Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/25/23: The Real Reason Tucker Was Fired, Future Of Fox News, Don Lemon Fired Over Interview, Wall Street Freaks Out, Biden's 2024 Announcement, Top Biden Op Smeared Hunter Laptop Story, New Lab Leak Evidence and Young Voters Rejecting Biden

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss the real reason Tucker was fired, his future media ventures, the future of Fox News, the reason Don Lemon was fired, Wall Street's freakout over debt ceiling, Biden's 2024 announcement, Anthony Blinken caught smearing the Hunter Biden laptop story, new lab leak evidence, young voters rejecting Biden, and how his terrible polling may affect his 2024 chances.Timestamps:(0:00): Intro (0:18): The REAL Reasons Fox FIRED Tucker(17:39): Krystal and Saagar DEBATE: Is Fox DEAD Without Tucker?(28:14): RUMBLE, Daily Wire COURT Tucker After Firing(39:23): THIS Video Is Why CNN FIRED Don Lemon(50:58): Wall Street FREAKS Over Debt Ceiling Fight(1:01:46): KRYSTAL AND SAAGAR REACT: Biden 2024 Officially Launches | Breaking Points(1:17:17): Top Biden Op CAUGHT SMEARING Hunter Biden Laptop(1:23:18): CASE CLOSED? New Lab Leak Evidence OVERHWHELMING(1:31:30): Poll: Zoomers RAGE Against Political Elites (1:38:54): Is Biden DOOMED By Low Approval Ratings?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.

This is an iHeart Podcast. voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7 because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, author of the most banned book in America.

On my podcast, Fighting Words, I sit down with voices that spark resistance and inspire change. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not what you tell us what to do. This huge need is coming down on us. And I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. Fighting Words is where courage meets conversation. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jeff Perlman. And I'm Rick Jervis. We're journalists and hosts of the podcast Finding Sexy Sweat. At an internship in 1993, we roomed with Reggie Payne, aspiring reporter and rapper who went by Sexy Sweat. A couple years ago, we set out to find him. But in 2020, Reggie fell into a coma after police pinned him down, and he never woke up. But then I see my son's not moving.

So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage,

upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. I just don't know what we're going to talk about this morning. There's barely anything in the news. There's been a lot of developments in the cable news world. All right. So yesterday,

Bloody Monday, Tucker Carlson out, Don Lemon out. There is huge political news this morning. As President Joe Biden officially announced his reelect, we have a launch video that we can show you and some details about exactly how the Democratic base is actually feeling about him right now, which is pretty interesting. We have developments with regard to the debt ceiling. We have developments with regard to the fact that Tony Blinken was ultimately behind that letter of the hallmarks of Russian disinformation thing about Hunter Biden's laptop. We've got Kyle Kondik in the show to break down all the political news. We also have a gigantic elephant in the room that I think we need to address, which is what the hell is Saga wearing? What is going on here?

Look, I made a pledge to our premium subscribers to commit this sartorial atrocity in the event that Don Lemon was fired. I didn't even remember of actually, one of our premium subscribers reminded. We went back, we pulled the clip. Here's what I had to say at the time. Would the Breaking Points and Counterpoints team ever wear a hoodie and suit jackets on the air next time there's a Don Lemon segment? It would be a nice gag, don't you think? You know, that might be the only time that I would deign to wear a hoodie with a suit jacket.

I will consider it. I'll tell you this. When he gets fired, if that ever happens, I doubt it ever will, I will wear a hoodie with a suit jacket as an homage to Don Lemon. I like it. Yeah, so there you go. Never would have imagined that it would come up that quickly.

That was like last week, apparently. That was last week, and we had both already forgotten about it. I totally forgot. Yeah, we were reminded. So listen, I'm a man of my word. Here it is. Here are a couple problems with wearing a hoodie with a suit jacket that you wouldn't think about. First of all, Don Lemon, why do you have a suit jacket which is not tailored properly, that actually violates?

As people can see, this is fitting quite tightly. This is the thinnest hoodie that I own. Shout out to Viore. I wear this to the gym. It's a nice hoodie. Thank you. It's a nice jacket. It's a very nice hoodie.

Put them together and it looks horrendous. Yeah, it should be worn at the gym, not with a suit. Now, the issue is that there's a lot of cloth in a normal-sized hoodie, so normal suit jacket. This is actually a suit jacket from probably when I was at my fattest, and even then it barely fits over the same. I'm not even wearing a t-shirt underneath this. Here's the thing, too. I feel like, I don't watch a lot of Don Lemon, but I feel like his suit jackets normally fit him well. That was my other question.

Like are tailored well. So now we're in a question of, exactly. Did he get a special suit jacket to go over hoodies? So I did deep analysis on the jacket. It does appear to fit with the hoodie, which means people, he actually got that jacket tailored specifically so that he could wear a hoodie underneath it.

It also was a separate worn on top of khakis, which is a whole other level of crime. Because we're talking about a pinstripe, a pinstripe window, or no, sorry, I think it was a windowpane black jacket on top of a gray hoodie with khakis. It was a complete travesty.

I feel like a bum wearing this. It's not comfortable. I miss my tie. I miss my shirt. It just, it doesn't feel right. But, you know, look, this is what I do for you people, and I'm going to do the whole show and look like an idiot. Farewell, Don.

I'll have a lot more to say about that. It's worth it. It's worth it to see him go. Absolutely. You shall be missed, I guess. There is a lot more to get to in the show. Before we do, though, we want to say thank you to all the people who have been signing up for premium subscriptions. You are really, really helping us out in terms of

being able to build out this new set that we're super excited about. You guys are incredible, as usual. So many of you have been heeding the call. For those of you who can, again, you're helping us. We've got about half the lights paid for now, half the lights that we've gotten there so far. So seriously, we appreciate it. As a reminder, we have a donation button there on the website. But in general, if you sign up yearly and lifetime members, especially for a cash flow perspective, it dramatically helps our business. Maybe I can go and buy a properly fitting suit then. The point is every single of your hard-earned dollars is being poured directly back into production value who are on the set. The new set is beautiful.

It is a, what, 10, 15 X step up for all of us. And I think for 2024, it's exactly the note that we want to kick things off. And just look at the way of what we're about to cover versus what we're doing here. We don't have declining ratings. Yesterday was one of our biggest days literally ever. It was actually the biggest day ever

in the history of our podcast downloads. Oh, wow. Yeah, and so you put those together. Our ratings continue to go up. Our premium subscription is booming. We are hiring people when they are literally firing people. They are declining and falling apart. We have a lot more to say about this, but let's go ahead and get to the news.

We got the official announcement yesterday. It is over. Tucker Carlson, as we reacted to all of you fired from Fox News, we can now say fired definitively after some speculation, Crystal, in our initial reaction to video. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen from the LA Times. Quote, Tucker Carlson departs Fox News. He was pushed out by Rupert Murdoch.

So I've also asked around from what I have heard, people who are not necessarily in the know. This was very, very tightly capped. But the Murdochs have been basically leaking and making it known that they were the ones who were in charge. And the impetus for firing Tucker is multifaceted. And really, it does read like a succession-level drama. Number one is the Murdochs right now are terrified even though they have billions of dollars literally in the bank paying out 787 million is humiliating over the Dominion lawsuit. Now Tucker was not

implicated in the Dominion lawsuit at all. However one of the problems is is that his text messages which we were able to see some of them with respect to Trump to Sidney Powell and Dominion that That was basically the tip of the iceberg. It turns out that many of those texts, Crystal, also denigrated Fox News management, Rupert Murdoch, many of his colleagues. And while we have not been able to read those text messages, his boss's lawyers were able to read those text messages and made them available to him. His texts were the most embarrassing, I think it's fair to say, of the texts that were released

publicly. And apparently, according to reporting, some of the ones that were redacted that the public did not have access to, in terms of his internal positioning at Fox, were even more damning. But I think it was a sort of cumulative effect of, you know, here's a guy who's sort of like embroiled in scandal after scandal week after week. He's the center of controversy. He's sending out these text messages that are, you know, that are degrading his colleagues, going after management. I mean, that's funny. Listen, who doesn't hate their boss? Like, come on.

Sure. But then you also have, you know, saying things like I hate Trump and Trump is a demonic force. And then you also had, you know, potential other legal issues going on, in particular, a former producer on his show who was suing Fox News and named Tucker Carlson and his executive producer specifically in a discrimination case. And that may have been another piece of this. And with regard to the Dominion lawsuit, I mean, he was implicated in that it was expected that if it had gone to trial, he was going to have to testify. So when you put all these pieces together and you've got a man in Rupert Murdoch who's, you know, still the head honcho, 92 years old, it just became too many things for him to have to deal with. It reminded me a little bit of Keith Olbermann when he was ousted at MSNBC.

I mean, Keith Olbermann, like, was MSNBC at that point. Right. But it just became, he just became too much of a problem for them to have to deal with on a daily basis. And so they made the determination, and I think Fox News has made the determination, not just here with Tucker Carlson, but also with Glenn Beck, also with Bill O'Reilly, also with Megyn Kelly, that the brand and the network is bigger and has to be bigger than any one individual talent. So even Tucker, who is not only the number one rated show on Fox News, but was the number one rated cable news show, period,

even he, they are asserting here, is not bigger than the Fox News brand. Yeah, well, I will save some of my commentary about why I think that's completely wrong in today's age. It might have been true in the past, but a lot has changed in the cable news business. In terms of the circumstances, though, I think it's very important to say

that the text messages going after Fox News management apparently rank of the circumstances though, I think it's very important to say that the text messages going after Fox News management apparently rankled Fox News management, I guess. Who knew? Secondly, it comes to that lawsuit that you referenced. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. One of the other things that wasn't noticed is that his executive producer, Justin Wells, was actually also fired from Fox News. That gives us a little bit of insight into how this could be at least connected some way

to the Abby Grossberg suit. That's what you referenced. For those who don't know, Grossberg was a booking producer who actually worked on Carlson's show. She has filed a lawsuit against the company last month related in somewhat to the Dominion case because she says that she had compelled

false testimony on Dominion, but also claiming that she and other women face sexism and harassment from coworkers and officials. According to Grossberg and her lawyers, she had recordings of phone calls and of internal workplace culture that possibly could have implicated them. But again, from what I heard, this is a multifaceted situation. It comes one week after Dominion. Obviously, they're running scared there's no question about it yeah two now they've got this lawsuit on his face the lawsuit

he would have survived it from basically from what i could have seen it may not have been a good look and he certainly i mean he admitted to using quote the c word in some of his uh testimony which i mean whatever if you use it privately in a text messages, fine. Let's put that aside. Uh, on the actual like content though, from what I understand and also what the LA times has been able to report. This also happened because of a showdown over January 6th coverage, specifically coverage related to Ray Epps. Now, for those who don't know, we've discussed Mr. Epps here before. He's the guy who is on tape going all over the Capitol complex the night before and the morning of before the storming of the Capitol, saying we need to go into the Capitol. There has been reports and suspicions that Mr. Epps was allegedly an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He has

since avoided jail time despite being seen very clearly instigate or trying to get people to go into the Capitol and was even, quote, called a fed by his fellow rally attendees. He was clearly a center of a Tucker Carlson documentary and also recently appeared in a 60 Minutes special specifically where he actually went after Tucker Carlson and claimed that he had ruined his life. Now, apparently, there was, I mean, I guess we could surmise there was some sort of response in the works for Monday on the show that evening to discuss the Ray Epps situation. And this appears to be a red line for Rupert Murdoch, who apparently has been super pissed off.

