Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/29/26: Trump Spirals On Iran War, Oil Price Spike, Dystopian AI Car Surveillance

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

Ryan and Emily discuss Trump spiraling on Iran, oil price spike amid record profits, dystopian AI car surveillance.   Branko Marcetic: https://x.com/BMarchetich Robert Pape: https://escalationtrap.substack.com/ Liban Mohamed: https://www.libanforcongress.com/    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com    Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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All right, happy Wednesday morning. Welcome to Breaking Points, Emily. Our president has reached a peak state of delusion, I think. There could be higher. I was going to say. A higher peak. But is that a previously unknown peak? We don't know with the ceiling.

That's true. We don't know that there is a ceiling. I think we're going to get to find out. Yeah. Well, Ryan was using the word flailing before we went to air. So there will be some flailing that we'll cover. Yes. It actually reminds me, Ryan's debate with Scott Jennings is airing tonight live.

9 p.m. on the after party channel. Who won? I was thinking, what should we plug? It already happened. Well, we didn't do before and after votes. It's not a voting debate. Well, you're the moderator. You can decide who won. That's true. So, first of all,

I mean, you know that we disagree on immigration. So there's a question of then who won the debate, who like outmaneuvered the other person in the debate? I would say you won the room. I would say you out maneuvered. So that's my take.

That's the preview. But we still, you didn't persuade me. That's okay. In some ways, you persuaded me. You had some interesting history that Ryan brought in. So tune in live tonight that will be on at 9 p.m. You can watch it, of course, afterwards as well on the After Party channel. But Ryan, lots of news to get to today.

Premium subscribers. If you're not a premium subscriber, go ahead, head over to breaking points.com. Get a premium subscription. That gets the full show in your inbox, early every day. No breaks, no commercials. It's really the way the show is meant to be watched. So if you want to support the show, it helps us a lot if you go to breakingpoints.com and get a subscription. Otherwise, no problem.

If not, go ahead, like, like, comment, subscribe. Those help us a lot as well. But big, big, big show today. Huge news about OPEC that broke yesterday morning. Crystal and Sagar covered a bit of it, but there's all kinds of fallout that we're going to get to. Markets. I mean, Ryan, Jamie Diamond morning yesterday of an imminent bond crisis. Yes, and the good news is.

BP, British Petroleum, announced doubling of profits yesterday, which is only fair because without BP, the U.S. wouldn't have had to topple the Shah, right? Yes, no. Or install the Shah, topple the Democratic government and nationalized BP, and install the the Shah leading to the Iranian revolution. So... It's been IP. BP just stays winning.

Right, right. So congratulations to them. Ryan, I'm really glad we're going to talk about FISA and surveillance in general. There's a huge fight happening on Capitol Hill right now. Obviously, Republicans are trying to pass government funding legislation, and a few are holding the line. Thomas Massey, obviously, holding the line on that. It's been a big flip-flop for House Speaker Mike Johnson, no surprise at all. But we're going to break down this big fight over surveillance that's happening on Capitol Hill.

Some Democrats actually working to save Trump's massive surveillance powers right now. So we're going to break all of that down. We have Brico Barcetti, who's going to join us from Jacobin. So I learned how to pronounce his name. Merchettich? That's basically it. Yeah. He told me Marchteach is the way to remember it.

Oh. March teach. But I like yours. We'll find out who's right in the middle of the show. So stay tuned. Well, he did a really good investigation, just taking every Peter Thiel email in the Epstein files and stringing them together to help us kind of understand exactly how deep and which directions, the Epstein relationship with Peter Thiel went in, a lot with crypto, obviously, and how that

friendship developed, how deep that friendship went. So I'm really glad that Branco is going to be joining us. And then, Ryan, we're going to talk about this fight over glyphosate, which I guess I'm glad that it's happening. But we'll see where Republicans go. This is a huge MAHA civil war moment. The left kind of joining with MAHA as a opportunity to take out a huge. huge. I mean, like one of the biggest criminal chemicals that we have with us. And we'll have an AOC clip. We'll also have some Lee Zeldon back and forth with Rosa DeLauro. I don't know, AOC plus Maha. Is that a coalition? We'll see how long. It's a fragile coalition.

Well, apparently the Trump Maha one was pretty fragile too. That was, I feel like that was kind of always out. All right. Then we have two more guests. So, Ryan, we're going to talk about why TikTok won't verify you, Crystal, and soccer. That's not the essence of the segment, but yeah. No, that's all, it's only, that's all we're talking about. Yeah. We're going to be joined by Liban Muhammad, who was a top TikTok official on their, on their congressional policy team. So he was interacting with Congress for years as Congress

is trying to get them to stop, you know, putting up so much evidence of Israel's genocide. He's now running for Congress in Utah. He actually just won the Democratic and Democratic for the primary in Utah's first district. So he'll join us. And then Professor Pape. He's back. Right. And so we'll be going through the latest in the Iran war with Professor Pape. As a reminder, breaking points.com, it's where you can go to get a premium subscription. So let's go ahead and get started with the show. We can put A5 up on the screen. This is a truth social post from Donald Trump yesterday where he wrote, Iran has just informed us that they are in a, quote, state of collapse. They want us to, quote, open the Hormuz straight as soon as

possible as they try to figure out their leadership situation, which I believe they will be able to do. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. Then hours later in the evening at a state dinner for King Charles, Donald Trump had this to say, A-6. From the trenches of World War I to the beaches of Normandy from the frozen hills of Korea, to the scorching sands of North Africa and the Middle East. and we're doing a little Middle East work right now, two of you might know, and we're doing very well.

