Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/27/23: Tucker Carlson Breaks Silence, Republican Debt Bill Barely Passes, China's Xi Pushes Zelensky Negotiations, Kamala's 2024 Kickoff, Disney Sues DeSantis, Nate Silver Out, Bernie Betrays Movement, Biden's High Chance of Death

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Tucker Carlson breaking his silence on his firing in a new video, the Republican Debt Bill barely passes as crisis looms, China's Xi pushes Zelensky to negotiate, Ukraine casualties reported as five times higher, Kamala kicks off 2024 with nonsense, a Journalist is caught feeding Biden a question, a shocking poll show Marianne and RFK Jr. rising in the polls, Disney sues DeSantis, Nate Silver leaves FiveThirtyEight as 2010's Media officially dies, Krystal looks into how Bernie betrayed his movement with Biden endorsement, and Saagar looks into Biden's insanely high chance of death if re-elected.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn

to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 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.

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 Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Many, many things that are breaking this morning.

We've got domestic news. We've got international news. Tucker Carlson releasing some comments, speaking out for the first time after being canned over at Fox News. So we'll play those for you and react. We also have a bit of debt ceiling drama. Kevin McCarthy able to survive the first test. It was able to barely cobble together enough votes to pass through his debt ceiling proposal through the House. Still very unclear what happens next.

We have Zelensky and she actually speaking on the phone. We'll tell you what we know about that. We've got some new comments from Kamala Harris that you're going to enjoy. And a new poll over in the Democratic primary race. Someone actually decided to poll the actual candidates who are in the race, which like no one has done yet. You might be surprised by the results. And I think the Biden White House might be surprised by the results. We've got an escalation in the battle between Ron DeSantis and Disney. Nate Silver is out at 538, quite an extraordinary media move in a week of a lot of wild media moves. And we're excited to talk to Anthony Fantano now.

He's a YouTuber who does a lot of music reviews, huge channel, and he's going to talk to us about these new AI Drake of the Weekend songs that have been coming out, which actually, in my opinion, are not that bad. Low-key, not bad. I'm a big music guy, so I'm excited to talk to Anthony about it and what it means. Yeah, and I want to know his analysis of whether he thought the songs were good, because I like some Drake songs, but I'm not a huge Drake fan. I actually thought this song was better than many Drake songs. That's my thing. I'm not sophisticated enough. I barely listen

to any music at all, so I want to talk to somebody like him and be like, okay, how much of a thing actually is it? Because to me, I'm a nobody. The artist has got to be freaking out though. Yeah. It's going to be a great conversation. I also want to take a moment here to want to say thank you so much to everybody who's been heeding our call

for support at this time. We shelled out the biggest expense in the history of Breaking Points for our new set. You guys are helping us. We have officially paid off the lights. We still have quite a bit of way to go in terms of all the help. So as I've reiterated, the yearly and the lifetime members, they're the most helpful to us from a cash flow perspective. We also do have a donation button on our website, but we'd love for you to just become premium members. Not only just support the show, you get all the benefits and all that. So breakingpoints.com, if you're able, it means the world to us. Yeah. And thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who have been signing up. It really, like, you guys are coming through

as you always have, and we are just extremely grateful. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So let's get to Tucker Carlson. Pretty crazy. He dropped a new video at 8.01 Eastern Standard Time yesterday. Probably not a coincidence because it's the exact moment when his old show was going live on the air. Oh, I didn't catch that. That's funny. Oh, yeah. That's certainly a little bit of a subtweet. Since it has now garnered over 25 million views, here's what he had to say. Notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are. They're completely irrelevant. They mean nothing. In five years, we won't even remember that we had them. Trust me as someone who's participated. And yet at the same time, and this is the amazing thing, the undeniably big

topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all. War, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power, natural resources. When was the last time you heard a legitimate debate about any of those issues? It's been a long time. Debates like that are not permitted in American media. Both political parties and their donors have reached consensus on what benefits them, and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it. Suddenly, the United States looks very much

like a one-party state. That's a depressing realization, but it's not permanent. Our current orthodoxies won't last. They're brain dead. Nobody actually believes them. Hardly anyone's life is improved by them. This moment is too inherently ridiculous to continue. And so it won't.

The people in charge know this. That's why they're hysterical and aggressive. They're afraid. They've given up persuasion. They're resorting to force. But it won't work. When honest people say what's true calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars who've been trying to silence them shrink and they become weaker. That's the iron law of the universe. True things prevail.

Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren't many places left, but there are some, and that's enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon. A couple of big takeaways there, I think. Number one, at the end, I actually thought was the most significant. There are still some places where you can tell truth. That could be a hint at his future. We know he's currently in the middle of a contract

imbroglio with Fox News as to whether we will even be allowed to see the man sometime in the next couple of years. As I understand, he was under contract. He's negotiating his way out of it. Two, from the content alone, before you jump in, Crystal, I thought at the very least it was nice to hear most of the debates on television don't matter and have not mattered to our future. I would hope that that is a signal to the future that so much of what was included on the Fox News program, including, let's be honest, like for a huge portion of the Tucker Carlson show, outside of his own monologue and his own pet interest, it was just standard fare BS, which Brian Kilmeade is including now, which he probably didn't even select. It was like some producers or whatever idea that you're just going along with. I am hoping that in the future we can move past that and actually get to something which is a genuine critique of some of the issues which he raised there in that. I'm curious what you thought of the video. I mean, I find the video kind of irritating for in two ways. First of all, it was

mostly like a lot of, you know, grandiose, not really saying much of anything. Another thing, like, dude, you're not a martyr. You called your boss the C word. You're involved in like multiple potential multi-billion dollar lawsuits. Imagine if you out there called your boss the C word. Do you think you would have a job at the end of the day? You probably would want to. In a way, it's amazing that he survived this long. But when you have, and there's some new reporting this morning about like the extent of how like out there, the text messages that were revealed in the Dominion lawsuit, not even the ones that were revealed publicly,

but ones that were redacted that the company came to know about. Like they were very concerned about what was in there. Apparently in there is where, you know, he called probably Suzanne Scott the C word. Again, this is his boss. He's implicated in this this sex discrimination lawsuit from Abby Grossberg that CounterPoints covered yesterday. She claims she's got like 90 different audio tapes and recordings and whatever. Who knows what's in that? But Fox probably knows what's in that. He may be implicated in the Smartmatic lawsuit as well. All the texts that came out publicly during the Dominion thing were extremely embarrassing as well. So yeah,

you look at all these, you know, all these pieces and you have the fact that advertisers don't want to advertise on his program. So even though, yes, he's the highest rated thing from a business decision and from just a pain in the ass decision and from a, you know, public embarrassment decision, you know, the math just didn't add up for them anymore. Even though he was like buddy buddy with Lachlan, who was part of making this decision. Yeah, it was a bit odd how that all went down. I'm still not exactly sure why they would fire him over calling your boss a C-word and then it never even came out. Like, you know, it's like something in your private text message. But, and apparently he wanted those texts to come out. Well, I think he got arrogant and they felt like they needed to reclaim. You know, this isn't the first time that they've fired their top-rated host. Yeah, they did this to Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly. You know, Megyn Kelly, it was a little bit different because she had kind of

gotten crosswise with the Trump base. And so her ratings had fallen off when they let her go. But she was still a gigantic talent and, you know, extraordinarily talented person. So Fox is reasserting their dominance in this situation. Now, is Tucker going to be fine? Is he going to find, of course, he's going to find an audience. Will he have the level of mainstream cultural impact and influence that he had at Fox? Doubtful. I don't know. I actually don't know about that because what we have seen already is a massive crash. Fox actually in the 8 p.m. hour, I actually was just looking at it this morning, had their worst day since pre-9-11 times in terms of the numbers at the 8 p.m.

So, I mean, it was a massive crash, right? Yeah. On the hour. Actually does show me, too, which is they were able to make up their ground over O'Reilly relatively quickly. It took a couple years. It took a couple years for Tucker,

but they had Hannity to come in there and have hold strong. But Hannity has degraded so much in terms of his content. Yeah. I'll just be kind, just leave it to the content. And say that that is where he hasn't been able to make up the ground, that it is making it very difficult for them. On the Abby Grossberg thing, I have to be honest.

I mean, I just was looking at this new report that her lawyers confirmed she never actually even met Tucker while working for Fox News. Says that she never met him in person because he was taping the show from his personal studios in Maine and in Florida. The more that I'm looking at the lawsuit, she's accusing him, I guess, of promoting this hostile work environment. And that's part of why, though, the EP was the target. Because he's probably the main point of contact. There are probably 100 people who work on the show, at least in some way. Between booking producers, the overall, it's booking producers, I think the line producer, they have the studio people, the camera people as well. I'm putting all those people together. These teams are smaller than you think.

I mean, on a primetime show, like the core team of producers that, you know, Abby, what's her name, Grossberg? Grossberg, yeah. Grossberg would have been part of, maybe like 15 people. It's not a huge group. And so, listen, I don't know. I mean, I'll wait to see what comes out. But clearly there was enough here that Fox was getting concerned about that they felt like they needed to take some sort of action.

