Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/9/24: Trump Attacked On Abortion Stance, The Rock Refuses Biden Endorsement, RFK Staffer Says Goal Is Help Trump, Young Billionaires All Nepo Babies, Blackstone Housing Takeover, Amazon Fake AI Grocery Store, Jesse Watters Hates $20 Fast Food Wage, Bibi Vows Rafah Invasion, Bibi Begs For WW3 With Iran Strike

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump attacked by pro-life groups after abortion comments, The Rock refuses to endorse Biden, RFK staffer says goal is to help Trump, every new young billionaire is a nepo baby, Blackstone $10 billion housing takeover, Amazon admits AI grocery store was fake, Jesse Watters furious over $20 wage, Bibi vows Rafah invasion incoming, Elizabeth Warren says Israel committing genocide, Bibi Iran strike is begging for WW3.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. A lot of interesting stories to dig into this morning. So Trump making some very noteworthy comments on abortion that Republicans, Democrats,

a lot of response to that one. Joe Biden already out with an ad on abortion that Republicans, Democrats, a lot of response to that one. Joe Biden already out with an ad on abortion that we want to share with you as well. The Rock is saying that he regrets endorsing Joe Biden last time around, and he will not be repeating that what he describes as a mistake this time. So kind of interesting there. Some very noteworthy comments from an RFK Jr. state director, his state director of New York, saying basically, vote for RFK Jr. in order to elect Trump. So bringing those comments and also the RFK Jr. campaign's response to what she is saying there. For the first time in 30 years, according to Forbes magazine,

none of the young new billionaires on the list are actually self-made. What does that say about us, about our economy, about our society, about the future? Investors, meanwhile, are taking over even more of the real estate market. Always important to track that. Amazon is killing their just-walk-out stores. Turns out the technology never worked. It was kind of a farce, the whole thing. So we'll break that down for you. Netanyahu is announcing a date for that Rafah invasion. We also have some updates on what's going on with the ceasefire talks. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren is saying that there is more than sufficient evidence to find that Israel is committing

genocide in Gaza. Obviously, that is very significant. And Dr. Trita Parsi is going to be here to look at how Iran might respond to that Israeli attack on their consular building. So a lot that's going on this morning. Yes, that's right. Before we get to that, we do have big things coming. I'm going to keep it short this time. It's coming. If you want to be the first to hear about it, BreakingPoints.com.

You can become a premium subscriber. You can help support our work as well as some other major plans that we have for the coming election season. We really appreciate you. But as Crystal said, we're going to go ahead and start with abortion. So Trump had quite a bit of a dust up yesterday, releasing some new comments, although not particularly all that new, for what his abortion policy would be if he were elected president. Here's what he had to say. Under my leadership, the Republican Party will always support the creation of strong, thriving, and healthy American families.

We want to make it easier for mothers and families to have babies, not harder. That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every state in America. Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, including the vast majority of Republicans, conservatives, Christians, and pro-life Americans, I strongly support the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby. What could be more beautiful or better than that? Many people have asked me what my position is on abortion and abortion rights, especially since I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of something that all legal scholars,

both sides, wanted and, in fact, demanded be ended. Roe v. Wade. My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land, in this case, the law of the state, the law of the state. So a couple of very noteworthy things there politically. Number one, I'm very pro of IVF. We want babies

of the Alabama law. Number two is there has been significant pressure from Lindsey Graham and other lawmakers, which we're about to get to, for Trump to embrace some sort of national ban. Previously, he privately had told some advisors that he may embrace a 16-week ban. But Crystal, as you always talk about here on the show, the polling has actually moved significantly away from that towards the Roe consensus. And yet, hilariously enough, this statement, which I would say is the national pro-life discourse and has been for decades now, just leave it to the states. That's why I want to get rid of Roe versus Wade, was enough to then invite an attack from the largest pro-life organization here in the United States, the Susan B. Anthony List. Let's go and

put this up there on the screen. The pro-life president of Marjorie Danfelser, she says this, quote, we are deeply disappointed in President Trump's position. Unborn children and their mother deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry. Dobbs clearly allows both states and Congress to act, saying the decision is back to the states, cedes the national debate to the Democrats, who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If successful, they will wipe out states' rights.

