Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/28/23: Marianne Calls Out DNC on Fox News, Taliban Kills ISIS Leader, Charles Barkley Gale King New CNN Show, Don Lemon Highlight Reel, Constitutional Amendments, EquiFax Sells American Tax Records, Havana Syndrome Gets More Money

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Marianne Williamson going on Fox News to talk about the DNC barring primary debates, the Taliban killing an ISIS leader, Charles Barkley and Gale King announce their new CNN show "King Charles", we take one last look at Don Lemon's highlights of the past as he leaves CNN, Krystal speaks with The Funky Academic on new constitutional amendments, Matt Stoller talks about the monopoly power of EquiFax a company that sells Americans tax records, and Ken Klippenstein updates us on the governments handling of the supposed "Havana Syndrome".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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I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month and we need to talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone

breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide listen to we need to talk from the black effect podcast network on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops.

They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on 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. So Marianne Williamson, a presidential contender, had an interesting exchange over on Fox News. Now, the context here is that most of the mainstream press has completely shut her out. Now, Fox has their own self-interested reasons of they

want to like, so dissent and all, whatever. But Brian Kilmeade over there gave her a very fair hearing. Take a listen to what she had to say. To protect Joe Biden, the DNC has announced there'll be no primary debate, so he does not have to flesh this out. That shuts out candidates like Marianne Williamson. She's running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination again. She joins us now with her reaction. Marianne, are you surprised on that DNC decision? No, I'm not surprised. They've been indicating for a while that there were probably going to be no debates. Disappointed? Disappointed certainly because I believe in democracy. I believe that the political parties should stay out of the issue until the primary voters have weighed in and then whoever wins

the primaries, that's who the DNC or the RNC for that matter should support. So yeah, I don't think the DNC should be dictating from on high that they will try to invisibilize any other candidates. The DNC didn't want to hear from you, but we do. Marianne Williamson, thanks so much. Best of luck in your appearance tomorrow. Thank you. You got it. And, you know, if you watch that whole exchange, she doesn't pull any punches about, you know, Medicare for all and like her view, very like solidly progressive left of center view for her

campaign. And, you know, they let her voice it on their air. I think it's very telling that the other networks are apparently afraid of having her on because they don't want to run crosswise with their buddies in the Biden administration. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, and look, we also know why is Fox doing it? Because they like jabbing at Biden. And, look, that's fine because they have a big audience. And even though it's much smaller now on Brian Kilby's show. That said, the points stand, and they're actually very important to make sure that we have these debates. And the more I think about it, I think it's really sad. I always come back to, if the current primary schedule that

Biden has in place was there in 2008, Barack Obama would not be president. He would have been Hillary, and then who the hell knows? Probably Mitt Romney would then be president. Representation and whatever, they leave that part out. Obama would never have been elected if South Carolina was first. A lot of people forget that. The voters in South Carolina didn't take him seriously until he won the Iowa caucuses. So it took the small state of Iowa. Now, I think Iowa is a problem for many reasons, ethanol and all that. The last time around, they did themselves no favors. Yeah. Look, administratively, demographically, economically, Iowa was a problem. But the theory behind it of giving the small people a chance, I think that was good. It was a good thing, I think, for the country. And he's rigging it up and down. And it's not just about

Biden because, as you know, Crystal, what about next time? What are we going to have, the coronation of Kamala Harris? Yes, probably. Yeah, most likely. Right. But somebody deserves a chance or what then? The coronation of Pete Buttigieg. We don't live in a kingdom like we don't this is we don't want to live in that system. And yet we're moving towards that away from the primary. Not to mention, how much have we heard from the Democrats about democracy, how important it is to them, how much have we heard from the Democrats about democracy, how important it is to them, how they're going to be protectors of democracy. Joe Biden launched his campaign daring to talk about how he will be the protector of democracy. Then what is this? Then why are you actually afraid of the democratic process? And why are you doing everything you can

to short circuit it? You know, talking about the reordering of the states, everyone can see through this idea. Oh, we're doing this because we want more diverse representation. That's nonsense. Obviously they're doing it as a political power play. Members of the DNC admitted outright as much. But the other thing people are forgetting is New Hampshire didn't just lay down and say, OK, fine, we're going to lose our position. Yes, they're still planning on moving forward. And they are furious at Joe Biden over this. And I'm not talking about like, you know, random left wing operative. I'm talking about the longtime chair of the party. I'm talking about local state officials who have significant

significant power. They are deeply interested in hearing from other candidates and they want to have them to the state. They are not ceding their ground. And so that also is a problem for Joe Biden. Not to mention this narrative from the media that there are no quote unquote serious candidates, which I don't know who appointed them to decide. I thought it was up to the American people to decide who they took seriously or not. This is not really panning out for them. They're not being successful at completely squashing support for Biden's primary contenders in the way that I know that they hope to. Fox News also did a poll of the actual primary field. Put this up on the screen. We reported on this earlier. And, you know, given the fact that Bobby Kennedy Jr.

and Marianne Williamson have been completely invisibilized and smeared and dismissed by the media, you still have Bobby Kennedy at 19 percent, Marianne Williamson at 9 percent, Joe Biden only at 62 percent. This poll is not orders of magnitude different from the Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis polls. So the more you have results like this, and I would not be surprised to see these numbers for the challengers grow, given you a majority of Democrats who want another option than Biden, the more difficult it's going to become for the media to continue to say they're not serious, he has no real contenders, no real opponents, and it will become more and more difficult for them to justify not having a single primary debate.

So Fox is self-interested here, but also the mainstream press and the Democratic Party should be ashamed of themselves. Oh, absolutely. So yeah, look, maybe we should have Mariana again soon. Let's have RFK on and then we'll have Mariana. Yeah. We'll make sure that we at least have a little bit going on here. We'll definitely give them a platform here.

It would be fun too to have a debate. I was thinking about that. Maybe, yeah. We'll see. If you guys want it too, to have a TV. I was thinking about that. Maybe, yeah. We'll see. If you guys want it, maybe we can try and make it happen. All right. We'll see you guys later.