We have militarily defeated that particular opponent, and we're never going to let that opponent ever. Charles agrees with me, even more than I do. We're never going to let that opponent have a nuclear weapon. They know that, and they've known it right now very powerfully. Invoking King Charles saying he agrees even more than him. Even more than I do. that we must prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. A6, we pop this up on the screen and then

get your reaction. Ryan and Marie Horton over at Bloomberg put together this juxtaposition of the reporting from New York Times and the Wall Street Journal yesterday on where negotiations stand. NYT. Trump has sold advisors he is not satisfied with Iran's latest proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war, according to multiple people, briefed on discussions in the Situation Room on Monday. The journal, Trump and his national security team are skeptical of Iran's offer of a deal that would see the Strait of Hormuz open in discussion. about its nuclear work tabled, U.S. officials said. Wren, help us, to the best of our ability, understand what's happening right now.

Just for fun, let's put A5 back up there, because this is one of the most delightful, the truth. Like, fantastical, like, productions of his mind that we've had splayed up on truth, social. So, if we're to believe the president here, Iran called him, or maybe they want to through mediators and said that we are in a, quote, state of collapse. And please open this trade. Yep. And we'll get back to you very soon when we have figured out our leadership situation.

And Trump, in parentheses, has great confidence that they will soon be able to do that. Because he produced regime change, as he reminds us constantly. So I wonder if you poll. the global public or the American public, said, from 1 to 10, like, what is the degree of truth in that truth? I suspect you'd get an average of about 1.8, maybe? Like, that is, he's not even trying at this point. I don't think that would even surprise him.

Right. I mean, he is still trying. So actually, while you were sleeping, Trump posted this truth social. Oh, this is 929 a.m. right as the... That was, yeah, 929 a.m. yesterday. Straight for the markets. Just going right for the markets. He was ready. While you were sleeping last night, 4.05 a.m. Eastern time, Donald Trump posts, Iran can't get their act together. They don't know how to sign a non-nuclear deal.

They better get smart soon, President DJT, with a photoshopped image of him that says, in all caps, no more Mr. Nice Guy, American Flag emoji, he is holding what appears to be like an AR, and he's in a black suit with bombs raining down in the background of like some Middle Eastern country behind him. So he's still, I mean, that one's not for the markets. That one's just for the love of the game. And for our viewers who are not day traders, the markets open at 9.30 a.m. Eastern. And so literally he posted that at 9.29. Yeah, he was doing. So he's sitting around. Like, he had to pre-write that. Well, you know, he was, like, he was sitting there with it open. He loves. Waiting, waiting to press publish.

But he loves that. He loves manipulating markets. The markets were not manipulated by that one. It's a thrill that he gets. Yeah, we're pretty sure that this didn't happen. Now, A6 is, I think, a little bit closer to some version of the truth, which is Iran, I don't, Iran did not put a quote-unquote proposal together that would say, okay, you do this, we do this, we do this.

Our understanding of what Iran did is, they said, if you lift your illegal naval blockade, this is how our management of the straits will unfold and how ships will get through. Just to be clear that ships will be getting through, but we will still be effectively in control. So it wasn't a, if you do this, we'll do that. It's just this is what the world would look like.

And then we will sit down and we will discuss whatever else you want to talk about. Talk about the nuclear file more. Talk about, you know, proxies, whatever you want to talk about. We'll talk about that. But this is what the straight has to look like first. That is more of a, just a demand slash assertion. Like, this is where we are in our position.

And this is where they have been for many weeks. Now, Trump doesn't like that. And it seems like Trump, according to the reporting, wants to try to wait them out. Yeah, the post that he just put up actually on Truth Social at 4 a.m. is interesting because he's now referring to it as a non-nuclear deal. And that's, I mean, he's trying to, again, brand whatever they might be able to come to, but he says Iran doesn't know how to sign a non-nuclear deal.

