Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/24/23: 70% Say No As Biden Announces 2024, Republicans Back Trump Post Indictment, SCOTUS Keeps Abortion Pill, Chaos As Elon Strips Blue Checks, Buzzfeed News Collapses, Biden Censor Marianne Tik Tok, Biden Taxes High Credit Scores

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss 70% of Americans say No to Biden as he's set to announce his 2024 campaign, polls saying Americans don't want Trump or Biden, Republicans overwhelmingly back Trump post-indictment, Desantis losing it over Trump criticism, SCOTUS decides to keep Abortion Pill for now, Trump scrambles to defend his Abortion record, chaos ensues as Elon strips accounts of their Blue Checkmarks, BuzzFeed News collapses amid layoffs, Krystal looks into the Biden admin censoring Marianne Williamson on Tik Tok, and Saagar looks into Biden taxing High Credit score Homebuyers to prop up minority mortgages.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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Lots of news breaking, especially in the political world, where it looks like current President Biden is announcing his reelect tomorrow with a little launch video. So we'll tell you everything we know about that, including there's some pretty revealing new polls, not just about him, but also about the Republican primary and potential head-to-head matchups. So we'll get into all of that. We also finally did get a decision from the Supreme Court with regards to what's going to happen in the interim

with that abortion pill, which was a Texas judge said, OK, no abortion pill. We're going to rescind that across the country. There was another judge that said, no, we have to keep the status quo in place. Supreme Court is saying for now, while appeals work their way through the system, the current status quo is going to remain in place. Supreme Court is saying for now, while appeals work their way through the system, the current status quo is going to remain in place. So we'll break all of that down for you, as well as the politics around abortion. We have some new numbers there as well. Elon doing a million different Elon things for the past few days. We've been stripped of our blue checks, Crystal. It's a sad day here. Very sad. It's the end of an era, truly. We're devastated here. And another end of an era, BuzzFeed News, now out of business.

It's kind of crazy. I mean, this was really a news organization that sort of defined the 2010s. They were really riding high. They raised like $700 million. I have a lot to say. Yeah, there is a lot to dig into there about the past of news media, the present, the future. So we'll get into all of that as well. Before we do any of that, though, we have a big thank you to everybody who showed up to help us, help support us and to build on a new set that we are very excited about. You guys are seriously amazing. Thank you, everybody who signed up for yearly and for lifetime members. We've officially paid for

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You can sign up or donate, whatever you guys want, for anything, even at any tier, breakingpoints.com. It really does help out the show at this time. And we're very excited to show it to you, to show you all the new merchandise. We've been working so, so hard behind the scenes and to see so many of you heeding the call, it's really validating it and it just means a lot to both of us. Yeah, it's really sort of breaking points 2.0.

Yeah, that's kinda how we're thinking about it. In terms of the look for sure. And the goal is twofold, number one, to continue to bring you guys the best possible quality content that we can and also to try to expand the universe of viewers that might find the show appealing. And one thing that has been true from the beginning,

from back when we were at Rising, is the production value has always been a core part of what brought in a broader audience. So thank you guys so much for helping us out there. And if you are able to and you haven't yet, breakingpoints.com, we greatly, greatly appreciate it. All right, so the big political news this week is we had a couple

scoops from various news outlets at the end of last week. Put this up on the screen. Looks like President Biden is going to be announcing his reelection campaign next week. Go ahead. A1, put this up on the screen, guys. They've targeted Tuesday to release an announcement video to coincide with the four yearyear anniversary of his 2020 campaign launch. Now, there had been a lot of speculation about when exactly he was going to pull the trigger here. Not a lot of doubt that he ultimately would, although given his age and the concerns that a lot of even Democrats, both elite and certainly in the base, have over his ability to effectively

run a campaign, effectively hold the office of the presidency for another another four years, given that he is already the oldest president in history. There was always a little bit of a question mark. So all of those questions being put to bed. Now, there are every reporter who is putting this information out there is saying, listen, this is a man who can change his mind right up until the last minute. So you don't really know until it actually happens, but it looks like this is coming tomorrow. So the details that we've got here and mostly the Washington Post had some of the specifics about what this is going to look like. They're calling it a soft launch. There's not a

big speech planned. It's just a launch video. He recorded it mostly after he got back from his trip to Ireland. They also are planning some sort of like a donor meeting. They said on the heels of the planned reelection announcement, Biden will meet with top Democratic donors in Washington because that, of course, has got to be the priority at the end of next week. Biden's team has invited roughly 50 to 100 of the party's top fundraisers and bundlers to a Friday night event with the president with the goal of energizing contributors and rallying support. Here's more on that because the, you know, Biden is very indecisive.

And so it seems like he decided to pull the trigger kind of in the last few days. There was a lot of debate whether it's better to go ahead and get in and really start the fundraising circuit. Biden doesn't have a big grassroots base, so he's got to do this traditional go and like have the chicken dinner and give the speech and fly around the country, et cetera, or whether he should wait. And, you know, the case to wait was basically like campaigns are really rigorous and they're very difficult. And this is an old man who doesn't do all that well when his schedule is super packed and when he has to be in front of people in front of cameras. So looks like they're going forward with tomorrow. They say that top fundraising

officials of the DNC scrambled to make dozens of phone calls, frequently ending up in voicemails, inviting top donors for a hastily arranged summit with the president to plan events. Other staffers were dispatched to build a campaign website that could receive the first donations of what some in the party believe could amount to a $2 billion effort, counting the spending of outside groups. So that is what we know. Yeah, I just think it's lame, but it is also vintage Biden. I mean, Trump did a big speech, and I don't really understand why when you're the president, you're the sitting president of the United States, you don't use the one thing that you can always have at your beck and call, the mainstream media. I mean, he can call a conference. They have to cover him day in and

day out. And instead, you're behind the scenes, Crystal. You're releasing a video, very low energy. Also, then you're immediately going to a behind the closed door donor conference. I mean, this is not the way that these things are traditionally done. Whenever Bill Clinton announced his reelection campaign, it was a big to-do. I'm thinking of Trump also. I mean, he immediately ran for president. Barack Obama, it was a big, massive event whenever he announced his reelection campaign. I mean, it's one of the benefits of being the president of the United States is that you are the center of all of attention. On the other hand, maybe Biden doesn't want people paying attention to him. And given what

we're about to talk about polling-wise and all that, probably smart. It's not like people want him to actually run. And the more people see him, they're like, I'm not so sure about that. That's what I was going to say is, listen, last campaign, he was rescued by COVID, both because Trump did such a terrible job handling it. And people were like, OK, we got to get this guy out of here. This is a disaster. But also and maybe primarily because Biden really have to campaign. And, you know, what we have seen since he's been in office is he's basically continued that sort of basement strategy when he is in front of cameras, when he is taking questions. It doesn't go well. So, yeah, I think they are making the smartest decision they possibly could, given the feeble candidate, frankly, that they have.

I mean, listen, I've been thinking a lot about some some Dianne Feinstein comparisons here. And I'm not arguing that Biden is as far gone as she is, where she doesn't even remember people who have been in her life for her entire career, et cetera. But part of how she was able to get reelected is she didn't do debates. She didn't do town halls. And so she was able to sort of short circuit the workings of democracy by her and her staff hiding the fact that she was so, at this point, incapacitated.

There is a similar energy here of they don't want him to have to do debates. They're not gonna host primary debates in the Democratic Party, which all their talk of democracy him to have to do debates. They're not going to host primary debates in the Democratic Party, which, you know, all their talk of democracy seems to fly out the window. They have put him in front of the cameras fewer times than any president in modern history, fewer interviews, fewer press conferences, just much less availability to the press. Again, in spite of all the rhetoric about, oh, my gosh, the media, democracy dies in darkness. Suddenly, you know, we have a president who still isn't in front of the cameras and has no interest really in subjecting himself to tough interviews. And I'll

get to that specific details in a moment. But that's clearly going to be the strategy here. They're clearly just betting on not what Biden has done or that Biden is a great candidate or that Biden has a great vision, but they're just betting on Trump is worse or whoever comes out of the Republican primary is worse. That's a bet that might pay off. But let me show you where Biden sits today in terms of his poll numbers. This is from a new NBC News poll that was a fairly deep dive on both sides of the political aisle. Biden's approval today sits at 41 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove. That's not very good. Should Biden run for president in 2024, they asked.

70 percent of people said no. Only 26 percent, only a quarter of the country said yes. So not great there. And if you dig into those numbers of the 70 percent who say please don't run again. 69% say that age is one reason for them wishing that he wouldn't run again. And a majority say that is the number one reason why they feel he should not run again. Now, on the flip side, here's the record of some of the achievements Biden, you know, can legitimately run on here. Pass the American Rescue Plan. In my opinion, that's one of the best pieces of legislation that has passed through the Congress and been signed into

law in my lifetime. It genuinely provided very effective short-term support for the American people. Of course, those provisions have almost all lapsed at this point. He withdrew from Afghanistan. Passed the CHIPS Act to invest in semiconductor production. Bring that back here. We have the Inflation Reduction Act, which has a lot of clean energy tax credits and an effort to transition towards a green energy future. We have a student loan debt cancellation. We have a new Supreme Court Justice,

Katonji Brown-Jackson. And we have the bipartisan infrastructure bill. I don't know why we made the choice to capitalize some of those and not the others. Shout out to the graphics team. They've got Trump-style capitalization. Katonji Brown-Jackson. Katonji Brown-Jackson. This is not an endorsement, but we're just laying it out. We're like, that's probably what he's going to run on. I mean, look, at the end of the day, I don't even

think he's really running on policy. He's more running on, I'm not Trump. And yeah, you may not like me. I may be too old. I can barely finish a sentence, but I'm not the other guy. It worked out for him once, why wouldn't you run the exact same playbook a second time? I guess, I don't know, I just find it so pathetic, Crystal, that you're gonna announce your candidacy as for reelection for incumbent president of the United States with the greatest megaphone

in the history of the world, the bully pulpit, and you're gonna do it as a Twitter video. I mean, that just, that seems nuts to me. But I also think this very unique set of circumstances is probably the best one given how people don't want to see this man go through it. You know, it's like, it really is almost, I wouldn't call it revulsion, but people feel really uncomfortable every time they seem to be. I feel the same way. It's hard to watch. It is hard to watch. Yeah. Even if you like Biden, I think it's hard to watch. And I do think, you know, within certainly the Democratic Party, I think also among a lot of swing voters, many of whom did decide to vote for Biden. They appreciate that he was able to defeat Trump, those who did not like Donald Trump and wanted to move

on. And they are wishing that we could turn the page and have, you know, someone who has more of a vision, more of an ability to articulate that vision, more of a sort of projection of confidence and competence in terms of just navigating the office. And of course, four years down the road, Joe Biden is not getting any younger. Neither is Donald Trump, by the way. But Biden, you know, I don't think there's any doubt about it. I mean, number one, Trump is a little bit younger than him. But also there just isn't that same visible degradation

in his mental abilities that we have seen over the past, let's say, decade with Joe Biden. So let me get to some of those numbers I was alluding to earlier about Biden's basement strategy. Put this up on the screen. So this is since he has held office. In the 100 years since Calvin Coolidge took office, only Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan held as few news conferences each year

as the current occupant of the Oval Office. They give some examples here. He abandoned, while he was in Ireland, the decades-old tradition of holding a news conference while abroad. On Thursday, he was meeting with the president of Colombia. The two did not hold a news conference together, another practice of his predecessors. After the meeting, the Colombian president took questions from reporters alone, and Biden retired, I guess, to his office. Despite his press secretary pledging Mr. Biden would bring transparency and truth back to the government, in his first two years, the president granted the fewest interviews since Mr. Reagan's presidency, only 54. By contrast, Trump gave 202 during the first two years of his presidency. Barack Obama gave 275.