Extraordinary bit of news out of Afghanistan. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. The mastermind of the Kabul airport bombing, which killed 13 U.S. service members, was just killed by the Taliban. An extraordinary development, the Post says, spotlighting the Biden administration's newfound reliance on a former battlefield adversary to help confront terrorist threats. Now, I wanted to cover this for a couple of reasons. I was told in no uncertain terms that when Biden pulled out of Afghanistan, Afghanistan was going to become a terrorist hellhole and that the Taliban weren't going to kill anybody for us and that we would all be less safe. And in, oh, and also there would be like a mass slaughter of American citizens. Actually, not a single American citizen has

been killed by the, I am not supporting the Taliban. I'm not saying they're good people. I'm saying that I was told very few, very specific things that American citizens would be in danger and would be killed. Nope, that hasn't happened. By all accounts, every single American citizen at this point that's wanted to leave the country has left the country and the Taliban has basically let them do so. Two, on the terrorist front, we wouldn't be able to kill terrorists in Afghanistan because we didn't have an on-the-ground presence, except we actually killed the leader of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, with a drone. And now the person who was responsible for killing our service members, we didn't even kill them. The Taliban killed them for us. It's almost like it was a multifaceted full of situation. And the people who were criticizing the withdrawal saying

it was, quote, making us less safe, were full of shit. They never follow up on that, though, do they? Yeah, they never do follow up on that. How many people died in Afghanistan? How many Americans were killed in Afghanistan? Literally, how many times did you hear that? Abandoning Americans in Afghanistan. How many of them were killed?

Name one. Show me one person who was killed. Hasn't happened. I'm not saying what's happening there is a good thing. I think it's sad. But do I think that it's worth the lives of American service members so that Afghan girls can go to school? No, sorry, I don't care.

And, you know, I think it's sad, but do I think that it's worth, like, money, materiel? And I think this is the best thing that Joe Biden ever did in his presidency. Everybody's like, oh, he should have left Bagram open. Okay, all right, you know, listen. That's like criticizing the tactical stuff when the strategic is what matters. He did it.

He's the one who did it. And also, if you support Ukraine so much so many of these stands, try and support Ukraine if we still had this goddamn Afghan war going on. There's a pretty good evidence, actually, that given the amount of materiel we were pumping in Afghanistan and the military resources and all that, that half of the amount of Ukraine aid would have been actually needed by the military. So even if you consider it on that face, it's ridiculous. We live in a realistic world, and this is only a vindication

of the withdrawal. I think it's important to remember, too, that in that horrifying terrorist attack that killed 13 American service members. It also killed an estimated 170 Afghans. So they certainly had a stake in taking out this leader as well. And the big, you know, we heard a lot of arguments for why the U.S. should never leave Afghanistan, but the most core sort of like compelling one, I suppose, was the idea that it's going to once again be a safe haven for terrorists as it was before 9-11, harboring Osama bin Laden, and they're going to go back to that. And to me, what this shows is that does not appear to have come to fruition. And in fact, they are also not happy about ISIS-K, at least terrorist organization, operating on their soil.

So it just shows you the landscape is a bit different than the way it was painted by the detractors in the wake of that messy withdrawal. That's why the whole rhetoric around this is so stupid. The Taliban and ISIS hate each other. They've been killing each other since 2016 from when ISIS-K even emerged in, I think it was in Nangarhar province, which is near Pakistan. The point is it's a complicated place. And to try and put U.S. politics onto it was the death of American soldiers, of Afghan civilians from the beginning. It was a nightmare and it was a mess. We should have gotten out decades ago. Every president kicked the ball,

kicked it down the road. You know what's weird? I walk my dog past Stanley McChrystal all the time, and it's the weirdest thing. Because sometimes I'll look at him, and all I really want to say is, A, what happened to Michael Hastings? That's number one.

Number two is, I just look at this guy, who's a sitting pretty, by the way. He's making millions of dollars as some sort of consultant. He's got this big office building nearby. And I'm just like, man, look at this guy. He's sitting pretty. He's getting into his nice car. He's got a chauffeur and all this stuff.

And the wreckage of what he left behind, nothing. He made big promises. And he was a failure. And all these guys, they get richer when they leave. That's what drives me nuts. And then they get called on in instances like this by the media to come on and advocate for war forever. I think it was so illustrative to watch the bipartisan cross any sort of partisan media outlet, how they all fed

the exact same narrative. And it's always like this. The push from the media is always in the hawkish direction. It is almost never in a ending wars pro-peace direction. And that was never more obvious than with regard to Afghanistan. And I just want to say, since our withdrawal, I think some of our actions have been unconscionable in denying them funds. Afghanistan is going through horrible famine. It's been very tough times for their people. We have been complicit in that. But suddenly again, all of their feigned concern in the moment for the people out of Afghanistan, the women, the girls, et cetera,

suddenly gone. We never hear about it anymore. Very, very true. All right, we'll see you guys later. Just before actually the firing of Don Lemon, CNN announced another significant move. They are bringing Charles Barkley and Gayle King in a show together that

they're calling King Charles into primetime once a week. Say a listen to what they had to say about that. All right. It's official. King Charles, a different kind of royalty, a brand new show hosted by award-winning journalist Gayle King and NBA superstar Charles Barkley. It will be debuting on Wednesday nights on CNN this fall. They made the announcement just moments ago on TNT's NBA tip-off. Take a look. I want it to be nonpolitical. But we'll talk about politics. We will.

But we don't want to say we're liberal. Exactly. We're conservative. We're Republican, Democrat. That's one of the things that's already ruined television in general. And I know she's going to be a straight shooter. You know I'm going to be a straight shooter. And when we got together for lunch, we just started talking about random things.

And it was really curious that we had different opinions, which is fine. I was correct. It was wrong. Let's continue here. Go ahead. But we were like, all I want is people, even if I disagree with them, I want them to be honest with me. I don't want them saying things that get clickbait. That's what drives me crazy about people in our profession right now.

We're not trying to get people to click on. I know she's going to be fair. Not going to lie, I actually will watch the show. Yeah, I don't know if I'll watch it. I'll watch the highlight clips or whatever. I mean, look, I actually do think it is. I'm not a huge fan of Gayle King. She basically just grifted off of Oprah and her relationship with Obama to get her position.

So let's put that aside. She has some genuine talent. She did a good job in, what was it, the R. Kelly interview? Oh, she did a phenomenal job in that interview. What a meme. No, I think she's, I mean, in terms of as a broadcaster,

I think she's a talented broadcaster. But the real action is Charles Barkley, who is funny and I mean, there's all kinds of things, of course, I'm gonna disagree with him on, but I am actually, I'm shocked that he's willing to do it. They must have offered him a huge amount of things, of course, I'm going to disagree with him on, but I am actually, I'm shocked that he's willing to do it. They must have offered him a huge amount of money, number one. Number two, in the wake of the train wreck catastrophe disaster that was their morning show attempt, this is actually a reasonably good idea.

