Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/6/23: Maddow Refuses To Broadcast Trump Live, Petrodollar Collapsing, Ukraine Negotiations, West Admits Nordstream Coverup, Trump Cash Flow, NPR State Media, Don Lemon's Behavior, Fed Proud Boys, Millions Flee Coastal Cities, New Chicago Mayor

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Rachel Maddow refusing to broadcast Trump's speech live, the Petrodollar collapsing with new China deals, Ukraine open to negotiating with Russia, the West admitting the Nordstream bombing coverup, Russia's dire warning after Finland officially joins NATO, Trump swamping the competition in fundraising dollars, Twitter labeling NPR "US State affiliated media", Don Lemon's psscho sexist behavior, Krystal looks into how dozens of Feds were found inside the Proud Boys, Saagar looks into millions fleeing California and New York for cities like Texas, Florida, and Arizona, and we're joined by local Chicago politics buff Frank Calabrese to talk about how Leftist Pro Union candidate Brandon Johnson was able to beat a Pro Cop candidate in the Chicago mayoral race.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. The Culture Creators and Scroll Stoppers. Tina Knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show? My next ex. That's actually cute, though. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. It's a fake show, you tell Beyonce. I'm going right on the phone and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Hey, honey. Hey, guys. Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.

What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of interesting things to break down this morning. We have some fallout from the Trump indictments this week, and in particular, a little bit of a media react segment that we're going to break down for you, how everybody handled the big news. We also have some new revelations. This is pretty interesting comments coming out of Kiev.

Largest openness that they have expressed We also have some new revelations. This is pretty interesting comments coming out of Kiev. Largest openness that they have expressed in terms of diplomatic negotiations that we have seen. This comes as France is meeting with China and expressing also openness to China playing a role as peacemaker there. So we'll break all of that down for you. We also have a whole new story again on the Nord Stream pipeline and some open admissions that members of NATO are just like, yeah, we just kind of don't really want to know. They're just like openly admitting like it's uncomfortable. So let's just not talk about it. We've got some big 2024 fundraising numbers, Nikki Haley with a big haul that we can break down for you. And we also have a couple of media stories that we couldn't resist covering. One, Elon designating NPR on Twitter as

state-affiliated media that caused a whole thing. And some pretty bombshell revelations about Don Lemon's behavior going back years at CNN. So that'll be interesting. Also excited to have a first-timer on the show to talk about the Chicago mayor's race. So should be a good one. Before we get to any of that, though, reminder about Spotify video. That's right. You can watch the full video on Spotify for all of our premium members who pay for the show, breakingpoints.com to become a premium subscriber. You can go and connect it to your Spotify feed and boom, voila, you can watch it there. I know a lot of you have been taking advantage. I was looking at the numbers and I was like, wow, a huge portion of our audience is actually using the Spotify. Oh, really? Yeah, absolutely. And

apparently we are one of the largest gated podcasts on all of Spotify, which is very cool. Not bad, guys. Thank you all very much. We really appreciate it. So BreakingPoints.com, as I said, that's a reminder. But how did the media handle the Trump arrest and the subsequent coverage, Crystal? Yeah, so to be honest with you,

I kind of empathize with the bind that media organizations are in because, you know, we don't love spending a lot of time on Trump. No, I actually hate doing it. Yeah, it distracts from a lot of other really important issues. But then again, when you have a former president of the United States being indicted for the first time in history, you kind of have to cover it at least to some extent. So MSNBC sparked a lot of debate, I think, over their handling of it

because they decided that they would not carry live Trump's speech that he gave in response to those charges and a number of other potential charges coming down the pike. So Rachel Maddow explained their thinking on not taking that speech. Let's take a listen to what she has to say. I need to tell you that right now, the former president himself is making remarks tonight from his home in Florida. As far as we can tell him, what we were prepared for here is that this is basically a campaign speech in which he is repeating his same lies and allegations against his perceived enemies. It is just getting started. So far, he's just giving his normal list of grievances. We don't consider that necessarily newsworthy. And there's a cost to us as a news organization of knowingly broadcasting untrue things. So our deal with you is that we will monitor these remarks. If he does

say anything newsworthy, we will turn them around and report on that right away. But for now, just know that it's happening and we're not taking it. So just know that it's happening. Yeah, not taking it. So listen, I think all of these decisions should be considered through the lens of business decisions. That has nothing to do with like their journalistic ethics or whatever. Their audience doesn't particularly want to hear a long speech from Trump. So they're not going to play it. They would rather hear, you know, analysis from Rachel and Nicole Wallace and whoever else they have on the panel. It's not like they're not covering Trump.

They probably cover Trump more than any other network. So it's not like they actually learned, hey, let's not give this guy any oxygen because it only empowers him. No, they just feel like their audience doesn't particularly want to hear directly from him. So they're making a business ratings decision, in my opinion. Oh, I think you're right. I also do think there is a powerful brainworm over there where the idea that they have a, quote, responsibility, where as if they never would have broadcast knowingly lies on their platform. That's never happened before. Rachel Maddow and Nicole Wallace.

Rachel, the begin of journalistic fact fighting over there. These people don't care about the truth. It's all such a joke. I mean, they are paralyzed by the decision that they have the hubris that they believe that they got Trump elected in the first place, which I don't believe that actually for a second. But really what it comes down to for them is, as you said, they are in a bind where their audience doesn't want to see the actual newsworthy event. They want to see Rachel and Nicole and Joy all

breaking down what's happening. You know, whenever we covered it on our stream, we gave people a preview. And then because we knew it was a newsworthy event live taking part, we brought everybody the full thing. You can watch it for yourself. We will tell you what we think afterwards. But in real time, what I've always found astounding about these critiques from these journalistic professors and all these other little hall monitors is they don't want people to just see something for themselves and make up their own minds. They don't trust Americans enough to watch this and just say, yeah, I think that's a lie. And I think that's, oh, that was kind of funny.

But oh, here's what I think after watching the full thing. Why do you need them to tell you? I think that's a great point. There's kind of a nanny state attitude implicit there that goes along with their whole like freak out over misinformation. And oh, my God, we've got to like censor and crack down and we can't have these untruths out there whatsoever. Rather than trusting in a democracy people to be able to see the live news event in unvarnished format and then make of it what they will based on their own facts and knowledge. And then yeah, with the aid of like reasonable analysis on the other side,

not that I expect MSNBC to provide any of that. So I do think you're right that there is an implicit like obsession with controlling the flow of information that's reflected in that decision, as well as, you know, it just being a sort of like brass tacks business decision. Now, on the other end of absurdity was CNN, which we talked about on our live stream. You know, again, we made sure to thoroughly cover the event. Obviously, we gave it, you know, significant attention as well because it is a historic event and we had legal analysts on and we took the Trump presser live and we went through the indictment and all

of that. But CNN goes that next level above just like fully analyzing what's going on. And they have to do these like sensationalistic OJ car chase type shots showing the suburban pulling in front of the courthouse and mounting a camera on the speeding boat to try to catch an image of his plane landing in New York and all of this stuff. So they go to the total opposite,

just total sensationalistic extreme. Jake they go to the total opposite, just total sensationalistic extreme. Jake Tapper felt the need to justify that in his commentary. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. And I know that media critics are taking issue with the way that a lot of news networks are covering this. But I have to say, as we watch Donald Trump's limo drive on the FDR, this is unprecedented. Uh, we've never seen anything like this in the history of this country. I want to count of how many times CNN said unprecedented. Right. You can say it once and I think we always did.

Of course. And that's fine. That's enough. But the point that again, he's, they let these little nanny state hall monitors get in their ears where they have to both justify their coverage or not. It's like you just said, ratings. Also, you know why I know it was a ratings decision? I was reading Dylan Byer's column last night. That was the biggest day of CNN's modern history since the invasion of Ukraine was the Trump arrest. That was their biggest day. And so, yeah, it was a business. They did it because that's what works for all of the time and the hand-wringing of, oh, we're going to go back to the center.

The moment Trump was back on the stage, full-blown obsession. Soon, Trump to speak. Shot of the cars. Shot of the plane. Shot of the empty courthouse. That one I don't really get. The empty courthouse door. This is also just vintage CNN.

Sure. I mean, this is what they— That's fine, though. This is their bread and butter going over the top with these news events and completely sensationalizing them. Remember the cruise ship that they went all in to cover? Oh, yeah. Or the flight. What was it?

MH-37. Yeah. I mean, this is like this is what they do. So the idea that Chris Licht, we always were skeptical that Chris Licht, the new head of the network, was really going to be fundamentally different or represent any fundamental break from the way that CNN has always been. That's clearly not the case. I actually watched some of their coverage while we were waiting for the charges to drop, which took way too long, and it was extremely painful. Because, God, I hate the way on cable news, since it's 24 hours, they feel the need to fill the airspace even though there's literally nothing happening and nothing to say. So while they're waiting with Trump going through this arraignment, which took longer than they expected, I mean, they didn't have the charges.

They didn't know what happened in the courtroom. And so they just have to spend an hour saying absolutely nothing. And it's so incredibly painful. So the way they try to fill that is with like their ridiculous, you know, speeding boat camera on the helicopter or whatever thing. Once they did get the charges, surprisingly to a lot of folks, some of their legal analysts were not all that impressed with the case that Alvin Bragg laid out and felt that it was somewhat disappointing. They kind of let their they kind of showed their hand a little bit that they were hoping for more.