There's also a noteworthy selection of interviewers. So rather than sitting for more adversarial or even with the mainstream newspapers, he hasn't sat with The Washington Post or The New York Times, which is also, you know, very unusual. They pick more friendly Drew Barrymore to ask him about like the poems he writes for his wife and things like that, that are just total softball questions. So, you know, this has been ever since his campaign, clearly the strategy is to keep him away from the cameras, try to as carefully control the environments that he's in as they possibly can and hope that in terms of this campaign, the opposition is distasteful enough that they're able to get through. You know, it goes right back to what Ron Klain tweeted about when Emmanuel Macron was able to win in France in spite of a 30 something percent approval rating. Well, it was even though people

didn't like him, they felt he was better than his opponent. And that's what they're banking on here very clearly. Yeah, no, I think you're right, Crystal. And I think A5, let's go and put that please up on the screen, guys, just shows you very much how he's underwater on some of the most important issues that are before people. We pull this from a poll that we've shown you guys previously. Immigration at 35%. The economy, 37%. Gun policy, 37%. National security, 44%. China relations, 40%.

And even environmental policy, 46%. And if you consider like what's very animating to the Democratic base, that's gonna be healthcare, the economy and environmental policy. He's underwater on those issues. And amongst Republicans, obviously he's gonna be underwater there. But amongst Republicans, obviously, he's going to be underwater there.

But I think most importantly, just in general, he is not above on almost anything. At the same time, though, we have to compare those to Trump's numbers. And it's just one of those crazy, lesser of two evils elections. Where we are. The second time in a row.

And it's genuinely, it's just pathetic. I just can't believe, you know, we're looking at that. I'm watching the Oval Office basically be used as like some nursing home here. And apparently people are cool with that because the alternative to many people is also just as bad, if not worse. And, yeah, I don't know. I don't really know how we got here. But, you know, looking at all this, there's nothing positive that is happening in this campaign. And I think that that is, that's really sad to just to see and to be able to cover this for a second time in a row. Yeah. I mean, listen, nothing is a done

deal yet, either on the Republican side or on the Democratic side. Our national history, our political history is nothing but a lot of surprises, a lot of twists and turns, plot twists. So you never know how this is going to turn out. But yeah, right now you're facing an election between two people that the overwhelming majority of the country wish. Not only do they not want them to be the nominee, they don't want them to run at all. And yet these are very likely to be the two choices. So let's get to what that head to head matchup might look like. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is a six. If you put Biden up against generic Republicans, so you're not, you just ask,

okay, whoever the eventual Republican nominee is, but you're not asking specifically Trump or specifically DeSantis, the Republican nominee has a pretty significant edge here. You've got Biden at 41 and you've got 47 percent for that generic Republican. Now, most of the head to heads that I've seen, both between Biden and DeSantis and Biden and Trump, have been quite close. Some of them have gone, you know, I think DeSantis more consistently has a bit of a lead over Biden with Trump. Biden tends to have a bit of a lead over Trump. But this is very much a jump ball. And what it may come down to is just like last time around, the people who don't like either candidate, they don't like Biden and they don't like Trump.

Who do they decide to hold their nose and vote for? Last time, that group, which was a sizable group and is going to be probably an even larger group this time around. Last time, the majority of them went with Biden. So will that be the dynamic that ultimately wins him the reelection? Just to underscore this, put this next piece up on the screen, a seven. 60 percent of respondents here say they do not want they do not think Donald Trump should run for president. And 70 percent do not think Joe Biden should run for president. So comparatively, I guess Trump is doing a little bit better on this metric, but not an impressive showing for either one of these candidates. Majority of the public really wishes we could move on for these from these two dudes.

But apparently that's not the direction we're headed in. And finally, as I just said, in terms of the head-to-head matchups, put this up on the screen, Ron DeSantis, in the average of polls here from RealClearPolitics, has about a two-point lead over Joe Biden. I looked at the Trump versus Biden head-to-head overall, and it was actually less different than I expected. Trump was leading Biden in this average of polls by 1.3. So 1.9% for DeSantis, 1.3% for Trump. In any case, even though there is much, you know, much hatred towards Trump, much dissatisfaction towards Biden, this is likely to be a very close race. Yeah. I mean, I think it's really important that we put all that together. I mean, I just think

in general, though, the weaknesses still remain. And I don't think a lot of people are really grappling with that. Let's put this up there on the screen. Right now, in terms of the positive and the negative, Biden is at 38 percent to 48 percent positive negative, which is, of course, better than Trump's of 34 to 53. But in a general election matchup, Biden is at 41 percent and a quote unquote Republican nominee is at 47 percent. So the so-called generic Republican, he is losing there pretty significantly. Now, there is no such thing as a generic Republican in the age of Donald Trump. So all of the negativity and the positivity, both base wise and then general election wise, is going to stick there with Trump. But it does still show you an opening is there and also that he's precarious. I mean, look, who the hell knows what is going to stick there with Trump. But it does still show you an opening is there. And also that he's precarious.

I mean, look, who the hell knows what's going to happen? Like, we're only a year, we're not even a year out from this thing. We've got 18 months to go. There could be a full-blown recession. We have no, I mean, we're already in kind of a recession, but we could have a full-blown catastrophe. I mean, let things go south in Ukraine. Same thing.

Everybody just wakes up and starts paying attention. Gas goes up to five. I could say the other case. Unemployment is beginning to drop. Real wages are going. Biden could clean this thing up even though, you know, he's basically a walking corpse. So I don't know. It's one of those uncertainties.

Trump cases against him, the indictments really weigh him down with the general public. There's a million things that could happen between now and then. But the way the race starts right now, it's basically a jump ball, whether it's Trump or DeSantis as the nominee. It's basically a jump ball. The other thing we're going to get into more of the Republican stuff in just a minute. But, you know, DeSantis is very untested with Trump. We know what it's going to look like. Right. He's going to inspire a lot of hatred. He's going to inspire a lot of loyalty. He's going to drive up turnout massively. And it's going to be a game of who is more enthusiastic, the people who love Trump and come out to vote for him, the people who despise Trump and come out to vote against him. It is not

going to be, you know, love and enthusiasm for Joe Biden because that just hasn't been what he's ever brought really to the table. But, you know, there's this assumption, I think, that Ron DeSantis would be a stronger general election candidate for the Republicans. Right now, the polls, that is what they reflect. But that's before DeSantis has been under consistent national scrutiny. And I am skeptical that he is actually the more elected. I don't know. Let me just say that. It's one of the look, I don't know. I do think, look, we have to be honest, which is Trump turned off, you know, remember that district in Nebraska? It was like Nebraska two where they have their own electoral vote, where it was like Biden plus whatever, 10, but generic Republican actually, or the Republican congressman actually won.

There is a lot of people, there are a lot of people in this country, specifically like upper middle class or middle class suburbanites who really, really hate Trump. And a lot of people in this country, specifically like upper middle class or middle class suburbanites who really, really hate Trump. And a lot of them are women. And I think that some of those people, I'm not going to say they're going to hate Ron DeSantis, but they're probably more likely to support him. So from that perspective, like he doesn't turn people off as much. Now the question, though, is are you going to drive turnout up the way that Trump did? That, I don't know. I mean, do you see the Hispanic revolution nationwide?

You know, DeSantis has significantly gotten a bunch of Latinos to vote for him in Florida, but people in Florida, we talk about here all the time, Cubans, and even people largely from South America, not Mexicans. I mean, we're talking about actual people who are largely of Mexican descent

in South Texas. Are they going to go vote for DeSantis? A lot of them voted for Trump. Trump brought people out to the polls who hadn't been to the polls in 25 years. I mean, does the same thing exist for DeSantis? I'm not so sure. I think it's a trade-off on both ends. Well, even on the suburban women front, however, I would have been inclined to agree with you there.

Well, now we're in abortion. But now abortion. I mean, that's the number one issue, and we have some numbers to reflect that, that is driving a lot of voters, particularly suburban women. And DeSantis is now saddled with a very extreme position. Yes. On that issue. It's true. So that alone could be highly motivated and motivating and basically negate any potential advantage that he had with that particular population. Listen, obviously, I don't know either. It's all a guessing game at this point. But I just want to caution that to me, it's not so clear cut that DeSantis would genuinely be

the more electable candidate. So let's go ahead and get into some of the Republican side of this. Yeah, I think that's important. Let's go to the next part here, please. And I think it's very important just to look at the way things are going right now for Trump within the Republican base outside of the general election. Let's put this up there on the screen from the same polls that we were discussing here. Quote, nearly 70% of all GOP voters stand behind Trump amid the indictment and the investigations. Even more significantly, though, that I found within this poll was not only do they stand behind Trump, but they also dismiss concerns about electability

despite the recent criminal arrest and the legal investigation. That's why I thought that the statistic was so important. Obviously, Trump is a very popular Republican, but people can say that you're popular and that they think that something is going to hurt you. No, no, no, no. The vast majority of Republicans here are saying this is not going to hurt him in the general election. Now, you know, there's some pretty decent evidence to say that that's not true. But the point was,

is that if DeSantis is going to make a case around electability, people need to believe that this was going to affect his electability. Not whether it's objective or not, whether you believe it or not. And look, right now, they do not believe it. And also, in terms of the lead that he has, it is immense, you know, in the same poll. Let's go and put the next one up there on the screen, please. Trump currently at 46 percent. DeSantis, 31 percent. Mike Pence, 6 percent. Nikki Haley, 3. Tim Scott, 3. Aja Hudson, 3. Vivek Ramaswamy not even rating there on the poll. So again, what are we learning here? This is a two-man race at the end of the day.