Like, I could see people watching this. I could see it creating moments that people want to share. I could see Charles Barkley in particular saying things that like make the CNN audience a little uncomfortable or that are a little edgy or a little bit off from what the cable news audience normally expects. So I am interested to see how this goes. Oh, absolutely. I mean, listen, Charles, as I said, is a compelling talent. He's a guy who is funny. He's had some moments before. I think we even posted one.

We covered something. What was it? It was like Charles is like, you know, Republicans and Democrats. Like we should all be able to come together. People loved it, actually. He was like trashing both sides. He was trashing like both sides. He's like everybody wants to rip us apart.

I don't know if CNN is a place where I go to heal the nation's wounds. But I'm interested. Will it save CNN, especially after the Lemon thing? Look, no. I mean, even in primetime, we're talking about a weekly program. They need averages. It will give them some well-needed press, and it could give them a genuine hit, but I'm just, you know, I don't know if hits exist in the cable business anymore, because let's say you take CNN primetime from 400K to a million. That's still 70%, 80%, 90% boomers who are watching it. Is that really a hit?

You know, it's like less dying than before. Right. You know, you've got a better heartbeat, but you're still like on the verge of complete collapse. I just don't know. They're also, I mean, Charles Barkley, I'm sure, was a huge amount of money. Gayle King also was not coming here cheaply. So your talent expenses are very large for a one-night-a-week show. And I'm sure the business thinking is, okay, but we bring people into this show,

and then they'll stick around, and they'll see what else we have to offer. That's the piece that I don't think is going to pan out. And so then it just becomes a really expensive show that I do think will probably rate better than whatever else they're doing in primetime at that hour right now. But will it justify the expense? Will it lead to some rebirth of the network? Unlikely.

Absolutely. All right, we'll see you guys later. We're doing a lot of homages to Don Lemon here. As you can see, I've got my hoodie on. And what we've decided to do as a team is look back throughout history. Some of Don's best or some might say worst moments on the CNN network he shall be sorely missed at the very least from a

content perspective absolutely we're gonna miss that content you know yeah we certainly will uh Don uh we'll we'll miss you I'm not sure anybody else you ever worked with will here were your best. That's how we started? That's how we started. Y'all ready for this countdown? This whole talk about age makes me uncomfortable. I think that, I think it's the wrong road to go down. She says people, you know, politicians or something are not in their prime.

Nikki Haley isn't in her prime, sorry. When a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s that's not according to me time for what it depends on it's just like prime if you look it up it'll see if you look if you google when is a woman in her prime it'll say 20s 30s and 40s I don't know I agree with that so I think she has to be careful about saying that, you know, politicians aren't in their prime. I think they need to qualify. Are you talking about prime for like childbearing? Don't shoot the message. I'm just saying what the facts are.

Google it. Everybody at home. When is a woman in her prime? It says 20s, 30s and 40s. And I'm just saying Nikki Haley should be careful about saying that politicians are not in their prime. And they need to be in their prime when they serve because she wouldn't be in her prime according to- Google? Google or whatever it is.

Just Google it, Emily. It's the facts. I Googled it and I can't find it either. I don't know what goes on in Don Lemon's brain. He's been consuming too much Andrew Tate content or something, I don't know. But what he reveals at the trial is that CNN's Don Lemon warned him via text in 2019

that the cops did not believe his account of the attack. I mean, to bring that to the King's legacy and to dictate the making of art and the celebration of them was really strange for me. I think it's, I mean, obviously, you see what you want, as Poppy said, in the art. And I think sometimes the most compelling art is the controversial art. In large part, a tongue-in-cheek interview, you know, because it's Joe Rogan and there's lots of, you're jockeying back and forth. But he did say something about ivermectin that I think wasn't actually correct about CNN and lying, okay? Ivermectin is a drug that is commonly used as a horse dewormer.

So it is not a lie to say that the drug is used as a horse dewormer. I think that's important, and it is not approved for COVID. But when you're saying something, and then the person you're saying it about has literally 10 times the audience you do. You dumb motherfucker.

Do you know what you did? You just proved my point. Continue that conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Papa. We'll talk about China. Yes, tell us about China.

Next time you come back. Oh, thank you. Much to say on declaring independence from China. Okay. You can move on now, please. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Very excited, as always, to talk to great friend of the show, Ira Miose from Pong of the Funky Academic. Great to see you, my friend. Thanks for having me on. This should be a hoot. Yes, as always. So you've been thinking a lot

about constitutional amendments and what some good ones would be and why it's important to hold out the idea of amending the Constitution, even though that hasn't happened quite some time. So tell us what you're thinking about. Well, you know, I get a little bit tired of watching Americans kind of pray to the Supreme Court that it rules in our favor and pretending that it's self-governance. That's not self-governance. That's hoping that, you know, some unelected people in robes kind of like respond to your petition. So we need to actually solve our problems in a way that's adequate

to the concept of the nation, right? So let's talk about why we don't do constitutional amendments and what constitutions are. So constitutions are just the way the governing authority declares the rules of the game. If the governing authority wants the people to play the game, then the people need to know the rules, and that way everyone can be accountable for the rights and responsibilities

of playing the governing authority's games. But just because there's a constitution doesn't mean that the people make the rules, right? So the NBA has a constitution doesn't mean that the people make the rules. Right. So the NBA has a constitution. But that doesn't mean that the players get to decide where the three point line begins and ends. And the people of Qatar, Qatar has a constitution. But that doesn't mean that the people of Qatar get to decide are the governing authority. No, it's just the way that the governing authority actually makes its will manifest, makes the rules manifest to the people that then play. And there's freedom in playing by somebody else's rules.

You don't have to govern in order to enjoy freedom. For example, it's arguable that there's a quality of freedom, there's a quality of Islam you can only practice in Qatar and you can't practice in the United States because there's so many special interests that might like distort our rules, right?