And there had been some reporting that, oh, perhaps this will be more than just Darmie Daniels. Perhaps there's things Alvin Bragg found out that we didn't even have any idea about that wasn't in the public record whatsoever. Of course, we know now that turned out to not be the case. The indictment was exactly what we expected. It was all pretty much things that were already in the public record. And so here is one CNN legal analyst admitting her disappointment. Your reaction now that you've had a chance to go through it, is it what you thought it was going to be? And are you unimpressed? It is what I thought it was going to be in terms of focusing on the payments that were made, the falsification of the records and really tied to the payment that was made to Stormy Daniels.

In terms of a case that's being brought against a former president, it's a little underwhelming. It's a little underwhelming. It's just funny because, as you said, after they built it up and after they, you know, hunt, you know, after they're sitting there salivating, waiting for it, when they actually got the indictment, they're like, yeah, I'm not so sure about this one. I don't know if this one is going to stand, which is, you know, if you just even listen to the leaks, you could have said that from the very beginning. I found it amusing also because even the mainstream media now,

who has been waiting for this and salivating over it for so long, put this up there on the screen. I mean, even the New York Times has to publish op-eds saying like, yeah, this Trump indictment is a legal embarrassment. I haven't seen a vociferous defense of Alvin Bragg on the actual face of the charges yet from any mainstream media outlet. Even like liberal apparatchiks, people like Jonathan Chait and others are coming out with columns being like, I don't think that this is a good case. I think that this does damage in the long run to the case of going after Trump and that this may, in fact, backfire on all of them.

So it is interesting also in that light of their coverage relative to then once they got it, how they then had to interpret what happened. So the Times published, I think, four different op-eds that offered a race. So they had the whole gamut of opinion. So they did have a defense of the charges. But I think the fact that the, you know, Trump indictment is illegal and buried, the fact that they went so hard in that direction, allowed that to be published was interesting. I do think Democrats are somewhat uncomfortable, especially that this was these were the first charges to drop because they are obviously the least serious. They're the oldest.

They're the ones that, you know, it's there are like novel legal theories in play and pieces of it certainly seem like a stretch from a legal perspective on the politics. I'm sure that the analysis, I think there's a legal analysis and I think there's a political analysis. To me, the political analysis in terms of Republican primary, very clear. And then in terms of the general electorate, as I've said before, I'm not sure that the public is really all that interested in the specific details of whether it's this case or a January 6th case or a fake elector case or a document case or whatever. If they like Trump, then they will be opposed to it. And if they don't like Trump, then they're like, okay, whatever. I'm not going to like wring my hands about which particular indictment drops first or how I feel about the legal analysis of it. I do think, again, on the politics of it, Democrats, elite Democrats, and I have to say, I think also the

Democratic base have decided that it politically benefits them for Trump to be the nominee. Maybe, but we have been to this movie before, and last time they were hoping for Trump to be the nominee back you know, excitement that, OK, he's locking down. It looks like the Republican nomination. He's in a much stronger position. He's much more likely to be the Republican nominee. They feel a lot more nervous having to go up against a Ron DeSantis or even Nikki Haley. I don't know why. And I just think that that level of hubris about their ability to take out Trump and how damaging these things will be to Trump, I think it should be tempered. That's all I'll say. Right. I think that's well said. And I think the reason we had to just show this is that I know there's a lot of interesting media

analysis right now about the way that they covered it, about are they doing the wrong thing. But as you said, at the end of the day, the elite Democratic position is we want Trump. We want him to come back. And the media also finding himself in this very twisted position. They're like, how do we do this? How do we cover responsibly? I think the responsible thing to do is let people make up their minds for themselves. What we try to do here is show you the fulsome nature of where things are and be like, listen, I'll tell you what I think, but you don't have to agree and that's completely fine or with you. You can make up your own damn mind because that's how it actually should be. They shouldn't be telling you what to think.

And yet, you know, apparently that's what the underlying, like, assumption behind the Maddow coverage and all that, which is bolstered also by the business decisions that they have to make. Yeah, I think that's all well said. All right, let's get to international affairs. There's a lot of stuff going on that was covered up by the Trump indictment. The first and foremost is a massive story about the petrodollar and about the way that other nations outside of the West are handling relations with China, with Russia, with vis-a-vis the United States and Ukraine. There was a very interesting and noticed clip from Fox News where Senator Marco Rubio actually went on Fox to decry Brazil ditching the petrodollar for future oil transactions with China and talking about the declining efficacy of U.S. sanctions.

Let's take a listen to that. Today, Brazil, in our hemisphere, largest country in the Western Hemisphere south of us, cut a trade deal with China. They're going to from now on do trade in their own currencies, get right around the dollar. They're creating a secondary economy in the world, totally independent of the United States. We won't have to talk about sanctions in five years because there'll be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar

that we won't have the ability to sanction them. As we are sitting here, you know, focused on some of these nuttiness that's going on, people that are basically dedicating their lives in this country to ensuring that it is legal to mutilate children, to do drag shows in schools. They dedicate their lives to this. And we have another superpower that basically wants to become the world's dominant power at our expense.

And these people don't want to focus on it. So very interesting, at least the front part of that criticism. Got to get his culture war to blow in there. Yeah, I know. It's kind of funny to see the two pair together. But look, he's actually not wrong. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. China and Russia are currently looking to challenge the petrodollars, a very interesting

write-up over from Oil Price. What they point to right now is that currently the yuan accounts for just 2.7% of the global oil market. However, a lot of the more recent deals in recent weeks are signaling that the Chinese and the Russians are moving to try and sideline the dollar, not only from Brazil, as he said, which is the largest nation in all of South America, but actually during that visit to Riyadh, Xi Jinping in December said that the China and the Arab Gulf states are going to be trying to use Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange platforms to carry out Yan's settlement on oil and gas trades.

So a separate infrastructure is propping up through which to replace the petrodollar specifically to try and circumvent US sanctions. Right now, 58% of global currency reserves are the US dollar from 2022. Only 2.7% of that, like I said, remains in the Chinese yuan. But I mean, even a 10% increase in that is a massive sea change to the global reserve currency. But drop even the global reserve currency and all of that rhetoric. Why does it matter? Because, let's put this up there, and this is straight from Chinese media,

from the South China Morning Post. I thought it was important to actually pull the perspective that they are trying to push out there, which is that the Brazilian inroads and de-dollarization is, quote, reflecting cracks in U.S. currency settlements. Here's really what happened, and this is why I was a huge critic also of what was going on in the initial days of sanctioning. We basically blew up the global financial trade system for a country, Russia, and for another country, Ukraine, which at the end of the day, the material fate of those two countries, especially Ukraine, has zero impact on the U.S. economy and on the U.S. way of life. I know there's going to have a lot of Ukrainian NAFO

stands in the comments, but here's the deal. Whoever controls Kyiv, that doesn't affect anybody's life in Nebraska. However, there are a lot of other countries and potential conflicts where that is not the case. And so one of the things that I was trying to say then is you only get one shot at this, at showing your hand. Whenever you're the empire and you pull the ripcord on your real most financial power that you have, you better do it on something that really matters. We decided to do that on Ukraine. Well, the Chinese, the second largest economy on earth, far more powerful ever than the USSR, they saw all of that in Beijing and they're like, okay, that's just never going to ever happen to us.

And they're not fools. So what do they do? Immediately, they started doing won deals with Russia. They go to India as well. India, then one of the largest nations outside of China, says, well, we still want cheap oil. And so they decide to start pricing things in different currency when buying from the Russians, the Brazilians who are not on board with us at all. And how many times, Crystal, have we pointed to global public opinion that says that the rest

of the world does not agree with us on Ukraine. They don't agree with Russia either, but they definitely don't agree with the NATO-centric view of the conflict that this is some existential threat to their interests. They don't really care either way. They're like, yeah, I'm not saying it's good, but, you know, like, cheap oil is nice because that's what we have to, at the end of the day, we've got to care for our own citizens. So looking at this and just seeing the colossal economic blunder that we have made,

we essentially sacrificed really, I think, the only chance we ever had at being able to financially push back on China, if we ever wanted to, in exchange for the fate of Eastern Donbas in Ukraine, which I think is nuts. I mean, there's no balance sheet where any of this makes sense. We really warned about this early on, that there's a cost to, it's not just a cost to, you know, Russian society for the economic warfare that we were waging, but that there were real risks entailed here.

But I think you have to go back even before that. many times, and even including with regard to Russia before this particular war and illegal invasion, because they had years after our initial sort of round of sanctions to build up barriers to insulate themselves, right, past 2013, to insulate themselves from the economic warfare that we wage. So I'm not going to say that it has had no impact, but certainly hasn't had the impact that we thought here in the West that it was going to have. And this is a reminder with a more or less unified West with regard to China, the views are far less unified among our European allies and us. So we sort of showed our hand here and showed some weakness because China's looking at this and going, hey, if Russia can be basically okay, we can build up some other relationships here that we already have of showed our hand here and showed some weakness because China's looking at this and going, hey,

if Russia can be basically okay, we can build up some other relationships here that we already have been working on. And then we're not so worried about these sanctions either. Now, on the other hand, of course, it is a much deeper trading relationship with the Chinese, which both entails a lot more risk for us and also a lot more risk for them. But we gave them the roadmap. We blew our whole wad, so to speak, and allowed them to see exactly how far we could go. And then they can use that as their own roadmap to make sure they can insulate themselves from any future economic warfare to come. So listen, I mean, in a sense, number one, you can't blame them. Number two, we really kind of asked for it. And we, from the beginning, have been warning about the potential domestic consequences here and consequences for our standing in the world of using these, of weaponizing these sanctions

over and over again. Yeah. And I just can't get over how big of fools that we look like on the global stage. Zoom out of NATO, where apparently we're like the greatest heroes, although in private they're happy to take your money and then stab you in the back whenever they want to. We'll get to that. But look at Saudi Arabia, a country that we spend $100 billion a year in sending weapons to. We underwrite their security.