And it's also hard to parse, like, you know, we've heard of like 100 different factors that were involved in this firing. Another thing was like there may have been a personal angle. Apparently Rupert Murdoch's ex-fiance, you know, just after they break up, she thought that Tucker was like the messiah or something. And he was kind of freaked out by the way that she was talking about him, the way they were talking to each other. He breaks off the engagement and then shortly thereafter, Tucker is canned. So he's taking his ex-fiance's favorite show off the air. So there's like a personal angle to this as well. I don't know how all of these swirling factors come together to

lead to this decision, but at least a lot of the reporting and the reporting in the Wall Street Journal, which I think we should take probably the most seriously, indicates that the final straw was they just learned about some of these text messages just before the Dominion suit. The redacted ones, the ones that we haven't even seen yet. And that was kind of the piece where they were like, all right, we're done here. Yeah, they were done because they found out that he couldn't stand them. I think the Glenn Beck analogy is an important one. For people who don't know, Beck was fired actually at the height of his powers whenever he was such a rating powerhouse there. They thought he was getting too big for his britches because he was starting Blaze.com or he was trying to start alternative media. He was

writing a bunch of books outside of contract. And Rod Rales finally was like, look, I don't care if the ratings are big. We have enough of a juggernaut here. We can recreate him on the aggregate and it'll work out. From what we can see, the Murdochs apparently thought the same. Or, you know, as you said, who the hell knows when you have a capricious 92-year-old boss, like, you know, it could come down to anything. We've worked for similar people and these people are nuts. And, you know, they're power hungry and to them, it's a personal project. They don't even think of it as a multi-billion dollar business. So, you know, was he a victim of that? I mean, was it the Ray Epps stuff, as I've talked about here before? That's, you know, another angle, which is really not, at least at the very least, I haven't seen floated as much, but was cited in the original LA Times

report, which, listen, you know, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Lachlan Murdoch lives in Los Angeles. So to figure out where exactly some of these leaks are all coming from. I do also think that to the extent that there is an ideological component here, like in the intra-Republican Party fight that has now started between Trump and DeSantis in particular, Tucker's on one side and Rupert Murdoch is on the other side. Yeah, his flag is fully planted on DeSantis. according to Gabe Sherman's reporting, that before 2020, so before the election even happened, he had DeSantis and his wife to one of his estates and told him, like, Fox News, and we are going to be with you. And you see that in their coverage. So here you have this very highly rated host who has a lot of sway culturally and with your audience who is on the other side of that. I mean, that is a rub as well in terms of putting the business piece aside

because Fox News has always been, at its core as well, an ideological project. So I think that part is important here too. But yeah, it's interesting times. It is interesting. I'm excited to see what happens next. At the very least,

just to see people lose it. I would love nothing more than to see very, very low ratings on Fox and for them to have even more business problems. Listen, I'm cheering for low ratings on every one of the cable networks because they're all poison. Yeah, I want to see these people go down so badly. So, listen, you should always know there's a tremendous amount of copium

in all of my analysis when it comes to cable news. I do try my best. I try my best. We'll see what happens. I mean, we're partisans in terms of cheering for cable news's failure. That's true. No one should delude themselves about that. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, and, you know, behind the scenes,

people have been trying to get me on Fox for quite a long time, basically since the beginning of this show. One of the reasons you haven't seen me on the Tucker Carlson show or any show was because I just thought, you know, even if he's my old boss and we're friends and all that, is I didn't feel like it was cool to participate in this corporate media project and be necessarily a pawn in the Fox News ecosystem because it's outside of the talent itself whenever we're sitting here doing critiques of cable every single day. It just didn't square right to me, especially because the format, it's like you're on their turf. You don't have the same power.

So anyway, we'll see. When you watch those segments, you realize just the setup and the constraints of it, you're never going to have. If I don't have enough time, then I'm not really there. Then I'm a pawn, right? It's like you always have to think about it that way. That's not to say that anybody who went on was bad. You can always go on and make a point. I just always felt like it would have been hypocritical within the confines of the show.

There can be good reasons to do it if you have a certain project you want to get out to a mainstream audience, no doubt about it, but in general and just like a run of the mill, hey, will you come on and talk about X, Y, or Z? It's like, nah, I'm good. I think that's right. All right, let's get to the latest with the debt ceiling because this deadline is approaching faster than you may think. So the context here is that Kevin McCarthy had to really pull his caucus together and pass something through the House in an attempt to put pressure on Biden to try to negotiate.

Now, if we breach the debt ceiling, it could be some sort of economic absolute catastrophe. So the stakes are very high. And as part of Kevin McCarthy's speakership deal with the holdouts, he agreed to some really eye-watering cuts and to, you know, basically hold the country hostage in order to secure cuts that the House Freedom Caucus really wanted. So he was able to succeed. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is a long way from being over, but he got his bill through the House. There were four no votes. He could have afforded five no votes.

So this was as close as he could possibly come. And that's no accident, by the way. They all trade off and figure out, like, OK, who are going to be the no votes and who's going to, like, take one for the team and actually go along with it. The no votes were all on the sort of furthest right of the party, Gates, Buck, Biggs and Burchett. All of the more moderates ended up voting for it. Let's put this up on the screen. This is how he ended up securing some of the votes. So there were a lot of pieces that people across the ideological spectrum were concerned about. Initially, McCarthy had said, like, no, we're not going to make any changes to the bill. You've got to accept it. But then they did end up making changes to things like biofuel tax credits,

work requirements for social safety net programs and Inflation Reduction Act funding for a host of Democratic priorities. Put this next piece up on the screen. This is why, even though, OK, there were no Republicans that voted for the Inflation Reduction Act in the House. I believe that is correct. However, there were a number of provisions in there that are really beneficial to a lot of districts across the country, some of which are represented by Republicans in particular. And this is kind of bullshit. This is for The Washington Post. This says ethanol, clean energy, fuel drama over GOP debt limit deal. All the Iowa Republicans were very concerned about these Inflation Reduction Act provisions

that boost ethanol as a theoretically clean energy source. Now, this is sort of a fiction. In fact, it's a total fiction that ethanol is, in fact, a clean energy source. But because Iowa has always long been very important politically, it will be less so on the Democratic side, but continue to be on the Republican side. Like, corn is king in terms of our politics, and so this is basically like a corn subsidy.

A group of eight GOP lawmakers from the Corn Belt on Tuesday objected to repealing the incentives in the IRA for ethanol and other biofuels that have flowed to their states since the passage of the climate law. You also had some concerns from Nancy Mace about the repeal of some of the other Inflation Reduction Act provisions. She said, we have a manufacturer in South Carolina in my district that builds the conductors for wind energy to get it from the windmill to wherever it's going. She appeared to be referring to an energy company, Nexen's plant in Charleston, that manufactures high voltage power cables that

carry energy from offshore wind farms to land. That facility announced in 2021 before the climate laws passage has brought hundreds of jobs to the area. Also in Mesa's district, she had a battery component maker, Redwood Materials. They're building a $3.5 billion manufacturing campus also near Charleston. Companies said that the IRA did influence their decision to move forward with the facility. So even though Republicans didn't vote for the IRA, some of them like some of the provisions and were unhappy with them being rolled back. Sagar, my read on how he was able to actually secure these votes in spite of the concerns is not only the little tweaks that were made, but also they know that this is not actually

going to happen. So they didn't feel like the stakes of voting for this were really that high. Well, what happened basically is he said, look, I'll give you guys whatever on the ethanol, but all of us know that this isn't going to pass. And what the reason was is he made the case based on the analysis that I was talking about on our last show is he was like, do you want us to negotiate this deal or do you want Mitch McConnell to do it? Because if you don't vote for this bill, then I have no authority to negotiate with President Biden and then we will have no seat at the table

and they're gonna ram it down our throats. So the House basically said, all right, well, we're gonna try and keep our power. We have the majority in this chamber. It's one of the only places that we can still exercise power and extract at least some concessions should the time come. The thing is too, is that what this does is it changes the negotiation dynamic. President Biden yesterday at the White House joint press conference in the Rose Garden

said, I'm not going to negotiate with Kevin McCarthy about the debt limit. It's like, OK, well, I mean, you could say that it's April 27th, but let's put this up there on the screen in terms of the reported amount of tax revenue, when the government will actually reach the debt limit, we don't know the exact date, but it is likely to come sometime in July. We don't know in July. Originally, some people thought it might come in June because tax revenue was flat,

but a lot of people pay their taxes late. So now that they did, we will likely push it to sometime more squarely in July. So look, I think there will be a lot of standoff and a lot of posturing now that this is over. Who knows? Around, let's say, what do you want to say, three weeks before? Something like that? Then things will start to get interesting.

That's when the Senate might get involved. They might try and pass and amend what I've previously spoken about, a revenue vehicle to try and add their own version of the debt ceiling. We could have McConnell versus McCarthy stuff. We could have conferences between the Senate GOP and the House GOP in terms of what they're willing to negotiate. And then they present a unified plan to President Biden. This is like step one and we still have like 19 more steps. And nobody knows what those 19 more steps are.

Yeah. Right? I mean, and step 19 might be like literally off a cliff for the entire country and the world and whatever. Even though this particular bill is not going to be what comes to pass in terms of, you know, the cuts that it entails and the specifics of it, that doesn't mean that there wasn't political risk and there isn't political risk for the Republicans who voted for it, because you can guarantee Democrats are already going through with a fine tooth comb and cutting ads against all of the members that voted for it of like, here's what they did to veterans benefits. Here's what they did to X, Y, or Z program that brings jobs that are important to this district. So you can already see in the initial phases here how this is potentially really a very bad situation for Republicans politically. And also, here's the other thing. In 2024,

assuming Joe Biden's the nominee, they want to be able to run against him as like people aren't happy about the economy, inflation, et cetera. You own this. And so we're running against you on the economy. If they're responsible for pushing the country off of a cliff, you no longer can just pin the economic blame on Joe Biden. Now things are a lot muddier. They're a lot messier. And in fact, you may lose out that debate altogether. People may think that, yeah, you know what, you guys aren't good stewards of the economy and we don't really trust you on this issue. And, you know, we've got other issues with you on abortion and other things as well. So, you know, I think this is a potentially, number one, I mean, the most important thing on the content, like this could be extremely damaging

to an economy that's already on very shaky ground. And politically, it could also be a disaster for Republicans. They are really playing with fire here, even as they're able to get their initial first pass through. Well, we do know from the 2011 and 2013 debt ceiling fights that they did come back to hurt the Republicans, specifically the 2013 government shutdown for John Boehner. They tried very hard to try and get Obama to take the blame for it, and it certainly was a political boomerang, and it ultimately led to the end of the Boehner

speakership. So recent history, not that long ago, it was literally 10 years ago, we know that they tried this before, and it didn't work. Very similar tactics. We'll see as to where they come. The real problem, I think, is the tight level, the tight amount of votes that he has in the caucus, and that just gives a tremendous amount of power to people who, you know, may not even, the mainstream Republican may not agree with, but they believe what they believe and they're going to extract their pound of flesh. Well, that's true. And if it does come to a bill where there are real stakes, where it is going to be the real thing, you know, he barely was able to get this like messaging bill through. I mean, it only he could only afford to lose one more member, many of whom were kind of on the fence. So anyway, I mean, in my opinion, the White House should allow them to, you know, string them out,

allow them to play this little game, and then they should come in over the top and just, you know, mint the coin or do something. One of the workarounds. They're not going to do it. So this isn't going to happen. That's my opinion of what direction they should go in here. But, you know, I have no idea how this is going to be resolved. No clue. I don't think you will do that. I mean, I think. Such an institutionalist.

