,000 of credit cards and personal loans? We have about $335,000 in student loans and about $136,000 in credit cards, $44,000 in personal loans, and $35,000 in car loans. Okay, so to recap, they have $210,000 in mortgage debt, $335,000

in student loans, $136,000 in credit card debt, $44,000 in personal loans, and $35,000 in car loans. I get hives just thinking about that. Now, obviously, this woman and her husband are irresponsible. It is definitely their fault for getting into this situation. But when you keep listening and you look at where the bulk of the debt here comes from and how they do it, what they do, it becomes even crazier. Okay. How old are you? I am 29. Okay. So what in the world? So, yeah.

Are you both on this, or is this just one of you that's completely lost your mind? Well, I have the majority of the student loans, and he has the majority of the credit cards. My credit card debt is about, it's not great. Okay. So why does he, at 29 years old, run up $100,000 in credit card debt? Well, he's 32, but I think it's one of those things where just making really poor financial decisions, thinking, be able to pay it down as you go, and it doesn't happen. Okay, so you both have advanced degrees. What are your degrees in?

We do. So I have a degree in both of our advanced degrees. No, he has an MBA, and I have an advanced degree in policy. I work in the government, and we actually both do now at this point. Okay, so your household income is what? Our household income is about $230,000. Okay. All right.

Okay, recapping again. We have two Washington, D.C.-based advanced degree holders who work for the federal government. One with a policy degree presumably from a prestigious school. Another with an MBA. Together they have racked up a million dollars in debt and are now crawling to Dave Ramsey for help. You can laugh, but it's actually sad because while, yes, this is an extreme situation, some version of it is playing out across the entire country

with people who are falling for, quote, what you should do. Note that the bulk of the debt comes from one source, advanced degree student debt, a point I've been trying to make here for years. The vast majority of student debt held today is amongst advanced degree holders from universities charging exorbitant prices and who know it will not work out financially for their graduates. The average amount of student debt that a master's degree holder in the United States holds is $80,000. For PhD holders and advanced degrees, it's $132,000. The average, and again, the average student debt is 145% higher.

So while we can laugh at these people, consider that if you just double the average for PhD holders, then their amount of debt is roughly right on the money. Now, how did it end up for them? Their combined household income is $230,000. That's nice on paper, puts them solidly in the top 15% of American household income. Again, that sounds good, but is it? Here too is important to consider averages. The average salary in the U.S. for a professional degree holder like this couple is about $100,000. Ergo, if you double

their salaries and you look at their household earnings, it's exactly average. That's the point that I want to underscore here. On a glance, these people are nuts for racking up this amount of debt on their income. But when you begin to break it down, you see how average that they actually are. And you see how our entire economy and society is floated on a fake dream. Their mortgage balance of $210,000 is below average. The average mortgage balance in the US is $236,000, actually rising as interest rates go up, and people are defaulting on payments. Even on car loans, these folks are well within average.

Americans borrow an average of $42,000 today for a new vehicle, $28,000 for used vehicles. Since they live in D.C. and the loan balance is relatively low, maybe we can assume one car. Again, solidly in the average category. Again, the one place, though, where this couple is truly extraordinary is their personal loans and credit card debt. Average household American in credit card dollars and personal loans is some $9,000, only about $6,000 in credit card debt. Again, I am saying only,

but those are bad, and you should really zero that out as soon as possible if you are able to. But of course, not everyone can. In this case, they are well above average with credit card debt north of $130K and personal loans above $40K. But let this sink in. Of the $1 million in debt that this couple has, only about 20% of it is above average for someone in their position. That's a lot less than most people think coming into the video. And that's what's more shocking to me. If these people were merely averaging their category and income type, their loan balance could still be around $800,000. That's a pretty insane system that we have apparently forced an entire generation of

aspiring career holders to be in. This is basically debt slavery. There is no way in the world you will ever work your way out of variable interest on $330,000 in student debt. That's a lifetime noose. That is why way before student debt forgiveness, you have got to penalize and tax these corrupt universities that put people in this position, and it is why we need to understand being average today is actually a bad deal for many Americans, even those seemingly at the top. Consider this chart put together by CNBC. The cost of just living has now gone dramatically up just to sit inside of your house. Appliances, electricity, tools, hardware, cable TV, total prices are up by at least 13%. If you want to take a vacation or do anything leisurely, you are going to get charged massive astronomical prices for it. The price of existing today means

thousands of dollars in debt and the inability to make even your most basic ends meet while remaining relatively financially whole. So when you watch that video, don't just think about how dumb the couple is. Think about how dumb the country is for creating so many people who are just like them. I mean, that's kind of one of the takes I want. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. rokhana in the show tomorrow hopefully um that all works out let's look at to talk to him about diane feinstein don't forget about premium the video on spotify and sign up to be able to support our work here at breakingpoints.com but otherwise i think that's it for everybody today we'll have a great full schedule for everybody this week no new special announcements we'll see you tomorrow Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,

I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family.

They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around.

And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.