This family would never be in charge if it wasn't for a US global underwriting. They're willing to literally take your money and then look at you and put the middle finger right in your face. Put this up there on the screen. Right now, the decision to go ahead and cut oil to raise oil prices was very simple. This is David Ignatius, by the way, who's writing this. The United States doesn't call the shots in the Persian Gulf or the oil market anymore. For better or worse, the era of American hegemony in the Middle East is over. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pressed OPEC producers. This is the key. MBS specifically went to OPEC and said, we want to cut to buy 1 million barrels per day to boost the price of crude from $85 to $85 a barrel up by

6%. Why? To make more money and to make it more difficult for the U.S. economy and for the West during the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Now, a real ally would do what? A, they would either do what you would tell them to do if it's a client state, or B, somebody who wants friendly relations and thinks that it's just like a give and take relationship would say, all right, we'll hear you out and we'll take the temporary hit. It's not like we aren't a hundred billionaires several times over and we'll make sure that oil is cheaper. They don't care. They literally don't. They disregard what Washington has said. They have stabbed us now in the eye four or five times whenever it comes to OPEC production.

And the only fools are us. In Congress, they're still selling them weapons. The Biden administration goes over there and bows down before MBS like a joke in front of the entire world. They're laughing because they got the president of the United States to come over there. Whatever. He didn't shake his hand. He just gave him a fist bump. Wow, you really showed it to him there, Mr. President. And then the moment you leave, they have China over. They strike this deal with Iran and allow Beijing to be the broker. And if you think Beijing doesn't have its hand behind this decision either, then you're a fool.

I mean, it's like in every single theater all across the world, in Asia, in South Korea and Japan, they're doubting whether we're actually going to be doing it. You know, the Taiwanese president is transiting through America. I always love how we do these fake diplomatic things. She was in California and she met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Same thing. You know, the Taiwanese, we've actually been shorting them on arms so that we can send them to Ukraine. I've been looking also and tracking people who are inside DOD are warning about the level of shortages that we have. We are incurring massive hurts across the world and here at home on behalf of this Ukrainian conflict. And I don't know how you can possibly look,

you know, at this from a 30,000 foot level and say that any of this is worth it vis-a-vis to what we're actually doing. The Russian invasion, and we're gonna get to this in just a moment, in a lot of ways has been just a total disaster for Russia. Of course. It really sort of forced into reality a multipolar world. And maybe it revealed what

already existed because the relationships that China has been building around the world, I mean, this goes back years at this point. I was listening this morning to a podcast about their, you know, more specifics about their efforts in Africa, where it's a double edged sword. You know, they load up these countries with a lot of debt, but there are very visible signs of Chinese influence, a road, a dam, a bridge, an airport, sometimes with the Chinese flag flying outside, that in some places people are very grateful for this level of development, whereas the U.S. has basically treated Africa as like another front of their war on terror. So again, it's a double-edged sword because then at the end of the day,

you've got a nation that's loaded up with debt. But you can see in the seeds that the Chinese government has been planting for years and years, when the U.S. goes to the world and says, hey, we need you on our side in terms of the Ukraine war, most of the world is like, I think we're going to stay out of this one, actually. Whether it's the African nations, whether it's nations in South America, whether it's India, they're like, you know, we're going to let you work this one out and we're going to kind of stay on the sidelines and see how it all unfolds. Yeah, I mean, look, New Delhi is happy to take cheap gas as long as they can get it.

Brazil will do the same thing. And so will a lot of developing countries. Even the South Koreans are out there selling arms to anybody who's got money because they're like, oh, American arms are going to Ukraine. We'll take those dollars and we'll make sure that we can stand it up. I was looking at it from a macro view, and I was just thinking about it this way. Only the U.S. is the nation which is not allowed by its elite and its presidents to act in its own material interests. All other countries on Earth make cold-blooded, real politic calculations. Worth it? Not worth it.

Good for my people? Not good for my people. The idea from the unipolar moment onward has been, well, we're such a great nation that we can do both. But listen, guys, China, we allowed them to rise up in the meantime. Not just China. I mean, there's all kinds of global competition that's happening now. We are just like any other country. It's a checks and balance in terms of our sheet. What works and what doesn't?

What's good for us? And we, to blessings, have been had all this bounty of energy and money and all this benefits, so-called, of market capitalism. But a lot of that benefit is fading away. At the end of the day, we're just like everybody else. And I think we're going to learn all that real soon. And I actually think that part of the story there is this is a nation that, whether it comes to domestic affairs or foreign affairs or anything else has allowed corporate power to supersede any sort of interest of the American people or national interest. And so we're unable to act for the interests of the people. We're unable to act for the interests of the nation because we're so beholden to like

whoever's making money off of whatever we're doing in the world. So it really clouds our ability to maneuver in the world. Yes. Okay. So let's go to the second part here because it's very important. Some breaking news that actually just came out this morning. President Vladimir Zelensky telling the Financial Times that Ukraine is ready to talk to Russia on Crimea if their counteroffensive succeeds. Let's go ahead and put it up there on the screen. Kyiv is willing to discuss the future of Crimea with Moscow if its forces reach the border of Russian-occupied peninsula, a top advisor to President Zelensky has told the Financial Times.

These comments were made by the deputy head of Zelensky's office and is the most explicit statement yet of Ukraine's interest in negotiations since it cut off peace talks with the Kremlin last April. He says, quote, if we succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield, when we will be able on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open a diplomatic page to discuss this issue. It doesn't mean that we exclude the way of liberation of Crimea by our army. So obviously that's important because Crimea was originally seized and annexed by Russia in 2013, and one of the major worries here and throughout the West has been that escalating this to a nuclear conflict would come if some sort of Ukrainian offensive,

specifically any U.S.-backed weapons or any of that, were used on Crimea, which the Russians genuinely do consider theirs in a way that they don't consider the newly annexed territories of eastern Ukraine. Now, though, it does not necessarily mean it's the opening that we may initially want it to be because implicit in this is what? That Ukraine is going to take back every inch of territory that they have lost since the initial Russian invasion. Now, of course, the Ukrainian counteroffensive have been dramatically successful back in March of 2022. We're still waiting to see exactly

how that is going to look in 2023. The long-awaited spring offensive hasn't yet happened. There's been some discussion that the Russian spring offensive did not go the way that they want it to be, but it's one of those where we don't know if that was the actual Russian offensive or not, obviously, who has insight into Moscow's plans. Really, what's going on is a complete meat grinder going on in the city of Bakhmut, where both Ukrainian forces are

expending thousands of rounds of ammunition per day, and the Russians are losing on order of at least like three to one, because they are the attacking party, very classic in terms of like trench, like siege warfare in a World War I-style conflict. The issue right now is one of those where how long could Ukraine realistically keep that going? Because the amount of shells and ammo that we're giving them is not limitless. Same from the West, whereas the Russians have a genuine industrial base, and they have thousands and hundreds of thousands of people they can still throw into this conflict if need be. So the question is like who can hold out longer? It's really a classic

World War I type scenario. The issue here too, though, is that yes, they're expressing open to negotiation, but the secondary part of it, Crystal, where any discussion with Chinese President Xi Jinping that hasn't happened yet, we don't know if the Chinese shut them down after Zelensky especially said, hey, let's talk. you could call me. You can even visit Kiev or any of that. So I'm not quite sure how to make of this. I genuinely think it's always a good thing when somebody says that they're willing to talk. But also, obviously, the preconditions here are not realistic, at least in the eyes of the Kremlin. But, you know, maybe they need to get realistic, too, because it's not like they don't have hundreds of people dying literally per day

on the battlefield. Yeah, no, I mean because it's not like they don't have hundreds of people dying literally per day on the battlefield. Yeah, no, I mean, it's incredibly welcome to see those comments. There's just no two ways about it. One of the things that we've been very fearful about is that Crimea could represent a kind of, you know, really true red line for Russia in the way that some of the other territories and regions and actions from the Ukrainians may not represent. And, you know, we're not alone in that. A lot of NATO allies are fearful of that as well. You know, it was right after they blew up that Crimean Bridge that there started to be real concerns about, you know, Russia could see this as an existential threat to the point that they may actually use,

quote unquote, tactical nuclear weapons. That has continued to be a concern. You've seen some rhetoric that I think has been profoundly dangerous from leaders like Nancy Pelosi about Ukraine fully taking back all of Crimea and us being fully behind them in terms of that operation. So it is very welcome to see what is a really notable and significant shift in tone here from Zelensky. And then, you know, the other question that remains to be seen is if there was a genuine interest from Ukrainians in engaging with peace talks, especially if China was involved in those peace talks, would the U.S. be open to it? Would we

let it happen? Because it sure seems like we would be interested in blocking that, even though the claim has always been from the Biden administration that, of course, it's the Ukrainians who are in the front seat and we'll just, you know, back them up in whatever they want to do. See if that holds, if they actually got serious about engaging in peace talks with China. Yeah, we'll see how it goes down. And actually, this broke this morning, so we can add some secondary parts of this. Also, I just want to underscore again, just how different things are outside of Washington and outside of like Warsaw and Tallinn and Kiev's view of the conflict, as opposed to

literally everybody else. Go ahead and put this up there on the screen. You know, for all of the discussion of our great European allies and all of that, they do not see this in any way the same way that we do. President Macron is in Beijing actually right now. And as many are viewing this, Emmanuel Macron arrived there specifically to try to carve out a distinct role for Europe that avoids America's confrontation with an assertive China, convinced that there is a place for China in ending the war in Ukraine. So you can see that Macron and actually Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, also both visited Beijing recently, specifically in the attempt to try and bring the Ukrainian conflict to an end and to try and put Chinese pressure on Russia to bring some sort of political

settlement. This was after, we should not forget, that Washington ruled out the Chinese peace deal as some sort of joke, and they said that it should not be considered. Well, it turns out that the nations with much more skin in the game than we do in terms of their own territorial borders, they didn't think that at all. The next one up there on the screen, too, please. There's been a string of European leaders that have been heading over to Beijing. EU Chancellor, the European Council, the Spanish Prime Minister, the France's President, and also the EU Commissioner, President Ursula von der Leyen. All of those people's visits to Beijing have specifically been with respect to

do two things. Number one, to say, hey, the US and Japan and South Korea, we're not necessarily in any of that. They're like, you and I, we should keep businesses going. We don't really agree with some of their trade war practices and all of that. A, in other words, acting in their material interests. And B, they want to try and help Beijing bring some sort of end to the conflict in there. It's just stunning to look at it again and to see France, Germany, all of these countries, the EU, these places are underwritten entirely by the U.S. Global Security Alliance. We are the ones who underwrite their militaries, we sell them all their weapons, and we protect them with our nuclear umbrella.