So a bit tortured and confused logic here. We went from, again, I just want to reiterate, leave it to the states is the pro-life mainstream position articulated by basically every Republican nominee I just want to reiterate, leave it to the states is the pro-life mainstream position articulated by basically every Republican nominee since 1972. And then Trump comes out and says it despite having ended Roe versus Wade. And now the pro-life groups say, oh, actually that's not enough. And really what do they want? They want a straight up national ban on abortion, which is stunning, Crystal, because A, they were obviously lying to us the entire time

that this was actually in the discourse pre Roe versus Wade, but they're not giving up. I mean, they are pushing this to the hilt regardless of how unpopular it is. Yeah, so just to reflect a little bit on the Trump statement. A clear attempt to try to please everyone. You know, there was a little bit of red meat thrown in there for the pro-life crowd, painting Democrats as extremists on the issue, you know, making up things about,

oh, they'd even after the baby's born, kill the baby. So there was that. There was, you know, clearly he can read a poll on IVF. So he wants to put out there upfront, oh, we got to protect IVF, which presumably would come from the national level. But, you know, Republicans in Congress have blocked any attempts

to actually protect IVF at the national level. And he doesn't go so far as to say he would do that. Somewhat contradictory to that is the idea we should leave it all to the states. But then again, he doesn't actually close the door on any sort of a national abortion ban. What he says is more descriptive, like Roe versus Wade was overturned and now it goes to the states. It was more descriptive of what had actually happened versus really affirming what his position on the issue is. To me, it's just really clear. This has always been,

he's been all over the place on abortion since he entered into the public eye. Before he was running for president, he was, and we'll show you the timeline of his evolution on the issue, I guess. He was described himself as very pro-choice. It was clear when he was running back in 2016 that he was really unfamiliar

with the contours of the debate with where he should position himself if he was now going to stake out this new pro-life position. We've had tons of reporting about how he instantly knew once Dobbs came down, even though he was the reason that Dobbs did come down, he instantly knew this was going to be a big problem for Republicans. And so he's really kind of trying to search for a message that's going to work for him and work for Republicans. And frankly, I've said this before, I just don't think there is one. I don't think that it's a box you can message your way out of because the reality is so jarring and so stark

to people. So it's not like you can have this theoretical philosophical debate. That was the land the issue was in before Roe versus Wade was overturned. And so now it's my sense that the best thing that Donald Trump could do on abortion is just to try to sideline it, to try to talk about it as little as possible. Because the more you're talking about this issue, this is the one issue where Democrats have a very clear advantage over Donald Trump and over Republicans in general. So the more that you are talking about this, the more that the landscape is and the political landscape is defined by abortion, the worse off you're going to be politically, kind of no matter what you say at this point. I think this is the best he could do, and it's still not a particularly strong position, because it also highlights a

lot of the intra-coalitional fighting. For example, let's put this up there on the screen. Here you got Lindsey Graham, I mean, who is no social conservative traditionally, but even he says, I respectfully disagree with President Trump's statement that abortion is a states' rights issue. Dobbs does not require that conclusion legally, and the pro-life movement has always been about the well-being of the unborn child, not geography. I mean, these people are just saying it out in the open. They want a straight-up national policy on the issue. I would remind everyone, Lindsey Graham pulled this exact shtick in 2022, introducing the 15-week ban, which I believe was very influential in keeping the policy alive and well, the debate ahead of the midterm elections. And of course, that is what ended up

being the single most potent issue when it came to the poll. So, I mean, this also demonstrates, too, the problems that the Republican Party has. The Susan B. Anthony list, look, it's not powerful nationally, very powerful within the GOPP and specifically within the primary electorate. Only Trump really is the person who can go out there and actually retaliate it and attack her and Lindsey Graham immediately after the statement and get away with it. There's not a single other national Republican. Mike Pence also said that Trump's statement was, quote, a slap in the face. Again, despite the fact, it's very easy. Go and look what all these people were saying in the 1990s. Leave it to the states. Leave it to the states. That's all we want. But I saw a very

insightful piece of analysis, Crystal, which said that if Republicans realized that leaving it to the states meant that in red states, even Kentucky, that they would lose abortion by 20 points, they never would have said that in the first place because they assumed that they were going to win. They never understood deeply the inherent unpopularity of their position. But one person who does is the Biden campaign. And the Biden campaign releasing a absolutely new, devastating ad against Trump. This has $30 million behind it, and it will be playing in every single battleground state. Let's take a listen. This is one of our willow boxes. This is just filled with some of the things that we had

started gathering for her while I was pregnant. Here's her little baby book. This is the outfit that she was going to maybe wear home from the hospital. All of these. Um, this is...