He's an institutionalist. We have the Budget Control Act of 2011. People should go look it up if they're interested, which outlines the way that sequestration, caps, and all that stuff will work. Almost everybody I've spoken to says that, look, default, if it ends the same way, just because all the incentives go the same way, it'll probably end sometime in there. But look, we have no clue.

They really could, look, they could shoot the hostage and it could be like an economic catastrophe. And then who's gonna blink first? Nobody knows. All right, let's talk about Ukraine. An extraordinary phone call happened yesterday. President Xi Jinping and Zelensky of Ukraine speaking on the phone for the first time for over an hour.

Extraordinary phone call. Let's go put this up there on the screen. A very good analysis from the Financial Times. They say that Xi Jinping, quote, urged his Ukrainian counterpoint, this is according to the readout from the Chinese government, to negotiate with Moscow, the first conversation between the leaders since the invasion. In the hour-long phone call, Ukraine's president said it was, quote, long and meaningful, and he said it would send a special representative to all parties, this is Xi Jinping, to seek a political settlement of the war, according to this Chinese foreign ministry statement. The reason why this is so important

is it comes on the heels, Crystal, of the peace deal that had already been released by the Chinese government. The U.S. government, of course, already shot that down. President Zelensky, though, took it very seriously. He understands that they have tremendous economic ties. And also that China kind of represents what I would say is the other view of the Ukraine conflict outside of the West, between Beijing, New Delhi, and even in South Korea, many of these other countries, in terms of how they look at the conflict. They look at it very much as, look, this is great power, we're not saying this is just,

but this is not a core national interest, and we want to bring this thing to an end as soon as possible. The thing is, though, is that if you do look at the readout by Zelensky's office, it avoids any interest in negotiation. And it says, quote, expresses hope for China's active participation efforts to restore peace, but has dismissed the peace plan put forward by China in February and saying that

there can be no peace without a restoration to 1991 borders. So that includes not only Crimea, but it also includes all of the territory that Russia has taken. I'm not saying that is it the way that a just peace would be, but I am only saying that let's be realistic, possibly, about where we may end up before hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people are dead and you end up in a similar situation anyways. Yeah. So there were a couple other things I thought were noteworthy. First of all, the U.S. admitted that we didn't know this call was going to happen. Yes. So once again, Ukrainians keeping us in the dark, even though we are backstopping this whole thing.

Might be the only time I'd say that's a good thing. Yeah, but I liked the way they had this sort of cope of like, oh, but we're really glad it happened, because we want the Chinese to hear the Ukrainian point of view. It's like, are you really glad it happened? Because previously you were saying that if China was able to negotiate a ceasefire, you would be opposed to it and potentially try to block it. So I thought that was noteworthy. The other question is, why now?

Because Zelensky has been seeking at least a call and preferably a visit from Xi for some time. This has been floating out here. We've been talking about it for a little while. So what happened right now that led to this phone call actually occurring. Put this next piece up on the screen. So it comes in the wake of this absolutely, you know, fury from Europe, which is pretty understandable from some of these countries, honestly, after a Chinese diplomat basically suggested that some of the ex-Soviet states were fake. The word here they use is not sovereign. And so there were comments made effectively questioning whether the post-Soviet states really had international standing by law.

And understandably, the post-Soviet states were like, what the hell are you saying? And so it's right after this, when Europe is freaking out over these comments that were made to a French journalist, I believe. That, you know, the phone call actually happened. That's part of why I thought it was important just to be like, listen, is this real? I don't know.

Because really China has really shot themselves in the foot with this one saying, quote, some ex-Soviet Union countries by saying that don't have effective status under international law. It's also not some guys, or the Chinese ambassador to France. That is as, listen, you know, if you ever spent any time in those countries, as I have, probably nobody hates the Russians more than people like the Latvians and the Estonians. And there is nothing you could have said that would have pissed them off more than that. Well, I mean, you basically called them fake countries. Right. So, you know, if you're a patriot in those countries, I think you're going to feel some sort of way about that.

You certainly should. You fought for independence for like 100 years, and your grandparents and other people were killed and sent to a gulag. I get it. So the point is that the Chinese may have just taken the phone call to appease the Europeans. Because as we know, Emmanuel Macron went over to Beijing. One of the main things he was trying to do was get China to engage in some sort of peace negotiation on the side of Moscow to pressure them to end the war.

We know that the Germans were over there, the foreign minister, the EU president, the commissioner was over there as well. They have been heavily pressuring Beijing to take the phone call. Beijing kind of been holding out probably as a favor more to Moscow. They might've just buckled here just to appease the Europeans. Just to be like, look, yeah, we took it seriously. Also, I always want to note this. When it says an hour long phone call, that's really only a half hour because it has to get translated two ways. You know, people always forget that, but it's extremely tedious actually watching this because like a guy like Zelensky, Zelensky obviously speaks Russian, but I don't know actually if any Chinese foreign ministry official speaks Ukrainian. But in some cases, it can be like Ukrainian to Russian to Chinese, and then it can come back on the phone call whenever these people speak, and usually they're reading from prepared statements.

So it's not as serendipitous, I think, as a lot of people think. Every time they say, oh, President Biden had a two-hour-long phone call, I'm like, so it was a one-hour-long phone call. It was half of his translation. I mean, it was still one hour. It's still cool. Yeah, it's good. It's a significant, lengthy-ish conversation here. But I think you're exactly right.

And China really wants to be seen. They want to maintain somewhat of an impression of neutrality within this conflict. And so when this Chinese diplomat made these comments, I think it made them feel like, all right, we're appearing a bit too much, too favorable towards Russia, too partisan on their side. And so this was the way to try to clean it up and try to reclaim some sense of neutrality, even though, you know, the U.S. public doesn't see China as a neutral actor, but I think a lot of other folks around the world do. And Zelensky himself has been interested in getting them involved in trying

to resolve this conflict. So that's always important to note as well. Yes. So just keep all of that in mind as it goes. But as an act, it is still extraordinary. All diplomacy, in my opinion, is good. Absolutely. I hope that these people continue to talk. They're definitely getting a very different view. It also does show, you know, the Ukrainians, I've met some of them here in Washington. They can be some of the most obnoxious people on earth.

Like, if you are one of those who says anything contrary to whatever their foreign ministry things, they call you a Russian propagandist. But clearly, you know, when the Chinese come out with a peace plan, if you said that here in D.C., as we have, we've said something similar, oh, smeared, you know, horrific, out by beyond the pale, the Chinese say it and Zelensky hops on the phone.

Because outside of the Western context, these people are realists. They're dying. Not only are they dying, and we'll show you how much they are dying, they're running out of ammo. Their economy has been devastated. And also, they know how the real world works and that beyond the posturing for a bunch of people in D.C., specifically my neighborhood, who have more Ukrainian flags than American flags, that in reality is going to end one way.

And they want to try and get to that point. For us, they need us in a rah-rah mode so we keep giving them as many bullets as possible. But for the rest of the world, they're singing a very different tune. Look,

they don't have the luxury of just putting up like a flag in solidarity and calling it a day. That's right. They're living with the reality of the horrors of war. And they're not stupid.

They see the same assessments that, you know, we were able to see, thanks to Elise. This show basically, like, this is very likely headed to a grinding, brutal stalemate. So any chance to, you know, improve position, achieve some potential talks, I mean, this is beneficial for the world.

It's beneficial for the Ukrainians. It's beneficial, certainly, for the U.S., in my opinion, because this is, I mean, war is a horror. This is a brutal toll that has been taken on this country and on this people. And so, yeah, I agree with you that, you know, any potential talks, any discussion here, any diplomatic openings whatsoever are to be cheered and encouraged. At the same time, as I just referenced, there has been brand new information out of those leaked documents that The Washington Post has only now come around to telling us. Really interesting, isn't that, Crystal? First, you know, we got to make sure that we know the identity of the leaker weeks ago. Which hunt first? Yeah, which hunt first and then the news second. Let's put that aside. They're the only ones with the docs. As I've said, I'm long waiting

for these docs. If you have them, please send them so that I won't write them with stupid headlines like this one because they really bury the lead. In the trove of leaked documents, the U.S. government estimates between 124,000 and 131,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the start of the invasion. That is five times what Kiev has publicly disclosed. I'm not saying, look, in this particular case, I understand why Kiev lied to the world. I probably would, too, if I suffer devastating losses. And you don't necessarily, of course, want the enemy to know how badly you're doing. Russia also has suffered tens of thousands of casualties, hundreds of thousands, possibly, of casualties.