So he's, I think it helps us look at the New York Times Wall Street Journal reporting and say, what he's not willing to do is table the nuclear discussions because he, I mean, getting the straight reopened already an L because it was open before the war started. And then if you table the nuclear negotiations, double L, you can't even brand that in a way that Trump would feel like is victorious, is persuasively victorious to the public. So I think you're right about that, Ryan. Yeah. And so just checked Brent Crude. We can put up, what is this, 83, but in real time, you know, in the morning here, we're looking at $114 a barrel, which is, you know, this is like, so what's, that's an incredibly high price for oil. And so what we're

looking at here is the product of the real world, in my opinion, starting to overwhelm what the Treasury Department has been able to do. And I've started to do some reporting on. this will hopefully maybe next week we'll have like a fully fleshed out piece but what's going on and you've got the like um the attempts by you know trump and axios to like prop up the markets constantly with the 930 or the 355 or the you know 3 30 3 30 p.m news that turns out to be then fake. But what you also have is the Treasury itself, Bessent, through Bessent, engaging directly in the markets. And there seem to be a variety of different ways that they're doing it. But effectively, think about it like this. If you're trading oil futures contracts and you think that prices

are going much higher, right? So you're in order, you know, in, you know, in the United States, you know, In a normal market, prices are going to move up. But if you have the Treasury coming in through intermediaries selling short positions, pushing it down, then that changes the tenor of the market. That changes the participants in the market. And the same with Stockbroker, the same with the Gulf Allies getting currency swap deals so that they don't have to sell their stock assets. or sell their treasuries, what ends up happening is that the real price, that the price that you're looking at in the futures market does not reflect what the market actually thinks it should be. Market thinks it should be much higher.

What that also means is that the treasury in every one of those trades knows that they're on the wrong side of the fundamentals and is losing money on purpose. Well, okay. So that's taxpayer money that is, being used in the markets, knowing you're going to lose money, but for a geopolitical purpose of keeping the oil future prices down. Well, for a war, that taxpayers are also funding. That they're also funding. And then when the oil tankers show up, they're not paying as much attention to futures contracts prices.

Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcast. Podcasts. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more

to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O-Persent on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by.

Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got got.

hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. They said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. First tanker yesterday, New York Times, let's put A2 up on the screen. This just happened yesterday. The first tanker was loaded with LNG since the war began yesterday and it appeared to have crossed the strait. So, uh, yeah, and this ship sometime in March, it started leaving, snuck out. It tried to make it wrong. A lot of good, a lot of good movies, maybe we'll get out of this.

Or like Mr. Beast videos, like, you know, sneaking your way through the straight of foremost. So congratulations to them. But yeah, like 20% of the world's, uh, or like, Mr. Beast's videos. LNG is running through there. This one ship is, you know, carrying the weight of the world's LNG needs on its shoulders. And while Singapore or whoever gets to dock this ship will be very pleased, this is not how you run an entire, you know, regional economy. What really big OPEC news yesterday, whether it's symbolic news or not. Let's put A1 up on the screen. This is the headline from CNBC UAE to leave OPEC, May 1, Energy Chief says, still committed to oil price. stability. The UAE will exit OPEC. CNBC reports on May 1 in a major blow to the cartel that coordinates production among many of the world's largest oil producers, particularly those in

the Middle East. The shock announcement Tuesday comes after the UAE was the target of missile and drone attacks for weeks by fellow OPEC member Iran. Tehran's attacks on shipping the strait of Hormuz has also severely constrained the UAE's ability to export oil, threatening the foundation of its economy. Now, Ryan, the copy of this lead here, would be a source of debate because it's described as a major blow to the cartel. The OPEC is what it's saying. The OPEC cartel. Do you agree or disagree?

Well, it's not an immediate blow because the UAE is, I think, its quota is something like three plus million barrels per day. And right now it's doing like a little over a million. So it's not hitting its quota anyway. So there's no risk that the UAE is going to all of a sudden start, you know, exporting a huge amount of oil. Because it, you know, it has this pipeline. And there was this viral tweet from some Emirati booster yesterday. There was like, ooh, checkmate, Libs.

Checkmate Iran. We've got this pipeline. We're going to, and now that we're out of OPEC, we're going to move an extra 2 million barrels per day out of it. It's like, bro, that pipeline is already fully operational. Yep. Where are you going to sneak more oil into it? Like, are you also leaving the laws of physics as well as OPEC? Get out of here.

And also, they can just bomb that pipeline if you restart hostilities. Then what are you going to do? So short term, no. But long term, yes. And I think it's a signal that the UAE that we have come to know and love over the last 15 years that plays this like this punch of. above its weight role in the region, producing a famine and a civil war in Yemen, producing a genocide in Sudan,

producing, playing in kind of an Israeli role of attempting to destabilize the region for in a zero sum game and in pursuit of kind of commodity routes and control over commodities and trade in the region. Like that, that UAE, who we don't actually love, by the way, I think is coming to an end, and this is a kind of flailing death throw of it,

and I also think that they are, as they've acknowledged, clearly short on cash flow, and they feel like if they can get, if they can get oil flowing again, and oil and gas flowing again, get the straight of form of it was open, then they could start pushing above their OPEC limits,

which they did already. That's the other funny thing. Like the, like, the, like, knock on the UAE as a member of OPEC is that they don't recognize rules at all. Like, oh, yeah, that's our quota. We're going to sell what we want. Just, what are you going to do? So in that, in that sense, I think it will, it'll matter long term. Yeah, that makes sense. We can put this headline here, A3 crude oil surpassing $100 a barrel, as of yesterday. That happened after the UAE said it would leave OPEC, no surprise there.