And then, though, when it comes to China, they're going to do what they want. I don't even begrudge them. I would do the same thing if some fool was willing to pay me to do whatever the hell I wanted. That said, though, I don't know why we continue to do that. Why do we continue to just let ourselves be humiliated like this for our so-called, you know, what, Iron Brothers and allies? But secondary, Crystal, they view, and again, they have the territory, they have actual territorial skin here.

They view this peace deal and peace itself as an actual goal that you should be willing to work towards with anybody who is willing to do that. Unlike President Biden, his National Security Council, and apparently all of the entire Washington elite. France and Germany, especially in the lead up to this conflict, I mean, they took a very different approach than the U.S. and U.K. Now, some of the schism there has kind of been papered over for a number of months. But it's in actions like this that you see it reemerging.

They have a great, much greater commitment to actually trying to resolve this conflict and bring it to an end than certainly the Biden administration has ever demonstrated. And especially with the recent comments very clearly from the Biden administration, you know, immediately dismissing the Chinese peace plan, immediately saying that any sort of offer of a ceasefire, brokering of a ceasefire from China should be rejected out of hand. Clearly, France and Germany have a very different view here. And again, in my opinion, that is very welcome because I think it benefits everyone, including Ukrainians, to try to reach an end to this horrific war, which has been devastating to their people, first and foremost. Yeah, I think you're right, Crystal. And just like looking at all of this

and just seeing the way that it's all coming together, it is clear that there is a lot going on outside of Washington where people not only disagree with us, are actively bucking us. We are the ones at the end of the day who might be left holding the bag, quote unquote, because we're the ones basically funding the entire conflict. And B, if it does come to sort of settlement and we don't

have a major role playing in that, in actually bringing that about, what is the conclusion for the rest of the world, especially in a post-Iraq environment, is that we're belligerents, that we're opposition to peace, that we don't care about peace. And that was something that we worked so hard after the first World War II order to establish that as a given, and sure, Vietnam was bad, but during basically that entire period, it was a given that any international settlement would be Washington-led.

And now that's breaking apart, and it's just even more of a sign of multipolarity. Absolutely. All right, let's go to Nord Stream. This is just one of the most laughable things that you are ever going to read. And I'm with a straight face going to attempt to show you what the new intelligence is showing you around the Nord Stream pipeline bottom. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Investigators are skeptical of a yacht's role in the Nord Stream Pipeline bombing. Oh, really?

Officials believe more than one vessel might have been involved in sabotaging the natural gas pipeline and wonder if a 50-foot sailing yacht that investigators have scoured for clues could be a decoy. Yeah, you think? Officials hope that the true purpose of this quote-unquote deep sea demolition

will provide further insight into high-stakes international whodunit who could eventually lead to who is responsible and explain their motives. U.S. and European officials said they still don't know for sure who is behind the underwater attack, but several said that they shared German skepticism that a crew of six on a sailboat laid out hundreds of pounds of explosives that disabled the Nord Stream pipeline. Experts noted, while it was theoretically possible to do that pipeline by hand, even skilled divers would be challenged, submerging more than 200 feet to the seabed, slowly rising

to the surface to allow time for their bodies to decompress. In other words, this was a professional job that basically only a nation state could do. And the idea that some Ukrainian Rotary Club that happened to, you know, acquire this 50 foot sailing boat and just row it on out there by themselves, by their own gumption, and then, you know, professionally dove down 200 feet and then stuck a bunch of C4 all on this controlled demolition with military-grade explosives, just seems a little bit skeptical.

My personal favorite quote from the entire thing, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, is this, and I'm going to read it in full. At the gatherings of European and NATO policymakers, officials have settled into a rhythm. Don't talk about Nord Stream. Leaders see little benefit from digging too deeply and finding an uncomfortable answer, echoing sentiments of several peers in other countries who said they would rather not have to deal with the possibility that Ukraine or allies were involved.

Interesting. Or allies. I think that's the first time that we've ever seen that. And that just opens up the entire discussion as to how all of this is playing out. I mean, originally, you know, nobody knew either way. Of course, there were suspicions on both sides. And you had the crazy tweet there from the Polish MP who said, thank you, USA, for breaking, blowing up the pipeline before he then deleted it. But yeah, I didn't want to speak declaratively or any of that, despite suspicions. Then, though, the New York Times, through the CIA leaks, comes out and is like, no, no, no, it was the Ukrainians.

Like, the Ukrainians are the ones who did it. We see Ukrainian hand. By the way, Zelensky didn't have anything to do with it, so don't worry about that. It was just like a bunch of rogue, private Ukrainians who happened to do this. But then, obviously, everyone was like, well, how did the Ukrainians who happen to do this. But then obviously everyone was like, well, how did the Ukrainians have this technology? Like how do they have the, you know, the logistics, the wherewithal to pull off an operation like this? And so increasingly these European allies are like, yeah, we just don't really want to know who blew up the pipeline, which is actually crazy

because at the time they considered it one of the most significant acts outside of the conflict and thought it was a genuine act of war by the Russians with fears that it would spiral into a global conflict. But now, even though, per their words, they thought it was threatening the global order and their own energy supply and all that, they're like, nah, now we have no interest. Let's just move on. Let's just move on. They actually had another piece in here. They said, it's like a corpse at a family gathering, this European diplomat said. Everyone can see there's a body lying there, but pretends things are normal. It's better not to know. Okay. I mean, it is amazing. And it is also amazing how

pathetic that explanation they tried to run in the New York Times of like, oh, it's a little, this little like dinky yacht and a group of Ukrainian-affiliated partisans, but not affiliated with the government, just the Ukrainian Rotary Club operating on their own, was such obvious bullshit that even the mainstream press had to acknowledge that this seems utterly preposterous. But, of course, they won't give any credence to the reporting from Seymour Hersh. Yes. You know, with all the details about what, you know, what his sources suggest actually happened with regards to the U.S. potentially being involved in blowing this thing up. It really is beyond parody. And it is important to underscore this is an act of international terror. I mean, they were not wrong in the initial assessment that this is a gigantic deal, that it is an act of war, that is a dramatic escalation. But now that it

looks increasingly clear and sort of undeniable that it was Ukraine or their allies, quote unquote, now they're like, well, maybe it wasn't such a big deal and we should just not talk about it. It's a joke. Amazing. Yeah, the ongoing investigation apparently is dead. So I guess we'll never know who blew up the North Sea. All right, let's go to the next part here. Some significant news also that happened just a couple of days ago. April 4th, let's go and put this up there on the screen.

The official release from NATO. Finland has now officially become NATO's newest member as of April 4th, 2023, where the flag of Finland was raised upon the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance's office in Brussels, where they signed the Finland Ascension Protocol on July 5th of 2022, after all 30 national parliaments voted to ratify the country's membership. So currently Sweden is also working its way through the process. I believe they had to strike some deal with Erdogan and with Turkey around the PKK in order to do so. It's amusing also, interestingly, right? Turkey, the only nation in NATO that was like, listen, yeah, sure, we'll give it to you, but you actually have to give something to us. It's amazing, once again, that other countries look at things in quid pro quos.