The problem for DeSantis is this. Even if you take all the others that people genuinely support and you add it up, it still doesn't equal 46%. So Trump has got to lock. And the DeSantis coalition to get to 51%, 50 plus one, you need the Mike Pence voter, the Nikki Haley voter, to agree with a formerly pro-Trump voter. How do you square that?

There's just not a lot of evidence that you can. Looking at this, I just think it's so obvious. Look, the Republican Party, basically as we know it today, is a relative cult of personality. People can get upset by saying that, but I just think it's empirically true by looking at the way that people are voting in terms of stop this deal in the GOP primary and in their continued support for Trump. How do you run against a cult of personality? Now, for the rest of the country, it may be true that you don't necessarily like that. You see a lot of inconsistencies. You find it abhorrent or it just doesn't really like do it for you.

But for a lot of people, it really does do it for them. And to watch this, you know, kind of play out, I just think a lot of people are not grappling with reality here. I mean, it's very clear DeSantis has a massive structural disadvantage, which will require a level of political jujitsu that I just don't see him having any real track record of. Yeah, I agree. And I think on the electability point, because this is really important, there were always two questions here. Number one, does the Republican base really care about electability? There's not a lot of evidence for that. There's not a lot of evidence for that.

Okay, that's number one. Number two, it's very hard to make an electability case against someone who was already elected president. Yes. Remember, these Republican voters went through 2016 when the entire media class said, there is no way this man can win the White House. Not a chance. Hillary is a lock. The Clinton campaign was popping champagne that morning

thinking this was in the bag. That experience is still very fresh and very visceral. So you saying, no, no, no, this guy, he actually can't be elected. It doesn't surprise me that they're like, we don't believe you because he already got elected president. So definitionally, he clearly was at least electable. And also a majority of them don't believe that he lost the 2020 election as well. You know, you still have a majority of the Republican base that he thinks he actually won in 2020. So if you are betting the farm on an electability case and you're Ron DeSantis, I think it fails on multiple levels here. And then at least to this point, and you know, I want to

say, look, he's not in the race. So he's a little bit handicapped in terms of making a direct case against Trump. And we've also seen that even when he throws a little bit of like a jab at Trump, there's overwhelming backlash to it, which makes it very hard to make a case against him as well. I just haven't seen him be able to put together an argument that is likely to land with the majority of the Republican base. It could change. Listen, there's no doubt about it. Things happen. It can be crazy. But to be honest with you, there's more support for Donald Trump and more commitment and more enthusiasm for Donald Trump among the Republican base than there is for Joe Biden

with the Democratic base. Yeah. And let me also explain this for some of these Republicans. You know, I'll try to understand the mindset. The mindset is this. We did what we were told. We nominated John McCain. You told us to do, we didn't ever like the guy actually all that much. He didn't agree with us. He wasn't a fighter. You know, he stood up for Obama, all this stuff. We swallowed our pride and we went with it. Then we really hated Obama. But yeah, you guys told us, you said, we got to cut taxes. We got to nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Again, we didn't agree with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. We didn't like Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. We liked a whole lot of other people, people like Michelle Bachman and others. But we said, OK, OK, we'll listen to you. And then those people all lost. They got

creamed in the general election. And then we went with our heart. We went with Trump. And you guys told us it wasn't going to work out. And you told us over and over again, but we backed him because we love the guy. And then he won. So why should we listen to you? I mean, when I put it that way, it's actually kind of easy to empathize, right? Absolutely. If you're a person who really believes in Trump and you're somebody who's been wanting to go with your gut for a long time, but haven't been able to, felt restrained by kind of the Republican elites in Washington, people like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and all these figures. And then the one time that you do go with your heart, you actually win. There's pretty good evidence, right?

Right there. But then, you know, the 2020 election happened. So it's one of those where it's more money than I am painting, but I'm trying to show you what their internal mindset is on this. And to the extent that the Republican primary contest will be fought on an issues-based landscape, which I think is probably minimal at best. Trump is in a better position on all the issues. I mean, he's in a better position with regard to Social Security and Medicare. He's in a better position with regard to

the Ukraine war and how the GOP base feels about that at this point. He's in a better position with regard to abortion, even with respect to the Republican base. It is still a minority contingent that wants the sort of, you know, really extreme restrictions like DeSantis assigned into law or like a national ban, like Mike Pence wants to push through. So he has positioned himself in a much more intelligent place with regard to the issue set as well. So again, I I think it is I think the media has painted this portrait that Trump is really vulnerable and that he's on the rocks and his power is diminished and anyone could come in with a strong challenge. And now's the time that they could take him out. I just don't see it. Again, I think he is actually in a better position with the Republican base than Joe Biden is with

the Democratic base based on the numbers that we see. And also, listen, based on the fact you've got 70 percent of the public that doesn't want Biden to run again, only 60 percent that doesn't want Trump again. So that's the landscape as it exists right now. Yeah. Look, we'll see what happens. I certainly a lot of things could. But at the same time, somebody is being a little bit rankled by a lot of what we discussed. Mr. DeSantis is in Tokyo for some reason. I don't know exactly why. And was asked about his declining poll numbers. Had a bizarre response. Here's what he had to say. Governor, I'll show you falling behind Trump. Any thoughts on that? I'm not a candidate, so we'll see if and when that changes.

Oof, I don't know what's going on there, Crystal. Okay, so here's my thing. A, obviously annoyed. B, irritated. He also, I think it's kind of getting to him a little bit with the media attention. Look, I could be reading into it. That said, he's usually a little bit more calm, poised, and collected, but you're also coming off probably your worst month yet on a national level from the abortion legislation, which any objective person could admit that that was a disaster. I actually was reading this morning an interview with Congressman Lance Gooden. This guy is full-blown pro-Trump. He's one of those people who endorsed Trump

immediately after a meeting with DeSantis. He did an interview with The New Yorker. And actually, he literally said this. He goes, look, I'm from a conservative district. I support a national ban on abortion. But DeSantis just signed this legislation. And strictly politically, that's not popular. So to watch, to look at that, you can go read it for yourself if you're interested. Wow, that's an incredible thing to do. It's an insane quote. Wow. And really, Crystal, also got to kind of bad-mouthing DeSantis for his lack of personal politics

that Trump simply appears to be at least much more of a master of than DeSantis. And it actually highlights a big problem that DeSantis faces. Put this up there on the screen. I actually thought this was handled quite well. Maggie Haberman from the New York Times. She writes, DeSantis faces Republican scrutiny on issues while Trump skates by. Republican voters seem to be grading Trump on a curve in his third presidential campaign, while Governor Ron DeSantis faces a more traditional form of scrutiny. And it's true. Let's think about it. You know, Trump changes his mind literally every day on Ukraine. One day we're supposed to bomb them and spark a war between Russia and China.

The other day he's like the greatest dove that the world has ever seen. DeSantis issues like a heavily calculated answer to Tucker Carlson, then faces pushback, and then comes out and then changes his tune a little bit. That's actually something Trump does all the time. But DeSantis gets hammered for it by his political allies in the media and in general also by the conservative press. On abortion, right? Same thing. Trump literally wants us to believe he's more pro-choice than Ron DeSantis. Like, dude, you appointed all three of the judges, or sorry, pro-life. You appointed all three of the justices who overturned Rovers. Yeah, that's true.

Like, who are we kidding here? You can't have it both ways. But somehow he manages to have it both ways. Now, we do not cut him any slack here on the show, but in the mind of voters, I think it's just simply impossible because Trump is a cultural figure. DeSantis is a politician. Yeah. They're simply different. I really don't know what to tell you. And also at the beginning, Trump has already sort of been through the phase of getting covered like a, sort of like a normal politician would, where you would, you know, really take his statements and they would generate their own news cycles, et cetera.

And now there's just a lot of fatigue around that. And so people just sort of are like, yeah, whatever, that's Trump. And even on the attacks against DeSantis, you know, this is a phenomenon that we have pointed out here. DeSantis does the little mildest, like, you know, I don't really know anything about hush money to porn stars.

It every freaks out. Trump is out here calling DeSantis a groomer. I mean, now he's saying Florida is like some hellhole. It's just, he goes all in every single day and everybody just kind of like laughs and chuckles about it. It moves on. Yeah, including me. I can't help but laugh

to be honest. Yeah, and part of it is he's a cultural figure versus a political figure. Part of it is he just has the skill to pull it off, you know? And DeSantis feels like a normal, like carefully calibrating, judging his words, calculating politician. That's what he feels like. And so that is the way that he is ultimately graded. And it makes it so it is impossible to go against someone who is being judged on a totally different grading scale.

It's, you know, it's not going to be an easy thing to pull off. Yeah, certainly. I think it's going to be very, very difficult there politically. And just to reference like what you're saying, let's put this up on the screen. This is the latest Trump campaign release about DeSantis. It's unbelievable. I can't help laughing. The real DeSantis. It's unbelievable. I can't help laughing. The real DeSantis record is one of misery and despair.

He has left a wake of destruction all across Florida. People are hurting because he has spent more time playing public relations game instead of actually doing the hard work needed to improve the lives of the people that he represents. And, you know, he actually even issued one last night, which is so funny. He's going against the Club for Growth.

He says, The globalist China-hawking, rhino-infiltrating Club for Growth, which now wants to give backing to Ron DeSantis, they realize there is no personality or people skills there are beside themselves. They don't know what to do. Florida has the sun and the ocean was great long

before I put Ron there. The semi-elite no-growthers are considering sending Ron to the great Walter Reed Medical Center for an emergency personality transplant. His poll numbers are collapsing. I mean, I don't really know how you deal with that, you know, and DeSantis clearly is getting rattled. It reminds me of the way that. And DeSantis clearly is getting rattled. It reminds me of the way that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were in the primary. They just didn't know what to do with this guy because they were used to like a cookie cutter operating. And I think people who like Ron DeSantis always take this as a criticism of the man. Listen, he clearly won 20 points in the gubernatorial race.

Yeah. He's got a talent, statewide talent, no question. Trump is simply on another level. And sometimes you just have to realize that whenever you're playing a game. Sometimes people are just much more gifted, much more talented, have built-in advantages that you simply will never have as a traditional Yale Law School military. You know, DeSantis is like that guy in student council who always wanted to be president. And Trump is just Trump. And he kind of ended up being president despite himself.