We're pushing 115. Right, and this is, let's take a look at the poll. That's 15%. I can do that, Matt. This is a Reuters poll that found 77% of people agree that Donald Trump is to blame for the rise in gas prices. I like the people who disagree on that. Who are they blaming? Israel, actually, probably.

The rest are Israel. I'm blaming Ryan Grubb. It was me. Even Republicans, if you look at that next one. Republicans agree by a margin of 11 points. And Trump obviously needs Republicans to... How's that number with independents looking? 67.

67! I mean, that's a massive gap also just between Republicans and independence. Democrats are obviously at 90. But where you have, I mean, that's a massive, like we're talking roughly 50-point difference between Republicans and independents, which in a midterm cycle makes the work of the president of the party in power rather difficult because you have to persuade people to keep voting for Republicans. Now, I think Trump has kind of given up on caring about the midterms. To be honest, I don't think that would come as a surprise to anybody.

It sort of sucks if you're a House Republican. You're trying to get reelected. Normally you would have the president trying to make your job easier, but I don't think Trump is particularly concerned anymore about that. And as we have said over and over again, the crimping of the kind of oil export markets takes months for it to really ripple through the economy. Our Godfrey Oluca, our Africa correspondent at DropSight was telling us the other day that things are just collapsing all over the place there.

Like just utter despair from the surging fuel prices and fuel shortages. Like not just high prices, but no prices because you can't buy it. Asia. Australia. And we are all linked. So the U.S. and South America takes a little bit longer for us to hit. They, oh, we're energy independent. It doesn't matter.

No, it's a global market. And so we export a huge amount. of oil. And if as the price for that goes up, the price that we're paying goes way up. And that is going to ripple inflation through the entire thing. So this is a number before that happens. And keep that in mind. And also, as I was saying in the beginning, we've been, we through the, treasury, have been artificially inflating the markets and deflating energy markets. And so we can't do that forever. Like, we're going to run out of ways to do that.

And when we lose control of it, like, it could be runaway in a truly disastrous way. And we're going to talk more about markets in just a bit. Yeah, I think when you are trying to hold together this, well, so what, to what extent does Trump care about his coalition at this point? I don't know. I think he cares about his legacy at this point more than anything else. and he feels like this is a part of his legacy building, world peacemaker. Truly, I'd like trying to understand what's happening in Donald Trump's mind. And that's my best guess, like great man of history legacy that he's trying to establish himself as being.

So for House Republicans, senators who are on the ballot in November and, like Susan Collins, really tough races. Maine, Nebraska, if you're Pete Ricketts going up against Dan Osborne. These are going to be really, really tough races. A poll yesterday showed Tala RICO actually outperforming both Republican candidates. We'll see how long that lasts. I'm more skeptical of that one. But I think they have real problems in obviously North Carolina, Alaska, Nebraska, Ohio, and the like. So I think Donald Trump has just given up on holding House or Senate.

And that's normally public opinion is a check on executive power just implicitly. You don't really want to be disastrously on the wrong side of public opinion. But I actually think what we've seen is that Trump, A, always blames voters when they don't agree with him. And B, now that he doesn't have to get reelected, and he sees that the midterms are likely not going in his favor either way. He's just kind of yolo. And one reason that this conflict is more difficult to resolve than it should be is that Israel has continued its war on southern Lebanon, even through the ceasefire, which has now, expired, we can put up A7. There was another medic massacre in Maddozal Zune and southern Lebanon. At least five, I believe, medics killed in another double-tap strike, which takes the number of

medical workers killed in Israel close to, or maybe now actually over 100. They've killed in a huge number of journalists deliberately on purpose over the last several weeks, including Amal Khalil recently from Al-Aqbar, where this were, you know, infamously they bombed the car in front of her, then chased her and her colleague into a nearby home and then bombed the home over the span of hours with the Red Crescent nearby, with political leadership in Lebanon, which is very sympathetic to Israel, begging them to not kill her, and they killed her anyway.

And so this is happening in the backdrop, making it significantly more difficult to get to an agreement here. And I think a lot of American people are wondering, like, why are we paying higher gas prices so that Israel can continue to kill medics and journalists in southern Lebanon and destroy towns and villages all across the region to try to make it uninhabitable.

Like how is that something that we want to see our economy crater for? Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and politicians.

newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory.

We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O-Persent on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield and in this new season of the girlfriends Oh my God, this is the same man A group of women discover They've all dated the same prolific con artist

I felt like I got hit by a truck I thought how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care So they take matters into their own hands I said oh hell no I vowed I will be his last target He's gonna get what he deserves Listen to the girlfriends

Trust me babe on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's transition to talking about the markets and put the first tear sheet up on the screen because here we see CNBC reporting based on an earnings call yesterday. BP profits more than double beating expectations as Iran War boosts oil prices. Ryan, you pointed this out yesterday. these earning calls can sometimes be fascinating windows into the motivations of the leadership class, the Epstein class, dare I say.