And there are a lot of NBA players who don't want to decide where the three-point line begins and how many fouls. And there are a lot of people in the United States who don't want to govern. They want someone else to govern

and then just let us play and know that our rights are secured with someone else deciding what those rights are. But if you're actually serious about self-governing, which the United States is supposed to be, we're good at like for the people. We're good at of the people. We're not so good at by the people. But if we're serious about self-governing, then we have to be serious about actually making the rules for self-government. So I wanted to just kind of float a few constitutional amendments that would actually, I think, make self-government more realized in the United States that would be better for our democracy and better for our nation. And Irami, do you mind? I know you probably have an order in mind, but I'd love to for you to speak to one we've discussed privately before, which is the idea of requiring political candidates to subject themselves to political debates. And the reason I asked you to start with that one is because it's highly relevant, given that the DNC has just announced

like, no, we're not going to have primary debates. We're just going to anoint Biden. We're going to rig the states to make sure they're the best in his favor. We're not even going to allow Democratic voters who really would like other alternatives to even know there are other alternatives or certainly to get to evaluate them versus the current guy who a lot of people have a lot of concerns about. So this one seems very particularly relevant to me right now. Right. So there's this idea that the DNC is just a fully private entity that can do whatever it wants internally. And it doesn't the public interest doesn't have, there's no public interest in the DNC. And that is an illusion because these political parties have a privileged access to our political system, which means even Republicans have an interest that the DNC is run somewhat democratically

and realizes the value of the nation. So we have to get rid of the illusion that these major political parties are merely private entities and don't have a privileged access to our political institutions. That doesn't mean we actually determine the content of the candidacies of the political parties, but it means that we have, as a people, have an interest in their procedures, right? So you just have a constitutional amendment that acknowledges that political parties, that there's a public interest in the democratic workings of political parties, and that political parties need to mandate whoever elected office at least three primary debates, at least. And then you just kind of let the parties at the time to decide like when

those are. You could you could throw it to an administrative body like the Commission on Presidential Debates. It doesn't have to be detailed, but it does have to be the expectation and the commandment almost that political parties have three primary debates before that candidate is on a general ballot. Yeah, I think the other example where this is really relevant right now is with Dianne Feinstein, who, you know, a lot of Californians had a lot of concerns about last time she stood for reelection. Part of how she was able to secure her reelection was, number one, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and other top national Democratic figures came in and endorsed her. And number two, she basically hit herself and didn't allow voters to evaluate whether she was up to the task and whether this was really the person they wanted in that job. That's a real subversion of democracy. You can't claim that, you know, voters will have, they had a democratic choice to choose someone else when they didn't even have an opportunity

to really evaluate those choices. No, it's a power play that ends up privileging the party elites over, you know, everyday citizens, which the government should be for, right? So if that's too much, if people find that federally elected officers shouldn't have to submit themselves to a debate, then we just have to hash that out as a public because I think we have different understandings of the responsibilities of democracy. I don't think that's too much to ask.

I am disgusted that someone like Nancy Pelosi can get through decades of leadership and deny debates. Jim Clyburn is another one. He just says he doesn't want to have debates. And so there aren't debates. And I don't think that's appropriate. I don't think that's fair as a citizen and the media. And I mean, as a media person, how do you feel about Clyburn just saying, like, I don't feel like debating my challengers? Yeah, no, I mean, listen a media person, how do you feel about Clyburn just saying, like, I don't feel like debating my challengers? Yeah. No, I mean, listen, it's very possible that if he did have debates, people would look at the, you know, analyze him for whatever reasons that they perceive their self-interest to be. They may stick with Jim Clyburn, but they at least deserve the opportunity to evaluate the options in some sort of a reasonable fashion. I know another one you were interested in, and this was one I've taken an interest in lately as well, is you posit there should be an amendment

that distinguishes the personhood of a citizen versus the personhood of a corporation. Speak to us about that. Yeah, both citizens and corporations are persons insofar as they have willful actions. But there's going to be a difference between a citizen who actually governs with an idea of the whole and what kind of rules should be installed for the good of the whole and a corporation, which is by its nature, like just designed for its public

interest, its personal particular interest. right? So even when I act as a citizen, when I pull the lever as a citizen, when I talk as a citizen, I'm not just thinking about my particular interest. I'm thinking about the rules of the game for even people who don't agree with me. When a corporation acts, it is mandated to only concern itself with its shareholder profits. So when it markets, it's not doing the same as when I speak. And we just need to clarify those two roles. Yeah. Well, and this has been a sort of contested issue throughout our history.

I mean, what corporations used to be and the way they were treated by the law and the way they were understood and that their personhood was understood has changed over time. So I think it makes a lot of sense to sort of clarify what those rights and responsibilities are. You have a couple here that you suggest that speak to economic rights. One is a federal job guarantee, and another one is guaranteed union membership. What are your thoughts on those? And do you see those as qualitatively different from any other provisions in the Constitution? I can't think of ones that really guarantee any sort of like, you know, specific, explicit, positive economic rights. We have a pre-industrial Constitution.

We have to understand that the Constitution was first ratified in 1789. The contingent didn't even come until the early 1800s. I think Eli Whitney was born in the 1780s. was that all actual members of the meaningful body politic were either going to be landed gentry or independently wealthy or independent professionals. We didn't have a constitution made for employees or a nation of employees. And the idea that we are a nation of employees is true since 95% of the working populace works for somebody else, but is not really reflected in our Congress. That's why our Congress is made up of landed gentry and independent professionals.

And it's not really represented in our democratic norms and guardrails. So, and John Adams actually talks about this because he says like, look, people who work for somebody else, and this is in a letter between John Adams and James Sullivan. He's like, people who work for somebody else, they're not really politically independent. They're just tools of their employer. So just give their employer the vote. And we don't really have to worry about the employees, which in a way, while gauche isn't wrong, right? So if you were working for Rising and you had to represent the brand every time you opened your yap, that would actually change the quality

of your political speech. And so we need to organize and kind of subordinate our economic system to the needs of political democracy, which means that and in a way that like, you know, a command and control economy doesn't. Because, yeah, so we need to make sure that even while we expect and demand that our people work or earn their daily bread in some way that they are also, they do so in a way that's consistent with political participation, right? So I think we need to be honest that there are economic conditions to political independence.

And if political speech and even running for office jeopardizes your livelihood and like jeopardizes the way that you could actually secure bread for yourself and your family, then we need to reorganize a political and economic system so that people can both participate in the economy and participate in public office. And I know you ran for public office and had to kind of negotiate a lot of this. But one of the ways we do that is by saying that no matter what you say in your political speech, you have a job at the end of it. And if we're serious about that, that means the federal government needs to be the employer of last resort and needs to guarantee people a job. It makes sense to me because it highlights the fact that you do not truly have freedom, whether it's political freedom or other freedoms, unless you have those basic economics secured. Right. So it's a positive notion of freedom. And, you know, and you also don't really have

democracy if you don't have democracy in the workplace, which is what a union ultimately is all about. The next two, I think, also fit together because they're both about having the ability to navigate the systems that we all are forced to navigate. That would be the legal system, since we, as you put it, are a nation of laws, and the tax system, since we also are a nation of taxes. You posit we should have legal care for all in civil and criminal matters and tax preparation for all. What brought you to those two? Yeah, the amount of money you have in your bank account shouldn't decide, shouldn't determine the quality of your legal representation or your legal personhood.