They're just different, you know, in the eyes of the public. Yeah, no doubt about it. DeSantis, the thing that he has been very effective at is identifying where the, like, cultural outrages in the Republican base are and coming up with some sort of strategy to put himself at the center of those discussions using legislation, using press conferences. But those are all sort of planned, choreographed set pieces that he's able to execute on very effectively, right, with people around him and coming up with his talking points and being able to sort of roll this out under his

own control. It's a very different thing when you are taking, you know, live fire in real time. It's just a totally different skill set. And to me, it appears that DeSantis doesn't really have that particular skill set. That's why we're talking about how Biden has limited his time with the press because of his aging and concerns from his aides that he's going to step in it every time that he gets in front of the camera. You know, I think there's a very similar concern around Ron DeSantis, who also has been very unavailable to the press outside of really friendly, you know, cushy Fox News interviews with his best allies over there or other Rupert Murdoch properties. And we know that Murdoch reportedly sat down with DeSantis and his wife even before the 2020

election, told them, like, we're going to be behind you. So, yeah, those are the quote unquote journalists that he sits with for interviews. So to go back to that clip that we started with, it's a small moment. You know, you don't want to make too much of a big deal of it, but it shows a level of irritation and inability to handle like real-time live fire that could be very difficult for him because, you know, this is an obvious question. How are you not ready for the most obvious question that you know you're going to get asked. Now imagine yourself on a stage with Donald Trump. Who knows what the hell that dude is going to throw at you? So if you can't handle this really obvious basic question from some random journalist in Japan,

how do you think you're going to be able to handle that situation? I'm not a candidate. I'm really happy to be here in Tokyo working for the people of Florida. Next question. Yeah. Come on, man. And keep the visual. Because part of, if you're only listening,

you don't see his mannerisms are the thing that is very unsettling in that clip. Very much so. I'll put the last one up here on the screen. I just think it's so funny. An ex-GOP congressman says Ron DeSantis didn't say, quote, a single word to him for two years as they sat beside each other during House hearings. Quote, he's just a very arrogant guy. Now, you could say that this is one person. I'm telling you, I have asked around behind the scenes. Everybody says the exact same thing. I'm talking about members of Congress. And some of it is bleeding into the press. That Congressman Lance Gooden, who I referenced, same interview. He said, honestly, he was very honest. He was like, look,

DeSantis is a guy who after work didn't want to grab a beer and would go home, FaceTime his wife and his kids. And that's great that you want to be a family man. But here in Washington, every time that you give up a social engagement, you're giving up potential political capital and the ability to make allies. I think he's right. At the end of the day, I think he's true. That's why I do actually think being a congressman on a day-to-day basis sounds like a miserable experience. But let's put that aside. If you are a power-hungry drunk, this is a great place to be. Who doesn't really care about being around your kids. If you don't like your children and you don't like your wife, this is a fantastic place to be here in Washington. You can eat for free for five days a week and you can drink premium liquor on somebody else's dime,

namely like the aircraft industry or whatever. And look, he didn't appear to be interested in that. Now on a personal level, I like that. On an insider level though, if you're not gonna be Trump, like this huge, large-than-life figure, then you do kind of have to play that game. Bill Clinton was a master of the game.

Actually, one of the reasons that Obama was not very successful as a president on the legislative level is Obama used to do the same thing. He used to go home and have dinner with his kids every single day at 6 p.m. Again, as a father, as a family person, I empathize with that, you know, for somebody who's doing that. But, you know, as a president, well, you probably shouldn't just be president whenever you have small children, to be honest. Listen, I'm team me with the kids. Yeah, me too. I'll be in my daughter's soccer game later today.

But, you know, the problem for DeSantis, though, is it goes beyond him being like family man and just wanting to be with his kids and being maybe a little socially awkward or natural introvert or whatever, because what comes out, especially in this anecdote that we had up a minute ago about how it wasn't just he didn't say a word to this guy. It was that this dude was brand new in Congress and DeSantis didn't introduce him. So it didn't make him feel welcome. His impression certainly was that DeSantis is not just socially awkward, that he's an asshole. Like that's the impression that he got from these interactions. And there's another Rolling Stone piece that has quotes from people who used to work for DeSantis and were some of his aides and are now on the Trump campaign and have made it their explicit mission to destroy him and rattle his cage before he ever gets in the race. Clearly it's having an impact and having an effect.

And it's the same thing. They say, you know, it was an open joke whether or not he even knew our names. And this was, these were people that were traveling with him. I mean, I think of this with regard to like the media industry. There's, there are news hosts out there who they don't know their cameraman's name. They don't know the makeup artist's name. And everybody hates those people. And everybody knows a story. Everybody knows who they are. They're total assholes. They're total arrogant pricks.

And by the way, the minute that there is an opening to stick the knife in, guess what people do? And to me, that's what this flood of anti-DeSantis anecdotes looks like right now. That's right. Now that he's fallen off in the polls, now that it looks like the writing is on the wall. First of all, like almost the entire Florida Republican delegation has run into Trump's arms. They're leaking all these stories to the press. Sometimes they're even willing to put their names on it, which is astonishing. That tells me that, listen, whether it was deserved or not, the impression that a lot of people who worked with Ron DeSantis got of him was not just he's awkward and he's a family man.

Like, no, we actively dislike this person. I think it's, I mean, I actually think that that traveling anecdote tells you a lot. I've been around these types of politicians. You know, you have dinner with somebody. They bring their staff and they don't even look or acknowledge with them. And I remember being like, are you a psycho? Like, these people don't want to be here. These people are like part of your life. You spend more time with them than you

do your kids and your family. And that's actually, that's the norm. The people who are nice to their staff are, you know, they're far and few between. And so, yeah, anyway, I think it's really weird and obvious. And also if you don't have that skillset like that we're discussing here, where you at least have the ability to charm the people around you who are in power whenever you need them. Well, if you're both arrogant and you're not, you know, at least a good like connector, a people person here in D.C., you're going to have a tough time. Yeah. And clearly that's what's happening here. And I think that's important because it's not like Trump's not an asshole. Like, obviously, he's been a prick to a million people as well.

But somehow, again, he gets away with it. And he has the charm to sort of, like, smooth things over after the fact. You see this with, like, you know, he said, like, he told Ted Cruz his wife was ugly and whatever. But he's able to somehow smooth that over and bring Ted Cruz back into the fold. That's what he does. I don't know what skill level that is. It's sort of a disaster that he apparently has that skill set.

But anyway, that's how I see things. There you go. All right, guys. Significant decision from Supreme Court came down Friday evening, something that we have been previewing here for a while. To set the back story here, you guys will recall there were two conflicting federal court decisions with regard to this abortion pill called Mifepristone. A Texas judge said the FDA shouldn't have approved this thing 20 years ago.

It needs to be banned coast to coast, California, Texas, everywhere in between. judge who ruled on the same day, hours apart, the exact opposite thing, that while there are various appeals going through the courts about how exactly this abortion pill should be handled, the status quo must remain in place. So this made it almost certain that the Supreme Court was going to have to weigh in on, OK, in the meantime, while these appeals are playing out, what is going to be the law of the land? On Friday, go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is from the AP. They did decide to, for the time being, preserve access to that abortion pill. Let me read you a little bit of this article. They say they preserve women's access to a drug used in the most common method of abortion, rejecting lower court restrictions while a lawsuit continues. The justices granted

emergency requests from the Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories as the maker of the drug Mifepristone. They are appealing a lower court ruling that would roll back FDA approval of that drug. The court's action Friday almost certainly will leave access to Mifepristone unchanged at least into next year while appeals are playing out. Let me give you the details of the decision here. Now, because this isn't like a full decision, this is just, you know, whether or not to allow these restrictions to go into place or not. It's not ruling on the merits of any of these cases. None of the justices has to actually put their name on it or say how they voted. So we don't know how close of a vote this was. But we do know that two of the nine justices, Samuel Alito, and who authored last year's Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and Clarence Thomas, they did put their names on a four-page dissent. Or at least Thomas said he dissented.

Alito put out that four-page dissent. No other justices commented on the court's one-paragraph order, and the court did not release a full vote breakdown. So we know there's at least two who wanted the full ban to go into place. We don't know, though, what the full numbers here were ultimately. And in terms of what happens next, put this up on the screen. The fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has already announced they're going to hear arguments in this case in less than a month. And basically the idea here is it's probably going to take a year for this to play out. And this will very likely end up once again with the Supreme Court having to

decide how this is ultimately handled. Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting that it's going to have to make its way through the courts. As you said, the fact that they did have seven justices makes it significant. I also question, though, if this is going to make its way through the appeals court. I'm curious what you've said. I also asked around. Now, because the Texas judge ruling was just seen as kind of so out there, even amongst conservative legal circles, the Texas ones are kind of seen as the like the Hawaii court in the appeals process. Hawaii is always the one during the Trump era that would strike down basically anything and then it would get up to a different judge and they would reverse it. This does not seem to be like it might make its way all the way up to the Supreme Court through the appeals process just because it doesn't seem like a lot of people in the legal establishment even necessarily agree with the legal process.

But however, it has become a political fight. So some that might change the way that some conservative justices rule in the future. But yeah, I mean, we're talking here about an Amarillo, Texas-based judge. Right. If no one's ever been there, it's like Bible thumping and nothing, cows and nothing else. I mean, this person was very idealistic. Yeah, obviously. It comes through in the decision, which I read through.

I mean, he uses all the language of anti-abortion activists. He insists on calling, you know, unborn baby. He has to call them like unborn children instead of fetuses. There's a lot in the decision that really pegs him as someone who's clearly very ideological. And he and his wife has a history of activism on the issue. That's fine, you know, on a personal level. Right. But just in terms of like the legal, how this will play out from a legal perspective, another thing you should understand is it's not like this case just randomly ended up in front of this dude.

The people who were behind the case, they went judge shopping. And this is very common, right? There's a reason why some of those cases ended up in Hawaii. And there's a very specific reason why it ended up in front of this judge. He is the only Amarillo-based federal district court judge. And so if you end up on that docket, you know 100 percent it's going to be this dude who issues the ruling. And they basically knew that he was their best bet. Now, what's going to happen as the appeals process plays out? I also don't know, because now it goes to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That is the most conservative court of appeals in the country. So will they say this guy went too far?