the blanket that she was in. And these are her little footprints. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. Brutal ad. For those just listening, it depicts a Texas woman, Amanda Zeroski. She was developed an infection when she was 18 weeks pregnant. The doctors denied her a medical abortion. She ended up going into sepsis, being admitted to the ICU, almost dying twice, and is unlikely to be able to bear children in the future. This is exactly the type of case previously that we had previewed with another Texas woman who, again,

these are people who wanted to have these babies to keep the baby, were denied medical, a procedure that was outlawed by Texas law and is being highlighted now, very reminiscent of that Kentucky ad, which was very, very influential on a Democratic victory in 2022, Crystal. And it just highlights again and again that with this issue, you can try and states rights your way out of this. But when people in Ohio or people in Georgia are looking at Texas, Georgia is a state where something like this actually could become the law or could continue to be so, and is one where where something like this actually could become the law or could continue to be so and is one where it could very much be influential, even if it doesn't mean

that Texas itself is going to go blue. Yeah, so and even if you support the states' rights argument that Trump is making here, that means he supports what Texas is doing. It means he supports the six-week ban in Florida. And what the ad highlights is something very real, which is even when you put in these exemptions for, let's say, the life of the mother, well, how do you draw that line? How desperate do the circumstances have to be before you will actually perform the procedure to save the mother's life and health? So there've been stories of women

who are basically told to go wait in the parking lot and bleed out further so that the medical team can feel confident that they're in accordance with law and they're not gonna be taken to court over treating her. So this is a very real issue. And let's be honest, most political ads at this point, we're so inured to them. They don't make you feel anything. This ad makes people feel something because everyone can relate to the heartbreak of wanting

to have a family and having that door closed because of some legislative bureaucratic decision, it's outrageous. And so that's why I feel like, you know, this is the one issue where clearly Democrats, they really have a huge upper hand, and it's very emotional, and it's very motivating because people feel this sense of loss that they had rights that have now been taken away from them, that things are going backwards for them, for their loved ones, for their daughters, their sisters, their wives, et cetera. So it's extremely potent. And I don't think there's anywhere the Republican Party can be on this issue at this point that's going to work out for them. Because even if people feel like, ah, Trump, he's more of a moderate on this issue, he's not like one of these hardliners.

Look at who the Speaker of the House is. You know, Mike Johnson is a hardliner. Look at some of the people who were in his administration last time and who will be in his administration this time. Look at some of the powerful voices inside of this coalition. And it's not crazy for people to think, like, I don't trust you on this issue. And you are the reason why we're here in the first place. You know, the Biden team already has their soundbite

of him bragging about overturning Roe versus Wade. That's really all they need. So no attempts to spin it at this point or, you know, try to make it seem like he's more of a moderate on the issue. I just don't think that that is really gonna register for voters if they are voting on this issue. Just to underscore, Sagar,

what you were saying about the Kentucky ad, which really many observers in that state attributed that ad to Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor, being able to get reelected in Kentucky. Now, listen, Kentucky's an unusual state. It is very red at the federal level. At the state level, it can go back and forth. But still, in this era, for a Democrat to get reelected in the state of Kentucky is quite

extraordinary. And it was another heartbreaking abortion story about a young girl who was raped. And she says, you know, Daniel Cameron forced me to, would have forced me to have that baby. So these emotional stories seem to really land with the electorate, even in a state like Kentucky. And the last point I'll make, Sagar, as you mentioned, I think that is very astute, this idea of like, well, Republicans probably wouldn't have even said they wanted to just send it back to the states if they realized even in a state like Kentucky or Alabama, that would be a disaster for them in terms of the population and how they feel about the issue. But I honestly think that the direction post Roe has affirmed some of the most alarmist voices

coming from, you know, liberals, leftists, Democratic Party, etc., anyone left of center who said, no, no, the real end goal is to completely ban abortion for everyone. It turns out they were right. You know, for the most hardline elements of the movement who are quite influential, they're the ones who organize around this, vote on this, who donate money on this, etc. That actually is the goal. And it's even further than that. It's things like banning IVF, which is an issue that, you know, a few years ago, no one would have even imagined was really on the table. It's taking us back to like the stem cell debates of the early 2000s, et cetera. So it turns out the most alarmist voices on this issue were actually correct about what the real goals, what the real end goals of the movement are. Yeah, no, it's true. And it's one of those

too, where the pro-life people said for years, it's not true. It's not true. Don't worry about it, et cetera. This is, you know, this is actually a popular issue. Well, you know, I got news for you people. Didn't want to hear it back in 2022. Heard a lot of people in my mentions saying otherwise, but I guess it's okay. We all find out who's right in the end. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is particularly hilarious. A full timeline of Trump's positions on abortion. I really enjoyed going down memory lane. So October 1999, in NBC News, Meet the Press, I am very pro-choice.