We are effectively embracing and extending the U.S. nuclear umbrella to Finland, a nation which we never had a security guarantee with ever before, with 800 miles of now new NATO border with Russia. And there was not one debate or consternation in this country about doing so. This is a monumentally strategic decision. You can look at it and not say that it hasn't dramatically changed the face of Europe. Now, if you in the comments want to comment about why you're willing to go die for the fate of Helsinki, you know, you can be my guest. However, Russia has now responded. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Russia says, Finland's NATO ascension is a dangerous and historic mistake. Russia said on Tuesday that the ascension to NATO's military alliance was a historic

mistake that would weaken security in the wider region, increase the risk of conflict and force Moscow to take countermeasures. That's basically the most fulsome comments that they've made on it so far. They even had some pro-Kremlin activists, apparently, in Moscow. But with anti-NATO demonstrations, who knows if that's true or not. But look, from a broader strategic point of view,

let's say you believe the Russians on their face. They said that the reason that they were invading Ukraine was because Ukraine was getting too close to NATO and to prevent any sort of ascension. So then the West was like, well, to make sure that this never happens again, we should then induct new countries into NATO because Russia said that NATO

was getting too close to its borders, so we're getting even closer to their border. Now, I can already hear the screeches about how it would be appeasement not to let Finland and Sweden into NATO. I mean, I didn't say that you wouldn't help them if they got into a conflict. I just said, hey, you know, if you're in NATO, now we're basically blood brothers and we have to go to nuclear war on your behalf. That seems kind of concerning. I'm just wondering exactly what you

bring to the alliance. Finland and Sweden, two countries which are massive welfare states with less than 2% national spending on GDP for literally for years. What are you doing for us? I would be apparently a trader and a pro-Kremlin activist to be asking these types of questions, which I would just remind everyone. There's a great book called The Wise Men about the people who built the post-Cold War, or the post-war 1945 international order. These were, as the title alludes to, the wise men who went through the horrors of the Cold War and of the Second World War and watched 55 million people

die and decided to be cold-blooded strategic analysts to try and forge a path through the Cold War in which the world would not be annihilated through nuclear war. One of those men was George Kennan and George Kennan, who we have spoken repeatedly about here on the show and I did an entire monologue about some of his private thoughts about NATO expansion and others, warned repeatedly about expanding NATO eastward, specifically to avoid some nightmare scenario like this one. Now, again, I want to represent the counter view. The counter view is that U.S. security guarantees to Finland and to Sweden

guarantees that those nations never will be invaded because the cost would be so high to the Russians and extends broader peace and security throughout the European continent. And maybe you're right, but the problem that I always come back to is if you're wrong, now we are literally going to nuke Russia on behalf of the fate of Helsinki. And, you know, I've said this before, Helsinki, I've been there. It's fine. It's a nice place. That said, though, just looking at it, as I alluded to earlier in our show, cold, hard balance sheet, trade with Finland. What is Finland bringing to us? What exactly are we

getting out of this? I don't see it. I don't see why we should annihilate our entire country for Helsinki or for Stockholm. Once again, they're nice places, but I don't know why their fate literally matters to us here at all. Nobody can answer that question. Yeah, I think you lay that out all very well. There's just two pieces that I would add. Number one, we made a mistake in the past by not listening to our adversaries and what they were saying and taking serious what they were saying. Now, Russia is responsible for the invasion. It's their fault. It's illegal, 100%, all of that stuff. However, there is no doubt that our actions in expanding NATO eastward after basically saying that we wouldn't and over and above the vociferous objections of Russia that we sort of just swatted aside as bluster and

nonsense and big talk but no action, clearly that helped provide a justification in terms of Russia's view for this war, illegal war that they launched in Ukraine. So that's number one. We never learn the mistake of you actually have to listen to your adversaries and take seriously what they're saying. The other thing that I would say here is, you know, I think in a sense, and we've been talking a lot about China and how they're viewing this conflict and how in certain ways they have really benefited from this conflict. It really has forced into view what was probably already there, which is a new multipolar reality. I think this war has been a disaster, though, for Russia because the last thing they wanted was a NATO expansion. And so even as I obviously share your concerns about what this means for us as well, they are very, very unhappy with this. And it's the polar opposite of the result that they would have wanted to see in terms of prosecuting this war. So those are the only two pieces that I would add.

You should add. I mean, look, I think it should be given. Obviously, it's been a disaster for them. This is one of the dumbest things that they've ever done. They've wasted probably hundreds of billions of rubles on them. They've crippled their economy. They've, you know, become pariahs in the eyes of the world. They've increased defense spending in Germany and France, which is literally a miracle because there were some cheap asses over there. And, you know, it hasn't worked out well for them. And no matter what, decades from now, it won't. The real question

now is what do you do about it? You're like, do you want to keep kicking them when they're down and assume that they'll always be down? You could think that. That's basically what we did throughout the 1990s and the 2000s. We said, look at this country. It's a joke. They just lost half their territory through the USSR.

They're economically in the middle of a nightmare during all know, during all this, during the transition from communism to free market capitalism, they're basically got gangster oligarchs running their country. What are they going to do if we expand NATO into Estonia and Finland? Fast forward 22 years and you find out. So that's one of those where, look, this is irrevocable. You can't take it back. It's not a temporary action. I can tell you right now, there were only like four people in 1998, whenever all this was being considered in the US public sphere that were like, hey, you may want to think twice about this. One of them was George Kennan, the guy who warned and built the post-World Cold War order and literally the father of the containment strategy.

And he said, there may come a time when Moscow, like they have been encircled and that they may retaliate out as a result of that. This is not a justification. Yeah. It's only to say Russia is going to exist. You know, unless you are the most online NAFO person in the world, Russia is not just going to die anytime soon. And so you should assume it will probably be around in some form in the next 25 years. You should also assume that Putin is not just the expression of who he is, but is expressing a longstanding tradition, frankly, in terms of how Russian leaders view their security situation.

So even if he is dead 25 years from now, where is the guarantee that the future leader will have learned anything or isn't even more hawkish and warlike than Vladimir Putin. Right. Are you setting the table for a future peace or are you setting the table for what the next conflict is going to look like? And very much my fear with the further expansion of NATO is that we are just setting ourselves up for further conflict in the future. Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about what we just learned in

terms of 2024 politics. Everybody is sending in their big fundraising numbers for the first quarter. Nikki Haley is bragging about the number that she was able to post. Let's go and put this up on the screen. Apparently, she announced she raised more than $11 million in the six weeks since she announced. This person indicates that for comparison, the Trump campaign says he raised upwards of 10 million just since the news of his formal indictment broke on Thursday. So it does take a little bit of the wind down in the sales, but nevertheless, $11 million is a significant sum. I crunched the numbers. Her average donation is something like $156 a person, comes from 70,000 donations, and a number of them, she says, are $200 or less. So they're very excited about this.

But, you know, Sagra and I look at it. I mean, first of all, I don't know that I ever doubted Nikki Haley would have big money behind her. That's her whole reason for existing. That's the only reason why she's in the political landscape at all is because she is sort of like Kamala Harris figure that the donor class loves, even as there's very little public appetite for her. That's number one. And number two, at the presidential level, money becomes so much less relevant when you have Donald Trump in the race and he literally gets millions, tens of millions of dollars in free airtime and publicity every single day. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it this way too, like, you know, Trump was outspent almost 10 to

one in the 2016 campaign and he won. He actually reached spending parity or ish in 2020 and he lost. So it's not like money actually matters all that much, you know, and also at this level. When it comes to Trump and presidential level. When it comes to Trump and the presidential level, I just don't think money is the big deciding factor here. I think it's cope basically on everyone's part. Now it's certainly, obviously it does matter, but to what level, nobody can really tell you that. And just by and large, like insurgent campaigns have won before, you know, very well money campaigns have lost. If anything, there's a lot of good evidence on the Trump side that anytime he's hamstrung by a real professional organization, it actually doesn't work out as well

for him. And he's better in a freer and a loose environment. And, you know, Jeb Bush had a hundred million dollars. Like how did that work? He came in fifth place. So like, there's also no evidence that vis-a-vis Trump, that running all these negative ads and trying to work against him, even with all the money in the world, is going to do a damn thing. So, you know, okay, congratulations, Nikki Haley. I guess, you know, you can buy more. Scott Walker, remember that? I mean, the guy had $30, $40 million in the bank. Didn't do anything. I mean, the problem for Nikki Haley is the same problem that Hillary Clinton had, which is you can have all the money in the world, but if you're selling a product that nobody wants, it doesn't really make a big difference. We also got some numbers from Ron DeSantis' affiliated Super PAC. Let's put this up on

the screen. His PAC is called Never Back Down. And the committee raised $30 million in fundraising since the Super PAC launched back on March 9th. So, you know, basically in a month's time. They said the money was raised rather than transferred from other committees and half of the contributions came from donors outside of Florida. So also certainly plenty of money behind the Ron DeSantis hope. Right. Yeah. I mean, $30 million, once again, it sounds like a lot of money. That's actually only one third of what Jeb Bush had raised before he eventually even declared in it. And where is the evidence that money is what's – where is the evidence that – what can money buy you? Name ID and advertising.

Is that really DeSantis' problem here? Or is it that people like Trump more than him or may not even like him in the GOP primary, that they feel that Trump is under threat and they need to stand with him over this. No money in the world is going to fix that. And as you just said, Trump probably just got a billion dollars in free media just in the last week from the coverage that he received in terms of his arrest. You can't outspend that. I'm sorry.

You can't compete with the amount of, you know, unpaid media that Trump is able to garner just every single day, because obviously the more that the liberal networks hate him, the better it is for him. And Fox News, which really was trying to turn the page on Trump and really do their Ron DeSantis boosting, you know, they're backed into a corner where they can't help but go all in on Trump coverage as well, because as I think was revealed in the Dominion lawsuit, like they just don't have control over their audience to force something different on them. They have to go with the flow of where the Republican base is at right now. And again, even as you know, these are impressive fundraising numbers, it's not like Trump isn't also raising a lot of money. Let's put this up on the screen.

Apparently, he has raked in $10 million from supporters since a Manhattan grand jury indicted him. They collected roughly $2 million on Tuesday alone as Trump was being arraigned in a New York courtroom. And as part of that fundraising campaign, they actually are selling a t-shirt with a fake Trump mugshot on it to show you how much they see the indictment here and potential ones in the future as a boon for him, at least in the Republican primary. I think it's a different story in the general election. I always want to say that,

but pretty clear in the Republican primary. His polling numbers have just shot through the roof. He now is the clearly dominant figure in terms of Republican voters, in terms of media coverage. Like, good luck with all of your millions, other contenders getting any oxygen and airtime in this race at this point. Yeah, I think it's fascinating, you know, just continually breaking it down and just looking at the way that Trump is able to dominate all of this, like $10 million in a single week is, again, it's not about the money. It's just about the expression of love and of loyalty that he is willing to garner from millions of small dollar donors that just don't exist for any other Republican candidate.