Nobody knows what the actual figure is. But what do we learn from that? A, it's not even close to the number that not only the Kiev government has been giving us, but the American Kiev propagandists in Washington. They're saying, look at how few the losses are, the ratios. They're doing so well. Well, this entire Washington Post article is using the peg of these leaked documents to underscore how difficult the Ukrainians are having a time to draft men between the ages of 18 and 60 into the country and having reinforcements. They're talking specifically about how reinforcements are getting killed or being wounded on the front line in such a fast turnaround

that they're having difficulty replacing them with fresh recruits. And on top of that, who's going to replace the recruits themselves who get wounded or who get killed? In some cases, they're talking about drafting and bringing people in the military at 52, 55, or whatever years old. Nobody does this unless the stakes are existential. You can go back and think about the Virginia, the last stand of the Confederate Army, and when anybody who was basically an able-bodied man, I think at age 15 to 65 or whatever,

was thrown into the military. Yeah, it was crazy. But World War I, very similar. I've actually personally visited the grave sites of 15, 16-year-olds who were killed in the British Army in France. The point is that whenever things get really existential, that's whenever you see the very young and the very old begin to fight and die in the conflict. And it also does show you and really raises questions about the spring offensive. Now, I think we've all learned enough lessons about predicting how the spring offensive can go.

Who knows? Did very well last time. It blew all apart, all expectations. Clearly, you know, Bachmut still has not fallen. They're throwing an extraordinary amount of man and materiel. But you can't underestimate the toll. You know, that's like saying, you know, that's like saying in 1915,

well, the line is held in Verdun. I'm like, yeah, but, you know, 150,000 people are dead. So is it a victory or not? Yeah, I don't know. You know, there were some extraordinary details in this report. You know, we previously talked about how Russia just passed a new law to make it more difficult to avoid the draft there with these like e-draft notices that, you know, you are assumed to have been served with your draft notice and you were barred from leaving the country. And if you don't show up, then you're subject to all sorts of, you know, you are assumed to have been served with your draft notice and you are barred from leaving the country. And if you don't show up, then you're subject to all sorts of, you know, you can't take out a loan. You basically can't do any banking.

Your life is sort of shut down if you don't report to a draft office. And you see some measures being taken in Ukraine as well. And they have reporting in this piece about the methods that men, military age men, are taking in order to try to avoid fighting in some instances. There are others who are willingly signing up, just as there are in Russia, others who are willingly signing up and want to be involved in this war. So they said that previously officials could only deliver draft papers to people's homes. Some avoided the notices by staying at different addresses than where they are officially registered. New rules have widened the scope of places where men can be stopped

and questioned about their draft status. It's also important to keep in mind that they point out here, martial law has been in place in Ukraine since February 2022, and it bars most men between ages 18 and 60 from leaving the country at all. Under mobilization rules, any man in that range can theoretically be called to fight. Exceptions are made, including for students, parents with three or more children under 18, caretakers of disabled dependents, and those deemed medically unfit, among others. So I think this just, you know, it underscores the horrors and the human toll and the number of people who

are being fed into a meat grinder here. And there's nothing to say about it other than it's awful. Yeah, it certainly is. And also a big development here in terms of our politics, Governor Ron DeSantis giving an interview while he was abroad in Tokyo to Nikkei. Let's go and put this up there on the screen with a direct quote about what he said around Ukraine. Quote, the Europeans really need to do more on Ukraine. I mean, this is their continent. The U.S. has provided security for them. And yes, Poland, there's some stuff that they are doing, and that should be appreciated. But Germany, they're not doing anything. Let's go to the next one there, please. Quote, you don't want to end up like in a battle of Verdun situation where you

must have just had mass casualties, mass expense, and end up with a stalemate. He said, it's in everybody's interest to try and get to a place where we can have a cease fire. So look, it's at least a positive comment. And I think it also should be taken note of this. At this point, no matter who wins the GOP nomination, let's be honest, it's only gonna be two people. It's either gonna be Trump or it's gonna be Ron DeSantis. They now have a very different view on Ukraine than President Joe Biden.

And Ukraine, this is proof, is going to be a huge dividing line between the two. I also want to say this. Does DeSantis really mean it? I don't know. I mean. Does Trump really mean it? I don't know. Does Trump really mean it?

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, it's one of those where, look, with Trump, I mean, the guy had John Bolton in office. With DeSantis, he had, the guy had John Bolton in office. With DeSantis, he had a very different tune when he was in Congress. He tells Tucker one thing. The next thing, you know, he's singing the neocon tune in his Piers Morgan interview. Where is he?

You know, is he going to answer more to his billionaire donor buddies who were super pissed at him for his previous comments on Ukraine? I view him very much as a very politically calculated person. Trump, I think, isn't politically calculated. I think he just doesn't know what he thinks about anything. He's just like a very in-the-moment, capricious gut player. Pure id. So listen, on both of them, who the hell knows? But on rhetoric alone, and we have no idea on substance

until we can judge it on its face, it will be a dividing line in 2024. And I think that's important. I think it's be a dividing line in 2024. Yeah. And I think that's important. I think it's important for people to get a choice. Yeah, I think that's right. And I mean, the question is always like, how much is foreign policy going to factor into people's votes? The conflict, I think, for a lot of people feels very distant right now, even though, you know, it looms over everything. And obviously we cover it a lot here because it is really important and possibly even existential. But I think the other thing you can see from these comments is it won't be as much of a dividing line in the Republican primary as it might have been.

Trump has moved on to focus on other ways of attacking DeSantis on Social Security, Medicare, Disney, which we're going to talk about later, and his theorizing that Ron DeSantis is a groomer. Yes, yeah, I know, in terms of what the fights between them are. But look, on the politics, on the substance alone, there's no getting around it. This is a big, big deal. How it will actually manifest, who the hell knows? Yep. All right, you guys are going to enjoy this a lot. Our eloquent vice president had some thoughts on the moment and the time, and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist in our present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past, but the future. What does that mean? Nothing. It means nothing. Where did she come up with this?

Like, where is this coming from? Is it a speech writer? You know, like, what's happening inside your brain that makes you think that this is eloquent or impactful? I mean, Marshall nailed it. I always have to go to Marshall's analysis, which is, like, she's trying so hard to, like, be profound. The West Wing, yeah.

But has just nothing really to say. So it ends up like this. And this is far from the first style. Listen, anyone, you know, anyone can have an instance where they're sort of rambling on in nonsense words. But this happens all the time. Every time you put this one in front of the cameras, it's like, what are you even saying right now?

The word salad is absolutely astonishing. We're not the only ones who have noted that she is not the most effective politician just in terms of her sheer talent. The White House and their Biden reelect team is apparently very concerned about the fact that she is in the number two slot. Let's put this up on the screen from Axios. They say this is from Alex Thompson, who has just moved over to Axios as national political correspondent with polls showing VP Harris as a drag on the 2024 ticket. Anita Dunn and other West Wing aides are moving to elevate her issues and schedule. They also tell a story here about how she left Cape Bedingfield sort of simmering for two weeks after it came out that Bedingfield had insulted her in some sort of way. Within the piece, they talk about how Harris's numbers are even worse than Biden's. Her approval is in the high 30s. Biden's is at least in the low 40s. Neither is

great. Officials believe that could make her a drag on the ticket. There's zero chance Biden will replace her, because doing so would be an admission that he botched the most important decision he made as a candidate. So the White House and campaign team are working to give Harris a boost, which her allies feel is long overdue. Good luck with that. Biden's campaign announcement video featured shot after shot of the president and Harris together, as well as her meeting solo with voters. She's also featured prominently with Biden on the homepage of Biden's revamped website. Anita Dunn, who they describe as one of the most powerful West Wing officials, I think that's correct, recently directed the White House political and engagement teams to help schedule events with Harris promoting popular Democratic causes such as infrastructure spending and abortion rights.

Listen, they realize that when you have a president who, Sagar's going to get into some of the details here about Biden's age and how this fits into the historical picture. When the actuarial tables don't look too hot for him in terms of finishing his next term and his own White House press secretary can't answer, give a straight answer about whether or not he even intends to finish his next term. People are going to be looking at the vice president more closely and they should be than even they normally would, and really evaluating, should this person really be a heartbeat away from the presidency when you've got the oldest president in history, and they're aware that this is a real issue for them?

Yeah, it's going to be a big problem. I'm doing my monologue just on all the statistics on Biden's, this is very morbid and I apologize, but look, he wants to be the most powerful man on earth, so we owe it, at least somebody does, to talk about chance of death, chance of developing dementia, chance of serious illness while in office. I mean, the main thing I came away with

in doing my research for my monologue was that the difference between 70s and 80s is so substantial that we really have difficulty wrapping our minds around it, especially if you're younger. You think that they're kind of the same. But in terms of your chance of death, serious illness, chances of losing your ability to think properly and showing signs of mental degradation, the change is dramatic to the point that you really will have to see it. And I'll lay it all out there. But the point of that is she doesn't, she has a better chance of being in charge as president of the United States through his death or through his incapacitation than any vice president in modern

American history. And I think people should really internalize that. There's a famous story about Lyndon Johnson. He was one of the most powerful people in America. He was a Senate majority leader. And he took the vice presidency under Kennedy. And one of his friends said, what are you doing, Lyndon? Why would you take this job? You know it's the most BS gig. And he cited the number of times that a US president has been assassinated at our office. And he said, I'll take my odds, darling. And he was right. And that was just dying in office and being killed. OK, that's not serving for the oldest man to ever hold the Oval Office. Yeah. Really put that in perspective. So outside of the very real risk actually of being I hope this doesn't happen.