Yeah, and today I think we're getting like Microsoft, Google, a bunch of others, because like it's all for the first quarter, which ends March 31st, then they get their paperwork together and then they do their earnings calls. So that's why you're going to start to see these rollouts. You're going to get a lot of insight into how the first quarter of 2026 went for corporate America for BP. Pretty incredible. Things are going great.

As we mentioned, BP had its oil industry nationalized. BP is the historical origin of this entire conflict. In the 1950s, by Mossadegh in Iran. CIA then overthrow him. I think the brother is one of Emily's favorite books. It's a banger recommendation from Ryan. Fantastic author. Read everything from Kinzer.

Read the brothers if you haven't yet. Kermit Roosevelt and a little rag-tag gang of CIA agents and Brits overthrow. The democratically elected government makes sure BP gets its oil back, puts in a dictator. That dictator is then overthrown in 1979. That dictator's son now lives in Potomac, Virginia. Great. And loves to go on CNN and play drums in a local dad band in Potomacian. Did not know that lore.

Yeah. It doesn't change anything. Terrible drummer, from what I'm told. Oh, really? Does not change anything. Somebody who jams with him told me he would be a worst leader of a country than he has a drummer and he's a terrible drummer. That's a great line. Of course, it's also just, of course, that you've been in touch with somebody who jams with the Shah's son.

I think that's perfect. Okay. Let's move on to Jamie Diamond. Another CNBC headline for you right now. Jamie Diamond yesterday warns of, quote, some kind of bond Christ. that's reassuring, ahead as global debt risks build what he said at an investment conference that was actually held by the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund yesterday. The way it's going now, there will be some kind of bond crisis and then we'll have to deal with it.

I'm not that worried we'll be able to deal with it. I just think maturity should say you deal with it as opposed to let it happen. He also said the level of things that are adding to the risk column are high like geopolitics. of a catch-all. Oil government deficits, they may go away, but they may not, and we don't know what confluence of events causes the problem. That last sentence is chilling. We don't know. Giant shrug emoji from Jamie Diamond on the economy. Right. And just to, I wanted to add, actually, so Rod Dreher, who's obviously on the right, has been working on a book about fleshing out his thesis that we're in a

Lymar America period. And he, like, just looking at what happened over the weekend, wrote that he believes we're one major economic crisis away from another potential, like, global conflict on a World War two-level scale. And I actually think that's really

interesting. Like, I disagree with Rod on some things, but when you hear Jamie Diamond then coming out and being like, well, you know, we don't know what confluence of events causes the problem. We have two hot conflicts right now, actually really three, because you still have to add Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, where the U.S. is in proxy wars, essentially. Not great. No, not great.

It's a powder keg. Not great, indeed. I've tried every argument in the book to try to persuade people that these billionaires are a mistake and that this concentration of wealth is rotting our society from within. But another one that you can add on the pile is that when you have all of these intense concentrations of wealth, that's actually more opportunity than for economic meltdowns and economic crisis. Because if you have wealth spread kind of across and you have a broad, strong middle class, then that middle class can kind of support itself. Yes. If everybody is dependent on like 15 guys and those 15 guys go to Vegas and bet everything. bet the house on AI or whatever and come and they lose, then we all have lost because we have

nothing. We were all just riding on them. But there is pressure. Go ahead. On that point, I keep trying to hammer this home. There are 20% of the, I'm sorry, 30% of the S&P 500 is the Mag 7. Right. That's terrifying and makes your point, Ryan. And on top of that, you have Amazon, on Google investing in Anthropic and those types of big AI companies. So you have circular funding. It's like absolute house of cards. And they set it up that way because they'll profit fine. They already have their billions.

They'll lose, you know, a couple billion. Maybe they'll lose, you know, 60% of their money. That's fine. The 40% still makes them fabulously wealthy at the end of the day. And who suffers, it's the rest of the people who are dependent on the economy. Yeah. And our billionaires mostly live in California, New York, Florida, and Texas. Two of those states are at least trying to do something about it.

We can put up B3. So there's been an effort and it appears to have been successful. We use the CBS News, tariff, because it must drive Barry Weiss, white with rage that she even had to publish this article. CBS News, California billionaire tax secures enough signatures to make ballot. it. And so Newsom actually has been pushing against this, or at least he does not seem remotely excited about this at all. But unions in California are, have successfully, it appears, managed to get enough signatures to put this to voters to say, okay, the legislature's too bought off by these billionaires. Let's see what regular people think about it. And then back in New York City,

and New York State, you put up, actually, let's just roll B4 here. This is a New York City mayor, Zora Mamdani, with alongside New York City Council Speaker Julie Menon, who is herself a cent-a-millionaire, lives in an $8-plus million-dollar apartment in New York City, and had consistently said that she would fight tooth-and-nail against any taxes on the super-rich. She, under pressure, she is now siding,

with Mom Dani calling for another, for a tax on the super rich. Let's roll. Mom Dini explaining what that one is. The PETETT is essentially a loophole that allows high income earners to reduce their federal tax burden. Who benefits?