I also had somebody flag to me something very important. Recall, Crystal, all of those hours of footage that were made available to Tucker by Kevin McCarthy? Yeah. How much of that footage did we actually see? Right. Yeah. Very little. Why is that? Even though even on his show, he said that we were going to see hours and hours of the footage and we were going to do more. And we had one segment which happened to show the QAnon shaman just walking around the Capitol. Yeah. Now we were promised hours. Who wants to make the guess? Was it Tucker who made the call not to show anybody more? Or maybe was it somebody with an Australian accent who owns the company? And so anyway, there has been, allegedly, by the way, according to my sources. So just to save myself from the

Murdochs and their lawyers, the point being there has been longstanding simmering tension. And also it appears that Murdoch himself, Rupert Murdoch, is just got to be one of the most capricious, strange CEOs who has ever ran a media company because he apparently never cared about the he never cared about the boycotts. Allegedly, his son Lachlan was very aligned with Tucker Carlson in terms of his views. Now they are trying to leak and make clear that Lachlan is apparently the one who made the call to fire him. But those who are in the know say it was Rupert himself who just basically wanted to wash his hands of the situation. All of it based, again, on the premise that you alluded to, Crystal, with the idea that Tucker Carlson is not bigger than Fox News. Also, this comes back to the question of Tucker's future, because he could currently be embroiled in a major contract litigation. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Yashar Ali, a media reporter here, talking, saying, Tucker will likely get paid out on his deal. This has now since been confirmed

by the Wall Street Journal. Even when Fox feels that it has the cost to fire, it often pays out on deals in order to avoid litigation. He signed a multi-year extension on his deal in 2021 and likely has anywhere from one to three years left on his deal. Now, the reason why this matters is that because Fox, we don't know about Tucker's contract specifically, obviously, but Fox as a matter of course has had non-competes in its talent deals for many years. If he had signed any sort of non-compete and they continue to pay him out on his deal, then technically they might be able to try and silence him for several, at least one to three years,

the period of his contract, and possibly even after the extension. One of the other reports that's come out since is that he has gone ahead and hired kind of like an aggressive media lawyer, apparently the same one that Don Lemon hired to negotiate his exit. But this very much could be part of the contention around his future. And, you know, we may not be able to hear from him for some time because we have literally tens

of millions, hundreds of millions, possibly of dollars at stake in terms of contract negotiations. Well, certainly in terms of while this is all being resolved, he will not be on air, you know, with Fox, obviously, but anywhere else, very likely. And so we'll see how this is ultimately resolved. You know, the non-competes are very common in the media industry, he was at Fox News, think about how little that is in the grand scheme of like the $4 billion that they have sitting in the bank. Yes, you're right. Good point. So, again, I think they probably just looked at this as like cost of doing business. You know, on the Ray Epps, like January 6th stuff, apparently this has been, according to some of the reporting, this has been a source of friction between him and Murdoch for a while. And Tucker, of course, has, as he does, like taken

something that has a grain of some interest in it, things we have covered here, like the potential, you know, involvement. Now we know the definite involvement of feds who were in Proud Boys informants and Oath Keepers and all, you know, all of these different organizations were infiltrated by feds. He takes that and spins it into a whole grand conspiracy and goes way further than what any of the evidence suggests. And even the fixation on Ray Epps. Branko Marcetic made this comment, which is like, I don't know why the fixation on him when we literally know there were dozens of fed informants inside of the Proud Boys. I think it's the video element, Crystal. It's the video montage.

But again, there's, you know, maybe, but there's no evidence that actually proves that Ray Epps is a Fed, and Tucker goes way too far in asserting some of these things. So just on the merits, I wanted to put that out there. You know, in terms of is he bigger than Fox News? I think it sort of makes sense that Fox News doesn't really need Tucker Carlson. They do have a very committed sort of default audience that shows up for them regardless of who's sitting in the chair. Now, will whoever they fill in for Tucker, you know, Jesse Waters has been floated as one potential replacement.

Will they be able to garner the ratings that Tucker was able to garner? Probably not, at least not immediately. But then again, no one thought that anyone would be able to match Bill O'Reilly's ratings when he was pushed down. And I don't know that Tucker matched him, but he came pretty darn close. So their audience is elderly. They're set in their habits. In much of the country, Fox News is just like the default program that's on, sort of like CNN is on at the airports. Fox News is just on in businesses and homes across the country. So I think they're right in a sense that they don't need Tucker Carlson. Their business is going to be okay. And that whatever

issues he was causing internally and the fact that he was embroiled in this, these controversies one after another, and he basically just became a real pain in the ass for Rupert Murdoch and management. I think that makes sense, but I also think it makes sense that Tucker doesn't need Fox news either. Correct. And so, uh, you know, whenever he's able to do whatever he wants to do next, there's no doubt that he's going to find an audience, find success. Now, will it be as prominent and as influential as his position at Fox News? I would say probably not, because legacy media still obsesses over what happens on cable news. You're not going to be involved in those big nights of presidential debate coverage.

You're not going to be playing in the background at the McDonald's in flyover country. And so there's a lessening of your cultural cache, even as I think that he will undoubtedly find an audience and be successful whenever he turns up to do whatever he wants to do next. No question. Actually, let's just go to the next part here, because I think this is an important set piece about Tucker's future and also just about what exactly all of this means for the future of Fox.

Now, you have pointed long to this Vanity Fair piece. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, guys. This is important inside the Rupert Murdoch succession drama, specifically about the war in between the Murdoch empire, between Lachlan Murdoch and his son James. James is kind of your doctrinaire, I guess establishment lib is probably the best way

to put it. He married a woman, apparently, he's very anti-Fox News, left the company. It's very worthy of a television show. My understanding is he's sort of like resistance lib. He's about as resistance lib as it gets, kind of a joke within the family. So that's James Murdoch.

Lachlan Murdoch is much more aligned with his father, much more with the Tucker Carlson view, but Lachlan also is a multi-billionaire who lives in Los Angeles in one of the largest homes. He likes to go to parties and he doesn't like being told that Fox News is such an awful place and why does he continue to do this to the country. So he's pulled in a couple of different directions. Who doesn't like to go to Sun Valley, Idaho and meet with Warren Buffett, right? It's a tough life for these folks.

Anyway, so these guys, they're torn in all these different places. The war is over. Whatever Murdoch has left and has not sold over to Disney, the vast majority of his empire is sold for cash to the Disney Corporation. Fox Properties, Fox Studio, all that stuff. Fox News, his baby, and the Dow Jones Company

were really the ones that he loved the most, the Wall Street Journal, that's like his bread and butter. So within that, the war over control and its future is one where they're tugged in a bunch of different directions. Here is why, Crystal, I think I will dispute what we were talking about earlier. O'Reilly's departure was in 2017. That was a media eternity ago. So Fox is very cagey about its average age of audience, but from the best that I can tell, in 2015, the latest study that has yet come out

about the median viewer was 68 years old. The median in 2015, that was eight years ago. So we are talking here, there's no reason to believe that that hasn't changed. So all of those people have actually aged So now we are talking about a median age of somewhere in the 70s now according to Fox's own data I had to dig deep and pull from their own article which they were touting about beating CNN. They average only 174,000 people in the key demographic Primetime average is 259,000. Consider this.

That is pathetic. Now, one of the reasons why the Tucker Carlson show was important to Fox News was not only did it get 3.8 million concurrent viewers while it was live, he had the most amount of young people who watched the, both live and on YouTube. Now, the other thing is that he was the keystone of the Fox Nation streaming platform, the Tucker Carlson Today podcast, of which they rolled much of his rights into the overall Fox News brand. Now that's over, so what are they going to do with their bet on the future? All of this comes back to, it's not that their business will be fine in the first one to two years, certainly.

What about seven years from now? So I've been looking at this. The next cable carriage negotiation is within the next decade for the company. They have to make the case that their aging viewers are going to be worth some of the highest cable carriage fees in the entire business to justify a $2 billion profit for the Fox News channel. I just don't think that that case exists anymore. I'm not the only person. A lot of people in the industry are saying this as well. From one of the comps that I'm trying to make here is,

O'Reilly 2017 also came on the heels of what? Why did everybody in cable become a star? Trump. Well, the era of that level of coverage, it's gone. Even if Trump comes back, nobody's gonna cover him in the same way. Right now, Fox News is 10 out of 10 for all programming, Average, it's gone. Even if Trump comes back, nobody's going to cover him in the same way. Right now, Fox News is 10 out of 10 for all programming, but their overall number of views

is quite low. Again, the best of them was Tucker Carlson, 3.2 million as of literally last week, 3.8 usually at the overall cap. The average young demo, as I said, the comparison I'm using is this. If you were the number one classified ads business in 2001, why should we care by 2010? It's cool. It's great to be a classified business. Classified ads, print classifies. That's a multibillion-dollar business.

The Washington Post company, these people were flying on private jets, making bank. Guess what? A decade later, nobody cared. They're all bankrupt. Well, let me clarify, because I see Fox News in the same light I see MSNBC and CNN, which is that they are all on a path of managed decline. The business model is already effectively defunct, that they are trying to hold on to the scraps of what they already have. Now, Fox News has the largest of the scraps. They consistently have the highest ratings,

even as all of these networks have a very elderly audience, and young people are, by and large, not going to Fox News. Even Tucker Carlson's show, I mean, if you look at the numbers of, like, you know, 30-year-olds who are watching that show. Oh, it's like 200,000. It's very small, right? So I don't think that whether Tucker is there or Tucker is not there, that they had a very compelling case for the next negotiation. I agree with you. So you can't I mean, when you have an entire 24 hour news network and you're trying to figure out some streaming play, which even with Tucker involved in that was not particularly successful. I don't think that his presence there was going to rescue them one way or the other.

So that's why, listen, and to speak to Tucker's role at the network and whether he was like uniquely good or uniquely bad or whatever, I think it's always important to take a step back with all of these networks and think about what their bottom line is. Fox News has a dual bottom line. They are first and foremost a partisan outfit. They were set up explicitly as a partisan pro-Republican party play. And that is another thing that comes out in the Rupert Murdoch text and all of the texts that were released as part of the Dominion lawsuit. They're actively talking about how do we prop up the Republican candidates in Georgia? And Rupert

Murdoch is actively telling Ron DeSantis, like, I want you to be the Republican nominee. I'm going to push you. So this was an explicit partisan play and it's a moneymaking venture. It's both of those things. And so how did Tucker fit into that universe? I mean, his ratings justified, made him a very valuable asset, no doubt about it, even with advertiser backlash, still a very valuable asset. And ultimately, I think he was also a very effective, you know, partisan. He was a more effective partisan operative because he could be at times more interesting and wouldn't always say the thing that you would expect him to say.