I'm just saying, like, you know, if you look at the statistics, all the history of that of dying in the Oval from unnatural causes, the risk of natural causes is exponentially higher than any man who has ever held the office. I mean we're talking about an age here where a single fall is like – could be death. And once again, like I don't want it to be. I hope that doesn't happen. to be realistic and he is asking us to put a tremendous amount of faith not just in him in his ability to live in his ability to conduct the job and then to select this woman as possibly our next commander-in-chief i could never pull the lever for her i also think it's incredibly irresponsible that his team and him have seen her inability to rise to the moment

and have to be aware that she is really not the person that you would want to be in the Oval Office. But out of hubris and out of a fear of admitting a mistake, they won't make another choice. I think that really says something as well, that they see all this stuff as just a game, like it's just about the polls and the politics of it. And it's like, no, you have massive power and massive responsibility. That should be your first and foremost consideration. Not saying he's any different from other politicians in that regard,

but I think it's worth reflecting on that choice that they know this is a problem. They know that, you know, she has failed to even be able to succeed as a vice president, let alone capable of handling the presidency. And yet they choose to stick with their choice just because they don't want to admit a mistake. Yeah. Even some of the media is listen, all the polls show voters, 70 percent of voters don't want to admit a mistake. Yeah. Even some of the media is, listen, all the polls show voters, 70% of voters don't want Biden. Okay. Don't want Biden to run again. That doesn't mean that all those people won't vote. You know, some of them are going to vote for him because they also really hate Trump. Okay. But 70% of voters are like, please, could we have someone else?

And a majority of them, what's their number one concern? It's his age. It's we aren't confident that he's going to be able to effectively and competently serve another term. So there has been a little bit of media scrutiny on this question. And he was recently asked about some of these issues. Let's take a listen to a little bit of that. You've said questions about your age are legitimate. And your response is always just watch me. But the country is watching, and recent polling shows that 70% of Americans, including a majority of Democrats,

believe you shouldn't run again. To age, you know, and polling data. I notice the polling data I keep hearing about is that I'm between 42 and 46% favorable rating, et cetera. But everybody running for re-election in this time has been in the same position. There's nothing new about that. You're making it sound like Biden's really underwater. With regard to age, I can't even say.

I guess how old I am, I can't even say the number. It doesn't register with me. But the only thing I can say is that one of the things that people are going to find out, they're going to see a race, and they're going to judge whether or not I have it or don't have it. I respect them taking a hard look at it. I take a hard look at it as well. I took a hard look at it before I decided to run. And I feel good. I feel excited about the prospects. And I think we're on the verge of really turning the corner in a way we haven't in a long time. He's like, voters will have a chance to evaluate.

No, they won't. No, they won't. No, they won't. Because you have rigged the Democratic primary, but the state's in the order you want them. You're not going to host any debates. So, yeah, if you have a full and open democratic process where, oh, you're sitting for interviews and giving more press conferences, this is like a very rare one that he actually did. And people actually have the opportunity to evaluate you versus the alternatives. And you even acknowledge that the alternatives exist. Okay. That's a different deal,

but they've gone above and beyond to shut down any sort of primary process for all their talk of democracy. When it comes down to it, their whole strategy and this is what I'm talking about in my monologue in part, given Bernie's endorsement of Biden. Their whole strategy is to make people feel like you have no other choice, that there are no other, quote unquote, serious candidates in the primary. We're about to show you some polling that may say otherwise. And in the general election, Trump is so bad that it's effectively no choice as well. They don't want a democratic process. They want a coronation. They want people to feel they have no other option. Yeah, I think you're right. We're going to talk very specifically about the polling, which is insane, which the media would really rather that you not hear about.

And altogether, I just think that the way he has handled it is outrageous. And I also just do want to show everybody a little bit behind the scenes, which we always try to do here. Put this up there on the screen. Biden cheat sheet shows that he had advanced knowledge of a journalist question. That wasn't the question that you had in front of you, but it was actually the next question where he called on a reporter, the LA Times reporter, Courtney Subramanian. Now, the reporter asked him a question specifically about reshoring semiconductor manufacturing with alliance-based policy. What you can actually see in the cheat sheet that was zoomed in on by the photographers who were present there in a picture captured by Getty Images, they show not only her face, they have her title, the pronunciation

of her name, and right underneath her question, they have bullet points for his answer on what he's supposed to say. Now, I want to say this again. I covered the White House, and getting a question before these things, it's a dirty game. The way it works is, there's 100 people there, right? You only get two. It's called a two and two. So two from the Americans and two from the foreign press. So everybody's lobbying the press secretary

to get a question. You're already preselected. I was preselected many times. That's how it goes. And also part of the game though, is they call you and they go, "'So what do you want to talk about? And you say, you know I can't ask that.

You know me. I'm a fair guy. You can choose me if you would like, but I'm not going to get into it. There's a lot of different things I'd like to ask the president about. Again, it's all a game. In case somebody slips up and says,

here's exactly what I said. I'm not so sure this was a slip up. I think this was a direct, here's what I'm going to ask. And you know why? Because, look, I think semiconductors are important. But I'm sorry. You get two questions before the president. The first is obviously about the reelection. And the second one is about semiconductor manufacturing policy. That's insane. That's ridiculous. There are so many more pressing things that you could have asked the man about. And that was the biggest plant that I have ever seen before.

I mean, it's embarrassing for everyone involved. Yeah. Clearly his staff, as you point out, every president, everybody's staff tries to get a jump on, all right, what are these reporters? It's all okay. Sure. No doubt about it. But embarrassing for him because there's already these questions about could you handle a question coming at at you that you weren't expecting number one humiliating for this journalist because the the question that's listed on the sheet is like verbatim it's exactly what she said which is

crazy she might have emailed it to them that's what i'm starting right so i mean it is the verbatim question that she ends up asking not just some general sense of oh she might ask about semiconductors no no. Here is the specific word that she is going to use. And here, sir, are your bullet points of what you are supposed to reply. So listen, put this in the context of the president who was given the fewest press conferences, sat for the fewest interviews, all of their, you know, democracy dies in darkness, liberal media, whatever. If Trump was this shut off from the media, they'd be freaking out. If the Republicans were blocking any sort of primary debates, they'd be freaking out.

And in fact, there has been lots of outrage coverage about Trump is now suggesting, which is not OK either, that he may sit out from the Republican primary debates. Well, there's lots of outrage. They can see how that's anti-democratic when it's on the Republican side, but when it's Joe Biden, oh, that's all fine and good, and it's just what we expect. At the same time, there's huge effort now in the media to once again paint him as like always so electable. This is going to be shoo-in, no problem. David Frum with one example of this genre of analysis now put this up on the screen. He's saying the coming Biden blowout,

Republicans thought about running without Trump in 2024, but lost their nerve. They are heading for electoral disaster again. Maybe, possible, you know, I mean, Democrats did better in the midterms than they were expecting. They still did lose the House. So it's not like it was amazing for them there either. Maybe people are so done with Trump that they suck it up and vote Joe. I think that's a very possible outcome. I also think it's a very possible outcome

that we end up with Donald Trump back in the White House again if he ends up being the Republican nominee. And also, by the way, it's not clear to me that DeSantis or another Republican candidate is actually more electable than Trump either. Maybe, again, possible, but that is much murkier to me than it is to people like David Frum, who apparently learned absolutely nothing from 2016. Yeah, these people are nuts. I mean, go and put the next one up there, please, on the screen. Like, look at the general election polling, people. Like, it's not great for Joe Biden. It has RCP average at Trump one plus three. Now,

look, who knows? The RCP average was off by about four in the Democratic direction in 2022. It was off by about four in the Republican direction in 2020. So I guess it averages out. I don't know which way to read that. What I do know is, Crystal, if it's off by four, and so basically, unless you're leading by anything out of that, you're within the margin of error. And if you're within the margin of error, well, you can lose, or you can win if you're Trump. So maybe have a little bit of humility about what the hell is going on. They are all cheering for Trump to be the nominee once again. And I just, they learn nothing. They learn absolutely nothing. And also, by the way, many of these people became very wealthy and famous in opposition to Trump. So they have

their own sort of incentive as well for him to be the party nominee on the Republican side. Absolutely right. At the same time. So there have been a million polls of the Democratic primary race. And normally what they do, and I have never understood this, is they'll put a whole laundry list of candidates in there who have no intention of running, who've said they're not going to run. I mean, they've pulled like Michelle Obama and all these people who were like, I am not running in the primary, but they'll put this whole laundry list of candidates. Oftentimes they'll completely leave off Marianne Williamson and now Bobby Kennedy, even though they are actually running and they are in the race. Well, now we have a very clear picture of who the Democrats in contention are going to be.

They have all now announced, probably. I mean, I think it's unlikely that you see any other entrance. I don't see anyone else making any noise about it. You've got Marianne Williamson, you've got Bobby Kennedy Jr., and you've got Joe Biden. So lo and behold, one news organization decided, let's actually poll on the contest that exists rather than this weird fantasy one where we're running AOC and Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton and every other laundry list of candidate. And the results are kind of interesting. Put this up on the screen. This is Fox News poll. And they're, you know, serious pollsters over there. Joe Biden's at 62 percent. Robert Kennedy Jr., 19 percent. And Marianne Williamson at 9 percent. So you've got, you know, a third. You've got a third and you've got, you know, more than a third.

You've got a third and you've got, you know, more than a third of voters who are not backing Biden here. Those numbers, considering the media has completely pretended like these two candidates don't even exist, right? Anytime they even get mentioned, it's always couched in all this language about they're a long shot. They don't have a real shot. They're not considered serious. They're, you know, like all of this language to try to dismiss them or invisibilize them entirely. They've been mocked and derided in the media. And yet clearly there is an appetite for vote from voters for something other than a coronation. They are open to options. They would like to hear

more about the options. And at the very least, they deserve to be able to see these candidates debate their ideas. And if at the end of the day, they decide, listen, Joe Biden is our best bet for whatever reason, OK. But the fact that they are openly, explicitly, the Democratic Party, blocking any sort of a real primary process is truly unconscionable given the fact that there is a real appetite, obviously, for alternatives. Yes, absolutely. It's stunning also just to consider the media treatment. I mean, somebody's polling at 19%. That is, I mean, in some polls, that's almost equivalent to how much Ron DeSantis has versus Donald Trump. So you've got to treat that person fairly.