Millionaires and multi-millionaires. More than 95% of PETT credits go to those making more than $1 million a year. More than 80% go to those earning more than $5 million a year. The PETT in short is a tax cut for the rich. We are not calling to eliminate the credit. We are rather asking the state for a modest reduction from 100% to 75%. That change alone will generate nearly $1 billion in additional revenue.

Revenue, we can invest in the buses that carry New Yorkers to work, the public schools that educate our children, the public parks and beaches where we spend our summers. Okay, that was a lot of fun. But if you guys were watching Mom Donnie that time. Or if you were listening. Or if you're listening. Let's play that again just for 10 or 15 seconds.

This time, keep your eye on Julie Menon in the background. This is the extraordinarily wealthy city council speaker who said that you would not allow any taxes on the super rich being forced to stand next to Mamdani while he announces that they've come to an agreement on this, which doesn't mean Hockel will do it, but it puts enormous pressure on her because she and Hocal are allies,

and she was kind of an obstacle there. Let's roll that again. Just keep your eye. You're out of control. You're out of control. Just keep your eye on men in here for a second. The PTET is essentially a loophole that allows high income earners to reduce their federal tax burden.

Who benefits? Millionaires and multi-millionaires. More than 95% of PTET credits go to those making more than $1 million a year. More than 80% go to those earning more than $5 million a year. Ryan's losing it. Oh, man. She looks pissed. You're not going to get tears.

Like, it's just rage. She's not even trying to put on a brave face. She's just staring at all the whole time. Like she looks like she's about to burst in the floor. Look, she just beat him in the Boylan race yesterday. So there was a city council special election where Mom Donnie had endorsed the woman who had come forward and helped kick off the demise of Cuomo. She had worked for Cuomo. I remember we had our own.

rising. Yeah, she's great, but she lost. And so Julie Menon can take solace in that, I guess. Well, the, so the billionaire tax, I mean, we don't have to debate this. Real Conner refers to it as an anti-revolutionary tax. I actually think it was like the one time in history where tax is the most agreeable way that you can brand this political policy. Like, it's not really a tax. It's because it's a time thing on 5%. And I don't know. I mean, the hedge fund thing is really interesting. There's like a lot of creative ways to start like holding people accountable so that they actually are paying what they should be paying into the system. And this was only introduced in like 2017 or 18 by Cuomo as a response to Trump's first tax cut hit New Yorkers harder than others around the

country. Assault. Yeah. So he so he did a little something. something to help out his buddies. And then he happened to make it like tilted way towards a super rich. Yeah. Oh, he happened. So that was a policy error. What was he thinking? He meant to just go for the $300,000, $400,000, you know, struggling crowd in Manhattan and Brooklyn. But he accidentally, you know, made 90% of the benefit go to people making more than a million dollars a year. So this doesn't get rid of it. It just like just tweaks it a little bit. Yeah. And seriously, like, if you are looking around at institutional trust and you're mad about, you know, Brian Thompson or this apparently centrist White House correspondence, General Laged Gunman, obviously there are anti-revolutionary

measures that need to be taken to have a more just society and just a safer. Closing blue sky. Closing blue sky is a national security imperative. As we've been saying for years, closing blue sky is the least we could do to make this country a safer place. But really, I mean, like, I'm not going to agree with everything just from the right, and people on the left aren't going to agree with everything. But I think that's kind of the point of the show is that, like, the system, it's like a five-alarm fire. The system is, like, everyone is telling you the system is broken.

The system is corrupt. And we're verging on disaster. And you just, I mean, you need a mom-dani-like figure to keep to drive. drag people kicking and screaming to figure out ways to actually, actually bring relief to normal people and make this system more fair. Okay, let's see what happens. Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them.

And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available.

I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier,

more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O-P-Sent on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either.

We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield and in this new season of the girlfriends Oh my God, this is the same man A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist I felt like I got hit by a truck I thought how could this happen to me?

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Let's talk about FISA, Ryan, one of the least discussed topics in media, but probably should be one of the most discussed topics in media. Ryan, I didn't know that you were on the car kill switch. You've gone down that rabbit hole. This is one of my favorite rabbit holes, because it sounds so dystopian. It is exactly what it sounds like. Exactly what it sounds like. You think this is crazy?

Well, several years ago, this was the Biden administration. I forget which big Biden bill it was in. But it was first passed by the Biden administration Democrats into law. Basically that cars manufactured what by 2027 will have to have a kill switch built into them. Now, the debate is whether that's just for the manufacturers or whether the government will have some type of access to that more. broadly, we can put C1 up on the screen, up on the screen. Every new car in the U.S. will be required by law to have tech that puts constant surveillance on the driver by 2027.