Sean Hannity, you always know what you're going to get night after night after night. But because Tucker not only pushed Republican candidates overall, but engaged in some of the inter-Republican, intra-Republican party fights and was trying to shape the direction of the Republican Party, that made him more interesting and I think more effective as sort of like, you know, a partisan propagandist for the network. However, you know, part of, I think, where some of the tension comes from and what comes out in like the January 6th tension and stuff like that is the side of the Republican Party that he allied himself with was not the side that Rupert Murdoch was most comfortable with, which is signaled by the fact, you know, that Murdoch is going all in for Ron is signaled by the fact that Murdoch

is going all in for Ron DeSantis and clearly has made a decision he wants to move on from Trump. And so I think that's sort of, even as Tucker was still delivering for them in terms of money, still delivering for them, because ultimately at the end of the day, Tucker is still about pushing you to vote for whatever Republican candidate is in front of you, still very effective at that. And I would say probably the most effective of all of their hosts at that. The tension comes from which side of the Republican Party split he ends up in. And I think that, you know, when you compile it with, OK, potential sexual harassment, and I don't doubt that she's got some stuff that was going to be very embarrassing and very difficult and that they were going to have to deal with again.

You know, when you put all of these things together and that intra-Republican Party fight that's going on, I think that's why he ends up out. I think, yeah, no, I don't disagree with you. I personally think it probably had, it was equal parts ideology and equal parts business. And for Murdoch, he finally just was like, I've had enough. And basically also from what I've heard, people inside Fox are furious, not necessarily about the Tucker thing, but they're just like,

how are you so capricious in the way that you're handling this? You won't settle the damn lawsuit until we've humiliated ourselves. And then you spend a billion to do so. It's like, so you embarrassed us and then you paid a billion dollars out. You should have just paid a billion from the beginning and saved us all the humiliation. Definitely the case. Of course it's the case. And then, remember, there's other lawsuits to cut. There's the Smartmatic lawsuit to come. And on top of this, you know, Abby Grossberg, is that her name, producer suit.

There's potential shareholders. Like there's a lot more that's coming down the pike here as well that has potential business impact. Absolutely. You know, we can look from the outside and be like, Fox News is a juggernaut, which they continue to be, even as I do think they're in the state of longer term managed decline, just like the other cable news networks. But when you are in charge of running it, I can imagine how it feels more

precarious. You know, they saw Newsmax and One America News eating into their eating their lunch and eating into their bottom line. They see the way that independent media is rising up and, you know, that these creators sort of like top talent doesn't really need them anymore. Dan Bongino just left the network as well after they couldn't come to terms over some kind of a deal. So they see the way the media landscape is shifting. They don't know how to handle it, just like none of the other networks know how to handle it either. And so even though we look at and we're like, you have $4 billion in the bank. Like, you're fine. They see the landscape and they understand how tricky and precarious their situation

actually is. I think they should be. Listen, Crystal, what were you doing in 2017 when O'Reilly left? Was that early days of Rising or was that before that? Before I even joined the show? Yeah, that was before Rising, actually. I was a White House correspondent. That's how long long ago it was now our show is where it is we're one of the number one podcasts in the united states whenever it comes to news that's how

quickly the internet can change things i'm not saying we are anywhere even close to the par but i am saying very clearly people are watching us which it's a zero-sum game in their opinion and that means that they're not or they're watching the glenn greenwald show or the jimmy Dore show or the Kyle Kalinske show or the Tim Pool show or the Ben Shapiro show. Any of our aggregate increases in audience is a huge existential threat to all of them. And I think that's a big, big problem for them, which they wouldn't be stupid. Let's actually get to Tucker's future now after that very interesting debate around Fox News and the future of media. As you can tell, there's a lot to say. Well, Fox's competitors, specifically to this point, go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Newsmax CEO, sorry, actually, first of all, in terms of the value that it cost Fox, $690 million in value on their stock the very same

day, almost roughly equivalent to the value of what they had to pay out. Now, obviously, it's not a realized gain, but still, it shows you that Fox shareholders are not too happy about Tucker's leaving the company, and they're specifically looking to the future earnings on their ability to make up for it. Second, I'll put this up there, please. The Newsmax CEO came out and said, quote, for a while, Fox has been moving to become established in media.

Tucker Carlson's removal is a milestone in that effort. Millions of viewers who like Fox News that have made the switch to Newsmax and Tucker's departure will only fuel that. So the competitors in the linear format are absolutely pouncing on Fox right now. Also, in terms of the other people who he may work with, by the way, I want to be clear. I have no inside knowledge. I have not spoken to Tucker Carlson since then. However, I have seen a lot of right-wing online companies who I mentioned previously who are coming out and making it clear that they would absolutely be willing to make a deal with him if needed. Throw this up there on the screen. The CEO of The Daily Wire, Jeremy Boring, saying a lot of people are asking if Tucker Carlson's coming to The Daily Wire. I suspect he already has a plan, but we'd break out the big novelty checkbook for him

if he doesn't, making it very clear. Chris Pavlovsky, who's the CEO of Rumble, also put this out there, put the next one up there. Quote, cable television is now completely controlled speech. Rumble is now the only bastion for authentic speech. Don't forget, Chris personally made that offer of $100 million to Joe Rogan. And I presume that some similar offer absolutely could be made there. Again, I don't have any inside knowledge here.

The next one up here, let's put this obviously a troll one from RT, Russian media, says, well, Tucker, if you need a job, you can come on over and work here. I mean, I'm sure they'd take him, so in that way it's not a troll. Yeah, I guess you're right. I guess they would take him. You know, they'd take in some other MSNBC personalities and all that. Tucker, though, appears to have something in the works. Let's put this up there on his website that he has updated since then. He says, text Tucker to find out what he's up to next. You can sign up by a text or email.

Yashar Ali speculating, I suspect Tucker already knows exactly what he's going to do next. We'll see. I'm not so sure about that. He has a lot of options, but really more so it's like he needs to get paid and he needs to get himself out of that non-compete before anything. That's got to be like the immediate concern. That'll be the immediate for sure. I mean, I don't know if he has plans already in the works, but we do know, apparently, according to

Wall Street Journal, which of course is a Murdoch property, so you should probably believe their reporting here, he was informed 10 minutes before all of us found out. Right. 10 minutes. And they all, I mean, this is what they do. It doesn't matter how long you've been there. It doesn't matter whether you've been a good soldier or a bad soldier or a medium soldier. Like they will protect their own brand and they will not give you a chance to, you know, God forbid, go on air and say something like was let go, his staff found out by the same news alert that all of us found out, which is wild. It's a good reminder, too. All these people.

Tucker got paid some $20, $25 million a year. Don Lemon was getting paid probably $5, $10 million a year. Jake Tapper, all these people. They hold themselves up as bastions, as independent. Guess what? They can fire your ass in 10 minutes. Oh, yeah. I mean, look at that. Really,

really understand like they work for somebody. And that's why both of us, Crystal, we've had some experiences certainly with being screwed with by executives, bosses, and all that. And we set our business up exactly this way. Like, you know, you can never be a free man, never. Or a free woman. You will never be free in your head when you have the ax hanging over you like that. He worked there since 2011 as a contributor. I remember him coming back from the office, going up there on the weekend to do Fox News, Fox and Friends in New York City, shuttling back and forth. They treated him well.

They treat you like a king when you're a king. And then they will cut your head off like that with no remorse. And if you don't think that that does hang over all of them and impact the way that they do their jobs, you're a fool because they all know the limits of where they can go and what they can say, what's going to rankle management, what's going to get them in trouble, what's not going to get them in trouble. And so that is, I mean, that is a core part of how you end up with the like very boring, predictable, not good content that you have on cable news.

Yeah, and it gets to, look at Brian Kilmeade. Brian Kilmeade has worked at this company for what, well over a decade. He's a Fox and Friends star. Look at the hostage fear in his eyes as he opens for the Tucker Carlson show when the bosses clearly told him that he had to take over. Very bizarre in the way that he opens Tucker's own show in that time slot with the less than 15 second passing comment and immediately getting to it. Take a listen. Hi, everybody, and welcome to Fox News Tonight. I am Brian Kilmeade. As you probably have heard, Fox News

and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. I wish Tucker the best. I'm great friends with Tucker and always will be. But right now it's time for Fox News tonight. So let's get started. That quick? That's all it takes? You're right to it? You got 10 seconds? Yeah, sure. It's definitely for, I don't know. I don't know, man. Yeah. Somebody, you know, they ask you and then you go on there and you fill in that night. That's a little bit scummy in my opinion. But hey, look, that's just me talking. It also is a real loss. You know, Kilmeade, look, from a basic ideological perspective, at least the Tucker Carlson show was willing to air some very dissonant views on the war in Ukraine. Brian Kilmeade is a warmongering, neocon, Reaganite, low IQ moron and has been for over 15 years over on Fox and Friends.

Some of the interviews that he has conducted are genuinely brain dead. And it would be a massive loss, all right? Who knows in terms of impact and all that. But at the very least, cultural impact, as you're saying, Crystal, to not have a single anti or single, like a single dissonant voice on the Ukraine war, I think is going to be, maybe it's better for us. Maybe it's better to have it all online. I'm not sure, but at the very least, I thought it was making an impact.

We'll see. Also, Trump himself also weighed in on the reaction to the Tucker Carlson show, or to the Tucker Carlson firing in an exclusive interview over on Newsmax. Here's what he had to say. I don't know if it was voluntary or was it somebody fired, but I think Tucker's been terrific. He's been, especially over the last year or so, he's been terrific to me. There's a lot of turmoil over there, Fox.

I mean, $7.87 they just paid. Why would they get rid of a guy who's performing? Why would somebody do that to their business? Because they're losing money right now. Their stock has gone down. Well, I was surprised that they made a settlement on that case. I thought that was a case that should easily be won. And they made a settlement. Look, you'll have to ask them. I'm not representing them at all by any means. But the Tucker situation, again, you don't know if it's a firing. Maybe he left because he wasn't being given his free reign. He wants free reign maybe, but I was surprised by it.

What did you make of that, Crystal? It was interesting to watch him couch his words because Trump both wants to hit Fox News, but he also wants them to love him. Wants to keep him. Yeah. He felt like he was walking a very careful line there. And by the time, but also his whole like, oh, we don't know whether he was fired or whether he walked away by the time that he was recording this interview. We knew damn well that he had definitely been fired. So, yeah, he's very he's very carefully choosing his words there. Also, that was on Newsmax with with Greg Kelly, who I think is their highest rated program or one of

their higher rated programs. But they're trying to make the most of this. But I do think it's important to put in perspective for a variety of reasons where Newsmax actually stands at this point. In the demo, they're getting like 9, 10, 11,000 viewers. So it's kind of astonishing that Fox considered them such a threat, that they were willing, they were freaking out internally, and they were shifting their approach to how they were going to handle these stupid stop-the-steal election claims, all for this network that now gets like 10,000 people in the demo. But again, it shows you how precarious they think themselves to be. And in a sense, they're really not wrong. They're really not wrong. I think you're right. I mean, listen,

10 to 15,000 can start out small, but then it can snowball. It was, I think, I believe, during the election in November of 2020, wasn't it like 25 or 50,000? That's quite low for them. Yes. So they, during that stop Steal part, they did search. There you go. And there was a more sizable audience that was tuning in there, maybe even as many as 100,000 in the demo. I'd have to go and look back at it specifically. And Fox, of course, was seeing their ratings collapse. So that's what fed into their sense of like, oh, my God, this could really be the end for us and people could change their viewing habits. And, you know, I think it also was a wake up call for them in terms of how much control they had over their audience and their position there is dramatically weakened. You only

have to look at the Republican primary polls of how much Trump is dominating when they went all in effectively for DeSantis and Murdoch is pushing for DeSantis. And obviously their audience has a mind of their own. So even though now Newsmax and One America have fallen back to quite low ratings, especially in that key demographic, which by the way, for cable news is the only demographic that matters for advertisers, et cetera. Even though they have fallen back to those small numbers, it does show you that, you know, there are alternatives now. The whole reason that Fox built the juggernaut is because they were effectively a monopoly and the only game in town. And that is simply not the case anymore. I think zooming out from Fox,

looking at the whole cable news landscape, which we're about to transition to CNN, you're going to see it be less about these individual stars and more about just the sort of like standard issue replaceable whoever um because if you are a genuine star who can draw an audience you just don't need these platforms and having your freedom you know impinged in that way and having a boss over your head who can cut you loose at any time, it's worth even if you take a hit on cultural relevance, even if you take somewhat of a hit monetarily, it's worth it in some instances not to have that ax hanging over your head.