By the way, we are working right now on getting RFK Jr. So RFK, if you see this, we're trying to have you on the show. I've been in communication with people around you, et cetera. But yeah, we're trying to make that happen because that's what we believe in here is let's talk. Like, let's figure this out. 19% of people are interested in you. I have your father's book right behind me actually.

That's an original that I found very interesting. The point is is that these people are showing the path to an alternative. And at the very least, Crystal, they deserve time on the stage. You can't not have a debate where he doesn't get to be on the stage and Marianne doesn't get to be there either.

They're well over the 2% threshold that they were allowed to be on the stage in 2020 in an open primary. And they are rigging this system. If you think 2016 was rigged, and this is like another level of the primary changing the schedule and having no debate. That's genuinely nuts to not allow that. You know, I may do a monologue on this next week. It was about a week ago, one of the New York Times podcasts is called The Run-Up. They went and they interviewed DNC members about the reordering of the states. And some of them were out, right? I mean, they were not ashamed of the fact that, yeah, we did the president's bidding.

Yeah, we ordered the states exactly how we wanted them. I mean, they dropped this facade. You know, they still put up the language about representation, black voters, et cetera. But they sort of dropped the mask and were like, yeah, we are here to serve the president. We want him to be the nominee. We're doing what he thinks is in his political interest. And the fact that it adds this, like, representation talking point, that's all good for us as well. The fact that they feel comfortable admitting this is astonishing.

And, you know, the New York Times has been part of this coronation process. But even they in that piece were like, this is a coronation. And I'm not sure how this squares with the fact that you have a clear, consistent majority of Democratic based voters who are like we want an alternative. hours after Biden announces that he's running for reelection, all of them coalescing behind him in what is a very, very anti-democratic and sort of outright authoritarian fashion. Again, the very least that people deserve is to be able to hear these candidates that they clearly have some interest in. And guys, whether you want them to be or not, are clearly serious candidates as judged by the American people. They deserve to hear them debate.

Absolutely. Real democracy. We've got an escalation we can tell you about this morning between Ron DeSantis and Walt Disney Company. So this is not necessarily a surprise, but put this up on the screen. Disney is officially suing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. This came down yesterday on Wednesday over, they say, the Republicans' takeover of its theme park district, alleging the governor waged a targeted campaign of government retaliation after the company opposed a law critics called Don't Say Gay. That lawsuit was filed in Tallahassee minutes after a Disney World Oversight Board appointed by DeSantis voted to void a deal that gave the company authority over design and construction decisions in its sprawling properties near Orlando. Here's the quote from the company.

They say, The company is left with no choice but to file this lawsuit to protect its cast members, guests, and local development partners from a relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain state officials. Just a brief reminder of how we got to this point. Disney has a sizable LGBTQ fan base or customer base. They also have positioned themselves as being sort of allies. So when this quote unquote, don't say gay bill passes in Florida, they were under a lot of pressure to say something. They put out this, you know, sort of late and not all that strong statement about it, but in opposition to it, DeSantis takes it as an opportunity to stand up to the woke corporation. And what they take aim at in particular is this Reedy Creek Improvement District, which is a crazy thing.

On its merits, this is nuts. So since the 60s, Disney has effective control. Like, they run their own town. They tax themselves. They can issue bonds. They can build a nuclear power plant, apparently. They just have control of this whole thing. Now, this has been beneficial in certain ways for the state because Disney obviously brings in lots of tourist dollars and generates lots of economic activity.

They employ tens of thousands of people in Florida. So it's been that's been the partnership. And it's very clear that DeSantis decided to retaliate. I mean, I don't think anyone can look at the situation and come away with any other idea than he decided to retaliate against them because he didn't like the political perspective that they were offering. Disney pulled kind of a fast one on DeSantis though, and it left him looking a bit foolish because at the very end, before they put the DeSantis appointees on this Reedy Creek Improvement Board, the Disney favorable board passes this development deal, effectively taking control away from the board and handing it back to Disney.

So now DeSantis has been maneuvering with his appointees to try to undo that and unravel that, et cetera. And now we're at loggerheads with this lawsuit. The other piece of this from a political perspective, I've got some polling on this that shows this kind of, it's a little bit muddy how this is all going to work out for him, is after Disney was able to pull a fast one on him and get the upper hand, a lot of his Republican adversaries came out, including Nikki Haley, but including, most importantly, Trump, who said he's getting killed by Disney and this is all a PR stunt. And he really planted his flag very aggressively in opposition to what DeSantis is doing here and also just trying to paint DeSantis as weak and foolish that he got played in this way. So DeSantis has been scrambling to figure out what to do.

And just as a reminder, he had a kind of weird press conference where he was flowing like, oh, well, maybe in response I'm going to build my own theme park or maybe I'm going to put a prison next door to Walt Disney. Take a listen. What do you have to say? Maybe have another maybe create a state park, maybe try to do more amusement parks. Someone even said, like, maybe you need another state prison. Who knows? I mean, I just think that the possibilities are endless. And so that is now going to be analyzed to see what would make the most sense. So let me just say, Sagar, on the legal merits, I genuinely have no idea. Like, it's very complex. Like, you know.

You're not Florida property law experts. No. So I have no idea how this will be resolved legally. I will say from my general knowledge of the American legal system, gigantic corporations who can hire, you know, you know, spend billions of dollars on attorneys if they want to. They often have an upper hand in these disputes. And Disney clearly sees this as close to existential, very, very important to them. So that's all I can really say about it. Here's the issue for DeSantis. You said you were going to pick a fight with Disney. So now if you lose, you look weak. And if you come with the king, you best not miss.

And Disney, you know, they run that state. It's like, look, at least when the Georgia legislature went after Coca-Cola, they actually won or with MLB. In this case, it's like if you lose and you have a very good chance of losing, as I understand it. Once again, we are not experts in Florida property law and all of that. But if you do it in a haphazard way and if they can prove that your actions were done in regards to trying silencing free speech, this is also the problem on a conflicted level. I think it's crazy that a multibillion-dollar company has self-governance inside of a sovereign American state. Sorry, that's crazy. I don't believe that corporations, quote, have free speech rights because I don't think that that's crazy. I don't believe that corporations, quote, have free speech rights

because I don't think that corporations are people. I don't think that they should be treated equally under the law. However, many conservative justices disagree. That all the way goes back to Citizens United. It actually would be very ironic if Citizens United itself is the one that came back to bite DeSantis in the ass.

That's possible. Very well. No, like on the merits, if you look at kind of the way whether corporations or whatever have free speech rights, I really don't believe that. Not because I want to silence people's speech, but because that leads to political giving, advertising, which comes back to some of the woke problems I think we even have in the first place. Put that all aside. Politically, he made it a thing.

So now if you lose at your own thing then you look like an idiot yeah and that's not good and and the chances again now you're throwing it to a legal fight where who the hell knows if this is even going to be resolved by the time i mean this is we got billions at stake and if you think they're not going to fight till the end of time on this case not at the jury level at the appeals appeals level, at the Supreme Court level, then you're stupid too. So at the very least, like in terms of the talking point, Trump and Haley, let's put Haley aside. She doesn't matter. Trump has got what he needs in his ammo, in his back pocket if he needs it whenever he wants to bring it out.

Well, the problem for DeSantis is like most culture war outrage flare-ups, people have already moved on from this. And yet he's stuck here now having to go up against this corporate behemoth. So this is going to suck up a lot of time and attention because the upside at this point, if he wins, the upside is not that great because people have already moved on to Bud Light or whatever the next thing is going to be a minute from now. But the downside risk for him is massive.

And Trump clearly already smells blood in the water and is going for the jugular. And if he does lose against Disney or even appears like he's losing against Disney, Trump is never going to let you hear the end of it. On the polling of how people feel about it, already it's kind of mixed. Put this up on the screen. Only 44% of Republicans say that they have a more favorable view of DeSantis because of the fight with Disney. So it's not like this was a clear, gigantic winner for him. 73 percent of respondents say they are less likely to support a political candidate who backs laws designed to punish a company for its political or cultural stances. That includes 63 percent of Republicans who sort of don't like the concept of it. And they polled specifically, you know, they tried to give DeSantis' argument for this versus the free speech argument against DeSantis.

They say DeSantis has argued his actions against Disney were rightfully rolling back special treatment for the company. Some 64 percent of Republicans agreed, with 37 percent, though, siding with the vast majority of Democrats and also majority of independents who say DeSantis was punishing Disney for exercising free speech. So yeah, a majority of Republicans are kind of siding with him, but you got a sizable minority, 37%, who are not. And I have to think if Trump really digs in on this issue, that number is only going to shift more to the other side. I'm not really sure that merits matter at all, to be honest. I just think it all comes down to optics. You pick a fight, you lose, you just look like a idiot. It's very basic. It's like, you made this a thing, dude.

You know, the Bud Light thing is instructive. No governor was like, oh, we're going to punish Bud Light. A bunch of conservatives were like, we're not going to buy Bud Light. And then Bud Light fires a bunch of its executives, and apparently their sales are down by 17%. Now, in general, I don't know if boycotts work or not, but people who are anti-Bud Light can claim victory because they did win, and they didn't actually have to really do anything except talk about it. So all you really would have had to do in the Disney case is be like, well, we're not going to stand by Disney, and then DeSantis doesn't go to some Disney event.