So the idea that you can buy a quality of lawyer that will get you better representation than your competition is like un-American and should be acknowledged just so, right? So we need to start talking about that. So Peter Thiel, and I believe I gave you an element concerning this. Peter Thiel in an interview with a friend of the show, Zed Jelani, admitted that single digit millionaires, and if you don't know, Peter Thiel is a billionaire, single digit millionaires just don't have real access to the legal system. These poor single digit millionaires, they're just chum, pretty much, for the billionaire. And this guy's a billionaire. He's got no reason to lie. Right. So if a billionaire is telling you that single digit millionaires are not really in the legal game and aren't really governed by laws in the same way that he is, then we need to actually take that seriously and think of it as a problem for our democracy. And some people will say that, like, well, you know, there's like legal aid and all these charities and pro bono work. But that's like believing in magic to secure your rights.

I don't want my rights to be secured by charity or like some lawyer's extra time. I want to make like legal care in general, less sexy and give everyone access to the legal care in civil and criminal matters that they deserve at a rate that's comparative to the problems that they have. So it's not like you have cancer and you go into an emergency room. If you need a legal team, you get a legal team. And that's why if you have cancer, you get a team. So everyone should have access to the legal care, if we're serious about being a nation of laws, adequate to the problem that they come against. And in terms of taxes, the fact that you have a whole massive multibillion dollar industry around tax preparation means they also have an investment in like making taxes as confusing and complicated and burdensome on everybody as they possibly can. And then you also have this vast inequality where, again, the Peter Thiel's of the world,

man, they've got the best accountants out there fighting to make sure that they have to pay as little taxes as they possibly can. And meanwhile, for everybody else, they're just like hoping and praying that this works out OK for them. Right. Like we have the standard deduction for the poors. But if we are serious about actually having a tax law that's lawful, which means it takes a specialist to understand it, then we need to avail every one of specialists. Right. So there's this idea that you could pay accountants. And, you know, some of these tax accounts we're friends with, probably a few of them, are very well to do. You make a lot of good money doing taxes for the wealthy. You can pay accountants to game the system or to get you the most efficient tax return possible. It should be un-American insofar as if we have taxes and if we have tax breaks, everyone should equally, as American citizens,

have access to them. And that means you need access to the brain that allows you to, the mind that's been trained to discern which tax privileges and tax rights that you are available to. So yeah, single-payer tax, single-payer accountants, tax accountants, maybe not all business accountants. I think businesses should pay for their own business accounts, but single-payer tax preparers, single-payer option for tax preparers for high-quality tax preparation. It sounds like it's...

None of these things, if you listen to me and you think about them yourself, they're not going to make our democracy worse. They're not going to make our democracy worse. They're not going to make our democracy worse. And notice I said a federal job guarantee. And I'm not in favor of the UBI just because I think that there's a lot of work that needs to happen in order to make our economy and our politics work. And there's work that needs to be done. I live in the South right now.

There's like 70 years of deferred maintenance that needs to be done. And like you don't have Internet at home. Correct. That's correct. So we can pay someone $25 to $30 an hour to like get fiber to Crystal's farm. Listen, you just sold me right there I would even call you a cynic. In certain ways, you're certainly very sort of practical about the country as it exists, but you never lack in political imagination. And I think it's always really important to stretch our minds and imagine the things that could be. And when you lay all of these, you know, potential amendments out, every single one of them makes sense. And like you said, they're certainly not going to make the democracy worse than they definitely have a shot at actually improving the quality of our democracy so that it more closely approximates an actual democracy. Can I talk about one more? Sure. Yeah. Eldercare for all. Eldercare for all. Eldercare for all.

Look, man, like we decided that we have a quality of eldercare system with a social security system insofar as, you know, one way to make sure that the elderly are doing well is to actually give them money. They can spend it as they want. But another way is to make sure that they actually have full-time, like, the care that they need. And caring for an elderly loved one actually kind of distorts the freedom of the caregiver. That's right. right like if your parent or loved one needs full-time care you can't really participate in politics you can't really participate in civil society so if we're going to actually secure everyone like the blessings of liberty like the constitution's supposed to do we need to start talking about elder care for all

and same with child care for all yeah as. I agree with both of those. And also children should not be punished because they come from poor parents. The USDA every year or every other year comes out with a survey about how much it costs to raise a middle class child. And apparently after you take away child care and after you take away child care,, after you take away childcare, it's about 900 bucks a month. Let's just give every parent $900 a month per kid. That's like, and you put that with a federal job guarantee, which is supposed to take care of the parent. And that means every kid is not punished materially for just coming from poor parents. And that means they could actually like participate in the quality of enrichment activities

that will lead to a robust citizenship. I think that is all very well said. Yeah, we can link it to the USDA's own report about what middle-class parents spend on their children. And then peg it to inflation so that it continues to just auto-escalate and you don't have to depend on a political class to increase it. I think that's all a very good idea.

Irony, it's always great to have you. It's always great to speak with you. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's our pleasure. I'm Matt Stoller, author of Monopoly-focused Substack newsletter, Big, and an antitrust policy analyst. We have a great segment for you today on this big breakdown. It's about how the giant credit reporting bureau, Equifax, through its monopoly power,

has become a firm that sells what are effectively tax records of any American to pretty much anyone who wants them. Okay, the movie The Big Short is about fraud during the Great Financial Crisis. In it, there's a famous scene where fund managers betting on a housing collapse are trying to learn about the Florida housing market and are interviewing some frat boy type Florida real estate agents. The agents keep discussing their self-serving and illegal behavior like falsifying paperwork or selling homes to people who knowingly can't pay back mortgages.

At a certain point, the main character, who is the fund manager, asks his colleagues about these guys, why are they confessing? And there's a great response. Here's the scene. I don't get it. Why are they confessing? They're not confessing. They're bragging.