So I think the era of the sort of gigantic cable news star, I really think that that's probably coming to an end. Listen, I can only hope, especially given our latest one. That's a good thing, that's probably coming to an end. Listen, I can only hope, especially given our latest one. That's a good thing. That's definitely a good thing. All right, so let's talk about CNN. Minutes after we finish recording our, like, oh, my God, Tucker Carlson's been fired segment yesterday,

we get the notification that, oh, my God, Tom Lemon is actually on at CNN. That, as we discussed at the beginning of the show, is why Sagar is wearing this absolutely ridiculous outfit. Look at this. This is not meant to be done, people. It's never meant to be done. I'm not going to lie. It genuinely looks terrible. So what's interesting is even on the way out, it was kind of ugly and messy over at CNN. So Don Lemon put out a statement that was complaining that after all these years of service at CNN, that they didn't tell him personally, that they told him through an agent. CNN did not appreciate this tweet that he put out.

And so they put out their own comments here. Put this up on the screen. So initially, if you look at the bottom, this is what they put out initially. Initially, it's this very diplomatic CNN and Don have parted ways. Don will forever be a part of the CNN family. We thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years. We wish him well and we'll be cheering him on in his future endeavors. Then after he puts out his like catty, aggrieved statement, then they come back with Don Lemon's statement about this morning's events is inaccurate.

He was offered an opportunity to meet with management, but instead released a statement on Twitter. We also have some reporting about exactly what went down with Don Lemon. some of this has been visible for anyone who has been watching their poorly rated terrible morning show, which is that his female co-hosts, Caitlin Collins and Poppy Harlow, hate his guts and for good reason, because he doesn't know how to play well with others. Look, it is a very different deal when you have your own show and you can do with it what you want and you can take up as much space and as much airtime as you want. But as someone who has co-hosted with a lot of people, not all of whom are as wonderful to work with as Sagar, if you have someone in that role who wants to hog up all the space and not let anyone else in, it becomes a very tense situation amongst the co-hosts. And it becomes very tense for the audience to watch because they can feel that friction and that tension. Who wants to start their day with this weird underlying psychodrama that's going on? So apparently, let's put this up on the screen

for the New York Times. They had some reporting about exactly what was going on behind the scenes. They say Don Lemon ousted from CNN in move that left him stunned. Hours before those dueling statements, he was on air in his usual anchor chair. He showed no signs of knowing what was about to happen. At the end, he signed off to viewers with a smile and a friendly bye, everybody. But they said in recent weeks, CNN's bookers had discovered some guests didn't want to be on the air with Mr. Lemon. Research on the morning show reviewed by CNN executives found his popularity with audiences had fallen. And on Wednesday, he made headlines again after a highly contentious on-air exchange with Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican presidential candidate segment deteriorated as the men fiercely debated

questions of black history and the second amendment. Mr. Lemon's co-anchor, Ms. Harlow, could be seen sitting silently beside him, at times casting her gaze elsewhere and scrolling through her smartphone. I want to show you guys a little bit of this. They go on to say that that incident left several CNN leaders exasperated. I want to show you a little bit of this incident, not because of the content of the debate, which in my opinion both of them lost for various reasons, but because you can see on Poppy Harlow's face and her body language and what she is doing there just how much she hates the situation she's in. Take a look at a bit of this. Hang on, please. I cannot keep a thought if you guys are talking to me in my ear. So hang on one second. So to say that black people, say what you said again.

Historical fact. It's not a historical fact. The part that I find- Just because you say it's a historical fact. The part that I find insulting. I think it's insulting that you're sitting here- But me regarding you as a fellow citizen. That you're sitting here,

whatever ethnicity you are, explaining to me- Thank you very much. Thank you for continuing that conversation. We'll continue the conversation. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Papa. We'll talk about China.

Yes, tell us about China. Next time you come back. Oh, thank you. Much to say on declaring independence from China. Okay, can we move on now, please? Thank you. Thank you, Papa. We'll talk about China next time you come back. Oh, thank you. Much to say on declaring independence from China. Something you can add on. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, boy.

Her face, if you're just listening, stone face the whole time. I feel really bad for her. She looks, I mean, I've honestly been in that situation. I know exactly what it feels like. When she had prepared for this segment, too, she had things that she wanted to ask this presidential contender. Clearly, she wanted to talk to him about China, which he has made some really, you know, aggressive and kind of out there statements that you could go back and forth and have an interesting exchange on.

And instead, Don Lemon decides he's going to take up the entire time with this weird debate that they, this weird, like, esic historic debate. Um, and what ultimately made for very uncomfortable and not good television. If it was just that exchange, I'm sure no big deal because everybody oversteps them. And it's, it's a little, you know, delicate dance you're doing with your co-hosts, et cetera. But there have been so many visible incidents, let alone what we don't know behind the scenes. And clearly they decided this man is getting paid a lot of money and the guests don't like him. The audience doesn't like him. His co-hosts don't like him. Like this is supposed to be Chris Lick's new flagship show.

What are we doing here? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's just psycho because, you know, when you respect somebody, it's like, Chris, when we interview people and you want to ask a question, I'll look at you and be like, okay, cool. You know, vice versa. I'll be like, hey, I have a follow-up. I'll put a finger up or something like that. Both have things. We'll even talk about it a little bit before.

This man has no respect for his co-os. And I honestly am going to – and look, you know I am not this guy. I don't think he respects women. From the takeaway of that crazy text message scenario, whenever he was texting 15 years ago off a burner phone, basically weird, threatening messages because he didn't get a job. Clearly, coupled with the past your prime comments on top, he's not only a prima donna. I think he is such an insane, misogynist narcissist. And it takes a lot for me to say that, but I've seen enough. I've seen enough at this point. Having a little bit of inside CNN knowledge, I think your comments fit with some of the things that I have heard behind the scenes.

But I think everybody that worked with him couldn't stand him. I mean, that's why the knives came out for him the minute that he was vulnerable here. And again, look, there's another thing to say about this, which is Chris Licht comes into CNN. He's supposed to be turning around the network. He's supposed to be, you know, ushering in a new era, going back to the basics of what made CNN great, et cetera, et cetera. It is the most basic understanding of how to create television and especially how to create a morning show that people are going to watch.

You have to think about who you're putting together and whether they have. You can't just slap random three anchors together who may or may not be OK on their own and think it's just going to gel and work. It is actually rare to have a situation where you have chemistry with someone, where you have that give and take, where it is comfortable, where you have that good working relationship, where you can disagree at times and debate at times, and you know how to hand off the ball. And all of those things are not a guarantee far from it. So I also want to say, you know, Don Lemon is Don Lemon. And it was no

surprise who this man was before you put him in the slot. It's humiliating for Chris Licht that this this the morning show thing was supposed to be like what he does. This was supposed to be his specialty. This was his big flagship ship effort as he took over the network to put his imprint on it. And it just is a complete visible catastrophe. And, you know, to get back to like the tension between that was obvious between Don Lemon and his misogyny, as Sagar points out, towards women, what sort of set off this whole chain of events that ends up with him being fired is his comments about Nikki Haley and whether or not she's in her prime. Take a listen to a bit of that. This whole talk about age makes me uncomfortable.

I think that, I think it's the wrong road to go down. She says people, you know, politicians or something are not in their prime. Nikki Haley is in her prime. Sorry. A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s. That's not according to me. Prime for what? It depends. It's just like prime. If you look it up, it'll say, if you Google, when is a woman in her prime, it'll say 20s, 30s, and 40s. I don't necessarily know. 40s. Oh, I got another thing. I agree with that.

So I think she has to be careful about saying that politicians aren't in their prime. I think they need to qualify. Are you talking about prime for like childbearing? Or are you talking about prime for being president? I'm just saying what the facts are. Google it. Everybody at home, when is a woman in her prime? It says 20s, 30s, and 40s.

And I'm just saying Nikki Haley should be careful about saying that politicians are not in their prime and that they need to be in their prime when they serve because she wouldn't be in her prime according to Google or whatever it is. And there were other incidents.

I feel so bad for her. Apparently, you know, she stormed off. She was crying afterwards. Like, what is wrong with you, dude? Like, you know, from a very basic level. Even if you believe it,

why would you say that to somebody? Right. To her face. Her ass is getting up at 4 30 in the morning i don't know if she has kids or not that ain't a fun life you know it's like and then basically saying that like she's like wasting her life or whatever like that to her it's just really gross it is gross and there was another remember there was another really visible incident where um again don lemon is acting like this is his show alone yeah Yeah, yeah. He's talking over her. And Caitlyn is trying to get in.

And just to, like, contribute to, they were, like, talking about Biden was getting off an airplane or something. And Caitlyn covered the White House. So she felt like, okay, this is my time to jump in and sort of commentate this and do this thing. And Don got so irritated with her that she was even trying to be in this segment at all. And apparently there was some ugly scene after the fact that many people were witness to.

So in any case, the math just here just didn't make sense at the end of the day. Whatever. I'm sure they'll probably have to pay him out some settlement as well, pay out his contract, whatever. He probably just signed a new deal when he got put on this morning show. So I wouldn't doubt that he has a number of years left on his contract, but they just looked at the math and they were like, what are we getting out of this situation? Everybody hates this dude. His female co-hosts definitely hate this dude. The show is getting terrible ratings. Why are we going forward with this? And so at the, you know, once they got this research back, apparently that

was like, the audience doesn't like him. The guests don't like him. His coworkers don't like him. His co-hosts don't like him. They're like, all right, we're done here. Well, good riddance done. I hope they don't pay him. I think, you know, here was the only thing I enjoyed. He was second rate news, even on the day of his firing. He wasn't at the top of, I checked all the major outlets. You would have been at one point, would have been the front page because Tucker was a bigger story. It was everywhere. Even in terms of our own viewers.