I hate the concept of abortion. I just believe in choice. Again, it may be a little bit of a New York background because there is some different attitude. I was raised in New York, grew up and worked everything else in New York City. I am strongly pro-choice. Asked whether he would ban any abortion, even including partial birth abortion. Trump says, no, I am pro-choice in every aspect as it goes, but I hate it. February 2011, he now says, returns to CPAC when he's

considering a 2012 run. He says, I am pro-life, and that was basically it. August 2015, he is now divided over defunding Planned Parenthood. He says, I would look at the good aspects of it. I would look because I'm sure they do things properly and good for women. I would take a look at it. February 2016, he then says he will defund Planned Parenthood, but now says he will still praise the group. March of 2016 was the infamous, maybe there needs to be some form of punishment for the woman who are seeking abortion. He says, yes, that immediately he reverses that and says, that's not his position. October, 2016, he vows to overturn a Roe versus Wade. This is probably the single most impactful thing along the journey because that leads to the

publishing of the list of the Supreme Court justices. January 2017 nominates Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court and says specifically about that, that he would be nominating him for the end of trying to overturn Roe versus Wade. Then we continue more and more down memory lane where we see Amy Coney Barrett, we see Brett Kavanaugh and others. 2022, he celebrates in a statement the overturning of Roe versus Wade and says, quote, I think in the end that is something that will work out for everybody. And this is the bridge to the future. This brings everything back to the states where it has always belonged. Now, since then, he has had very different tunes.

He attacked Ron DeSantis for the six-week abortion ban. He said, what did he say? He said it was cruel that he's had there. He says he's strongly in favor of, quote, the exceptions whenever it comes to rape, incest, and life of the mother. Not funny topics, just funny the way that he says it. The way he talks about everything. So now we're here. We're back to the States. So there it is. My favorite was actually when he said

he would defund Planned Parenthood, but also praise the group. He said, millions and millions of women, cervical cancer, breast cancer, are helped by Planned Parenthood. I would defund it because I'm pro-life, but millions of women are helped by Planned Parenthood. It's like, dude.

The most revealing though was that moment when, okay, he's decided I got to be fully pro-life in order to win the Republican nomination. I got to be fully in with pro-life. But he clearly doesn't know the contours of the political debate. So when he gets asked this question about, okay, well, should there be punishment for the women? He's thinking, honestly, a very logical train of thought, which is, all right, these people think this is murder. Ergo, if you murder your baby, yeah, there should be some kind of punishment. Not knowing that there's a whole, you know, philosophical way to sort of wiggle out of that very obvious implication of what the rest of the philosophy would dictate. And so he kind of stumbles into that. And listen, like I said, it's clear he's not a true believer on the issue, but it almost doesn't matter because at the end of the day, he has done more for the pro-life

community. And he said this during his nomination process. he has done more for the pro-life position than any other Republican candidate, president ever. You can't wiggle your way out of that. That just is the reality. The Biden team is gonna hang that around your neck as much as they possibly can. And it is potent. There's just no denying it.

I mean, we just saw what was it in Alabama. Democrats massively flipped a state house seat running just on IVF in Alabama, okay? As I was just mentioning, Kentucky, they hold on to the governor's mansion because of abortion. This is playing out in place after place after place. So there's no doubt that it is potent, that it is motivating, that it is very evocative, that it is very emotional. And I think the more Trump is talking about it, the worse it is for him, no matter what he says, because the record is what it is. He's the guy that got Roe versus Wade overturned and created this reality that now a very clear majority of Americans finds to be, frankly, horrible. It's the irony because the pro-life is almost

certainly what handed him his election in 2016 because all the Republican coalition was united behind him against Hillary Clinton. And it might be what sinks him in 2024. Let's go and put this final polling up on the screen just to underscore a lot of what we're talking about here. And it shows you the shift from April of 2022 when Dobbs happened. These are views on abortion. And keep in mind, this is from Fox News. They say, which of the best describes your view on abortion? Always legal, 27%. Legal most of the time, 17%. Illegal except for rape, incest, and saving the life of the mother, 43%. 11% always illegal. A year later, April 2023, now it's 32% say always legal. 24% say legal most of the time. March of 2024, most recently, we shift even more. 35% are now saying always legal. That's

actually the Republican nightmare, the nine months of abortion. Combined with 24%, you got a clear majority, almost 60% of the public either saying always legal or illegal most of the time, and a slim 40% saying illegal except for rape, incest, case of the life of the mother, and always illegal. Keep in mind too, that's just raw population figures. If you consider where that is disproportionately going to be concentrated and where they are and you can transpose that on top of the Electoral College and swing voters, it becomes even more devastating because you have independent voters in each of these states, which are far more aligned in the always legal or legal most of the time case than anybody who's going to be on the other side of the issue. So I've seen Republican gymnastics on this now for many months, Democratic extremists and all that. It simply doesn't land because the ads and the stories that we continue to play here that the Democrats continue to bring up are just emotionally more resonant than the, yeah, but partial birth abortion or any of that. Those are either conceptual or frankly, people just don't care as much as the idea of people like we played in that