Not confessing but bragging. So these people weren't just breaking the law, but saw the law itself as irrelevant. It was a true story, or mostly true, and it continues to be a true story in many white collar areas. So late last year, the CEO of Equifax, Marc Begor, presented at a Goldman Sachs conference for investors and openly told them how much market power his firm has in the business of selling what's called income verification services to creditors. Let's take a listen. We have meaningful pricing power in that business.

I wouldn't put it in the same zip code as FICO, but we have a very unique data asset just like they have with the FICO score. Only Equifax has that income employment data. So we bring price to the marketplace every year. We've already got our January 1, 2023 price increases in the market. They went in a couple months ago. So we know what price is going to be in 2023. And we have more pricing power here than we have in other businesses.

And if you think about 4% from price and product, decide how you split the four. I won't do it for you, but you know, we have an ability to grow price well in excess of GDP. We have meaningful pricing power. Only Equifax has that income and employment data. That's market power. That's monopoly power. Now a CEO should know better than to confess to monopolization. Only it seems as if he wasn't confessing, he was bragging. So why would a CEO brag to investors? Probably because he can. I mean, Equifax's controversial behavior is near legendary.

The firm is an important credit bureau, and credit data is exactly what we wouldn't want to fall into the hands of hackers, who could then easily use it to engage in identity theft en masse. But in 2017, Equifax had one of the biggest data breaches in history when it accidentally exposed the personal data of 147 million people. So that's social security, numbers, names, et cetera, et cetera. The Federal Trade Commission fined the company more than $575 million, and the CEO, CIO, and chief security officer were all forced out.

But the firm itself didn't suffer any long-term damage, and that's because it's a monopoly. There's nowhere else to go. People may not like it, but they have to use it. Okay, so there's no real consequences to the company. And let's go back to the product that Baigar told investors about at the Goldman Sachs Confab, which is called the Work Number. That's a business line that bundles data about the incomes of hundreds of millions of people, like you and me, and sells it to interested parties,

like lenders, landlords, employers, government agencies. Payroll and data is, by some estimates, a $10 billion market, and now brings in a majority of the firm's domestic revenue. Now, Equifax used to just track whether we pay our debts. They would sell that information to lenders. That's what a credit bureau does. But over the last 10 years, it has transformed itself into a sort of tax information agency, which sells data about our salary and income and workplace to third parties. It's a better business than just credit data, because while three firms have information about whether you pay back your

credit card, only Equifax has complete information about where you work and your salary. And a monopoly, as the CEO bragged, is better than an oligopoly. Now first, let's start with why this business exists. Sharing information about where you work and what you make is something we all need to do on occasion. If a bank or an auto dealer wants to lend someone money to buy a home or car, that bank or creditor needs a verification that the person works where he or she says he works

and makes the income he or she says they make. Now sometimes a potential employer or landlord needs to check work history, or a public agency needs to ensure that someone qualifies for government assistance, or they have to update someone's immigration status. All of these things require that kind of data. Well, how do these third parties verify this data? Employers don't like it when their human resource departments are constantly getting requests from lenders about their employees and their salaries and so on and so forth. So for years, employers have been sending data on this to Equifax.

If you're trying to find out someone's work history and income, it's pretty likely at this point that Equifax has it. And we're not just talking about the data that the IRS has. We're talking about data on pay for every payroll cycle, your overtime amount, the start and end date for your job, your title, your health care provider, whether you have dental insurance, if you've ever filed an unemployment claim, and so on and so forth.

Now, this whole income and verification business line didn't start out with Equifax. It started out with a company called Talx. It started in the 1970s, but Equifax bought it in 2007. And along with a bunch of companies in this space, Equifax and Talx continued to buy up companies. Now, Talx had signed contracts with most big businesses, Fortune 500 businesses, as well as governments, universities, and so on and so forth to get data. But part of these contracts were not just to get the data, but to stop these companies

from sharing their data with other brokers. So that was to exclude rivals, it was not some privacy thing. So the story here is monopolization. And I'm not just saying this. 15 years ago, the Federal Trade Commission actually sued Equifax Talx's business for antitrust violations. And that was because of the contractual arrangements that I just described, the ones that excluded rivals from the market. Only people didn't really notice because the income verification business was a sideshow back then to Equifax's main credit reporting revenue line. Today, however, Equifax is now a monopoly income verifier, and it's got kind of a side hustle in the credit information business.

Now, there are network effects here. The more data Equifax gets from employers, the more likely it is to be the place that lenders and government agencies seek to do income verification. Now, of course, the employees don't know that their own data is being sold by their employers and and even small businesses who use payroll services like ADP don't realize their data is being sold. ADP sells it all, a lot of third-party services sell that data. Now small businesses can opt out but they actually have to know that this data is being sold and then they have to tell their payroll provider which they often don't know that they should or could do.

Big companies, they just make money. You know, J.P. Morgan just sells its data and they get money in. And so they've turned human resources into not a cost center but a revenue generator. Now, the net effect of these arrangements, at least in terms of the income verification market, is that smaller players in the market are boxed out. If you're doing income verification and you put someone's social security number into Equifax, you have roughly 50% to 70% chance of getting a successful hit, a successful conversion, finding out whether that person works where they say they work. For other brokers, it's much lower, maybe 30%. So if you need the information, you basically, if you're a creditor, you're a lender, and you want to find something out, you have to use Equifax. Now on the other side of the market,

right, Equifax has also erected barriers to entry. If you're a frequent buyer of income or verification or income or employment data, Equifax will offer a loyalty discount if you move all your business to the work number. So a loyalty discount sounds nice, but it's basically just a mechanism to exclude rivals. So one background check provider called SwiftCheck explained that Equifax told them that, quote, if our organization performs the work number verification on every employment verification, a discount is offered. In other words, if you use a rival, your price goes up.

That's classic monopolization. That's standard oil on the railroads. I mean, you go back 100 years for this. Now, we can see this market power at work in the pricing, as their CEO noted in December. Equifax has been raising prices on lenders substantially for years. So in 2017, the price for a record for just to look up someone was $20. In 2020, it was $41.95. And today it lists its price at $54.95 for a record of where you currently work. This is their public prices. They have lots of other prices, so we're not totally sure what they charge. It's likely much more to some customers. but it can potentially be up to $200 for records with more historical information.

Now, to give you a sense of these price hikes, that's an inflation rate of 25%. That's why the CEO was bragging about being able to raise prices faster than GDP growth. Now, it goes way beyond price. That's just the harms to the lenders, and then ultimately they pass that down to the people who are borrowing money. The work number can, according to the government, this is where it gets kind of creepy, help determine, quote unquote, an applicant's social service eligibility or, quote unquote, informed child support collections and enforcement. There are also often errors and getting your own data from Equifax and getting them to change data

so that it's right can be difficult. It's also a system that is prone to abuse. So Apple told the work number that every worker who left was automatically given the title, quote unquote, associate, regardless of whether they were a top engineer or salesperson or whatever.