Oh, it's not even close. Our viewers cared much more about Tucker than Don Lemon. I see it everywhere. So number two, even on his way out. I can imagine him having a second act. I could. If he goes back to,

remember how he used to do during the Obama era, all that like black respectability called like pull up your pants and all that stuff. If he leaned into that sort of like, you know, conservative respectability politics, I could see him having a second act. Hey, listen, it's possible. You said, Crystal, that it was the prime video. I think it's the hoodie that did it, man.

That was it. That was the end. I think committing this crime, that's what put him over the edge. It could be. All right, so it is put up or shut up time in terms of Republicans and debt ceiling negotiations. Kevin McCarthy offered a bill, but there's a real open question whether he can get his own caucus to go along with it. Remember, he can only lose five votes, well, really four votes once he loses the fifth. That's it. It's over.

And he is facing challenges on both ends of the ideological spectrum. He's got moderates who are leaning no. He's got sort of like House Freedom Caucus, right wing people who are leaning no. So we'll see how this all works out. Let's go and put this up on the screen. It's from Jake Sherman. A little bit of detail about where things stand. They say the GOP whip team works throughout the weekend to shore up the vote count on their debt limit bill. The House Freedom Caucus, that's HFC, pushing for work requirements to kick in in 2024 instead of 2025. So they have some disputes with how this is all going to work out. They also want to up the hours for work requirements.

GOP leadership is not interested in either. Number two, he also says that Dems seem to be trying to figure out what McCarthy is up to. But it's quite simple. He wants a negotiation with Biden. His ultimate goal is spending reductions, work requirements and permitting reform. They also go on to say here that House rules will take up the bill sometime today, likely around 4 p.m. Goal is to get a vote by Wednesday, but that easily could slip. But this next piece up on the screen from NBC News, this gives a little bit of the sense of who exactly are the holdouts. They say McCarthy faces his first big test as speaker, defusing a debt ceiling time bomb. Of course, it's a debt ceiling time bomb of his own making, but put that aside. Five Republican no votes would derail the McCarthy debt bill. Democrats

will all be opposed to it. Several of the 20 hard right conservatives who initially blocked McCarthy from winning the speakership three months ago have threatened to vote no this week. To give you a sense of some of the things that they're concerned about, you've got former Freedom Caucus chair Andy Biggs saying that he told the GOP whip team he's leaning no over its main provision, which is lifting the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion. Some of these people say they won't leaning no over its main provision, which is lifting the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion. You know, some of these people say they won't vote for any debt ceiling increase, which I don't know how you work with that. Yeah, good luck. Yeah. Matt Gaetz has demanded,

quote, more rigor on work requirements and recipients of Medicaid and other safety net programs. Victoria Sparks, another House Freedom Caucus type, went back and forth on supporting McCarthy for Speaker, said she's also undecided, arguing if her party wants to target the poor, it should also challenge the rich monopolist. Okay, fair enough. I like that one. Meanwhile, centrist or swing district Republicans like Representatives Tony Gonzalez of Texas and Nancy Mace of South Carolina also are withholding support. Mace said she is leaning no because the bill doesn't balance the budget and could harm green energy business in her state. That is, I think, a key piece here because within this bill, all of the various cuts that are going to be contemplated,

there are going to be some districts that benefit from the green energy credits. I was just reading a report yesterday about how bread lines are expanding and need for food aid is actually massively increasing due to inflation across the country. And it's at this very moment that you want to cut SNAP food stamp benefits. You're going to have centrists who are concerned about that. So I don't know whether he's going to be able to pull this one off or not. Yeah, I think it's going to be really tough. Now, as I understand it, the way that the White House and the Senate Dems are basically

doing is they're holding their breath. If McCarthy can pass the bill, then he's a serious negotiator. Yeah. If he doesn't, all eyes are going to be in the Senate. So effectively, what I understand is that the very first bill passed by the House of Representatives was that repeal of the IRS budget increase. That's called a revenue vehicle. Revenue vehicles all have to originate in the House of Representatives because of the Constitution. That's the only revenue vehicle bill that's been sent over to the Senate. The Senate is sitting on that bill. The reason why is they can now amend that to include the debt ceiling if they want to. So basically, everyone is waiting Chuck Schumer and McConnell. If McCarthy can pass the bill, okay, then we're not going to be using this. Otherwise, McConnell will then probably step in. They will negotiate

whatever the debt ceiling is. Biden will get involved with those two. It will pass the Senate, kick to the House. Then it's a game of chicken. Does McCarthy let it come up to the floor for a vote? Do the Dems use it as a discharge petition and get it to the floor anyways and maybe get 10 Republicans to vote for them? It comes down to some really crazy high stakes chicken negotiation. But in my opinion, that's probably the most likely. I don't think you can pass this damn bill. What do you think? I don't see it. When you got Nancy Mace over here saying, I don't want to cut green energy jobs because we're talking about a billion dollars in subsidies to GOP districts in many cases. And then you got somebody over here who says, I don't want to raise a debt ceiling at all.

How are you going to get nine votes to agree to those? And none of these people care about, like, the good of the Republican Party. They're looking out for their own personal interests in their own very different districts. So for a Matt Gaetz, it makes all the political sense in the world. And he has gone a long way. He's the reason we know his name from being a hard, hard line, you know, being difficult, like causing problems for Republican leadership, taking the furthest fringe position. That is really good for him in terms of his politics and his desire to be on cable news and his desire to fundraise or whatever it is he wants to do.

And if you're Nancy Mace or one of these New York Republicans who are representing Biden districts, well, guess what benefits you? You have to be able to go and say to your constituents, look, I'm not like these other hardline Republicans. I'm different. I'm reasonable. I pushed back when they wanted me to go along with all of these cuts that would have hurt our district. So each of them looking out for the individual interest makes it very difficult. Another holdout, by the way, is George Santos, who represents one of these more moderate New York districts. And I mean, also is very likely to lose because of all of the other George Santos things that we know about. But he's another one that told I think it was the Huffington Post that he right now is a no.

I'm not sure exactly what his reasoning is, but it just shows you all of the balls that McCarthy has to juggle and all of the competing interests that it's just impossible to get them to align. The only way I think he gets this through is if the caucus really does believe that it will be sort of humiliating for Republicans as a whole and really damaging to their prospects of doing anything if they don't pass this particular bill. But again, when you have individual self-interest competing with like the good of the party, guess what's very likely to win out in the end? And that's clearly what the White House is betting on. At the same time, you do have Wall Street starting to kind of freak

out a little bit. You'll recall Kevin McCarthy made what I thought was kind of a weird trip to Wall Street, gave a speech to the New York Stock Exchange, went on CNBC to try to convince them, like, hey, y'all should really be on my side. And they're like, we're interested in making money, and you're holding the entire economy and market hostage. We are not on your side. But this next piece up on the screen from Politico, they say nobody knows when it's going

to happen. Wall Street wakes up to default threat the government has until the summer to strike a deal. So there are some sort of under the radar signs that Wall Street is beginning to really get serious about this threat. They quote the chief political economist at Goldman Sachs saying, there's this view in D.C. that the market isn't freaking out enough. And that may be true to an extent, but I'm dealing almost exclusively with this issue the last few weeks. And there's actually more concern now than even back in 2011, which is the last time that this all really happened, when S&P downgraded U.S. debt during a similar standoff. It's just that nobody knows when it's going to happen or what to do about it. They also point to the shift from general nonchalance to rising concern can be seen in an obscure corner of the market, the soaring cost of insuring against exposure to U.S.

debt through instruments called credit default swaps. The cost of insuring against a U.S. default rose to its highest level in over a decade after JPMorgan analysts said there was a non-trivial risk of at least a technical default on the government's debt. And you have a bunch of quotes in this article from various Wall Street analyst types. You had Citi CEO Jane Frazier said her bank believes it's, quote, now more likely that the U.S. will enter into a shallow recession later this year. The biggest unknown, she told analysts on the bank's recent earnings call, is how the debt ceiling plays out. Yeah, I think this is where all eyes are.

As you said, look, Wall Street doesn't care. They don't give a damn whether you increase spending or decrease spending. All they care about is are the interest rates going to stay flat and are you not going to screw with what's going on in the markets. And no matter which way it goes, brinksmanship and default is bad for the overall US economy, which would basically crash the stock market and cause them a bunch of headaches. Once again, they literally do not care whatsoever. As long as you don't raise taxes on them, they'll be like, listen, you do whatever you want. So McCarthy's gamble was kind of foolish from the beginning. He was trying to calm markets with the

idea that, listen, any brinksmanship is going to invite a massive market reaction. It doesn't matter whether they think you're a serious guy or not. Now, again, he comes back to this question. Can he pass it or not? If he can't pass it, it's going to the Senate and we're looking at some wild 11th hour votes in the House of Representatives, maybe till three in the morning or whatever, where we technically breach but don't breach. Let's all just try and avoid that if possible. But honestly, I don't know. You know, looking at the situation, it looks bad. It really does look bad. I mean, and I don't need to underscore for people that the economy is already in a very precarious position, that people's wages are getting eaten up by inflation, that the Fed's continued interest

trade hiking has been a real problem for ordinary people and, you know, their day-to-day life, economic anxiety already very high, a lot of concerns about a, you know, some type of recession, deep, shallow, who knows. And so into that mix of tons of uncertainty and economic challenges, you're going to hold the whole global economy hostage to get some work requirements on SNAP and on Medicaid. Like, come on. You think the American people are going to be on your side? You think Wall Street's going to be on your side on that? Not a chance. But on the other hand, with McCarthy, I mean, this is the deal with the devil he made in order to ascend to the speakership. And so if he doesn't, this is also his speakership on the line right here.

So, you know, he he's doing what he told the House Freedom Caucus and the holdouts that he would do ultimately. And we'll see if he survives this. We'll see if the economy survives this. We'll see how this all works out. Yeah. And, you know, good luck to him. I certainly think that he's going to need it. And it fits very well, actually, with President Biden and his announcement for 2024. Yes. So we told you yesterday it looked like Biden was going to announce officially for his reelection today. And he did, in fact, do that with what they're describing as a soft launch, putting out a video here announcing he is, in fact, running for reelection. Let's take a listen to that. Freedom. Personal freedom is fundamental to who we are as Americans.

There's nothing more important, nothing more sacred. That's been the work of my first term, to fight for our democracy. This should be a revolution. To protect our rights, to make sure that everyone in this country is treated equally and that everyone is given a fair shot at making it. But you know, around the country, migrant extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms, cutting social security that you paid for your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy, dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books and telling people who they can love,

all while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote. When I ran for president four years ago, I said we're in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are. The question we're facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer. I know what I want the answer to be, and I think you do too. This is not a time to be complacent. That's why I'm running for re-election.

Because I know America. I know we're good and decent people. I know we're still a country that believes in honesty and respect and treating each other with dignity. That we're a nation where we give hate no safe harbor. We believe that everyone is equal. That everyone should be given a fair chance to succeed in this country. Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they have to defend democracy stand up for our personal freedom stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights and this is our moment So if you're with me, go to Joe Biden.com.

Let's finish this job. I know we can. Because this is the United States of America. There's nothing, nothing we cannot do if we don't do it. Let's finish the job. Sold America. All that stuff. I have a lot to say about this. So first of all, do I think it's a good and clever strategic ad? Yes, I do.