Maybe. Will they have a lot of ideological sympathy for his position? They almost undoubtedly will. Now, does that mean they uphold his ruling or not? Very hard to say. So I'm not sure what direction the legal process will ultimately go in. But what I think this underscores more than anything is, number one, this is a significant issue. As mentioned before, this is actually how more than a majority of women in the country, in places where abortion is still legal, this is the method that they choose because this is this is for pregnancies that are in the early weeks and that is when the overwhelming majority of abortions actually occur so that's number one is there's a very real and

very clear impact here and if this ruling were to stand it it truly would create you know it would upend a lot of what is going on in states like California be very highly motivating issue for a lot of people across the country that's number one number two it really shows you like Republicans are desperate to move on from the issue of abortion. It's exposing all sorts of splits and divides within their own ranks, which we're going to get to in a minute. It has been a disaster for them electorally. I mean, there's just no denying that at this point. So they are desperate for the question of abortion and how are the bans going to be, what are going to be the limits of the law? How's it going to go? Is it going to be state by state? Is it going to be nationwide?

They're desperate for all of these questions to go away. This is going to be playing out for at least another year, this particular case. And there are going to be many more challenges that are working their way through the courts. Like this is not going away anytime soon. No. Bottom line. Yep. I think you're right.

There's no way getting out of it on a political level. It's very, very difficult to work your way through. And then for also for the GOP candidates, watching them twist and turn is really something else. Yes. So speaking of that, there was a big Iowa summit of the religious right that a number of 2024 Republican hopefuls were speaking at. Trump spoke there by video link and you know it's interesting because he has taken a lot of heat from the activists, the anti-abortion activist wing of the party because he's basically you know

ruled out a national ban. He really wants, he's been very clear that he wants to keep things at the state by state level. There have been all sorts of reports out about his private comments basically being like, we got to not talk about this issue because this is a disaster for us. There's, it appears that he understood that as soon as the Dobbs decision came down, maybe more than anyone else, he got immediately how this was going to upend the political landscape and be a really big problem for Republicans. So there have been all sorts of quotes coming out from anti-abortion activists about just how upset with Trump they are right now, even though, of course, he's the

person who put those justices on the court that made that Dobbs decision overturning Roe versus Wade. So Trump spoke at this summit and he was trying to remind them of, you know, what he has done for the pro-life movement to try to calm the waters there. Take a listen to a little bit of what he had to say. You take a look at the right to life issue. So there was, I put on three Supreme Court judges, over 300 judges. Our whole court system is different than it was. Look at the Ninth Circuit, but just so different than what it was. It's three great Supreme Court judges and because justices and because of the fact that I did that, you have a whole new world out there. And, you know, very few people have done what I've done and very few people very few administrations have made the impact that the Trump

administration made. Sagar how do you think that those comments will end with this graph? I'm just not sure I mean I think what he the case he's trying to make is I did it I did it before I'm your best bet if anything I think this is tough you almost have to make an electability argument to evangelicals who don't necessarily believe in electability or never really have. So you have to say, look, guys, I'm the guy who got it done. I'm the greatest hero in the history of the pro-life movement. But also you got to know where to stop and you also need to have one of your guys in the White House. So at the end of the day, you got to stick with me because I'm somebody who will get it at the best I possibly can without suffering the electoral disaster.

That's kind of how I read it. You know, to be honest with you, even though, listen, there will be some small percentage of really ideological activists that prefer Mike Pence, for example. And we're going to talk about some of his comments on the same issue. I mean, he really has sort of positioned himself as the traditional religious right candidate. He has been he immediately came out in favor of a national abortion ban after Dobbs came down. So you'll have some small percentage that, you know, this is truly their issue. They're truly committed to it. And they go with a candidate like Mike Pence or someone else who is more to their liking on the issue. But we saw evangelical voters sort of twist their previous positions into knots to support President Trump back in 2016. You know, it used to be very

core to that group that like the personal values and personal morality and personal religiosity of the candidate was really important. And obviously, you know, Trump didn't have all of those pieces for them and they still figure out a way to justify supporting him. So even the evangelical right has been Trump's strongest and most consistent base since he took office. I don't think that that's going to change, even if he isn't exactly where they would prefer him to be on the issue of abortion, I think that they will justify to themselves exactly the way Trump is justifying to them of like, well, he's the guy who actually got it done. So of course, we're going to be behind him. And of course, we're going to support him. It all comes back to how they will actually look at issues and electability. Let's put the next one up there on the screen, because this is important. Pence says he wants

to see the entire pill, quote, off the market. I'm talking about the abortion pill, Mifepristone here. And also has come out for that national abortion ban. The real question is, is that how many people actually believe in the issues? How many people believe in some sort of gradation? He's got 6% right now in a national GOP primary. Not great, but that's about exactly right for people who are like full on for a national abortion ban. So this is my issue as opposed to like, this is issue number

three. I care about it, but you know, not willing to go all the way for it. So, you know, I think we're actually seeing a lot of this in our polling data about how people show their preferences. Yeah. So put this next piece up on the screen. This is the polling. Abortion has become really a top issue for the electorate. Sixty one percent of the electorate say that it is an eight, nine or 10 in terms of importance. So they ask them, like, OK, on a scale of one to 10, how important is this issue actually for you? And that's a very it's a very good way of doing polling, because a lot of times people will say, like like, oh yeah, I care about this or I care about that, but they don't really, and they don't really vote on it. But you have 43% of voters saying it's actually a 10 for them. Like this is so important to them. And I think that's been borne out by the election results that we've seen. I mean,

just recently in Wisconsin, the ultimate swing state, you had a liberal potential state Supreme Court justice who ultimately wins because she leaned into the issue of abortion and she won by more than 10 points. It wasn't even close. So you see the way that this has completely upended our politics in a way that I truly didn't necessarily anticipate. So this has become central and it has truly exposed a divide within the Republican Party too. They are scrambling to figure out what is their position? How are they going to deal with this? That 6% or so for whom this is their number one issue, they have always punched above their weight electorally, especially within the Republican base, because they are highly organized. And so it's been a very important key block to affiliate yourself with.

And prior to Roe being overturned, it was very easy for candidates to do that because, number one, they could pass something at the national level. And they did pass some theoretical bans at the national level. And they did pass some, you know, theoretical bans at the national level. And there were no stakes because it wasn't real. It wasn't actually going to change the landscape of abortion in most places across the country. So it was enough to just like Trump be, you know, in favor of overturning Roe versus Wade. And you didn't have to say a lot more than that. But now that you're sort of having to outline the specifics of, OK, how far do we go? It has exposed a lot of problems.. But now that you're sort of having to outline the specifics of, okay, how far do we go, it has exposed a lot of problems. I actually think that the 9 out of 10, the 8 to 9 out of 10 for a lot of voters, that's

the greatest defeat for the pro-life movement. Because for a long time, pro-lifers weren't that, there are not that many of them, but it was their number one issue or number two. And now to make it so that that now is the number one or number two issue for people who are against you. That's kind of their apathy based on the status quo is kind of what was letting them float, you know, in terms of their electoral importance. But if you're going to go head to head, you're obviously going to lose. I mean, I always thought that I didn't think it would ever go to a nine or a 10, you know, in general, always thought the economic issues would count. But, you know, look, it's clear, like, you don't, you really don't want to screw with existing things. And I think that's

a, it's a tough thing for people to wrap their heads around. Like, if you go back and look at Obamacare, like, everyone hated the American healthcare system. But by not, like, really fully fixing it and just kind of trying to tweak, you made it actually way worse. And you, by screwing with existing people's healthcare and then not also even really delivering a lot of upside to the people who don't have healthcare, you got the worst of all worlds. I kind of look at it this almost the same way where, you know, whenever you have a system that was largely in place, people were mostly cool and refined with it. And you take that away, people are going to get really

upset. A sense of loss is a very powerful political force. That's true. This is a lot of actually what animates the Republican base is a sense of loss, a sense of loss of cultural position, a sense of loss of the vitality of their towns, et cetera. And so I think this has created a real sense of loss of rights that people thought they could take for granted among a large portion of the electorate. So it has become highly motivating. And you're right that it used to be that that energy was on the other side, that, yeah, you you had the numbers where a sort of slim majority would think of themselves as pro-choice. Most people were never in the camp of we want to ban all abortion at all times or with very, very limited exceptions. But now that group has become very highly motivated,

and it has completely shifted the dynamics of this issue and who has the upper hand here. No, absolutely. It's one of those where it opened up a Pandora's box that, and actually, look, I will say, at least to our credit, we did often say that, you know, in the months before. We said, hey, you know, in June, this case is coming. We don't know what's going to happen.

Now, in terms of the way that it showed up in the polling and all that, certainly, you know, was not, weren't able to predict. But, like, the idea of a Pandora's box being opened was certainly, I think, one that we tried to flag here for many months and almost a year out before it eventually dropped. So there you go. Pat myself on the back. Let's go ahead and move on to Elon Musk. As I said, Crystal and I, it's over.

The era. Let's put it up there on the screen. Devastating. We lost the blue checks, people. We did not subscribe to Twitter Blue. Don't have any intention currently of doing so. I'm not looking for extra ways of public humiliation. I have quite enough of those in my life already.

Yeah, you know, outside of the public humiliation, which I do actually agree. I said this on the Red Scare podcast. I'm sorry I can't explain why. I just personally do think it is cringe. But what are the benefits? Like, what are the actual benefits? We're talking about tweet amplification. We're talking about supposedly better services, like longer tweets. First of all, I should barely tweet as it is. I don't know why I would need

longer tweets. Third, longer video. Now, I think for some content creators, that probably is something that you would want. But at the very least, you know, for breaking points and all this, the only reason that either of us would subscribe to this is if it wasn't going to help our business. We have never seen any conversion in terms of our paid or even our public YouTube channels. Honestly, all Twitter is really good for is publishing an announcement and then taking a screenshot of it and posting it on Instagram where people actually are and seem to engage with our content, Crystal. I'm just explaining on a personal level. People were like, oh, why didn't you guys subscribe? You guys have a paid business model. Yeah. I mean, whenever we ask people to help us out for

our paid subscription, A, we offer you a service. We're giving you some benefit. But also, really, what it's about is do you support our work? And look, I support free speech, all of that. But I'm not going to lie to you. I do not really have a lot of confidence in the way that Twitter is being run right now just because of the sheer amount of chaos. Like, this is not really a mission that I personally want to buy into. Let's put the next one up there on the screen to just really show you exactly why. At the very same time that Elon was like, okay, well, I'm rolling out Twitter blue. Only people will have blue checks who pay for them. Well, all of a sudden, accounts like LeBron James, Stephen King remained having blue checks, and people started asking questions.