You probably would have the same political level of upside that actually winning on this Reedy Creek fight would have had in the first place without any of the downside politically. Anyway, an interesting concept. There's one more thing I want to point out here, and I'm going to pull up some numbers that I was looking at that same Fox News poll that we showed you the Democratic primary numbers on. They tested the Republican primary numbers, and Donald Trump was winning by a significant amount. But what is really important to understand is the differences in their coalitions. So if you test white people with a college degree, it's tied, tied. Donald Trump is at 36. DeSantis is at 35. So effective tie within the margin of error. That's college degree holders. White people with no college degree, 61% for Trump, 15% for Ron DeSantis. So why am I bringing this up? That college degree holding more affluent part of the Republican base, they're very pro-business.

They tend to be much more of the traditional Reaganite type conservatives. Yeah, they're more like Mitt Romney type people that look at this and are like, why are you being anti-business? So he's taken a position that's kind of at odds with his own natural constituency, not to mention the donor class hates this sort of thing. They are not on board with it whatsoever. And meanwhile, it's funny because, you know, the Trump base would be more likely to view this move favorably. But now you've got Trump coming in to trash DeSantis over it. So they're not going to be on board with you either. So he's really kind of politically exposed here and wrapped up in something that is much bigger than probably what he really wanted to bite off. Very true. Absolutely. He looks like a fool,

in my opinion. All right, let's talk about Nate Silver. Some big news that just fits with so much of what we've been talking about here. The 2010s media era is officially over. Go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight is out at ABC News as Disney layoffs once again hit the news division. So Nate actually revealed in a tweet that he would be leaving FiveThirtyEight and that FiveThirtyEight employees had been heavily impacted by layoff announcement at ABC News. For those who don't remember, FiveThirtyEight was an independent political website

that was started by Nate Silver after he left the New York Times with the FiveThirtyEight blog. It was very successful, had a good track record up until 2016, started his own website, which was then bought by ABC News as part of the Disney portfolio. It was seen as one of the darling companies of the 2010s, like the blogger era of a guy like him who could literally go from playing shit posting

on Twitter and playing online poker to becoming the guy who called the 2012 election. And now to see him out of his own company, which is crazy, and also, by the way, why you should never sell, or at the very least, if you are going to sell, you should have protections. Here's what he has to say. Put this up there on the screen.

Disney layoffs have substantially impacted FiveThirtyEight. I am sad and disappointed to a degree that's kind of hard to express right now. We've been at Disney almost 10 years. My contract is up soon. I expect I will be leaving at the end of it. I've been worried about an outcome like this and have had some great initial conversations with opportunity elsewhere. Don't hesitate to get in touch. I'm proud of the work 538 staff. It's never been easy. I'm sorry to the people who have been impacted by this. I put this together with a couple of things. The end of BuzzFeed News, the decline. Anyway, let's go back in time. It's 2012. Silver is a rock star. His book was called The Signal and the Noise. That book was like number one on Amazon after his model called the

2012 election. This guy is like getting book you know, book contracts and money's being thrown at him at five from the New York Times. Everybody loves this guy. Buzzfeed news. They're the hottest thing on the block. Mike.com. They're killing it for millennials. They're crushing it on Facebook. You've got a Gawker, right? Gawker still exists. All these companies, Gawker's on the upswing, like they're swinging and, and, and punching. And now it's 2023. It's a decade later. They're all dead. They're gone. It's crazy. Hollowed. Business Insider's still around, I guess, if you want to have a paywall for clickable articles. And then Vice is, I don't know what the hell is going on over there.

Neither do they. I think Vice was the best of all of them. I loved Vice. I'll always stand by some of their early content. But I think they very much lost their all of them. I loved Vice. I'll always stand by some of their early content. But I think they very much lost their way. And Shane Smith made some questionable business decisions, which certainly benefited him personally, but which didn't necessarily work out for the company. They're still trucking along, I guess, but it's not even close to the level that they were. Or look at Vox Media. Vox Media was one of the biggest startups of the 2010s, built on the click model era. And

now there are two founders. One is on Substack, Matt Iglesias, and Ezra Klein works over at the New York Times. And his wife works for The Atlantic. It's like you either became an institutionalist or you went independent. There really was no in-between for this click-based media. So I'm looking at it almost as a meta story, just to say, wow, like, wow, man, the blogger era is dead. All of the big bloggers who everybody thought was gonna be the new it thing, they made the wrong bet.

They thought that they could sustain themselves on the click model or in partnership with traditional media, and they got burned. The ones who went independent, they're still trucking along and they're doing okay. Yeah, with regard to this particular business decision, and you and I were talking about this, I honestly, from Disney's perspective, I don't quite understand it because I'd have to know, I guess, more of the numbers, but I feel like Nate Silver is a bigger brand than FiveThirtyEight.

Like if anything, and I have to think the burn for the whole FiveThirtyEight operation would be more than this one guy, even though I'm sure he's very well paid. So I find it a little strange from a business decision perspective. But putting that aside, what all of these companies have in common is that they're built on a business model that just doesn't really work anymore. And they were unable to adjust. That's really the bottom line. And some of them, there were ideological issues as well. I do think the whole polling analysis industry was certainly hurt by the unexpected results in 2016

and by the fact that in every election since then, the polls have been off in some significant way. So people just don't look to the polls as the gospel that they used to. Nor should they, let's be honest. No, they absolutely shouldn't. And so I think that, you know, the core of the Nate Silver philosophy is that this is the thing that you should rely on, that there are models that you can use that can work out pretty well what's going to happen and predict these elections.

And that theory has taken a big hit from 2016 and really in every election since then. So I think that's part of the backstory here too. Yeah, just thinking about it in terms of like the meta story here, I feel bad for him. I mean, I do think he was a genuine talent. He had some pretty heterodox views in some point. He was a media critic too in his own right sometimes.

Didn't necessarily always agree with him, but he got a lot of people into politics. I'll say that. A lot of people got into politics because they enjoyed tracking 538, polling. I've seen that too. It's kind of like an easy gateway drug for a lot of people.

And I'm sure he'll be fine, but 538 was a cool thing. It didn't work out. I think they made many, many, many wrong mistakes or big mistakes in terms of their business model, hiring too many people, selling themselves to Disney being one.

But it was a cool project, and to watch it die, I'm not as gleeful as watching BuzzFeed News die, I guess. Yeah, 538 is apparently still gonna be around, but without Nate Silver, it's a really 538. It is funny because i think if he had maintained his independence they could have shifted to a business model that would work in the current era where advertising rates just aren't what they used to be and social media distribution isn't what it used to be because even though the polls aren't what it used to be. Because even though the polls aren't what they used to be,

it's still, listen, you only have so much information to go on. So you have to look at what the polls are saying. And then you factor in a margin of error and, hey, who knows? And it's been wrong in both directions in recent elections. So, you know, keep that in mind, take it with a big grain of salt. And here are the states that have been the most often. That's the way that we've tried to analyze the polls. But it's still beneficial to take a look at his model, to understand what his projections are. And I think there are a lot of people that would have paid to be able to benefit from that service. So I do think there's another universe in which he never sells, in which he maintains it as his own outlet. Absolutely.

But also some people don't want to be business people. Yeah, Look, it is a pain in the ass. You can ask us, you know, they, they want to do the thing they like to do crunching the numbers or whatever his, his deal is. And they don't really want to be bothered with the HR decisions and the tax system and all of those sorts of things. And it's, um, so yeah, I, I do feel like it is a loss, and I do kind of feel for him, because when you've built, this is his baby. Yeah, I know.

When you've built that up, and then you're no longer associated, but it's still gonna continue on, we know a little bit of what that feels like. I 100% know what it feels like. That's really tough, and I look at the cost of dealing with annoying tax problems as the cost,

that's the cost of being independent and being your own boss. Yes. That's basically how it works out. Anyway, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? This week, the current president launched one of the least inspiring Democratic campaigns of all time. He released a carefully crafted video which promised literally nothing in the way of an affirmative agenda with the tagline, finish the job. Left unsaid was what job he planned to finish since there has been nothing in the way of tangible goals or plans since the implosion of Build Back Better. Biden then had the gall to go speak to some unions, presumably trying to put on his pro-labor president shtick,

even as his unconscionable actions backing rail bosses over workers has already put to bed any notion that he would ever really stand with workers. Yet in spite of all of the disappointments and broken promises of the first Biden term, within hours of his announcement, Biden's chief rival, the independent senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, has endorsed his bid. It's a final betrayal of the movement that Bernie himself created, thoroughly capitulating to Biden and the worldview that he represents. Depressingly, given Bernie's trajectory post-2020, this was not really surprising. Bernie told the AP, quote, The last thing this country needs is a Donald Trump or some other right-wing demagogue who's going to try to undermine American democracy or take away a one's right to choose or not address the crisis of gun violence or racism, sexism or homophobia.

So I'm in to do what I can to make sure that the president is reelected. Bernie didn't even make a single demand, didn't force a single concession, at least not that we know of. No demand for debates or renewed commitment to a living wage, union legislation, anything. Bernie instantly bent the knee and he did it in exchange for less than nothing. It actually gets even worse, though. When asked about other primary challenges to Biden, Bernie actively discouraged others from entering, suggesting that this was the wrong focus for progressives and echoing the media's framing that we should

all just accept a coronation of Joe Biden. Bernie said of potential challengers, quote, people will do what they want to do. I think Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee and my job, and I think the progressive movement's job is to make certain that he stands up and fights for the working class of the country and does not take anything for granted. And with that, my friends, you can see with undeniable clarity that the bastards really got him. What do I mean? Well, back in 2016, Bernie's central and most provocative insight was that the only way to fight an authoritarian demagogue like Trump was through expanding democracy, enlisting and energizing new voters, showing that a multiracial, working-class-centric democracy could deliver on the material needs of its citizens.