This is all of the points that were effective for Democrats leading into the midterms, January 6th, abortion, extremism, protecting Social Security and Medicare. On the merits, number one, none of these things are issues that you're actually pushing forward. Like you're literally just saying, I'm going to protect the status quo. Not even because it's not like he protected abortion rights. It's just I'm going to protect the status quo. Not even because it's not like he protected abortion rights. It's just, I'm going to make sure that the Republicans don't roll them back even further. It's not like they passed voting rights legislation. It's just, you know, I'm going to be here as a bulwark against the right on doing whatever they're going to do with

regards to that. It's not, I'm going to expand social security, Medicare. It's just, I'm going to make sure that they don't come in here and change it. So it is a status quo message where they are explicitly banking on that the Republican agenda and Donald Trump very likely being the nominee is so distasteful that the American people will accept. Let's just not have things get any worse. That's the core of what this campaign pitch is. Yeah, look, I think it's pathetic on several levels. I also think it's smart. So is that possible to say that on the merits, pathetic, right?

Here we have a sitting president of the United States with the greatest bully pulpit known to the history of man who could throw a massive, well, I guess theoretically should be able to throw a massive rally, a titanic speech, a video, kick it off, have some energy, have some people, thousands of people who are there, people who are excited. He releases a Twitter video at 6 a.m. in the morning, okay, to I guess lead the news. He succeeded. We are certainly covering it here. But also what, Crystal? He's going to immediately do a donor event. He's not doing anything. Now look, again, I want to say I think it's smart, and I think the reason why is Republican repealing of abortion is so unpopular,

all you have to do is say, I won't let that happen, or at least it's not going to happen under my watch. He hasn't promised us anything, so he almost can't fail. It's actually very difficult to fail. I won't touch your Social Security. I'm not going to do anything about it in the future or anything. But, you know, also, I just won't touch it. There is a reason that he led,

and I also think it was brilliant framing, personal freedom. This is what people understand. Americans are freedom-loving people, regardless of what a lot of people think. One of the most salient messages on abortion is really I don't like being told what to do. If you really think about so many methods of politics, this comes back to wokeism too.

A lot of people are like, yeah, you're not going to tell me to not say Latino. Like it's just not going to happen, especially when I'm Latino. You're not going to tell me which and how I get to speak or that my grandfather's a racist because he speaks in a way that they used to in the 1960s. Like it's just not – you're not going to sit here and dictate the way I live my life. That also transfers well over to the abortion conversation. That's where a lot of Americans are, specifically in a much more secular country than we lived in even 20 years ago, let alone 1973 or whatever, whenever Roe versus Wade was originally passed. So I thought it was smart framing. And then immediately pivot from that to Social Security.

Here's the other smart thing. He didn't mention COVID. Most people are not happy with the way Joe Biden handled COVID. They kind of were at the time, but they think it all went mess. Good. Don't talk about it. It's not a strength for you. Nobody cares about COVID anymore. I mean, voters are not voting on COVID anymore. Not in the Democratic Party, not in the Republican, not in Independence. So it's not like a top of mind issue. So it would be silly for him to talk about that at this point. I'm with you. More what I'm saying is he's not even trying the whole, here's my accomplishments thing. He's not here like how many vaccines or whatever I did at the American. He's like,

these are the two things I'm going to protect. They both pull around 70%. I'm not going to touch them. Ergo vote for me. Now, I, like I said, I think that is very sad place to be when that's your only pitch, but I think it's a smart pitch. Let me also say that while I agree with you that there is wisdom in the strategy, given that, you know, number one, Joe Biden and his team are like ideologically opposed to actually doing anything real for the American people. And number two, the Republicans, especially on the issue of abortion, have become so extreme and the threat of some national abortion ban or something like that hangs so heavily over the American public. And that issue is so potent that I think leaning into that is, you know, is a savvy, intelligent move that has a track record of being effective. But there's also a real risk here because the bottom line still remains that people care a lot about whether or not they can feed

their kids, about whether or not they're earning enough income that maybe one day in a far off distant land, they might be able to buy a home. They care a lot about whether or not they can afford to go to a doctor when they're sick. And if you are taking all of that off the table, you are opening up a huge lane, especially at a time when you have so many Americans saying, I'm struggling economically. I'm concerned about a recession. I think we may already be in a recession. Inflation is eating into my wages and making it so that every single month it is harder and harder to get by. So if you are not speaking to that whatsoever, I do think that that is a risky place to stand. Now, given who Joe Biden is, perhaps this is the best case that he can muster. And that's why I say, you know,

perhaps this is like there's some wisdom here to this approach. But I do think there is a real vulnerability. And the other thing that I have to say is that any time I hear any of these freaking Democrats, Joe Biden in particular, talk about democracy and how committed they are to preserving our democracy. And yet they are not even going to allow debates in a Democratic primary when you have a 70 percent of the country is like, we don't want you to run, dude. We want to evaluate our options. And you are just completely shutting that off. And you aren't sitting for interviews. You aren't doing press conferences. You're barely interacting with the press whatsoever. Spare me your rhetoric about how much you care about democracy because your actions speak way louder than your words. Oh, absolutely.

Crystal, you found this Washington Post article which actually highlights some of the vulnerabilities you're discussing. Yes. So Washington Post interviewed a bunch of, like, committed Democratic voters. These are not, like, on the fence, independents, voters. These are not like on the fence, independents, whatever. These are people who voted for Joe Biden. Many of them were activists. They were knocking doors. Some of them are local party officials like these are team blue people. And they feel very like not sure about this with regards to Joe Biden. Put this up on the screen from The Washington Post. A long piece here. They say Democrats reluctant about Biden 2024, but they see no other choice. Of course,

the media makes sure that they see no other choices. The subhead here is they are lukewarm about picking Biden as their nominee, but many believe he may be the best hope of preventing a second Trump term and fighting extremism. Let me go ahead and put some of the quotes here up so you can see what people were telling the Washington Post. And again, these are like Democratic Party activists, committed Democratic volunteers. Put this up on the screen, this first quote. They say, this is from Debbie Watson. She's a 66-year-old paralegal, and she is a Democratic Party volunteer.

She said, I noticed in speeches when he gets off script and he starts to make mistakes. I'm worried about his health and I don't know how much I like Vice President Kamala Harris if something happens to him. Put this next piece up on the screen, which underscores the vulnerable position that Biden is versus with regards to his own party versus previous Democratic presidents. only 38 percent of the Democratic base, the Democratic base, wants to re-nominate Joe Biden. Fifty seven percent want someone else. That compares to when it was Trump. Seventy three percent of Republicans wanted to re-nominate Trump. Seventy five percent of Democrats wanted to re-nominate Obama back when it was Obama. And 50 percent of Democrats wanted to re-nominate Clinton. So even Bill Clinton amidst, you know, scandal or whatever, even he had a 50% majority rating. Biden significantly

lower than that. And that comes out in these quotes. Let's put the next one up on the screen. This is from a Fulton County Democratic Party leader and former mayoral candidate, Dante Carter. He said, when activists tell you we're having a tough time getting people to the polls, it's because people are still pissed off. They're pissed off and asking the question, when are you going to do what you said you were going to do? How do I go back into these neighborhoods where I told folks that this time it was going to be different and I don't have any receipts to show the difference. Next quote from a Democratic, local Democratic committee woman. I think my view is like, I'm not opposed. I'm not excited. Will I vote for him? Absolutely. Will I campaign for him? Of course. Am I like thrilled? Am I like giddy to see him run again? No. That was Shannon Baldwin-Reya, a local Democratic

committee woman. And this last one from a college student is really something. And this underscores what is a core concern here about his age and his capability of fulfilling the office of the presidency for another four years. Avery Burns says, I don't even know if he'll make it to 2024. Like, he's just old, not even to be dark. I think presidents shouldn't be older than like 70. Your brain starts to go. So this is the enthusiasm for this reelect that you're seeing amongst the core committed

Democratic base, volunteers, local party activists. You can only imagine how everybody else feels. Well, obviously. And also, look, it's never been more clear. A vote for Joe Biden is almost a 50 percent vote for maybe not even 50 percent. If you're looking at an actuarial table, considering his age, considering the amount of stress that he's under, it could actually be more. Again, not to be morbid, but listen, it's at least a 50 percent vote for Kamala Harris for a second term. Remember this January 20, 29. He would be on the verge of his 87th birthday. I think people really need to

understand that. For context, Dianne Feinstein went senile right around, I don't know, 85, a year before he would be finished up as president. So that is a very real possibility. That's if he lives to see the end. Now, listen, I hope he does. I hope he lives a very long and a healthy life. My own grandfather is 91 years old, and he's doing great. Actually, all my grandparents are over 90, which is crazy, and that's awesome. You know, none of them have dementia. It's certainly possible, but statistically, nobody is a fool about what could happen here at any moment. And they are all retired.

They're not in the most stressful job on earth. That's one of those where you really got to consider what you're signing somebody up for. And the media wants you to think this is ageist and gross to talk about. I'm sorry, like we're paying your salary. You're responsible for the world's nuclear arsenal. This is not a joke here. Let's not like let grandpa be CEO emeritus and feel like he has a little bit of responsibility. Joe Biden's vulnerabilities here are so great that really the only thing that is saving him, even in terms of the Democratic nomination, is a collusion between the media and the Biden campaign to convince voters that there

are really no other options. In this article, they have that same standard line, no serious primary contenders. Don't even mention the fact that there are, in fact, two declared candidates who have national profiles, who are polling higher than most of the Republicans who are in the field, who they very much consider to be serious candidates. They have to make sure that those alternatives are completely smeared, dismissed, invisibilized, et cetera, because the vulnerabilities here are quite real. Now, it is always, look, he's an incumbent president that's difficult to unseat, and certainly in a primary, even in a general election. But this is also an extraordinary set of circumstances when you have an overwhelming

majority of Democrats in virtually every poll, like, no, for real, we want to go in a different direction because we don't know that this guy's going to make it and we really don't want to be stuck with Kamala Harris. That is a unique, like historically unique set of circumstances that they're facing. I believe a Kamala presidency would plunge the world into war. I'm not being hyperbolic. I do not – I think she might be one of the most irresponsible, least – not even about – leave alone like qualifications on paper. She has shown us very clearly not a good steward of the nation, not a good politician,

unable to connect with people, bad decision-making, bad staff turnover. It would be like Andrew Johnson 2.0. I think it would be a complete nightmare for this country. I think it's very scary. And people should really think about that

before they cast their vote. Okay, let's go ahead and we'll talk about Anthony Blinken. This was a big story we wanted to cover earlier. Obviously, there's been a lot going on, but it's still very important. We will recall that letter that was orchestrated by the Biden campaign, which we found out a little while ago, that came out during the 2020 election, in which multiple former members of the CIA, the FBI, the intelligence community came out and said that the Hunter Biden laptop had all the

hallmarks of Russian disinformation. This was a signed letter that was distributed to the press. It was then reported by the press, specifically Politico and several other outlets that spread it out there. The idea that the true Hunter Biden laptop was in some way Russian propaganda, ergo why NPR and other outlets did not need to cover said Hunter Biden laptop. What we now know though, via a release from the House Judiciary Committee and Fox News, let's go and put this up there on the screen, is that the Biden campaign and specifically now Secretary of State, Anthonyinken actually played a role in the inception of that public statement soliciting and organizing former York Post story and at the very least influenced the way that the public thought about what undeniably was a story. Now, it was the most important story, was the most important issue of the country? No, but I mean, it did certainly show corruption at

the highest level for the president's son and possibly links that remain to be investigated around President Biden and his own financial connection to his son, who certainly was going through personal struggles, but the personal struggles aren't the point. The exploitation of the Biden name to print hundreds of thousands of dollars a month is the actual point of the story. And he put that all together. And you were seeing basically this is the equivalent of like if Hillary had won the presidency and the guy who organized the Steele dossier became one of the most powerful people in the United States. Secretary of State. Yeah, the Secretary of State. Let's put this up there

on the screen. And now the State Department says they have no comment, zero comment on arranging the spies who lie letter. They're just simply leaving and letting it just completely go by the wayside. I mean, I think this is totally crazy because, again, this is not even a deniable fact. This ex-CIA director, Michael Morrell, testified to the House Judiciary Committee straight up that Anthony Blinken was the person who organized this. This isn't, you know, like, it's straight from the horse's mouth, one of the people who signed the letter, who also happened to work for President Obama, just so people know. Also, coincidentally, was the guy who briefed Bush about 9-11 on the day of 9-11, which

is pretty crazy. You put that all together, you got a deep state ghoul who has been deep inside the system for a long time, who was one of these people who is, he is even throwing Anthony Blinken under the bus. The State Department, Crystal, has no comment. I mean, this is, we're not saying it's the most important story, but it's a media story in that the only person who asked are the New York Post and Fox News. They're the only people who cover this.