They're like, well, why is that? Well, Elon came out and said, oh, well, I came out, and I personally paid for their subscription. And yet, we have now had hundreds of accounts that have over one million followers who it says in their check mark that they had subscribed to Twitter Blue and had verified their phone number. And they're like, I didn't pay for this. And it appears that many accounts with over a million followers had their Blue checks reinstated

for no discernible reason. Maybe it was meant as a troll to make it look like they had paid for Twitter blue, but more likely through some digging of our team and others. Here's an example. Somebody like Monica Lewinsky put it up there on the screen about how she also has her blue check. And it actually is a tear sheet that she referenced. Elon is gifting blue check to celebrities who, quote, don't even want one. They list several others. But there's no evidence that he's actually personally eating the cost or personally paying for all of these other accounts that remain and have their Blue Check

with over a million followers. It appears, again, appears that one of the reasons why it put this up there on the screen is because, quote unquote, block the blue was trending on Twitter. Now, one of the reasons why you would may want to make sure that accounts with over a million followers or so remain and have a blue check or are not blocked in order to try and reduce the amount of people who are doing the blocking is because those people with a million followers produce some of the most viral tweets and some of the most viral engaged content on the platform, which is what keeps you there. Hence why they have a million followers in the first place. Well, what they point to is that by giving former legacy checkmark holders who have over a million followers their blue check,

it kind of disrupts the quote-unquote block the blue movement because you wouldn't want to block somebody who is somebody who you engage with quite a bit. But they also show, Crystal, that it appears with the whole block the blue thing that it would have in a normal circumstance, it should have been trending in terms of the overall trending number of topics. It would have been number three, but it seems that Twitter artificially nuked that from their trending algorithm. So there's a lot of chaos going on. And, you know, like why would I pay for a product when you're also giving it away for free to other people?

Now I have a new tab. Here's a fun one. In my Twitter account that I was looking at, verified organizations. So let's say we wanted a BP account and we wanted to verify it. They want to charge us $1,000 a month. And for every additional affiliate account is $50. So a thousand bucks a month for me, you and the rest of the team. We will not go ahead and say, yeah, exactly. I mean, look, at the end of the day, this is not our money. This is your hard-earned money that you guys happened to help us out with our show, you believe, in our mission.

We're not going to be throwing this around like willy-nilly when we've got cameras, sets, and lights to build. Sure, it may not be that much, but at this point, it's about the principle of the hour. You don't pay for a service unless the service is useful. Absolutely. Yeah. He managed to—listen, if you're trying to sell a product, how do you want to position it? You want to make it, like, cool. You want it something people want to associate themselves with.

You want it to be a brand that they want to post about, that they want to, like, associate their own personal, you know, being and their own little personal brand building exercise with. Elon has made the Twitter blue thing truly, unless you're just like a total Elon stan, he really has made it a mark of shame. So not only were people not paying for Twitter blue, people were like offloading Twitter blue because they didn't want to be harassed and bullied for having it on his own platform. And it was not inevitable that it would go that way, you know, but because the decision making has been it would go that way, you know, but because the decision making has been so erratic and because, you know, the benefits you get for it are certainly not worth it. And because it's not like the previous verification regime was flawed in a million.

Yeah, I'm not saying it was fair or cool. Like, I don't I didn't I thought it didn't mean it was useful in a sense, because you did actually know for some small subset that like this really is this person. This really is this organization. Now it's completely meaningless except as a badge that you are so desperate for clout you're willing to pay for it. That's all that this indicates now. And that's why it's so that's like the core of why it's so embarrassing, because you are advertising to the world like I am so desperate for people to retweet me or like my tweets or like pay attention what I have to say that I'm willing to pay this person in order to make that happen. So then you add on top of that, why do I think that he is giving out these checkmarks to big accounts, whatever? Some of it is because he is trying to mitigate the sense of shame that comes with having the blue checkmark at this point.

So if you've got LeBron James, you've got these big accounts that have the blue checkmark, then maybe he's hoping it will make it a little bit more socially acceptable because the big cool guys have it. So I guess it's OK for other people to have it as well. But then in other instances, and I have to go Chrissy Teigen, who I don't necessarily give a lot of credit to often, but she made a great point. He's like he's giving them out as punishment, which tells you exactly how most people feel about the blue checkmark. So people like Matt Binder, who's been reporting on all of this stuff, who I think he has like 100 some thousand Twitter followers. He was given a blue checkmark because he's been very adversarial towards Elon. And he was basically given a blue checkmark that he is unable to take off of his account as a sort of punishment.

So imagine what that says about the product that you are selling, that not only do people not want to buy it, like they would go to great lengths to avoid having it, and you're dishing it out yourself as a mark of shame. It's also not necessarily any evidence that it's working. Let's go ahead, guys, throw up D7, please. This is an important tweet. I mean, what we can see here is that for the day before the purge, 19,469 of legacy verified accounts had Twitter blue. The day after that blue accounts were taken off, only 28 increase on a net level of 19,497 had joined. Now, this was just simply based on API by looking at it from an independent analysis. We don't have the current version, but that was the first update the day after the overall purge of people like Crystal and I's account. And look, I want to say this. It's tough because do I exist as a Elon,

Tesla, SpaceX fan outside of Twitter? Like, dude, do we exist? People who are like, I support Tesla. I think it's a cool company. I think SpaceX is a cool company. You know, the Starship thing launched undeniably was awesome. But you can put those aside, but then also be like, what's happening here with Twitter? Is it disaster? If we will all recall, here's what I'm begging Elon to do. Abide by the poll results that we all voted in where we said we did not want you to be the CEO of Twitter. I was like, please leave. Go back to the companies that you're actually good at running.

Why did you do this? Why are you do this? Why are you doing this? I think the fact that you feel the way you do about, listen, I'm not an Elon fan and haven't been, right? But the fact that you would have been open to this if you saw some benefit to it. Like there was another universe where this thing was run differently. Frankly, there was another universe where if he had truly stuck to like, this is going to be a public town square and this is going to be run not by market principles, but by free speech principles. And I'm going to stick to my guns

the way like Substack has been run in a way that I really admire and appreciate. There was another world where he persuaded me and overcame my doubts about his potential leadership of this company. We do not live in that world. I think that has become very clear. And that number that there were only a net 28, not 2,800, not 2,800,

28 additional Twitter Blue subscribers among legacy verified accounts. I mean, that tells you everything, too, from a business perspective. This is just a disaster. And, you know, I use Twitter less and less, not because I'm trying to make some, like, principled stand and I'm going to master it or whatever. I just find it sort of moribund. I find it sort of dead.

I find it sort of sad. There's way too many freaking ads in my timeline these days. And I just don't find it as useful and vital as I used to. Yeah, I will say I hate my For You page. I think it's awful. I keep trying to default to my follower page. I follow people for a reason. I do not want to learn how to get into real You page. I think it's awful. I keep trying to default to my follower page. I follow people for a reason. I do not want to learn how to get into real estate investing.

I'm sorry. I just, you know, I've been listening to, Crystal, you know this, I've been on a big Dave Ramsey kick. I've listened to like 30 hours of Dave Ramsey. I'm sorry, people. As he says, the Tic Tac generation will not teach you how to win in real estate. So, yeah, I don't really know what's going on. My four-year page is awful.

And you know, I think it's a good point. I actually pay for a ton of sub stacks and patrons. I was going through my subscriptions. I'm talking about like hundreds of dollars a year, which is probably not a wise decision. But a lot of them are people like Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald or even Brianna, Joy Gray, the Red Scare Pie. I pay these people because I support their work. I like them. I

support their mission. I don't even agree with some of the people that I pay for. I just think that they're doing cool stuff. And just like we have this type of business, I try to do it. People like Ethan Strauss, House of Strauss over sports subs. I don't even like sports, but I like the guy. So I'm like, okay, I'll go pay. Now, part of the reason why I do that, again, is because it's mission-based. Now, here with the Twitter, like, yeah, look, I support free speech, but you gotta actually do it, you know, on a practical level.

I didn't agree with the Kanye ban. I don't agree with the capriciousness. I didn't agree with those initial suspension of those journalists. I think so much of what's happened is chaos. Even the removal of the check mark is chaos because now the million, it's like, now you're devaluing my product. I pay for this, but if all I had to do is get 600,000 more followers and, you know, I could do that, like, oh, why wouldn't I just do that? You know what I'm saying? You know? So it's one of those where,

obviously that's out of reach for somebody who's got 2000 followers, but you know, you and I combined have about a million followers. If we engage more, we don't even tweet that much. If we wanted to, we probably could. So it's one of those where, anyway, I think you put it all together. And I don't see a compelling narrative or a case for really paying for this. Even the, okay, you can post longer videos. Like, why would I do that? When I'm going to pay you to post a long video, when we pay post a long video on youtube guess what there's

monetization because they actually value the creators um you know i got issues with we have our issues with we made player but they actually understand that the creators on the platform are what gives the thing lifeblood whereas elon has just made himself totally antagonistic even to some people like batai who were you know were, you know, supportive and open. Pissed me off. Yeah. And so it's like, OK, if you're going to just be an asshole to all the people who actually make Twitter an interesting place to be, then, you know, obviously your products is going to be somewhat less useful here. Because as you said, Sagar, what we've really realized in running this business is, yeah, we make sure,

you know, we do an AMA for the premium subscribers. We're going to give them first look at the new set because we value you. But full show, full show, all those things. I know those things are important, but what a lot of people come here for is because they believe. They just believe it. That's it. Yeah. And not a lot of people believe in the Twitter mission at this point, I would say. Well, good luck. Maybe you can turn around. We'll see. OK, I'm doubtful. All right. Let's go to BuzzFeed. I have a lot to say about this. It is a fascinating case study. I try not to dance on anybody's grave. But, you know, it's difficult sometimes when you particularly despise a certain news organization. Let's go to put this up there on the screen. Here is the memo that was sent by Jonah Peretti, who was the CEO of BuzzFeed, to all of his staff.

And in it, he announces that BuzzFeed News is going to be shutting down. Now, for those who don't know, BuzzFeed News was the original, I would say the demarcation point for news on the Internet. BuzzFeed in 2009 and 2010 was booming. It was everywhere. It was all over Facebook. People were taking which Harry Potter house are you quizzes when I was in college. Very cringe in retrospect. But that was taking off. And they said, we have all this traffic. We've got all these advertising dollars. You know what we're going to do? We're going to start a news organization. They decided to try and treat news the way that tech companies had treated tech. In other words, get big fast. So what did they do? They hired tons of journalists, all of these legacy people, people like Ben Smith,

who we'll be having on the show, actually, who just wrote a book. I'm excited to talk to him a little bit about this because he was the editor in chief. He brought on all these journalists. They won a Pulitzer Prize and all of it was built on the idea that you can do award-winning journalism at a new online outlet, and you can completely change the game, and you can replace The New York Times. Well, what happened? They just got shut down. They went out of business. And one of the reasons why is that Peretti references in that memo where he sent out is they're cutting costs 15% across the board. But really what he admits is I should have been more responsible with our finances.