And that's just something that he will always be able to tap over and over and over again that none of these other candidates actually have. It's a huge strategic advantage on his behalf. Yeah. And also, I mean, he's been building these lists for a lot of years now. Now, I do think they have gone back to the well of these lists. I mean, he is very abusive in terms of the amount of fundraising emails that he sends out. And it has really taken away other Republican candidates in Senate primaries and whatever have really complained about the way that the whole Republican base is like tapped out because the Trump operation is just constantly like clawing whatever scraps of dollars they can from this fundraising base.

But you know, nevertheless, he has certainly built an extensive list. He certainly has a really dedicated, enthusiastic following. And, you know, the more that they see him as being under threat, the more that they are likely to give, the more the media covers him, the more Democrats salivate about what they think is great for them, with Donald Trump being a potential next Republican nominee once again. And, you know, just full service economy there for everybody involved. Yeah, absolutely. All right. A couple of media stories that we could not resist.

All right. You're going to enjoy this one. So Elon Musk has been in full troll mode recently, taking away the New York Times blue checkmark, which is legitimately funny. And now another move, which I also think is legitimately funny. Let's go and put this up on the screen. He marked NPR as U.S. state affiliated media on Twitter. You know, same designation that like RT or whatever would ultimately get. And so obviously there was a lot of debate about this and a lot of hand-wringing among liberals in particular.

How dare you? Now, just like I looked at the numbers, NPR does receive a significant portion, I think like 10 percent. Hold on. I've got it here. So this is where it's in dispute, and that's actually what we wanted to spend some time on. So they claim that they only get 1 percent or so of their operating budget from the federal government, or at the very least in taxpayer dollars. However, in several of their communications, they actually say that it would be impossible for them to actually, it would be impossible for them to operate without federal funding.

So the true figure is actually very unclear. But in their marketing dollars from what they have put out at least so far, they make it clear that federal appropriations, at least in some cases, are basically the only reason that they are allowed to exist on top of their overall donors. So Michael Tracy has been digging into this a lot. And so I have one of the things that he pulled up here. I mean, first of all, yes, in their communications, they said federal funding is essential to public radio service, the American public. And its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR. And then they offered a breakdown of where their funding comes from.

The plurality, 43 percent, according to their communications, comes from individuals. 8% comes from federal appropriation and 5% comes from federal, state, and local governments. So you're talking about 13% there coming from government entities. And look, by the way, I don't like, I'm actually fine with the government supporting nonprofit radio, PBS, whatever. I don't have an issue with it. But there has always been a level of not even arbitrariness but clear bias in how news outlets are labeled, whether they are dismissed as state propaganda or not, based on the relationship to like is is it an allied nations state propaganda network? Is it a U.S. state propaganda network? Or is it a, you know, official U.S. bad guy states state propaganda network?

And that's just not just on Twitter. That's on all kinds of places like things like Voice of America, which are truly or like the BBC, which are truly I mean, Voice of America is directly like American U.S. government propaganda. And that doesn't get the label on certain platforms where, of course, you know, RT, which also, you know, deserves the label and people should be aware of the biases inherent there, consistently does. So I'm not saying Elon is being even handed here.

Of course, he's not. He's being completely biased as well. And my bigger issue, I have complicated feelings about this because in some ways I'm like, maybe our lives would all be better if Twitter just did like die and go away. So I can't even say like I'm fully mourning it. behavior really demonstrates the total arbitrariness with which all of these platforms are really run and how much they are just subject to the whims of whoever happens to be in control. And I don't think it's a bad thing that that is exposed. So I see it as sort of silver lining, even as I find most of his decision making at Twitter to be a total disaster and the platform is already significantly degraded

and way less useful and way less of a decent user experience than it used to be and it already wasn't great. Yeah, I think you're absolutely correct. Nothing would convince you that NPR is not state media than the White House press secretary coming to their defense. Yeah, so social media companies make their own independent decisions about content rules,

so I won't comment on Twitter's rules. But what I will say more broadly, I'll say there's no doubt of the independence of NPR's journalists. And it has been, if you've ever been on the receiving end of their questions, you know this. You know that they have their independence in journalism. NPR journalists work digitally to hold public officials accountable and inform the American people. The hard-hitting independence nature of their coverage speaks for itself. Why does she have a prepared statement defending NPR is not state media when she's the government propagandist? That's nuts. That

actually convinces you the opposite. NPR's managing editor also put out a very upset statement. Let's put this up there on the screen. We were very disturbed to see last night Twitter has labeled NPR state media description that per our guidelines does not apply to NPR. NPR and member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for independent fact-based journalism that we provide. NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way. A vibrant, vigorous, free press is essential to the health of our democracy. But some of us didn't yet forget about a tweet sent in October of 2020. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen from the NPR public editor.

Why haven't you seen any stories from NPR about the New York Post Hunter Biden story? Read more in this newsletter. Here's the quote. We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories. We don't want to waste the listeners and readers time on stories that are just pure distractions. So how can the Biden administration claim with a straight face that they have faced tough questions from NPR when they were the most forward and out there, really, in leading the campaign to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story?

Like, you're a joke. You're not actually independent. You are 100% actually state-affiliated media with an obvious bias. And as you said, Crystal, you know what? It's just a joke that we all pretend that VOA, Radio Free Europe, and BBC and all these other also aren't. Yeah, they are. Good. You know, I guess just put the label on all of them. Yeah, just be consistent.

I mean, again, this isn't consistent. The problem for NPR is actually not that they receive funding from the government because it's not like their ideological disposition changed during the Trump years when they were getting funding from the Trump administration, right? ideological capture really by their audience base, where they, rather than really doing independent fact-finding or really surfacing stories that are stories in their own words, they're serving their audience, which is overwhelmingly affluent, educated liberals. And so they are putting out the content through the ideological lens that serves that audience base. Same thing New York Times is doing. Same thing CNN is doing. Same thing MSNBC is doing. So yes, they get funding from the government, but the real issue with them in terms of any, you know, their reporting failures in particular on the Hunter Biden issue

is more about sort of ideological audience capture and playing to what, where they see their primary revenue coming from their, you know, ideologically not diverse base. That's where I think they get into trouble in the same way as many other news organizations. I think you're correct. The entire thing just reveals like how much of a farce really that, that they handle themselves. And yeah, look, the freak out is delicious. It's enjoyable. And to the extent that I'm enjoying the chaos, even though my own personal Twitter experience has become far worse, this is definitely why. Yeah, for sure. Um, speaking of other, uh, liberal media outlets with issues, uh, we have covered here, you know, Don Lemon's comments about, you know, when women are in their prime and the obvious hatred that his female co-hosts have for him on their new failing morning show.

Variety has a new in-depth report about a long track record of alleged behavior from Mr. Lemon within the network that has been really, according to their reporting, again, quite outrageous. I mean, some of the tactics. It's psychotic. That he is used to bully and intimidate his colleagues across the board is quite disturbing. Let's go and put this up on the screen. Daily Beast had a write up of the reporting that, again, originated in Variety. The headline here is Don Lemon's history of alleged misogyny and diva like behavior detailed in a new report. I will give you some of the lowlights here. One in particular is he was upset that one of his colleagues, I think, got sent to Iraq,

had like some, you know, plum prominent position. This was back a while ago, like 2008. He got a burner phone and started sending this colleague these threatening messages through the burner phone. Things like, now you've crossed the line and you're going to pay for it. What? CNN did an internal human resources investigation, and they traced those texts back to Don Lemon. Now, in any sane workplace, that sort of, like, truly psychotic behavior would certainly get you fired, but not for Don Lemon. He was pulled from his co-anchor duties with this female co-host. He was just moved to the weekends. So pushed to the weekends, demoted, but not removed from the organization. They also say that those who worked with him say he was a, quote, shameless name dropper, left behind hints

that he socialized with important people like a handwritten note from Stedman Graham that he had taped on his computer. Some were also unnerved by his talk of previous lawsuits, believing it signaled he was litigious. He frequently let drop that he successfully sued Tower Records as well as the Chicago PD for racial profiling and didn't need to worry about money thanks to the settlements. Called one of his producers fat to her face, he mocked Nancy Grace on air. He apparently was particularly prickly about any other host getting, you know,

prominent, any sort of prominent hosting gigs with regard to issues like Black American-focused issues. So Soledad O'Brien landed the gig of hosting CNN's Black in America docuseries. And during an editorial call attended by roughly 30 staffers, he suggested O'Brien was not actually black, according to two witnesses who found the characterization wildly offensive. He made some nasty comments about S.E. Cupp having, like, mommy brain on air.

It just goes on and on with this type of bullying, gross behavior. And, you know, and some of it certainly verges on like, you know, sexual harassment. Now, Don Lemon is a gay man. So this really isn't about sex in any way. It's just about power. With these sorts of comments and behavior from these individuals who think they are above it all and won't face any consequences, which, by the way, he has not, they do this sort of stuff just to prove to you that they can and that they can get away with it and that you're smaller than them and you just have to take whatever they're going to dish out. And that, to me, is the pattern of behavior that really shows up here. That's what they did. I mean, they elevated him over and over again.