This is not even partisan. This is just straight up insanity. I mean, you're organizing a false letter. You need to apologize. You need to explain to people why did you do that? What about now? Do you stand by that letter? What were you doing in your capacity as then chief foreign policy advisor to the Joe Biden campaign? I think the thing that bothers me the most is they feel no shame about it. They don't feel pressure to even have to comment about it. Certainly not to apologize about it because they know that the media won't cover it. That'll only get picked up in,

you know, right-leaning news outlets. It'll be all fed through like a partisan lens to the extent that the MSNBC or New York Times world even knows that any of this is happening, which is probably they don't know about it at all. And so, yeah, they get caught red-handed and they don't know about it at all. And so, yeah, they get caught red handed and they don't even feel a sense of shame to have to say a word about it. That's what that's what maybe bothers me the most about this whole thing. And it didn't take a rocket scientist at the time. It was so obvious that this was all total and complete bullshit. They didn't offer any evidence that this was, quote unquote, Russian disinformation bears all this was quote unquote Russian disinformation. There's all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Oh, really? Okay, well, give me some proof. I don't

need hallmarks. I don't need a Christmas card. I need some proof. And to the contrary, what we really had from the Biden campaign was effectively an admission because they didn't deny that the contents were real. They didn't offer to the press even a single email, a photo, or anything that had been altered. It was very clear that this overwhelmingly, more likely than not, was legitimately his laptop and that it got obtained through sketchy circumstances. Who cares? Who cares? All kinds of journalistically relevant information comes from sketchy sources. That does not matter. Three hours into it, I knew it was true. You know why?

Because they hadn't denied it. It's that simple. It was that obvious. If somebody put something out and said this came from your laptop, it wasn't from my laptop, I'd be like, that's not from my laptop. If it was from my laptop, I'd probably just be like, yeah, you got me. It's from my laptop. But what he decided to do was just stay completely silent. That's it.

Three hours in, it was over. It was like, okay, it's obviously real. It didn't, does not take a genius to figure out. And by the way, the rest of the media knows how this works. Yeah. They're not stupid. They're not stupid. They deal with this more than we do where they're trying to get, you know, things confirmed or whatever. And if the, the, um, government officials don't immediately wave you off and give you like, no, here is proof that this is not accurate, then it's probably true. Probably true. Now, can you like definitively run with it and say conclusively 100%? No. But can you in your mind be like, yeah, that thing is probably true? Yes, absolutely. And then you can say, well, he didn't deny it. A laptop purporting to belong to Hunter Biden, of which he has no comment on.

You decide what exactly it means for that. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? So much of the hype around cable news and its hopeful demise given recent events is a reminder of why their demise is so important. Because their active propaganda work to keep half the country and keep it dumber, less informed during some of the most critical times in modern American history. Now, as I've always said, what cable news chooses not to show you is far more important than what they do show you. Selection bias is half the battle, as anyone who's ever looked at any scientific research actually knows.

Perhaps no area of this was more glaring than that of the lab leak theory. I know it has been years now at this point, but I cannot believe that a single cable news channel outside of Fox, which only told about 1 25th of the story, is ignoring this new report from the Senate Health Committee, which in my opinion basically solves once and for all the question of whether COVID leaked from the lab. This 302 page report, which has been in the works for almost two years, was made public a few days ago. The details compiled together are absolutely damning. I encourage you all to go read it for yourself. Let's make our way through the report and the most important new details. Number one, an epidemiological look at COVID and its emergence in the city of Wuhan sometime in

late October 2019. According to China's own data that it provided the WHO and a new review, a large spike of, quote, adult-like influenza symptoms began spreading across the city in November 2019. The spike was accompanied by negative tests internally for any known type of said influenza, despite thousands of cases spreading across the city and all of China. The committee gained access to unpublished reports inside China which show official Chinese CDC records who even identify a person in Hubei province contracting confirmed COVID November 17, 2019, weeks before China warned the world about COVID and of course shows deception from day one. More so, the committee dedicated major resources to looking at a natural origin hypothesis of COVID and systematically dismantling any credibility for it.

The committee notes that in almost every single recent natural zoonotic spillover, there has been evidence left behind in animal samples to see the exact evolution of the disease. That includes the original SARS virus, which showed a clear and a credible jump from a palm civet cat over to an intermediate species to humans.

And if the wet market theory were true, scientists would have to show not only the prevalence of COVID in animals at the market or samples, but they would have to show how COVID got there and how it morphed right from there to humans. The committee notes that China's CDC shows it collected 1,380 samples from the Wuhan Met Market in 2020, so well after COVID was swamping the entire city of Wuhan. And even then, not one sample from that market tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. In fact, the only traces of SARS-CoV-2 that was found at the market were the exact same strain found in humans at the time, indicating it was the humans who brought the virus to the market, not vice versa. It's important to establish a few things. One, we know all of this COVID was all over Wuhan by mid-November.

Not just Wuhan, but it confirmed cases all over China, according to internal Chinese communications. Second, even samples from the lab wet market months after the spread didn't even show COVID inside of these animals. Ergo, we can say with confidence the timeline from China and its theory of spread, absolutely wrong, not correct. So then, what about the lab? Here we will tread again on obvious ground. The Wuhan lab was cited for safety violations in 2018 by an internal U.S. Department of State cable, and actually the committee found a warning from March of 2019. Listen to this. China's own CDC director who warned this, March 2019, quote, a potential major risk stems from stocks of concentrated infectious pathogens stored in laboratories and the absence of adequate

biosecurity measures. Noncompliance of approved biocontainment and biosafety protocols could result in the accidental or deliberate release of pathogens in the environment. Anetic modification of pathogens, which may expand host range as well as increase transmission and virulence, may result in new risks for epidemics, specifically synthetic bat origin SARS-like coronaviruses acquired an increased capability to infect human cells. So yes, you heard that correctly. Months before COVID leaked from the lab, China's own CDC director warned of a potential lab leak for genetically modified bat coronaviruses with had the ability

to more infect human cells. Worse, the committee's review found the Wuhan lab was conducting years long research on genetically enhanced bat coronaviruses with an inappropriate level of safety at the lab, violating U.S. guidelines for the way it should have been done here, and raising questions again as to why Dr. Fauci and the EcoHealth Alliance were funding it in the first place. Then there is even more evidence, as we know. The Wuhan lab took down any record of the samples that they were studying in late September 2019, only to vanish them for all time. It is presumed that the sample list would guarantee to show SARS-CoV-2. More interesting is

the committee's revelation that Chinese officials in November 2019 miraculously were able to begin production and research of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. The report finds something astonishing. The only way that a patent on the original Chinese vaccine for COVID would make any sense is if they had begun development of the vaccine before the first acknowledged outbreak of COVID. So otherwise, it was impossible for them to have begun vaccine production without having access to the sample itself. So when you put it all together, what do you find? In the conclusion for LabLeak is this. One, the fact that China is hiding records that can prove this definitively. Two, that there is a zoonotic origin for past viruses like SARS. Three, bat coronaviruses exist in nature. Four, there have been pandemics sparked

by wet markets in the past. And five, yes, that wet market in particular was maintained in bad conditions. Those are the cons. All of those can be true. But when you look at each of the specifics, none of them hold up under any scrutiny. I say again, as I did the last time a report like this came out, it's not a debate anymore. It's not even a hypothesis. At this point, it's almost 100% true.

COVID leaked from the Wuhan lab sometime in September or October 2019. The preponderance of evidence has always pointed that way. The only reason you don't even know any of this for two years earlier is because nobody in the media did their jobs. They have to let the government let us know via report instead of in real time.

We actually need it the most. I mean, at least we have it now. You can send any relative or friend doubting the lab leak this video if you need to. It's really just not up for discussion anymore. Isn't it crazy, Crystal? I mean, I did a update on the first part of the monologue way back when.

That's when I was talking about the hospitals and the geospatial intelligence around the park. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, Harvard is out with their annual survey of young people, and the results here are quite revealing. Contrary to the stereotype, voters under 30 are highly engaged, even as they are disgusted as we all are with the current political class, and they're very anxious about the present and their own futures.

They're depressed, they're fearful about their own personal safety, they really can't stand Joe Biden, and they hate the Republican Party even more. But what stood out to me the most was their relative political radicalism compared to other generations. On issue after issue, young voters have shifted left in the past decade in ways that will have profound implications for our politics and especially for the Democratic Party. A massive generational divide has opened up just as young Americans are determined to claim their power. Now, it may seem hard to believe, but Joe Biden actually did enjoy quite a honeymoon period with young voters at the very start of his presidency. At the beginning of

his term, Joe Biden had Barack Obama levels of approval with the youth. He was sitting at 59%. In every subsequent poll, however, that support has dropped like a rock. Currently, only 36% of those who are under the age of 30 approve of the job that he is doing. This in spite of the fact that this group overwhelmingly voted for him in the last election. This makes a lot of sense, of course. At the beginning of his term, he delivered on stimulus checks and other aid measures that were a lifeline for a lot of young people who were just getting started in life when they got kicked in the face by the COVID pandemic. Since then, he has completely abandoned any sort of larger program, even as young people like everyone else

are getting hammered by inflation. In fact, on every issue they tested, Biden gets extremely poor marks with this demographic group. Only 37% approve his handling of Ukraine, only 27% approve of his handling of gun violence, Only 38% approve of his handling of race relations. But tellingly, nowhere is his performance as dismal as it is on the economy. Only 28% think he's done a good job on the economy, and only 22% say that he has done a good job on inflation. These numbers suggest a profound betrayal of the Biden administration towards a core constituency which effectively handed him the White House. This is an age cohort that has only known crises since they came of age, with COVID just being the latest in a string of world-changing catastrophes.