AI in your car will determine if you're sober and fit to drive, automatically turning off the vehicle if it determines you're a danger on the road. So this is something that mothers against driving is very, very supportive of a difficult, obviously a reasonably difficult lobby to overcome a very, very strong and powerful lobby for good reason. But this is always how it starts, of course, Ryan, is that you have a serious safety concern that is put on the table, and then it gets abused, predictably gets abused by the government. And you can see very clearly how this would be abused. Yes. And there, you know, we often are, like, there's often, there are often interesting battles going on in Congress over these authorities.

and in our editorial meetings, we're like, do we cover this? There's always so much else going on. Yep. So, but as the media, we've got to, like, do a better job in general of, like, talking about this stuff in real time because then it just creeps, it just creeps in. And then it's like, wait, where did this come from? How did this happen?

And this is now part of negotiations happening, right? So the Hill needs to pass. Republicans on the Hill want to pass a government funding power. And some Republicans are holding it up. You know, the centrists are holding it up for their reasons. The hard-linked observers are holding up for their reasons. And one of their reasons is actually this and also FISA, which we'll get into in a second. But first, let's put C2 up on the screen here.

Come on! No, no, no, no! Now imagine there was an emergency outside the truck, an accident, something terrible, on the ranch with a chainsaw. And I jump in this truck, but the truck, it won't shift into drive. Why? Because the cameras and sensors inside this cab won't let it shift. Because it detects my eyes are big. There's a lot of emotion. There's some panic. And it doesn't feel that I'm fit to drive. Now, that's not science fiction. That is happening because Ford just filed the patents.

Ford actually has a series of patents down at the U.S. Patent and Trade Office that deal with the sensors and cameras inside the cab of their truck. And if the sensors in that truck determine that you're not fit to drive, that truck will not actually shift from park to drive. Now, they already have a system called telematics, and that's where they can actually pull up cameras in real time inside the cab of their fleet vehicles. Now, they actually market this to insurance companies, because the truth is, this is really about who owns the data and who owns the liability. Now, your name might actually be on the title of this truck, and you may have paid for it, but you don't own it. Okay, that is, I mean, that should be chilling to people. And just a little bit of background on this, I'm reading from a News Nation article in January when a bunch of Republicans voted against a massy-led effort to kill the kill switch.

They wrote at the time, this is from the Biden-era infrastructure investment in jobs act, which compelled the NHTSA Highway Safety Administration to set a rule requiring new cars to come equipped with the ability to detect drunk driving and prevent it. You can fact check that. Plug that into Google. Do it yourself. It is absolutely what was in the legislation. It sounds too crazy to be true. It's not.

The bill required, quote, advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology in new cars by 2024. The technology would, quote, passively and accurately monitor driver performance to detect impairment or passively and accurately measure driver blood alcohol concentration or both in combination and prevent or limit vehicle operation if impairment is detected. that is ripped right from the bill itself, Ryan. Yes, and so the House today will be taking up the reauthorization of Section 702, FISA, which is basically the government's spying authorities. By the time the first vote on what they call the rule will probably have happened by the time this show goes out,

it's expected it'll fail. Like there's so much pressure against the... leadership here and against this kind of this the idea of just passing it that that is the expectation there but there's a massive pressure campaign from basically the deep state yep to move this forward because there's no there's no like constituency out there that's organized among the public that is like oh yeah we desperately need more spying authorities for our government and we need to curtail our civil liberties even more.

That's not a, there was after 9-11 an actual public constituency for that. Yeah. That doesn't exist today. So, and maybe, you know, because it's expected to fail, maybe they will hold it and there won't be a vote around 10.30 this morning. We'll see. But we'll keep on this. the Senate also is there's you know serious opposition over on the over on the Senate so this is so and

basically what they're what you know the the fight is over a couple of things but significantly it's over how anthropic told the Pentagon screw off we don't want to do um we don't want to use the data data broker loophole to like hoover up all of this um information on Americans and plus it into our AI and then execute policy based on that. Data broker loophole means, okay, the government is not allowed to track you. Well, basically what they... Data brokers can and the government then buys it. But buys it, right. The Ron Wyden has been on top of this for years. But basically what Anthropic was saying is we reserve the right. We want to reserve the right to say no if we see you doing that. Because I don't necessarily know that Anthropic is sincerely opposed to that

happening, if it makes sense. Or if that makes sense so much as they wanted to be a able to say if they notice the government doing it, no, we're out, which is also fair. Either way, what the, what this bill would do is basically, you know, continue to, it would basically allow that to be codified into law for not just the military, but for everybody. And there's pushback against that. But it's, it's really wild how it's unfolding. Let's let's put up, where's the Jim Himes one? Yes, this is great. This is the Politico article. We can C3.

Yeah, so C3. This is great. Yeah, Jim Himes has taken a very strange role. He's a, he's kind of the, he's a Democrat from Connecticut who's. You said enough. Yes. But kind of a Wall Street Democrat who has, for some reason, taken on the role as kind of chief advocate for spying authorities in the House Democratic Caucus. It's a very interesting kind of choice to make.

But he's been, and he's been clashing heavily with Jamie Raskin, who is kind of the lead advocate who is in the conversation around curtailing some of these authorities. And they've been going back and forth with each other, making it kind of personal. The lever had a good scoop yesterday, put up C5, and I encourage people to just go read this entire piece. But he's been telling people, two different things.