He's only been promoted and made one of the major faces of the network. And to your point about the whole power dynamic, they literally had a rule that you're not allowed to date anybody in the office. And he started dating one of his producers who was 20 years his junior, literally showing up at the office and riding to the car in the same time just to show everyone that he's like,

the rules don't apply to me. He would flaunt it in front of everyone. The text though, that's gotta be one of the craziest things I've ever heard. Right? Like you go and you buy, this was also 15 years ago. So remember guys though, that's gotta be one of the craziest things I've ever heard. Right? Like, you go and you buy, this was also 15 years ago, so remember, guys, like, it's not like that easy

to just go get, there were no apps at that time that you could just download a number or whatever for a fake thing. You had to go to a store. You had to go and get a phone. You had to go to, like, a 7-Eleven. You had to buy a burner phone

that, like, drug dealers use. You had to get a card. You had to set this thing up. You had to put her phone number in, and then you had to text from that phone drug dealers use. You had to get a card. You had to set this thing up. You had to put her phone number in. And then you had to text from that phone to that person. That is strong, cold, crazy. Like what is going on? And then they do an investigation.

Apparently he's so dumb that he's able to trace it back to him too. The only guy who ever had a burner phone. Fair enough. And they're like, yeah, it was you. And then they don't do a damn thing about it. Just move into the weekends. It's totally crazy.

Like, the way that he behaves, as you said, he's obvious, like, one of the most narcissistic individuals on all of television. And it's an indictment for all of the preening

and, you know, liberal Me Too coverage that they claim to stand for over there. This guy obviously should have been fired over 15, 16 years ago. Think of how demoralizing this for everyone. Oh, it must be tough. I can't imagine. Everyone who has to come in contact with him.

Right. And by the way, whenever you see these sort of stories appear, which clearly they had a number of sources for and tons of stories going back years, it is once again a sign that everyone who has to work with you hates your guts and they are looking for any chance that they have to try to stick the knife in. I was reminded of the shitty men in media list, which of course was like slanderous. And recently, actually, they just had to settle that case.

But the reason it took off is because there is a lot of truth to the number of, I wouldn't say just shitty men, but shitty people in media who rise to the top, not because they're talented, not because it's some like meritocracy or whatever, but because of the gross tactics, psychopathic behavior, bullying power games that they are willing to play and know how to play. That's how a lot of these people rise to the top. And that was what really came out for me from reading this piece. And, you know, by the way, I know some people at CNN and who confirmed much of this, you know, to me privately that, oh, yeah, this is exactly how he's known as this bullying, abrasive diva who, you know, thinks that he's completely untouchable and has been right about that, by the way.

Yeah. No, I mean, look, it's crazy. I feel bad for anybody who has to work with him. Although I don't have too much sympathy because they actually signed up for it and everybody knows that he's a monster. The low-level, like, producers. Oh, yeah, no, no. They're just trying to get their foot in the door

and they're subjected to this psycho dude. That must be really tough. Working with somebody like that, I genuinely can't imagine. So, thoughts and prayers for anybody who has to come into contact with Donovan. Indeed. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, on January 6th, a Proud Boy member named Aaron pushed his way towards the Capitol,

breaching a barricade and holding it open for other rioters to more easily enter the building. At some point, however, he paused and sent the following message to his FBI handler. Quote, barriers down at Capitol building, crowd surged forward about to reach the building. Now, Proud Boys did not do it nor inspire. Now, Aaron is one of quite a number of FBI informants who we now know were working inside the right-wing groups that have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with those January 6 attacks. The FBI had men inside the Proud Boys and inside the Oath Keepers. The founder of the Proud Boys himself had been a Fed informant. So if the FBI had paid informants with a front row seat to January 6th plotting, how the hell did law enforcement fail so dramatically on that day?

Caught seemingly with their pants down as a bunch of MAGA and QAnon nutjobs stormed the Capitol. Now, right-wing commentators have suggested this wasn't actually a failure, but rather a plot by the deep state to make Trump supporters look bad. But new evidence that has emerged as part of the Proud Boys trial reveals a much simpler explanation. Law enforcement failed to disrupt the attack or secure the Capitol due to run-of-the-mill human failings of incompetence and ideological blindness, fueled by a Trump administration that was obsessed with Antifa and other left-wing groups. Now, Aaron and every other FBI informant associated with the Proud Boys, and there were a lot of them, tell basically the same story. The feds had actually no interest in the Proud Boys, only in their left-wing nemesis, Antifa. According to the Washington Post, quote, the evidence shown in court indicates that many of the FBI sources inside the Proud Boys were asked only about their ideological opponents on

the left, even as that right-wing group was implicated in threats and violence at protests across the United States. Aaron himself testified that before January 6th, the FBI never asked him to look for information about the Proud Boys. When he informed his handler he was going to D.C. for the protest, he was asked only to try to see if I could locate someone in D.C. that had nothing to do with the Proud Boys, he testified. So even as he is telling the feds he's going to D.C. for January 6th protests, his fed handlers are not remotely curious about what the Proud Boys might be planning there. It appears the feds didn't ask any of their Proud Boys informants for Proud Boys info. Founder Enrique Tarrio was a fed informant on a health care fraud case a while back

and continued to engage the agency in the years to come. Another defendant, Joseph Biggs, admitted he had also been an FBI informant providing information on, quote, Antifa networks. Another right-wing activist, Jenny Lynn Salinas, was revealed to be a government informant just before taking the stand to defend Proud Boys founder Enrique Tarrio. She was so cozy with the group that she was providing extensive advice for Proud Boys members' legal defense, unbeknownst to her FBI handlers. Similar to the others, Salinas reportedly swore under oath that she was only providing info to the government on Antifa and the border,

not on the members of the violent group that she was apparently deeply enmeshed with. As the judge explained, quote, She wasn't tasked with reporting on Proud Boys. Her contacts with the defense camp are easily explained by her sympathy for the defendants. Another Fed informant was actually at a heavily scrutinized parking lot meeting between Proud Boys leader Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader Stuart Rhodes on the day before January 6th. So the Feds literally had a guy. What they contend was a key meeting the day before the attacks, still nothing. No action. Now, that particular informant was able to avoid testifying because of fears of incriminating himself. The whole situation was

really summed up quite well by yet another Proud Boy informant who said that, quote, they didn't want to know about the Proud Boys, they wanted to know about Antifa. With regards to January 6th, he indicated that the feds were radio silent, apart from asking in advance whether he was going and afterwards whether he committed any crimes. This fits with the picture of law enforcement failure that has emerged since January 6th because while the FBI may not have been getting tips from their Proud Boys sources who were only focused on a mostly fictional Antifa, they were getting hundreds of other tips from a variety of sources around the country. Among those many tips was actually an Oath Keeper member who

was so alarmed by the group's increasingly violent rhetoric, he secretly recorded a meeting provided to the FBI. Once again, FBI took no action on this or any other tip until after the fact, failing to disrupt the activities in advance, failing alongside every other law enforcement agency to provide adequate security on the day of the attacks. Their own ideological biases, combined with the Trump administration's obsession with the Antifa, blinded them to the possibility of violence that was literally right in front of them. So if they weren't disrupting actual plots, being hashed right under their noses with help from their own informants, what were they actually doing?

Well, journalist Trevor Aronson of the Alphabet Boys podcast provides one answer here. They were apparently using criminals to infiltrate Black Lives Matter protests in an attempt to entrap protest leaders, foment violence, and sow dissent in those groups. The Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot mess provides another answer.

They were also apparently helping to hatch high-profile plots that they could then swoop in and pretend to disrupt in a way that would be advantageous for a lot of law enforcement careers because it's so high profile. It's a lot of work, I guess, to invent kidnapping plots and entrap protesters with low-level gun charges. I suppose there just wasn't any time left over to notice and deal with any actual threats. This whole rotten system has got to be reformed root and branch. The failures, the blind spots, the lawlessness, innocents are entrapped, criminals are paid, fake plots

are invented, real plots are ignored. Instead, I guess, they'll just get another budget increase to spy more, fail more, and fund even more criminals. It is unreal when you every time And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Sog, what are you looking at? Well, the story of American internal migration patterns after World War II has actually been pretty basic. We used to be a rural country, especially before the Great Depression. Industrialization, the loss of family farming, the call to arms for World War II,

the development of full-blown market economy pushed us away from all of that. Americans moved only two directions towards the rural areas, and they fulfilled the dreams of our forefathers by going west. Concentration was everything. Black Americans were haunted by the legacy of Jim Crow, and the promise of industrialization up north moved in great numbers from 1910 to 1970. It was actually called the Great Migration at the time. It remains one of the most significant internal migration patterns in American history.

After that, though, the trends basically normalized. White and black Americans were concentrated around cities, be it in the Northeast, the Midwest, or the West. The city was the nexus of capital, of offices, and of leisure activity. Internal migration patterns suggested Americans were moving towards cities to either live within them or live near them in a suburb or an exurb. The trend almost never reversed and was bolstered by the housing boom floated by cheap credit up until 2008. Even with the wipeout of American household wealth in 2008, the trend didn't really

reverse. And if anything, before the pandemic, city life remained a major attraction for dynamism, job opportunity, and quality of life for the upwardly mobile. But then the pandemic struck. Something absolutely crazy happened. People said, you know what? I think I'm going to buck nearly a century of American internal migration history and move the other way. The Census Bureau is out with some stunning new data highlighting two straight years of massive change in American migration trends. In 2019, before the pandemic,

smaller counties with fewer than 30,000 people actually lost population. However, during the peak of the pandemic between 2020 and 2021, it flipped entirely. The least populous counties actually gained people for the first time in a long time. While this trend slowed, the life into rural areas is still going up today, with internal migration flows going positive. Even more interesting, the largest counties with populations of one million or more were losing people through domestic migration before the pandemic at a slow rate.