So no one should be surprised that Biden's plotting corporate-friendly incrementalism doesn't sit well with a generation of people for whom the status quo has meant rapid and constant change. A generation for whom the status quo has also often meant disaster. This is in direct contrast to the world of middle-class stability that the boomers benefited from. They grew up in a time of union strength, shared prosperity, affordable housing, education, healthcare. Inequality was comparatively low. Wages were comparatively high. And you can still see it in the stats that demonstrate that boomers were able to build wealth and escape precarity much more quickly and in many larger numbers than millennials or now Gen Z. So it makes sense that their politics would diverge so dramatically from that of younger generations who have grown up in a profoundly different landscape. There are signs that after a multi-decade abandonment of class and material

politics by generations that could take a basic level of economic stability for granted, young voters might actually be reclaiming these older New Deal era traditions, fusing them together with identity-based liberation struggles. The general vibe is basically non-binary Starbucks baristas launching a grassroots labor movement that has literally broken the brain of CEO Howard Schultz. In fact, on every issue tested by Harvard, young people over the past decade have swapped a Clintonian neoliberal view for a Bernie-style democratic socialist view of government involvement in society. Take a look at this. 65% now say healthcare is a basic right. That is a 23-point shift in a decade. 59% say government should spend more to reduce poverty.

That is a 24% shift in just a decade. And 62% believe that basic necessities such as food and shelter are a right which should be provided by the government to those unable to afford them. That is an 18-point shift over the past 10 years. Large majorities believe that housing is a human right. Large majorities believe homelessness housing is a human right. Large majorities believe homelessness can happen to anyone, and sizable numbers fear that homelessness could happen to them. But while contrary to stereotypes, these voters are actually highly engaged,

they also feel really frustrated with their limited political impact. A majority believes that people like me do not have any say. Only 21% disagrees with that sentiment. A plurality believes that their vote will not make any real difference. 58% say that government does not represent the America I love. Only 8% said that it did. So you've got a large group of voters, highly engaged, disgusted with the status quo, feel dismissed and crushed by our current political class. They despise the Republicans, are disgusted with the impotence and limited ambitions of the Democrats, led by Joe Biden. The dam is going to break one day.

It is only a question of when. I thought the shifts over a decade are both astonishing, but also make all the sense in the world. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Excited to be joined now by Kyle Condit, great friend of the show and writer for Saboteau's Crystal Ball at the UVA Center for Politics. Great to see you, friend. Good to see you, man.

Thanks for having me. So you have, I think, very smart analysis here of Joe Biden's prospects for reelection. Let's put this up on the screen. You say, is Biden's approval rating too weak for him to win? Just like in 2022, soft disapprovers are a key block. So as you point out here, presidential approval ratings oftentimes determine whether or not an incumbent president is going to get reelected. Biden's approval rating has been consistently now for a while fairly poor. So what do you make of that landscape and what it means for his chances?

Well, look, I think either Biden is going to have to get to 50 percent approval or better, or he's going to have to do what Democrats showed some success in doing in 2022, which was that, you know, Democrats were able to win the group of voters. It was like 10 to 12 percent of voters in 2022 who said that they had a they somewhat disapproved of Biden, but they voted Democratic anyway in the House elections in 2022, according to the exit polls. And, you know, typically I think you would look at Biden as being, you know, 42, 43 percent approved, 52, you know, 53% disapprove. And you'd say, this is a president who's probably not going to win again. But he's so reliant, just like he was in 2020, on basically the weakness of the Republican Party and the weakness of the Republican nominee, you know, with Trump in 2020 and maybe Trump again in 2024, that, you know, I still think Biden's got a decent chance despite his own weaknesses. But that's because, you know, he always has this line about, you know, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. And he's very reliant on the alternative, I think. Right. So this is the very interesting thing, Kyle.

Do we have a modern precedent for a president where the vast majority of his own party doesn't necessarily want him to run, however, sees him still as preferable and still the independent voters would still push him over the edge to make him quite electable. I'm trying to think in my mind, I mean, even if we look at the Carter primary, he still did win a competitive primary against Ted Kennedy. Do we have a historical parallel for what's happening right now? You know, if you went back and looked at some of Reagan's numbers in early 1983, you can find a lot of hesitance about him running again and concerns about his age and those sorts of things. Now, look, I think Reagan was also obviously ended up winning a huge landslide. He did have a fairly weak Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale, but he also had some things breaking in his favor on the economic front over the course of 83 and 84. But, you know, Reagan, just like, you know, Biden, Biden's the oldest president ever, but Reagan is near the top

of the list too. And there were some concerns about him as well, though, you know, Reagan ended up not having really any primary opposition. Biden does have some primary opposition, but I wouldn't consider it particularly strong. So, you know, yeah, there's some softness there, but, you know, there's been softness for, you know, for previous presidents, too, who ended up getting reelected. Yeah. I do think it's unique, though, how what a small percentage of his own party wants him to be re-nominated, which is, you know, I was just looking at the numbers earlier in the show, which does stand out as a contrast from, you know, from Clinton, from Obama, from Trump, certainly as well, where Trump was very unpopular, but his own party was enthusiastic about him, which is different for Biden. You know,

with Biden, the feelings towards him are, and this has been, I think, fairly consistent since he's been running for the presidential nomination, it's just been sort of like, eh, you know, people don't love him. They don't like hate him the way that they hate a Trump-like figure. And so you point to something here that I think is really key, which is what you describe as soft Biden disapprovers, people who probably don't like either of these candidates and maybe like, maybe they hate Biden less than they hate Donald Trump, which I think was kind of a key factor for him in winning the presidency to start with. Yeah, that's right. I mean, if you go back and look at in 2016, you know, there were a lot of people who held an unfavorable view of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

And at the end, those folks broke toward Trump because they wanted a change. You know, right now, I don't know if the, you know, I think that Trump might have a hard time winning over those voters. But, you know, the thing is, too, is like, you can't just say, oh, well, Trump can't win again. I mean, of course he can win again. I mean, the floor for both parties, I think, is really high in American politics. I think historically you'd think, oh, well, a major party nominee is going to get, you

know, 40 percent of the vote or something. Now it's probably more like 45 or 46 or something like that. So we're only talking about kind of a relatively small sliver of the electorate and a relatively small number of swing states. I was talking yesterday to a pretty prominent political reporter. We were going back and forth about the electoral college. And there were seven states that were decided by three points or less in 2020. And we were thinking, boy, is Michigan like really a swing state?

Is North Carolina really a swing state? And then you start to whittle down the list and maybe it's just like three or four states like Arizona, Georgia, you know, Wisconsin, Nevada that are like true toss ups for 2020. So, you know, there's not a whole lot of persuadable voters out there. The floors for both parties are very high. You don't have a lot of super competitive swing states. And so, you know, there's not, you know, again, there are key voting blocks that are going to be important here. But again, the floors for both parties are pretty high. Yeah, I think that's a really excellent point. Something I always point out, I'm like, listen, any nominee of a major party can win the presidency, period. There is no somebody can't win. It's like, if you're the

nominee of the Republican or Democratic party, you absolutely can win. Now, it's a game of inches basically from there. If we're to look at some of the most determinative factors, Kyle, the economy is one which I remember in 2020, the Trump campaign always told me, they said, yeah, they don't approve of COVID. But his economic numbers, those are always strong. And it was much closer than a lot of people thought. What are the similar historical metrics people should track for Joe Biden to see how things will be trending towards Election Day in the next coming months before November 2024? I do think just Biden's approval rating is a great catch-all for how people feel about the state of the country. And look, I'd be very surprised if Biden got to 50 percent approval by November 2024.

But I think the trajectory probably matters. Again, he's in the kind of low to mid-40s right now. If he does kind of climb clearly over 45 percent by the time the election comes. That combined with the potential weakness of the Republican nominee, I mean, hey, maybe the Republicans will nominate a great candidate who's popular and who runs circles around Biden. I mean, we don't know that yet, but I don't think that that candidate is Trump if Trump does in fact get re-nominated.

But, you know, the approval rating would also kind of pick up people's broader concerns about the country. So like to the extent that they care about the economy and attribute that to presidential performance, you know, that would appear in the approval rating. I mean, if Biden is like lower in approval in, you know, next fall than he is now, that would, I think, be a pretty clear warning sign that he was going to lose. So again, don't necessarily think that Biden has to be at 50, but I think the trajectory of that probably matters. And, you know, obviously there are these big economic indicators, although,

you know, we did just go through an election where, you know, the Republicans seem to have the economic argument kind of handed to them on a silver platter and voters, you know, generally trusted them on the economy more. And yet it was a pretty mixed and fairly weak result for the Republicans, even though they did flip the House. So there's a lot more that people are voting on than just the economy. I think these things are maybe a little more complicated than they used to be. And people are maybe more tribal or voting on cultural matters. I mean, obviously, abortion, I think, continues to be a really big deal, particularly in the wake of the Dobbs decision.

But, you know, even if the economy is bad, I don't necessarily know if that means that that Biden can't win. And you may not have said that like a generation or two about. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think abortion was the real has has really upended politics. I mean, the results that we just have in that Wisconsin state Supreme Court race where Wisconsin is the ultimate swing state and you've got a candidate who's winning on abortion by more than easily double digits. That shows you the power and how visceral that issue is for a lot of folks. You know, speak a little bit to enthusiasm and turnout. One thing that Trump has consistently done is he has increased turnout. He's increased turnout among Republicans.

He's also increased turnout in Democrats who want to vote against him. What do you see in the numbers in terms of, you know, do the Republicans still feel as enthusiastic about Trump that they really want to show up to vote for him? Do Democrats still feel as enthusiastic as they did to vote against him and see him as the central threat that they, you know, have since he really came on the scene in 2016. What do you see in those indicators? I suspect that if Trump is in fact re-nominated, that sort of voting against Trump will probably be a bigger motivator for Democrats than voting for Biden, which was the case in 2020. I think it's also worth noting that an unenthusiastic vote is worth just as much as an enthusiastic vote. Right. And I remember this specifically

from the 2012 election because Democrats, Republicans at times had enthusiasm advantages in polling. But, you know, the sort of the likely voter models and what have you still indicated that enough Democrats were going to show up to reelect Obama. It was a close election, but a pretty clear victory for Obama. And I kind of wonder if, you know, if Biden were to win again this time, if it might be a similar sort of situation where Democrats are not necessarily enthusiastic about Biden. In fact, they're certainly less enthusiastic about him than they were for Obama, who was sort of a more dynamic, charismatic figure. But at the same time, you know, just the specter of Trump winning again

could very well be motivating for, you know, for Democrats to show up. Yeah, well, based on the launch video today, you know, that's certainly the case that they're betting on. I routinely bring up, but I think it's really central to the thinking, Ron Klain tweeting in the wake of Emmanuel Macron getting reelected with like a 30-something percent approval rating in France, like, hey, interesting. Apparently there's something that we can work with there if the opposition is sufficiently odious enough. So Kyle, thank you so much for your analysis. It's always great to have you. Good to see you, man. Yeah, thank you. Our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. Really appreciate it. It was

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