ad, a woman who wanted to have a baby, denied a medical procedure, and now has a life-changing infection and is weeping on your screen. You're just not going to beat it. It's impossible. Well, not only that, but that's the landscape that's being fought over now. Right. You know, that's the legislation that's moving forward. The bans are going to affect IVF under assault in Alabama. Questions about whether that's going to be the case in other states. Is there going to be a nationwide ban?

Like, that's where all of the actually relevant political questions lie at this point. So to try to say, oh, well, Democrats are the real extremists on the issue. Well, voters aren't seeing that because it's not Democrats who are aggressively pushing forward legislation that is so fringe and so outlier in terms of what people actually think on the issue. And it is remarkable. And honestly, I didn't predict how important this would be. I certainly didn't think in 2024 that this would be such a potent and central issue that so many elections, special elections around the country would, you know, would swing on this, that there would be every single ballot initiative that is pro-choice,

the pro-choice side would win. And frankly, that it would really break down what has been a longstanding, basically 50-50 gridlock on the issue of choice. I mean, the pro-choice side now has basically, according to Fox News, a super majority, a super majority. And it's not just the absolute numbers, it's also who's motivated to vote on the issue. Prior to Dobbs, it was always the pro-life side that was more motivated, more organized on the issue. They were the ones who, hey, this is my single issue. This is what I'm making my political choices on. That dynamic too has flipped where you now have, I think, more people on the side where, you know, that are pro-choice, where this is their top or potentially even single issue that they're voting on. So it truly has been

an extraordinary landscape shift. Now let's, we're going to move on to some problems that Joe Biden is having as well. Let's not pretend like this is the only thing that's going on, the only thing that the election is going to turn on. But I also don't want to undersell the record that we see at this point of how clearly voters have demonstrated in every single opportunity that they have that this is important to them and they're going to vote accordingly. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator

to ask the questions no one else is asking. She was somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. hear my old tapes yeah now i'm curious do they like rap along now yeah because i bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too so his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a

legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast 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 broke the internet with a 22 inch weave my superpower i've got the voice. My kryptonite?

It don't exist. Get a job. 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 for the love of Lil Nas X?

Let's do a show with all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome.

I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons. Pain into punchline. And grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now and call her listen to outlaws with t.s madison on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts honey there is some ground being lost here amongst the coveted bro demographic the rock dwayne The Rock Johnson, giving an interesting interview on Fox News. Now, we have to listen carefully to what he has to say. He doesn't necessarily say he regrets

endorsing Joe Biden. He does say he regrets endorsing a politician and entering the fray of politics. But it is very clear that he sees that as a mistake, his entrance into the political fray back in 2020 when he famously endorsed Joe Biden. Here's what he had to say. You made that endorsement in 2020. Are you happy with the state of America? Am I happy with the state of America right now? Well, that answer is no. Do I believe we're going to get better? I believe in that. I'm an optimistic guy and I believe we can get better. The endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was what I thought was the best decision for me at that time. And I thought back then when we talk about, hey, you know,

I'm in this position where I have some influence and it's my job then. I felt like that then. It's my job now to exercise my influence and share with this. This is who I'm going to endorse. Am I going to do that again this year? That answer's no. I feel like, and I mean, we could go down the well here, but there's in today's easy cancel culture world and cancel culture, woke culture, this culture, that culture, division, etc. That really bugs me. And in the spirit of that, you either succumb and be what you think other people want you to be, or you go, well, no, that's not who I am.

I'm going to be myself and I'm going to be real. If you ask me something, a real answer is important. All right. So that's what I had to say. People know I've had a long and difficult journey with The Rock. I always liked The Rock. I wanted him to run for president, but then he publicly embraced the so-called woke cancel culture that he is openly trashing there. He engaged in the pile on Joe Rogan. I guess Joe Rogan forgave him. He actually ended up having him on the show. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that. Listen, it's up to Joe to litigate that. I will personally not forget it, that he entered that. I understand that he's in the Hollywood sphere. Then he started posing for