And I think what I have always thought about BuzzFeed, about Mike.com, about Bustle, about all of these, or, you know, these places which are, you know, has-beens and you don't even think about anymore is they were mainstream media repackaged as what people who are executives wanted news for millennials to look like here's the truth you know what news for millennials really wanted you're watching it i mean millions of people watch this show the vast majority of them are millennials and younger and i think what it was is a removal from that kind of mainstream not only only packaging, from the mainstream narratives and all the things that come through legacy people inside of media. You're looking at shows like,

I mean, across the ideological spectrum. If you are a young Republican today, are you watching Fox News or are you watching Ben Shapiro or the Tim Pool show? I already know the answer, you know, because I talk to these people. You know, they would care much more about what those two had to say. Any of the Daily Wire crowd, the Tim Pool Show, Stephen Crowder, any of these folks. If you're a young Democrat today, let's say you're a young neoliberal Democrat. You're not watching MSNBC. You're listening to the crooked media folks over at Pod Save America. And if you're a lefty Bernie person, you know, you're watching Kyle Kalinske or Jimmy Dore or any of these folks, our show in some cases. And, you

know, on the Republican side, we see many young Republicans who watch the show as well. You are not consuming this type of packaged nonsense. And I think that that's really where they went wrong, both on a business level, but on a narrative level they were just wrong young people did not want to consume the news that way i think there was there were a lot of failures number one there is an element of the like go woke and go broke thing because they really 2010s you know bustle like like they really leaned into that like girl boss feminism can't they leaned into that that moment right, feminism. They leaned into that moment. Right. And I think there was also a failure to evolve, right?

I mean, since the launch of Rising, which is much more recent than the launch of BuzzFeed, you know, we have always been trying to think about what's going to make the show relevant in the moment. Yeah. Right? And so when COVID hit and we're like, okay, you know, what we're doing is about to totally change. When the Ukraine war

happened, like there was another big, big shift, you know, we've leaned more into hard news than we used to lean. So we've tried to evolve for what the, what our audience may need for the moment. And Buzzfeed had this initial insight, BuzzFeed News, that you could put like real news and real journalism, which did happen at BuzzFeed, by the way. There were a lot of truly, you know, solid journalists who got their start

at BuzzFeed News. We can package that alongside these like listicles and the Harry Potter quizzes and whatever. And you know what? At the moment, that actually worked. It did drive a lot of traffic. It was successful in bringing in eyeballs.

There was a lot of viral content. Apparently, their biggest day in the entire history of BuzzFeed News was that day of the dress, you know, when people were looking at that dress and arguing what color it was. Remember those? Yeah. I'm just like, what a pathetic country. So that was the sort of stuff they were primed to capitalize on, you know? So there was

a failure to shift in terms of the type of content and make it relevant for the current day and for what their, their audience was looking for at that point in their lives or bringing a new younger audience or whatever. So there was that. There was also a failure of business model, which I think is really core to this. You know, they took in so much money. Yeah, we have that actually. Yeah. Put it. What is that? Let's go and put it up there. There we go. Yeah. Look, they raised $700 million. And that was true of Mike too. I mean, Mike was this new sex, old millennial, et cetera, et cetera. They raised tons. And there were a bunch of these startups at the time that basically off of the success of BuzzFeed were getting huge valuations, huge raises, all this money in. And they were betting the farm in a lot of cases on social media distribution and monetization. The first big shoe to drop

was when Facebook changed their algorithm. And that killed a lot of these. I mean, that is what killed Mike. And it killed a whole lot of other places. And I know BuzzFeed was a little more diversified in terms of their social media distribution and monetization strategy. But I know it hammered them as well. And I don't think they were ever able to recover. Ben Smith, who you mentioned was editor in chief and really responsible for a lot of building up BuzzFeed to what it was at its peak. He put out a sort of analysis of what he went wrong. And that was one of the things that he really kind of pointed to here. And at his new organization, which is Semaphore, it's funny because some of the organizations that are thriving now, it's almost like a throwback, like newsletters on Substack.

Many of them are very successful, right? But the core piece now is you can't rely on YouTube. You can't rely on Facebook. You can't rely on any of these platforms because not only is the monetization all over the place, but they can nuke you like that in an instant, and you will never recover. So you have to have some way of actually investing your audience in what you're doing and providing them something that they actually believe in and are willing to pay for.

And if you're not doing that, then I think in this current landscape, it's going to be game over. You're dead. And actually, that's the thing. I'm very thankful for the existence of BuzzFeed, Mike, and all these other failures. Bashable, I could go on, Bustle, Gawker, should I keep going? It's not like I enjoy this or anything. The point was is that when you and I were building this business, what is the number we're like? We have to mitigate all risk. If

YouTube goes down tomorrow, we will be completely fine. I'm not saying it wouldn't suck, but we would completely fine. If we get banned by Apple Podcasts and Spotify, as has happened to certain people, okay, we'll still be completely fine. Even if the payment processor or something, we have mitigation techniques all built into the very fabric of the business. At the end of the day, we have the direct payment relationship with you. We don't even need Supercast, who we love, our processor, who we're happy to be a partner with. But let's say that they decided to kick us off. Fine, we have our direct customer relationship.

We insisted on that from day one. We have email. Nobody can ban you from that. Basically, all you really need is an email client. So outside of an ISP-level ban on breaking points, we will exist. We can crawl our way through it. And financially, we will survive even what would really be like a nuclear attack in terms of being completely banned off of that. And it was built into the fabric.

That's also why at the top of our show, what do we ask for? We always talk about premium subscriptions because we know that that is the lifeblood of any business which is flirting in any way with something which is risky, which media is. And they decided not to do that. BuzzFeed died because of Facebook, but also it died because of the hubris and the foolishness of people like Jonah Peretti who believed that that was going to sail at the end of the day. How many YouTube ebbs and flows have you and I been through in just a couple of years? You'd be an idiot to

build your business just off of that. Same on the podcast. You know, right now we're booming on the podcast. I'm not stupid. I know one day it'll go down. And so are you. You know, we're like, and then when you plan for it, you know, that's one of those things where these were what business owners have long dealt with. They raised money based on a false dream. And actually what I think is more cruel is they hired a lot of people, you know, they were paying out full bennies and all this other stuff, which they could not afford to pay. And that's wrong. You know, when you hire people on a false promise and I just saw a tweet on my timeline, some lady who's five months pregnant, she's just got fired, you know, because you were an idiot as a boss. That's wrong. You know,

and look, maybe she knew what she was getting into, although I doubt it. A lot of people just want to get a job. And so once again, I can cheer for the death of the organization, but I'm not going to, you know, some five-month-old lady or five-month-pregnant lady, that's not right. No, absolutely. That's just terrible.

Yes, and I think the overhead is another piece. Like you just have to be so much more nimble. And our overhead, because we care a lot about the production value and buildings, is a lot higher than a lot of other similar sort of positioned products that are out there. But that's something that has always been core and really important to you all, but still, compared to BuzzFeed, compared to all, the amount of money, what was the name of that other video play that just went under that had raised like? Ozzy? Well, Ozzy is another one.

Wasn't this like a Heilman or Halpern was behind? Oh, the recount, yeah. The recount. Yeah, they raised 30 million. Yeah, and again, I'm like, 30 million? What are you doing with 30 million dollars? And basically all they were doing was like clipping newsreels and stuff. I'm like, how does this cause you so much money?

That level of overhead, unjustifiable. And so there's basically two business models at work right now. Number one, people believe in what you're doing. They're willing to, you know, pay some amount a month. Or number two, you're doing like an insider tip sheet that lobbyists and people in DC are willing to pay big bucks for to get a little edge on like what's coming down from the transportation committee or whatever. Those are the two models that really work right now. And yeah, the newsletter, it is sort of a throwback

because email is something they can't take away from you that you have control over and that's the model that is really succeeding at the moment. Absolutely. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? On the eve of Joe Biden's reelection announcement, one thing has become incredibly clear. The media does not want you to think you have any other options. In article after article, they declare that Biden has no, quote, serious primary opponent, as if that is up to them to decide.

Their Democratic primary polls reflect laundry lists of candidates who have no intention of running while leaving the actual declared candidates off of the list. And sometimes the media, they just outright lie, all in service of making sure that as much as the Democratic primary base wants to move on from Biden, they are not allowed to even evaluate the existing alternatives. The very same tactics they used against every anti-establishment Democratic candidate, from Bernie to Yang to Tulsi, they are all back with a vengeance. The media and the Democratic Party have spent the last eight years waxing poetic about democracy, but at every turn, they show their contempt towards voters and the actual Democratic process. No one has been more smeared and erased in this process than Marianne Williamson, and it's no accident that this effort has escalated, just as she's begun to show a bit of real momentum.

In recent weeks, Marianne has polled as high as 14% in battleground states, 10% nationally, over 20% with young voters. This enthusiasm of young voters has become particularly visible on their platform of choice. That would be TikTok. As Ryan Grim documented, Williamson has become an outright sensation there. Her videos and fan accounts, they rack up millions of views, sharing her comments on politics, on life, and her critique of Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. The enthusiasm for Marianne by anyone on any platform, though, simply can't be tolerated by the Biden team and their allies who dare to call themselves journalists. Take a look at this article that was flagged by Katie Halper. Reuters wrote an entire piece that was supposed to be just a completely neutral listing of the

current and potential 2024 contenders on both the Democratic and Republican sides. It's titled Fact Box 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. Who is in, who is out, and who is still thinking about it. But this so-called fact box contains the opposite of facts. They included everyone from Asa Hutchinson, who polls at 0%, to Chris Sununu, who polls at 0%, to Mike Pompeo, who polls at 0%, and has already said he is not running. To my surprise, they actually did include RFK Jr., although they weirdly didn't bold his name the way that they did all the other candidates for some reason. Conspicuously left off this list altogether, however, was Marianne Williamson, in spite of the fact that she is polling higher than the vast majority of contenders that they did bother to name. I simply cannot believe that someone who calls themselves a political journalist doesn't know who Marianne Williamson is. She's been in public life for decades. She was a candidate last time around as well. The only realistic

explanation of this omission is that it was an intentional lie, motivated either by arrogant contempt towards Marianne or to curry favor with the Biden regime. Now, Marianne herself replied to this so-called journalist on Twitter, asking, Are you under the impression I do not exist or that I am not running? Under pressure, Reuters was forced to do a stealth edit of the article to acknowledge that Marianne Williamson does in fact exist and is in fact running for president. As if it isn't enough that they ignore Marianne, unless they're smearing her, of course, the media's most damaging tactic is their acceptance and propagation of an anti-democracy status quo, especially when it comes to the Democratic Party. If the Republican Party was planning to have no debates and just simply to anoint Donald