And according to one of these people who left Apple, the error, quote, delayed the hiring process at a prospective employer by nearly a week, during which time the company rescinded the offer. That's bad. And though Equifax claims there are controls who can buy this information, security researcher Brian Krebs noted in 2017 that it's easy for pretty much anyone to get this information, to learn your salary. The work number, in fact, is so important that Equifax is engaged in the work that should

be reserved to a government. Equifax uses its data to build services for firms, such as managing unemployment compensation. When a firm lays off a worker, that worker is supposed to have rights to unemployment insurance, which the firm has to pay for. But if that employee was fired for cause or quit, then the worker isn't entitled to unemployment payments and the firm is off the hook. So managing this process along with appeals is something that Equifax does for firms. And at the height of the Great Recession in 2010, Equifax was processing 30% of the employment

claims in the country. That's massive. But here's the thing, it had an automated system to systematically deny applications regardless of merit. So its clients, employers would have to pay less in unemployment taxes. So in order, if you applied for unemployment, you had to escalate. Like that was just automatic. That's a service that Equifax sold.

We will automatically deny unemployment claims no matter how legitimate. And this goal is on the firm's investment documents, which uses the anodyne wording of, quote unquote, we offer the service of reducing the cost of unemployment claims through effective claims representation. That's how it describes the service aid it provides to employers who give it data. So it's perhaps no exaggeration to note that Equifax is a quasi-governmental agency, a monopoly provider of evidence that you work where you work and what you make. If there's an error or if someone lies about you, too bad. If Equifax itself is paid to harm you, too bad. If a government agency gets the wrong data

and denies you assistance or screws up your immigration status, that's on you. Well, you have limited to no rights in this situation. In some rights, you might have more to fear from Equifax than the IRS. And Equifax understands this. They lobby for this particular situation.

So here's Stephen Colbert making a quick point about the problem and Equifax understands this. They lobby for this particular situation. So here's Stephen Colbert making a quick point about the problem and Equifax's politics. Here's the dealio. Well, we still have litigation as the last line of protection, maybe, because Equifax is waging a concerted campaign to repeal federal regulations upholding consumers' right to sue. Uh-uh. No. Our right to sue is what makes us American. Equifax really wants to strip people's rights from making sure that their data is correct. Does it have to be this way? I'm talking about the whole industry. I mean, maybe you could make the argument a few decades ago when you had centralized databases and it was kind of hard to move this information. But with the internet, and the internet is 20 years old or something at this point,

but the internet, the cloud computing, there's just no technical reason for a centralized repository of employment and verification data, at least not the way that it's set up today. It's quite possible to have a system allowing any verifier to ask the individual, to ask the individual for his or her records. But that would cut against Equifax's business model. That is, they don't keep your data secure, but they're a monopoly. So it doesn't matter. They don't ask you, but it doesn't matter because they're a monopoly. They have the data. Now, Frank Abagnale advises companies and individuals on security. He was featured in the movie Catch Me If You Can.

And here's his observation about the incentives that Equifax faces in the legal system. No one in this country ever said to Equifax, you know what? You can store all my personal data and you can make billions of dollars selling it for background checks, employee checks, credit checks. No, I never said that. So what I want to say is Equifax, you can keep my data, but you cannot show it to anyone without my consent. And if for some reason it gets in the wrong hand, I have the recourse to come back on you because you put me in jeopardy.

So it shouldn't be this way. And in fact, it doesn't have to be this way. I have the recourse to come back on you because you put me in jeopardy. So it shouldn't be this way. And in fact, it doesn't have to be this way. There are actually other companies who notice this monopoly, and they're trying to compete in the market using privacy-safe solutions. A lot of entrepreneurs were like, this is a crappy system. Let's build something better. Only they're running into roadblocks. So there are two particular firms.

I talked to the leaders of both Surtry and Argyle, who recently sent letters to the Federal Trade Commission asking for an investigation into this market. And they were pointing at the abuse of consumers by Equifax and to a lesser extent Experian, which is the number two, but like way, way, way down. Now, the strategies for each of these rivals are different, but both give the customer control

over who can access their data instead of building a giant centralized repository controlled by a monopolist. And both charge much lower prices. The overall point here is that having a centralized data broker that has a quasi-monopoly over income and verification data and sits largely unregulated is ridiculous. It's obvious that Equifax is immune to competitive forces. Despite the price hikes and devastating and routine news stories about hacks, errors, and problems, as well as public polling showing increasing concerns over privacy and new technologies like large language learning models that make this data useful in all sorts of other ways that could be really useful but also dangerous, Equifax marches on, unbothered and unchastened.

And that's the classic monopoly position, a recognition that there is no alternative to the entity in the market. Now, there are many legal levers here, from antitrust to credit reporting laws to regulation that can work. Regardless, I'd like to thank Equifax CEO Mark Baker for bragging about his firm's market power because without that I never would have taken the time to learn out why Equifax can act as a private IRS Put out a middle finger to each one of us and collect our money regardless

Thanks for watching this big breakdown on the breaking points channel If you'd like to know more about big business and how our economy really works You can sign up below for my market power focus newsletter, BIG, in the description. Thanks, and havealous health conditions. That's the new official term. You don't use the word Havana Syndrome for it anymore. What Havana Syndrome refers to is a set of alleged symptoms alleged by U.S. spies, diplomats, and other personnel at various U.S. embassies that they say resemble hearing strange noises, cognitive issues, headaches, nausea. It's a really mysterious set of symptoms, and over a thousand of these individuals have alleged this.

So I took a look at the Pentagon budget, which was released last month. To my surprise, nobody had reported one thing that was in it, which was the budget for responding to Havana syndrome. That's $36 million. That's a budget that's been increasing every year since they first allocated money to this. And something I find interesting about the government response to Havana syndrome is how bipartisan it is. At a time that it seems we can't get folks in government to agree on anything, I mean,

they're debating now cutting food stamps, subsidies to clean energy, potentially sending the government into default, if you believe some of the more extreme members of the Republican caucus, something that they universally agreed on. Every single senator, every single representative of Congress two years ago was to fund a response to the so-called Havana syndrome, or rather, anomalous health incidents. I'm sorry, I had to use a proper verbiage here. And so what's interesting about that is not only did they authorize that fund a couple years ago, it continues to increase every year.