pictures with Jeff Bezos. But now he says he won't endorse Joe Biden. So I don't really know what to take of it. I guess what we could say is this. This man cares most about his image, about selling his Terra Mana tequila and all that other stuff that he was promoting there on the table and his energy drink. And clearly the Biden brand is bad for business, according to The Rock, who I think ultimately just wants to sell as many products as possible and keep his very, very high Q score approval rating with people. And so for that reason, appears to regret endorsing Joe Biden. Crystal. I think that is very accurate and astute analysis. I also think perhaps this is yet another lesson in don't base your vote on celebrity endorsers. And I don't think that most people do,

because if they did, Hillary Clinton would have been president of the United States. So I'm not sure that this is a warning that the American people really need. But, you know, I mean, listen, he's not paid to be a political analyst. He uses a lot of words there to say basically nothing. Like, I don't even know what his real point is. I don't know why he endorsed Biden in the first place. And I don't know why he's not endorsing him this time. I don't know what the relevant issues are outside of, like you said, he now has assessed that whereas previously he thought that was good for his brand.

Now he no longer feels it is positive for The Rock's personal brand. So I don't know that you could read too much into it other than that. Other than, I guess, it's not quite as safe in Hollywood to be affirmatively pro-Joe Biden as it was the last time around. I guess that's all you could really read into it. There was also an interesting moment when Rogan interviewed him and he was talking about Biden. And I forget exactly what Rogan said, but it was something about the people behind Biden and the Rocks seem to laugh and giggle at that very clearly. He doesn't think that Biden is a strong leader. That was basically all that he had to say.

It's not exactly true that he hasn't entered politics before. I mean, I've even said this, he spoke at the 2000 Republican National Convention. I mean, this is somebody, anyway, I could go down the rabbit hole. I think the only thing we can truly assess is that for probably one of America's most popular celebrities not wanting to endorse Biden again, you can frame it however you want. Oh, I'm not endorsing anybody. Okay, but you endorsed somebody last time. You're not doing it this time around. Well, that is an indicator of where he thinks his brand is going to be importantly positioned, whereas last time around he didn't think that he would suffer as a result of it.

And I've seen some organic pushback against him. So I don't think we can take away from it more than that. Only that people who are very astute at seeing where the popular wind is blowing, consumer sentiment, people who have hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, they don't think, quote unquote, supporting Biden is good for business this time around, at least from a popularity perspective. And I would pay attention to that. I think that is probably an important takeaway for what the overall trend is.

Now, I would also say this, which is important and something we tied back to yesterday, is that Biden appears to be consolidating a lot of support, Crystal, amongst older voters. So it could be that you and I are having a conversation here about national trends, about young voters, about how the overall actual American population feels. But that doesn't translate to the American electorate. Not everybody votes. In fact, most people don't vote. A huge portion of the voting eligible public simply stays home. So it could be that there's two kind of separate conversations that are happening right now. Yeah. I mean, well, you know, Hollywood famously has their finger on the pulse, so we should really pay attention to which way the breeze is blowing there. I think Republicans are so funny when it comes to Hollywood also, because the minute that The Rock or any other Hollywood celebrity is behind, affirmatively behind a Democrat, you know,

all these Hollywood liberals, who cares about their out of touch, blah, blah, blah. The minute one of them even shows like a sliver of interest in their party or their positions, they're falling all over themselves. Oh, the Rock, he really knows what he's talking about here. He's got his finger on the pulse. It is kind of funny to me. But ultimately, I think the whole situation is relatively inconsequential outside of the vibes of it's just not cool in any respect to be a Biden supporter. But, you know, it's not like Biden really based his presidential campaign last time around on any sort of cool factor. He didn't have that like Obama rock star vibe. It was just like, all right, well, I guess, you know, Trump sucks. So this is the guy we got.

What are we going to do? That's what he's betting on again. He's got more baggage this time around, people unhappy about the economy, people, you know, young people obviously tortured and horrified by his Israel policy, progressives as well. He's got a lot of issues here. I don't think the rock is probably chief among them. Yep. Fair enough. All right, let's go on to RFK. There was a lot of consternation yesterday. RFK Jr., a New York state staffer for the RFK Jr. campaign, was caught on video appearing to say that the RFK Jr. campaign really was a front to trying to hurt Joe Biden and to help Donald Trump get elected. And ensuing drama happened with Democrats saying, see, we told you so about RFK Jr. And then RFK Jr.'s own campaign then disavowing her.

But here's what she initially had to say. So there's no Biden voters in the House, right? No, okay, good. Things, I guess, will change over time because you do have to only pick one candidate at the end of the day. But the Kennedy voter and the Trump voter, the enemy, our mutual enemy is Biden. Since Biden is counting on us with Bobby in the mix, my thought is for the Republicans. See, Bobby right now, he's pulling from both sides.