Trump, all of these supposed guardians of democracy, they would be rending their garments and melting down about authoritarianism and fascism. But when the DNC rakes the primary states for Biden and plans zero debates, they just accept this as a matter of course. Of course they would do this. The Washington Post turned in a perfect example of this with their big article about Biden getting set to announce his reelect. In it, they assert with zero judgment that, quote, the National Democratic Party has said it will support Biden's reelection and it has no plans to sponsor primary debates. They go on to offer the standard line about how Biden faces no, quote, serious challenge. This total shutdown

on public debate is even more detrimental to democracy since Biden has sat for far fewer interviews and held fewer press conferences than any president since Ronald Reagan. He remains in hiding from the American people and the press. They just accept it. Democracy dies in darkness, right, guys? When Marianne does get coverage, it shows why the press and the Biden team are so desperate to hide her very existence. In a recent cable news appearance, one of the rare times she was actually invited on since launching her bid, she had a lot to say about elite Democratic failures. Take a listen. I think that one of the things we've talked about here already is that things are not okay. We have 39% of Americans who now report, 44% of millennials, that they have

skipped meals in order to pay their rent. We have one in four Americans who live with medical debt. We have 64% of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck, 60% of Americans who could not absorb a $400 unexpected expenditure. Look at those facets that I just talked to you about, and you talked to me about mental health. We talk about the mental health crisis. We need to talk about what's at the root of that and to talk about how much of that comes from chronic economic anxiety. We have a political class. We have a political class that is not planning any fundamental economic reform. And I'm running for president. I'm running as a Democrat because incremental change is not enough when you have a lack of universal health care, although we have it in every other advanced

democracy. Every other advanced democracy has tuition-free college, you know, which we had until the 1960s. You know, I'm old enough, Alison. There was a time in this faraway land called the 1970s when the average American, there was a thriving middle class, the average American worker had decent benefits, could afford a home, could afford a car, could afford a yearly vacation, could afford to send one parent to keep, one parent could stay home if they wished, and they could afford to send their kids to college. So no, people are not okay. And I'm running for president because we need a fundamental economic U-turn, not just incremental change. People need to have health care in this country, need to be able to go to college. People need the bandwidth to thrive. And if all a politician can say is, I'll help you survive an

unjust system in the richest country in the world, something is wrong. We need someone from outside that system to say the system should not be unjust. We need an economic U-turn. And that's what I will do if I'm elected president. Now, that clip has already racked up hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok. So you won't be surprised to learn Biden's team trying to silence her there as well. According to Marianne campaign volunteer Tim Cox, TikTok moderators have banned at least two Marianne supporter accounts, Marianne Williamson for Prez and Lefty Takeover. These accounts had tens of thousands of followers, no terms of service violations, but they were spammed by Biden supporters mass reporting them, according to Cox. Now, I spoke with the woman who runs the Marianne Williamson for Prez account, and she confirmed that this had indeed happened.

She told me that, quote, the account is still banned and I have not heard a single peep back from TikTok on why they took my account down. I broke no rules. These heavy handed tactics reveal a Biden team much more nervous than their public bluster would have you believe. Now, look, no one's going to deny it is exceptionally difficult to oust any incumbent president. However, this one does have some real vulnerabilities. Don't take my word for it. Just ask the voters. 73% of voters wish the current president would not run again.

That includes a majority of Democrats. Only one-third of voters believe Biden deserves to be re-elected. And majorities disapprove of his handling on every major issue that was tested in a recent CNN poll. Majorities say he is not honest, does not care about people like them, and cannot work effectively with Congress. But while Americans might be dissatisfied with Biden across a range of issues, the biggest questions are about his basic capacity to serve in the office at all. 65% say he doesn't inspire confidence and 67% say he doesn't have the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively as president of the United States. Who can blame

them for wondering if the oldest U.S. president in history is really up to the task? So thank you all. God bless you all. Let's go. Let's go lick the world. Let's get it done. Representative Jackie, are you here? Where's Jackie? I think she was going to be here. More than half the women in my cabinet, more than half the people in my cabinet, more than half the women in my administration are women. I think they're rolling an egg or being the guy who's pushing them out. Help her, help her. And so Biden's cronies don't want to contrast with anyone who can articulate a perspective and who is unafraid to expose the failures of the elite political and media class. I am reminded that Dianne Feinstein was able to hold on for her last reelection by avoiding interviews, debates, town halls, anything that would expose her to constituents just how unable to do the job she really was.

The Biden camp here is similarly desperate to hide their guy and persuade everyone that there is no actual contest. Whatever you think, any of these candidates, Biden, RFK Jr., and Marianne, at the very least, we deserve actual debates. Demand that the Democratic Party live up to the bare minimum of their pro-democracy rhetoric. And Sagar, it's just amazing to me that they feel so entitled to decide for themselves who's a serious candidate, that they just leave her out entirely and think that's totally fine. Don't include her. 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? Something that I always try and do on the show is understand where people are coming from, even if I disagree. Actually, even more so when I do disagree. Because otherwise, things just devolve into something unhelpful. And I will admit that's certainly harder when it comes to certain topics, but I do my best, and that's why I really want to delve into a topic that I have been spending a lot of time on recently. The rise of Affirmative Action America.

Now, on its face, Affirmative Action America. Now on its face, affirmative action America is built on an idea I do agree with. Our institutions are unfair, corrupt, and they do penalize the poorest amongst us who are made up of poor whites, poor blacks, poor Latinos, and many others. We should fix that. Right now, American society is probably more nepotistic

and oligarchic than at any point in our history since the Gilded Age. But how we fix that is the big disagreement. It comes back to the concepts that I brought up here earlier. Do you strive for equality of opportunity or equality of outcome? Equality of opportunity is the goal in which everyone starts off from the same place, and then when they end up in different ends of the income or societal spectrum, you can at least have relative faith they deserve, quote unquote, to be there, with the caveat that nobody ends up destitute. Equality of outcome effectively means that a person's outcome is predetermined by quotas and other normalizing efforts to make sure that all races, all creeds

come to the same place, regardless of disparities in effort. Now, unfortunately, the left establishment in this country has made their choice post-2020. They're going for equality of outcome, otherwise known as equity, a key pillar of the so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion religion founded in affirmative action. I've already discussed here the San Francisco Algebra for None experiment,

how it penalized black and Hispanic students while also penalizing high-achieving Asian and white students. It is likely the future of American higher education. And at the very least, though, that was a local story. The one today, though, is worse because it actually affects the entire country. And it, too, is rooted in an equality of outcome mandate by the Biden administration. This was a bombshell news actually came in the form of a very small notice press release from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, regulates Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks. It's agency created after 2008 to ensure another

financial collapse doesn't happen. But like all institutions now, they've departed their original mission and are now focused on, quote, equity in housing. The new rule actually does sound nice. The press release says it aims to increase housing ownership amongst minorities, but it takes a little bit of reading some complicated spreadsheets that they released to get to the truth. The press release says it aims to increase housing ownership amongst minorities, but it takes a little bit of reading some complicated spreadsheets that they released to get to the truth. The way that they want to increase home ownership amongst minorities is by targeting lower credit score applicants for mortgages. The new rule, through something known as the loan level price adjustment matrix, will lower fees to those with lower credit scores. Now, how does it lower those fees? By increasing them on people with higher credit scores.

Under the new rule set to go into effect on May 1st for mortgage lenders across this entire country, buyers with a score ranging from 680 to 780 will have an increase in their overall mortgage costs than before. The most insane thing is that buyers who are responsible actually put down 15 to 20% will have the largest

increase in fees. Consider someone who has saved up for years. They have paid off their loans. They worked hard. They didn't go out to eat. They drive a crappy car. Let's say that person has a 740 credit score and is able to put down 15 to 20 percent. That person will now face an overall 1 percent surcharge in fees as compared to the old fee of 0.25 percent. Now, put that in perspective. It doesn't sound like a lot, but if you take out a $400,000 loan with a 6% mortgage rate, the buyer would then expect their monthly payment to increase by $40 per month. Again, you can say that sounds small. $40 over a 30-year mortgage is $14,000. Now, say that you have a credit score of under

670 and you're only putting down five. For you, your fees actually get cut in half. Now, once again, this is backwards. A person who is putting down less cash with worse credit is getting basically a thank you from the government. Now, even crazier is that this is a moderate proposal actually put forward by the admin. They have an even worse one that is set to go into effect in August. The new rule limits fees and considerations of brokers on those who have debt-to-income ratios of over 40%. Think for one second. We're talking about making it easier for someone who has a debt-to-income ratio of 40% to increase the amount of mortgage debt that they have. Does that make any sense at all? Or does it sound like a 2008-type disaster where people can't afford homes, get into them anyways, and then we have an overall collapse where they're later on destitute?

I want people to understand this. I am not being callous. I believe it is a crime. Many poor people in this country don't have a fair shake, don't have access to homes, and it manifests in a lot of racial ugliness. The way to solve that is not to penalize responsible homebuyers or simply lift the cap on debt-to-income ratio. The way is not through this affirmative action nonsense. It's universal policy. The price of a home in the U.S. right now is higher than ever in all major metropolitan areas, over $500,000. That's a problem for the middle class

and the poor alike. By reducing the cost of building and more starting homes, voila, you made housing cheaper for everyone instead of pitting people against each other on a limited basis. Or maybe that's too ambitious. Let's just look, why do poor people have such awful credit in the first place? Maybe it's because a man named Joe Biden, when he was a senator from Delaware, became the greatest friend of the credit card industry in Congress, loosened regulation, increased interest, didn't restrain their marketing tactics, flooded the poor and middle class with junk consumer debt products, and then stripped them the ability to file bankruptcy or not even get into it in the first place

after they lost their job. You want to fix this? We got to go way deeper than credit scores. We have to nuke the entire system, the profiteers, the barriers for everyone, instead of trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic and make them more equitable. I mean, Crystal, this has sparked a lot of outrage. I think...

And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Thank you all so much to everybody, all the existing premium members, all the new people who've been signing up. It means the world to us, really is helping us out at this time, building the new set, investing big in the future of Breaking Points for all of you, really, and to help expand the show. So we thank you all very much, and we will see you all 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. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators, shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming.

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