One, like publicly he's been saying that he wants a lot of reforms and he understands people's concerns. Privately, he's been urging Democrats to just, you know, vote with Trump. Mounting a full-fledged campaign, whisper campaign in the background. Yeah. And getting out of there. Now, one of the dynamics here is that the CBC, the congressional black caucus had been firmly aligned with what they call a clean reauthorization, just kind of moving it forward, giving Trump the blanket authorities that he's asking for.

Julian Andrioni over at Dropside spoke to a bunch of different CBC members. And under pressure from constituents, they actually seem to be now backing off and are no longer. Like they seem to have shifted. They're saying, no, no, no, we actually, we demand some reforms here. Let's roll a little bit of C4. Just want to ask you where you stand on FISA and the clean reauthorization, especially given that the backdoor search loophole. I still have some concerns about the backdoor search loophole.

Yes, I will, I will call you. You said there should be? I still have some concerns. The backdoor search loophole was used to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. I want some reforms. There's no doubt about it, but I haven't had a chance. There's a lot of things that they're working on now. So I'm reserving judgment until I see the final product, but reforms are essential.

And any specific, you know, with the data broker loophole, you've got the backdoor search loophole that was used. Backdoor search loophole was used to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. And that's a great issue for me, a real issue. So we're going to make sure that, you know, in our attempt to do what some think is right, we have to make sure that we're protecting civil liberties. We're not putting ourselves in a position to be abused. Has Congressman Meeks reached out to you at all to try? because he's very outwardly spoken about.

I have not had a chance to speak about it yet. He's offering briefings to a member of Congress. Has he offered one to you? I've not had an opportunity. Okay. Where do you stand on the FISA vote tomorrow, the clean reauthorization? Do you want to see some reforms with regard to the backdoor search loophole that was used to spy on Black Lives Matter protests? You know, I'm looking very seriously.

I would like to see some reforms, but I don't think we can let FISA lapse altogether. And so I'm hopeful we're able to, to, to. In an ideal world, we pass it with reforms, but I think I don't know that I'm comfortable letting it lapse altogether. Is there a rush to vote for it now? Because I know there's concerns about Section 702, but the New York Times reported on Thursday that actually that was renewed individually in March, all the way through March 2027.

I'm not in a rush as long as it's not expiring, but I'm not in the majority. Okay. And specifically with regard to Congressman Meeks, he's been very vocal. He supports a clean reauthorization. without the reforms and there's been some reports. In fact, I just spoke with members of the CBC who confirmed it, said that he's been whipping up some boats. Have you spoken with him or spoken with Congressman Himes?

I have not spoken directly with either of them. Have they invited you to briefings? I don't know. I've been a little distracted with three-districting. So if they have, my staff probably knows and I don't know if it's on my calendar. But you haven't been to any. I haven't, not this year. I went obviously the last time.

What's good about that from a kind of democratic Somaldi perspective is that the CBC had basically been on board. But amid a lot of public pressure, like, no, actually, we do need some reforms here. It's the kind of thing that if there's sunlight on it, you get a slightly different outcome. Then if there's nobody watching and you're getting pressured by basically the Deep State and Greg Meeks, you're like, okay, well. Yep. Also, imagine you're a member of Congress. Do you want the deep state angry with you?

Probably not. No, and this is where... You've never done anything wrong, ever. Glenn, there's an episode of system update. Well, first of all, there's an episode of system update where pre-mic Johnson as speaker, Mike Johnson, goes on Glenn's show and talks about how we've got to get rid of section. We have to reform Section 702.

I don't know if he said get rid of it all together. I think he said get rid of it all together. But that was a really popular. He used to be great on it. It was a really popular position, even among sort of main, quote-to-goat, mainstream Republicans. He wasn't free just freedom caucus or anything, like Mike Johnson earlier in the Trump era, because obviously FISA had been abused to obtain warrants on people like Carter Page.

And with pretty clear evidence, someone was actually prosecuted for lying on a FISA warrant application. So that obviously has. happen. It's a good litmus test. Like, imagine the worst, your worst president, if you're Democrats, probably Trump, if you're Republican, maybe it's Obama, I have no idea. And then think about whether you want them to have, in their administration, to have FISA powers. And then if your answer is no, then probably nobody should have it. But that was so, so Mike Johnson literally walks into a skiff. It's kind of a joke on the right. Like, he walks into a skiff when the reauthorization was up, what, two years ago for a vote and comes out and is like, oh my gosh, we desperately need

Section 702 for national security purposes. It's like we cannot afford to reform 702. And so it's the most predictable Washington cycle ever. Like, oh, for partisan reasons, this was used against Donald Trump. We got to kill it. We got to end it. Trump himself was really, he was supposedly kill FISA in all caps several years ago. FISA itself came out of the church committee hearings and the reforms that came after the

church committee. It was supposed to be a barricade. And it really hasn't been. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves.

We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice in so-ins, correct?

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