Right now, he's actually pulling a little bit more from Biden, which explains why the DNC is kind of ganging up on him. Most of the Northeast is going to go blue. Why wouldn't we put our vote to Bobby and at least get rid of Biden and get those 28 electoral votes in New York? The card's a little wrong. It says 26 electoral votes. Give those 28 electoral votes to Bobby rather than to Biden. Who are they going to pick if it's a Republican Congress, they'll pick Trump. So we're rid of Biden either way. Does everybody follow that? Okay. Okay. So this got a lot of attention because it was immediately picked up and it was clipped and it was put out there by Democrats. They're like, this is evidence, you know, 100% that the

entire RFK Jr. campaign is a plant to try and to elect Donald Trump. He's a spoiler. That's what everybody had to say. But you and I were discussing this afterwards before we even get to the polling. And I was like, it just seems like RFK Jr. has a lot of hanger honors onto his campaign. I mean, it's not exactly the most well-oiled machine, at least from what we've been able to see so far. And it is clear, I mean, it's true too, from some of his donors, some people who support him are trying to do it as a supporter. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that is what he is trying to do. And in fact, there's not actually a lot of evidence to support that. So what do you think, Crystal?

So first of all, the comments are very unfortunate for the RK people because she's so clear. When you, when you listen to it, she's like, all right, none of us are Biden supporters. She even suggests that if you want to help Trump, go volunteer and canvas in Pennsylvania. But if you're in New York, you know Trump can't win in New York. So the way to help Trump is to vote for RFK Jr. This lady had a PowerPoint made up. She had literature she was distributing. She's been posting the same stuff on her social media too, by the way.

And it's not like this is an inconsequential person. She's the director for the RFK Jr. campaign in the state of New York. She's apparently been brought on in particular to try to obtain ballot access in the state of New York. So she's busy trying to collect signatures to get him on the ballot. So that's what she's, you know, in addition to this little spiel that she was giving, she even sent out a hashtag that was like hashtag block Biden. I mean, it's just as overt as you

could possibly be. So it's a problem for the RFK Jr. people because of course the Democrats are going to seize on this. They've been trying to make the case that RFK Jr. is just a spoiler, trying to get Trump elected. That's really what he's in the game. That's what it's all about. And so, you know, I can't blame them for seizing on this and saying, see, look, I told you so. Here she is out, you know, saying the quiet part out loud in the open. And then they can point to whatever previous Trump donors who are now giving to RFK Jr. and say, case closed. This guy really is just a Trojan horse to try to get Trump reelected. Now, the reason why I don't actually think that that is the case, I think she's, you know, as I said last time we discussed this issue, I don't doubt that

there are people affiliated with RFK Jr., donors potentially backing RFK Jr., who have that logic in mind. But I don't actually think that that's what he personally is up to. Because if you were running to try to take votes away from Joe Biden, you would position yourself a lot differently than how he is. Most of the issues he's led with

code as right wing. That's why he has a much higher approval rating with Republicans than he does for Democrats. When I looked through his Twitter timeline, more of his criticism was lobbed against Joe Biden. Now, you might think, oh, see, that proves that he really is against Joe Biden. But actually, if you're trying to win over Joe Biden voters, you'd be a little more friendly towards Joe Biden. You would position yourself more in the anti-Trump lane. That would be the way to get more, you know,

anti-Trump people who are disaffected with Joe Biden into your camp. So if the goal is to be a spoiler to try to get Trump elected, I think he's doing a very poor job of that, frankly. I still think it's very likely at the end of the day, and there are multiple polls, by the way, that, you know, that even at this early stage

bear this out in spite of his name being Kennedy. The fact that his approval rating is so much higher for Republicans leads me to believe that at best it's a jump ball. And it is also possible that he, at the end of the day, does take more votes away from Donald Trump. So that's why even though these comments are very clear and very hard to dispute, I actually do think that this is kind of a one-off, you know, person. I think she was hired as a consultant, freelancing, saying her own thing.

Maybe she got approval from the RFK Jr. campaign to say, to advocate for him, however she feels fit. I don't doubt that there was that level of like coordination and connectivity here, but I'm not convinced that this is the central goal and mission of the RFK Jr. camp because if it was, I believe they would be positioning themselves in a much different way than they actually are. That's exactly right. Yeah, he would be attacking Trump and to try and be friendly to Biden. I mean, and let's put this up there on the screen, too, just to highlight this. If you take a look at what it looks like for polling, whenever you include RFK Jr., it is Trump and Biden who are tied at 38% with third parties that are mentioned. But I should also note that while yes, Kennedy may be pulling away some votes from Joe Biden, we are still seeing that Biden has a major problem with people like Jill Stein, other, not sure, Cornel West. The third party challengers go far, far beyond just the RFK Jr. question. And we have seen also some polling where we've seen a reduction from RFK Jr. voters that pull away from Trump and can actually limit