So let's talk about what exactly that $36 million entails. It's not just healthcare treatment for the individuals affected. It's also R&D, research into what the conditions are that might lead somebody to be susceptible to this, how to respond to it. And as Politico, the budget's not terribly detailed about what that all entails, but as Politico reported a couple weeks ago, the military is experimenting with different weapon systems to try to see if they can induce the conditions that would cause what they believe to be Havana syndrome. Now something I think that's really important to address in all of this is that it's not

clear what Havana syndrome is exactly. There's all sorts of disagreement over what constitutes it. And if you look at the CIA interim study that was released last year that spent all sorts of resources investigating this, again, they had about a thousand, a little over a thousand people saying that they had it. They were able to rule out the majority of those cases as having environmental causes,

preexisting health conditions, so on and so forth. Now, I don't think it's bad to respond. I mean, even if something is psychiatric, that's still something that you can respond to and provide health care for. But the manner in which they're approaching this, as you recall, when it first came out, Havana Syndrome, the title refers to

the U.S. embassy in Cuba where diplomats and spies first started alleging these symptoms. But since then, these symptoms were reported all over the world, embassies all over the world, China, Russia. I mean, there's like over a dozen of them. And what's interesting, you know, I do a lot of work in national security, interviewing folks in that space, I realized when I started asking them almost immediately, I said, you

know, what is this? What are you hearing? Because very often, even when stuff is highly classified things, you know, word gets around, it's very hard to keep a secret. People will hear things from retired people who hear things from people inside people Inside might talk to you and tell you what they what they're hearing about it And what was amazing was the range of opinions? I was able to solicit when I asked folks this this question It seemed almost like a Rorschach test. It was like the people I knew that worked counterintelligence on Russia

They're like it's got to be the Russians. It's a Russian energy weapon the people working counterintelligence against the Chinese It's got to be Beijing. They're doing this to us for X, Y, and Z reason. Other people said it was Cuba. And these are obviously probably private conversations that I had, but if you look back at the media coverage initially, it was taken very seriously that this must be some kind of directed energy weapon and a lot of people pointing the finger at the Russians. But what that CIA interim report that I mentioned a couple minutes ago found was that it's unlikely

that there was a foreign adversary. And just a couple weeks ago, a conclusive multi-agency intelligence community assessment reiterated that in greater detail, finding that it was quote, highly unlikely that it's a foreign adversary doing this. So they've just tossed out this idea that it's a direct energy weapon. Not much reflection on the part of the press about why did we run with this before? When I was reading these stories, I thought, wow, they're really throwing their lot in with this theory that if it turns out not to be true, they're going to have egg on their face. Turns out if you just don't talk about it, there won't be any egg on your face. So there's

just been this complete shift now where it's like, well, it's not a foreign adversary. And, you know, people can say, well, this is the intelligence community's assessment. How do we trust that that's true? I have a feeling that if they find something derogatory about the, you know, nation state adversaries on which their budget and money and resources and really reason for existing depends, I have a feeling they're going to release that. So I don't think they're going to be particularly shy about it. But in any case, what was most astonishing in this Pentagon budget to me, not just the amount, 36 million, but the spending on R&D, as I mentioned, the political report, they're

experimenting with their own weapon systems to try to create conditions that they think might lead to Havana syndrome. It's just how sophisticated this response that continues to grow. It's just classic national security. You allocate money to something and it never disappears. Even after this conclusive report that found that it can have been very unlikely to have been caused by a foreign adversary, what I found is it's not just the military that's doing this. Although the Pentagon budget, I think the Pentagon takes point because they have the

healthcare resources in place to most effectively respond to this. They're responding in conjunction with a bunch of different agencies. This task force they have that's responding to it has more than doubled in size since its inception, which was only just a couple of years ago. If you read an inspector general report that the Pentagon put out last year, they found that not only has that staff doubled, it includes a two-star military general, to give you a sense of how seriously they're taking this, who's detailed, and a bunch of full-time staff.

So these are not just people working on the side occasionally to work on this task force. It's something that the military is taking very seriously with regard to not just money, but the seniority of the individuals detailed to this task force. And in addition to that, it's people from all sorts of different service branches, Air Force, military police, Marine Corps.

So it's astonishing the size of this response is something that we still don't know, A, what it is, and B, if there is even a what there, if it's something that's not just psychogenic. You know, when I interviewed folks who worked at the CIA, the impression I got was such an American story. It was like I heard the same kinds of

distrust for their internal medical system that you hear from folks in this, just ordinary everyday people. I don't trust the healthcare system. And I understand that, but that should precipitate a different kind of response than this mad dash to find out about the secret weapon that, that, you know, they've developed out of a Bond movie versus, again, if it's just psychiatric, I still think that's something that's reasonable to respond to. But does it require this whole regime that we've set up, not just within the military service branches, but with the State Department as well? I had a document leaked to me last year showing that the Department of Homeland Security was

trying to solicit reports from their personnel on whether or not they had experienced any of these symptoms. So what you're seeing is just this huge multi-government dash. We only know about the Pentagon side of the budget. We don't know about the classified intelligence community budget, which is a black budget, which is likely, you know, includes at least a bit more money, if not a lot more. And so I'd just like to see some debate on this issue about which there seems to be total partisan, there is total partisan agreement.

Again, every single member voted for that funding two years ago, but which the public isn't aware of, and that's not their fault. The government has not talked about these things. There was no press release for this $36 million budget. There's no discussion by the press secretary. I only found it because I went through the, you know, over thousands of page budget to just look for it. I just searched for the term anomalous health incidents, knowing that that's what the government

called it and found this. And so that's really why I want to bring this to your guys' attention. I hope that there's some discussion on this on the part of committees. Because again, we're talking about cutting all sorts of domestic programs because of the debt. And what is the one thing you never hear about? Cutting the Pentagon. That's something that is explicitly off the table that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has

said will not be something that's subjected to cuts. And that's incredible because virtually everything else is. That's not to say they will cut everything else, but the idea is they're open to discussing that, putting that on the table, and having that be a part of the negotiations. So I'll be here as always paying attention to what the Pentagon is doing and what they're not telling you guys about it. But thanks so much for joining me. Once again, I'm Ken Klippenstein with Breaking Points, The Intercept Edition.

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. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop.

It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. Like, that's what's really important, and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.