In other words, it was a thoroughly populist pitch, which trusted in the voters of America, believed they could be persuaded, and that only more democracy could really right the ship. Here he is making that case. You cannot beat Trump with the same old, same old kind of politics. What we need is a new politics that brings working class people into our political movement, which brings young people into our political movement, and which in November will create the highest voter turnout in American political history. This view of politics was actually and still is deeply controversial. At a time when cable news is trying to convince you every single day that your fellow citizens represent an existential threat, Bernie argued

that we should go further than ever to put our faith in them, to appeal to them, to bring them into the process. Bernie's policies from Medicare for All to free college were, of course, different from his opponents as well. But the most vital difference between him and almost everyone else was his belief in populism. This, for example, is what really separated him from Elizabeth Warren. Bernie believed in the movement. Warren believed in the insider game, populism versus elitism. Now, the counter-narrative to this populist approach was argued by Hillary, Biden, and all the rest. They argued that the threat from the right was too dire to leave up to untrustworthy, deplorable voters. They argued,

in essence, don't worry your pretty little heads about your policy desires or candidate preferences because the serious people will tell you who you absolutely must vote for in order to fight fascism. Sadly, that counter-narrative has been very successful. They convinced much of the Democratic base that their fellow Americans were terrifying, racist, and generally evil.

They used this belief to justify an anything-goes politics that included rigging the 2016 primaries, rigging the Iowa caucuses in 2020, and the Obama-Kleiber media collusion that foisted Biden on voters in 2020 as well, smearing anyone who dissented from this as a fascist or a useful idiot or a grifter or some other terrible thing. Democratic elites are, of course, running this playbook again. Biden's message, the majority of Democratic voters who don't want him and the overwhelming majority of all voters who don't want him is you have no choice. You have no choice in the primary because, according to the elites in Washington, no, quote, serious opponents are running. And even

if there was an elite certified serious choice, the Democratic Party has already rigged the primaries and killed all debates to try to guarantee a Biden coronation. Similarly, you have no choice in the general election because, just like in 2020, Biden may not get your polls racing and may barely have a poll. But at least he's not Trump. This worldview is an all-out assault on democracy. The theory is basically only liberal authoritarianism can defeat right-wing authoritarianism. It is as stupid an idea as it is completely poisonous. And now it has the world's foremost former left populist standing behind it. Bernie joining the ranks of the anti-democracy elitists is nothing short of a tragedy. I'll personally always be grateful to Bernie for the movement he launched, the way it transformed politics,

for the way it personally expanded my political imagination and fully shook me out of my partisan prism. There is simply no denying, however, that his defection to the other side of this debate has done massive damage to that very movement. Many have become disillusioned. They've given up on the idea that electoral politics can even be a venue for real change. Others have followed Bernie into being co-opted by the establishment elitist wing of the party. The number of supposed leftists I see fully supporting the DNC's decision to hold no debates and doing the work of smearing any and all potential primary challengers to Biden is extremely depressing. But all hope is not lost. As I report on Tuesday, younger generations, they're not really fooled by these lies and they're much less likely to

be cowed into believing the arguments of a political class that has done nothing but betray them for their entire lives. Bernie's endorsement of Biden comes at kind of an ironic moment here, too. He's just finishing up a media tour promoting his book, It's Okay to Be Angry About Capitalism. It's filled with critique of the Biden wing of the party and outlines Bernie's longstanding concerns about inequality in an economic system that is at this point less capitalist than it is outright psychopathic. I don't doubt that Bernie is still extremely genuine in his belief in universal health care, canceling student debt, fighting the climate crisis, etc. But his full capitulation to the elitist insiders means that these core policy commitments, they only really matter on the margins. I guess in Bernie's new worldview, it's okay to be angry about capitalism. You just can't actually do anything about it. And Sager,

listen, am I surprised? No. I mean, I actually am a little surprised. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com. All right, Sager, what are you looking at? Well, we have talked a lot here over the years about Joe Biden's age. It's perhaps the most fraught personal thing about the man. Anyone with eyes can see he's not who he once was.

And yet, if you discuss his decline, you're immediately maligned as some disgusting ageist or someone who discriminates against old people or against stuttering that miraculously reappeared when he started pushing 80 years old and that didn't exist for his entire professional life. In light of Biden's official announcement that he's running again in 2024,

the country needs to be allowed to have a discussion that everyone is thinking. Is it responsible to put someone in the Oval Office who will be pushing 87 years old if he were to leave in January 2029. Not that long ago, the answer would have been a resounding hell no. In 1984, there was a serious debate in this country as to whether Ronald Reagan should be allowed to serve a second term. He was a spring chicken by today's standards, only 73, the oldest president

ever at the time, and he had to prove that he could handle the job for another four years. Reagan's first debate with Walter Mondale did not go well. He appeared aloof and he was tired, the campaign actually brought it up, and his doctor made a blunder in saying that Mr. Reagan was in excellent health, but was, quote, tired after his first debate. It made him just look older and more feeble than he was. Reagan and his advisor Roger Ailes, who would later go on to create Fox News, understood that he had to make it clear to the American public. He was not only with it, but he still had a killer instinct.

And it culminated in one of the most famous moments in American political history. Let's watch. Your question to President Reagan. Mr. President, I want to raise an issue that I think has been lurking out there for two or three weeks and cast it specifically in national security terms. You already are the oldest president in history, and some of your staff say you were tired after your most recent encounter with Mr. Mondale. I recall yet that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuba missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?

Not at all, Mr. Truitt, and I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience. That was it. He even made his opponent laugh. The country loved it, and he won one of the biggest victories in history. Of course, maybe that shouldn't have been enough, though. Because when Reagan left office, he abruptly retired from public lie, and he'd been suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's or dementia.

There were a lot of questions about that. The facts are still unclear, as the Reagan family still today smarts at any suggestion that he did so while in office. But the example remains apt. Ronald Reagan, when he left office, was 77 years and 349 days old. That was on the day he left. Biden, on the other hand, was 78 years and 61 days old the day he took the oath of office. Extraordinarily old from day one. And years later, he is asking us to entrust him

not with one or two more years of some ceremonial chairman emeritus role, but the most powerful and demanding job in the world. Consider what most Americans at Biden's age are actually doing. The average age of a nursing home patient in the US today is 81 years old, one year younger than the age he would be

when he starts his second term. I often joke that people should take a look at actuarial tables, and I decided to do it myself. Statistics compiled by the Social Security Administration. Today, at age 80, President Biden has a 4.7% chance of dying in one year. At 82, the year that he would be sworn in for his second term, He has a 5.8% chance of death. The next year after that, he would 6.5% chance, a 7.4% chance the year after, an 8.3% chance the next, and a whopping 9.3% chance of death his last year in office. I understand this is very morbid, and to be clear, I hope nothing but the best for him. I hope he lives a long and a prosperous life. If he were

retired in a nursing home, like many people his age, it wouldn't matter. But it does matter, when he has to make the most important decisions in the world. Note, I too have discussed the probability here of only death, which is incredibly high in the ninth decade of life for most Americans. But what about mental fitness, like dementia? Here the statistics are also troubling. The risk of dementia grows exponential from age 70. Only about 5% of adults between 70 to 79 years old have dementia.

16% of those adults between ages of 80 to 89 have it. And 22% of adults from age 85 to 89. In other words, given his age, he already has nearly a 1 in 5 chance of having dementia if he doesn't already. And every day he gets closer to 86, his risk goes exponential. That's just dementia. What about the odds of just being in reasonably good health? Already at age 80, Biden has less than a 50% chance of being in reasonably good health, if you look at overall population data.

As you can tell, the risk of remaining so and not developing critical illness dramatically increases over time. By 86, when he would have left office, the odds of having no serious illness are less than 20%. Once again, I understand this can sound callous, but let me tell you something that people who work in the medical field all know. There is a titanic difference between being in your 70s and being in your 80s. You don't even have to ask me. Look at this clip of Joe Biden from 2017 on The View when he was just 75 years old. And you have said that if Beau hadn't gotten sick, he would have. Do you regret not running? No, I don't. It was the right thing to do for me and for my family. And look, Beau wanted me to run and Hunt and Ashley, they all did. And when Beau passed, Hunt called a family meeting and

said, look, we Bidens always do better under pressure. Why don't we use this as a way to rally and stick together and fight through this? And so about August, I said, OK, I'll go look at it. I'll look at it. And I went out to go to the mayor of Denver, who's a great friend and a supporter, wanted me to run. They're still there. And and I landed at Buckley Air Force Base, a military base. And I got off the plane, make a long story not quite so long. There was a whole group of military guys and women at a rope line. I ran over to shake hands, tell them how much I appreciate them. He's not the same man.

I've got eyes and ears, as do most of you. It's not fun to think about this, and that's a movie story. But people near their last years in life, they have a responsibility to themselves and to others. You've got to be honest about your limitations. Biden and the media, they don't even want to talk about this. When you have nearly a 10% chance of natural death, when you have the most important job in the world, I would venture to say it's one of the most important things for us to consider. Do with this information what you will, but you at least should have it. I mean,

this is the thing I was trying to say. It's like people think 75 to 80 doesn't sound all that different. But again, look at the actual... And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Thank you all so much for everybody who's heeded the call, has been helping us out. So many of you have stepped up, and to so many others who can become premium members,

it just means the world to us, especially the yearly and the lifetimes. At BreakingPoints.com, you're helping us out. The new set, it's coming in. You're helping us out at our cashflow crunch that we've got going on here. And otherwise, we've got great content for you all through the weekend, and we will see you all on Monday. Love y'all. See you Monday. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country

with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-up way, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's Dadication.

Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know. Some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters.

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