But the outflow exploded post-pandemic. This is the major story that so many people are missing right now. The South is booming in a reversal of nearly 100 years of history. Take a look at the map in front of you. The burnt orange areas of the map are those which saw the highest levels of domestic migration in the last year. What emerges is not just Texas and Florida, which are certainly doing well, but a huge concentration in the suburban American South. Zoom out of the South and you also see a major outflow from California all across Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, and even Midwestern concentration, places like Arkansas

and Missouri. Take states out of it though, and you look at it in terms of urban, suburban, and ex-urban. It's even more interesting. Across the entire country, people are leaving the urban core for the suburbs. Even in Florida, which is doing very well, Miami-Dade County is actually losing residents who are moving to more affordable parts of the state. Look at Texas, same story. People left the urban core of Houston and of Dallas for the suburban areas, and the Northeast trends actually are exactly the same.

People are abandoning in droves New York City, Washington, D.C., Boston, not just to move to other states, but to move to other areas nearby. Chicago, Denver, Seattle, Portland, same case. Nationwide trend. It's accelerating year after year, and it shows no signs of stopping. It will change the face of America and of our culture as we know it. Our pop culture and news still exist in a 1980s mindset, where New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco rule the world. And for a long time, they were the engines of economic growth, of power,

and the tastes of upper-middle-class professionals. Still, they reflect that. But compare it, though, to today, places where actual Americans are moving. It couldn't be more different. The top 10 metro areas which gained population 2020 and 2022 are as follows. Dallas, Texas, Houston, Texas, Phoenix, Arizona, Austin, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, Tampa, Florida, Charlotte, North Carolina, San Antonio, Texas, Orlando, Florida, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

You notice a trend there? We are becoming more and more spread out as a country and actually less geographically concentrated. The availability of high-speed internet across the United States a few years ago from now with technology like Starlink will only further change everything. The once-forgotten places of America, which haven't seen population growth since the mid-1830s, will significantly change in their ability to attract residents. Just think how many massive changes that's going to bring. Georgia already is no longer a red state. It's purple. Texas, too, seems to be moving in the purple-ish direction. Population growth in Arizona and outflows from the Midwest are changing the makeups of political parties.

They are changing the way our literal economy functions, the ground is shifting beneath our feet. Now you can try to fight it, but I don't really think you can. We're in it now, and we should embrace it. My major hope and takeaway is this, the center of gravity of culture is just being uprooted. Right now it's upwardly mobile people who are moving with their feet, but what we really need to do is to make this available to everyone. Choosing a new place to live, if you want to, is the ultimate expression of the American character.

And claiming the bounty of a beautiful land that we've been blessed with, shaking up the established institutions to create a new order, that's what the benefit is. The added also, though, is that new order with the existing centers of pop culture and power will significantly diminish. And like in the older great migrations, you get to claim a new destiny.

I think it's fascinating. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. As you know, if you watched our live stream on Tuesday night, there is a new mayor who has been elected in Chicago and quite an interesting race. So we wanted to get someone who was local who could really break down the unique dynamics here. So we're excited to be joined by Frank Calabrese. He is a local Chicago political consultant. Great to have you, Frank. Good to see you, man. Thanks for having me. dynamics of this race as I understand them as you have Paul Vallis who was backed by the police union and really ran on this like you know law and order tough on crime type of posture and then you had Brandon Johnson who's a middle school teacher and a labor activist who was backed by

a coalition of lefties backed by Bernie Sanders and he ends up actually prevailing which is a break from some of the dynamics we've seen in other cities, in particular New York, with the election of Mayor Eric Adams. So just give people a sort of general sense of the race and how Johnson was able to be successful here as a more left-wing candidate. So I would compare this race more to Los Angeles. What happened in Los Angeles is you had a wealthy white man who was a former Republican, and then you had more of a mainstream Democrat, Karen Bass, and Karen Bass won. So the Johnson campaign, they tried to cast Paul Vallis as essentially a Republican. He was supported by Republican donors. He appeared a lot on conservative talk radio. And what the results were is that the more wealthy areas of Chicago,

the more socially conservative areas of Chicago, the more socially conservative areas of Chicago where a lot of police and firefighters live, they voted for Paul Ballas in big numbers. But then a lot of the minority areas in Chicago and the more of the liberal activist areas of Chicago, kind of our local version of Williamsburg, you know, Logan Square and Rogers Park, they voted for Brandon Johnson in really big numbers. And Brandon Johnson won. Got it. So, Frank, a lot of people are interpreting this nationally about crime and all.

What are the actual issues that were before people in Chicago? What was Johnson talking about? What was Ballas talking about? Was it all about crime? Teachers, break it all down for us. So crime, according to all the polls, was the number one issue. However, it kind of meant different things for different people. So Brandon Johnson, he's a county commissioner. He was supporting defunding the police as a county commissioner. When he ran for mayor, he changed his tone.

He said he will not defund the police. And I think this election came down to just dynamics of, you know, who do you trust more to handle the crime issue? So Paul Bells, he kind of ran as a lock him up, throw away the key type of tough on crime. And then, you know, Brandon Johnson ran as more of a holistic kind of, you know, your progressive approach to treat crime, you know, look at the root cause of crime. So both campaigns ran on crime, but the more mainstream Democratic progressive version of that, which is kind of a more holistic approach to crime, that won the day with city Chicago voters. Let's take a listen to a little bit of Brandon Johnson. I believe this is part of his victory speech, just so folks can get a bit of a sense of him. Let's take a listen to that.

Make no mistake about it. Chicago is a union town by investing in what actually works to prevent crime. And that means youth employment, mental health centers, ensuring that law enforcement has the resources to solve and prevent crime. A city that actually respects the workers who keep it running and supports the entrepreneurs that keep it growing. A city where trains run on time and where no one is too poor to live in one of the richest cities in one of the wealthiest nations at the richest time in the history of the world. A city where public schools have the resources to meet the needs of every child across this city. Now, in other words, tonight is the beginning of a Chicago that truly

invests in all of its people. So, Frank, you can really hear the way that he framed his public safety messaging, and it is sounding some sort of classic progressive themes. I know that the numbers I saw, he won something like 80% of the black vote in the city. Working class black voters are actually an area where progressives have sometimes struggled. Do you see his messaging as being key to putting together this winning coalition? Is this something that you think progressives could look to replicate in other cities? Or are there unique dynamics here in Chicago, which really just have to do with the particulars of these communities and this particular political race? Yeah, I think you have to look at Chicago. Again, it's a two-person race.

And Paul Vallis, again, it's a majority-minority city. It's a very liberal city, Chicago is. And Paul Vallis, he had a high floor and a low ceiling. He essentially was branded as a Republican, and he had trouble hitting 50%. It's really crazy because all the polls was having him like a 48 percent. And that's probably where he's going to finish. He was not able to grow his coalition. So I'm not too sure that, you know, a progressive in the brand of Brandon Johnson could win in New York, per se, which historically, you know, votes for more moderate type of mayors, you know, people like Bloomberg and now, you know, Eric Adams. So, yeah, I think you have to look at Chicago. You have to look at both the

candidates and how Paul Vallis was kind of a flawed candidate for a big liberal city. Yep. Another question I had for you, Frank, is did abortion politics play here at all? They were obviously quite significant in a Wisconsin state Supreme Court race that we covered here at Breaking Points, too. It was really, you know, potentially the determinative factor in the more liberal candidate, just absolutely romping in that race. But I had read that Vallis had made some previous comments that were oppositional to abortion and that Brandon Johnson also used those against him. Do you think that abortion politics played in this at all? Was it a significant factor, even as we understand crime was kind of the main focus? So when it comes to Chicago politics,

you look at local aldermen, the city council members, we call them aldermen here. They really run on kind of bread and butter type issues. they run on crime, they run on quality of life, you know, they run on taking the trash out. When people vote for mayor and local officials, I really don't think they vote on abortion politics or more national politics. You know, abortion was talked about in this campaign, but it wasn't really highlighted like you see in like the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, where obviously the Supreme Court Wisconsin, they're going to be dealing with abortion directly. In Chicago, you know, abortion, you know, it's going to be as safe and accessible, you know, at least in my lifetime, it's a very liberal city. So it wasn't as talked about as

much. Yeah. Yeah. Perhaps just used as a way, again, to sort of paint him as like, this guy's not really one of us. He's really a Republican. Frank, tell people where people where folks can find you on Twitter, because that's where we found you and found your analysis really useful. Oh, thanks a lot. Yeah. So it's just my name. It's at Frank Calabrese. I do a lot of politics in Chicago. And, you know, I wasn't I work for the government now. So I wasn't on the side. So the media, they used me a lot kind of politics in Chicago. And, you know, I wasn't, I work for the government now, so I wasn't on the side. So the media, they used me a lot

kind of for my analysis. So it was a lot of fun. I was on, you know, I got to be on TV a lot. Nice. Congratulations. Only locally in Chicago, but it was a lot of fun.

Now we're bringing you. Now you're national. Making you national. Taking a national. Frank, great to have you. Thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks, man. Great job.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Yeah, our pleasure. Appreciate you. Thank you guys so much for watching. Really appreciate it. The shout out to all the premium subscribers watching our show on Spotify.

You guys are loving it. And also still, you know, the existing show on YouTube, everybody. Thank you all for supporting our show, enabling our live stream that we had. It was a great time. We've still got a great counterpoint show for everybody tomorrow

to bring everybody up to date on the news for Friday. So you basically had something every single day this week, which I think is really cool here for Breaking Points. We appreciate everybody who enables our work, and we will see you all next week. Love y'all. Have a great weekend. This is your girl T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I've got the voice. My podcast, the one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers.

Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show? My next ex. That's actually cute, though. And Chaperone. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce.

I'm going right on the phone and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. This is an iHeart Podcast.