Trump's cap of vote and make it easier for Joe Biden, let's say, if other more left-wing challengers are not there on the ballot. So does it inject some chaos in there? Absolutely. But that does not necessarily prove what a lot of what she is saying. Let's put this up there too on the screen though, as we said, Democrats, and this is a former Pete Buttigieg campaign manager, Liz Smith, Democratic operative. Her job these days is appear to go after RFK Jr. She's saying RFK Jr. is a spoiler for Trump. He was urged to run by Trump allies like Steve Biden. He's being propped up by Trump's largest donor. His campaign now caught on tape saying that their top goal is to stop Joe Biden. RFK Jr.'s campaign had a response to this that we can go and put

there up on the screen. Let's go ahead and read. Amaryllis Fox, she says, as an independent movement, our supporters, volunteers, and field organizers come from all sides of the political spectrum. Rita Palma was hired a couple of weeks ago as a ballot access consultant responsible for scheduling volunteer shifts during our upcoming signature drive in the Empire State. She has no involvement in or access to electoral strategy nationally or in New York. The video circulating was not taken at a campaign event. She was speaking as a private citizen and her statements in no way reflect the campaign strategy, the sole aim of which is to win the White House with votes from former Trump and Biden supporters

alike. We are looking into whether any misrepresentations were made and our campaign champions freedom of speech for all of our supporters. So it really does kind of hit home exactly what you were saying. This is somebody who was hired for ballot access. Maybe she has a, you know, private, you know, reason for signing on to the ballot access drive for RFK Jr. But, you know, at the end of the day, so what? Like, you got to get people to actually come and vote for you. And that's something that these Democratic operatives and even the Trump people who attack RFK Jr.,

they never quite seem to get there. At the end of the day, you should just convince people to vote for you. It's that simple. Yeah. Well, that is really the most important point is,

you know, instead of having this, oh, who's the spoiler for, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, all right, well, just, you know, if you're a candidate for president, do better, win, offer an agenda for the American people that actually resonates with them.

And you won't have to worry about Bobby Kennedy or Cornel West or Jill Stein or, you know, whoever the libertarian candidate ends up, which might also be RFK Jr. I don't know. Yeah, possible. And you'll be fine. Just go out and, like, actually win voters over and you'll be good to go. But yeah, Liz Smith's actually, they've realized at the White House they've got a problem with the third party vote. And I think they have an even bigger problem with the third party vote now that Joe Biden is enabling a genocide in the Gaza Strip because

young voters are typically more open to voting third party to begin with. And now he's got a massive issue with young voters who are just absolutely disgusted with him. Now, RFK Jr. is just as aggressive on Israel, if not more than Joe Biden. But, you know, Cornel West, Jill Stein is very likely to have ballot access in many states as Green Party nominee. You know, they've got their act together in that regard. In fact, out of the three candidates, she's the one with the clearest path to being on the most ballots in most states. So they've affirmatively hired Liz Smith

to run their operation of trying to undercut anyone who is running third party and try to shame and cajole any voter who's considering voting third party because they realize they do have this issue. And that poll that we put up earlier, it actually was kind of a good poll for Joe Biden. The top line without the third party candidates had him leading Trump by three. I believe that's either inside the margin of error or just outside of it. But it was actually the best result for Joe Biden in that poll in quite

a while. So it was a good poll for him. But then when you add in all of the third party candidates, then Trump then is basically tied with him or has the narrow edge. So it is a big problem for Joe Biden. I'm not sure that RFK Jr. himself is going to be a negative factor for Biden, but there's a lot of jockeying with the Biden campaign and with the Trump campaign to try to persuade voters like, no, he's really a liberal. No, he's really right wing. And I think some of the supporters of RFK Jr. ranging the political spectrum reflects the confusion around what his true political identity may be. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone,

I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was,

my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is, and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like, he's getting older now, too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's really the GOAT. He's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family?

It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. That's what's really important and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that i'm really happy or my family in general let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide listen to we need to talk from the black effect podcast network on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast 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 broke the internet with a 22 inch weave. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist. 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 for the love of Lil Nas X? I'm just gonna show all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute though.

Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Let's move on now to the sclerotic U.S. economy.

And there is a major flashing red sign as to how and what people are doing to make a lot of money. It's actually a pretty good indicator of what our society rewards. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. And it turns out that none of the Forbes billionaires who are under the age of 30 are self-made for the very first time in 15 years. So since 2009, there has always been a member of the under 30 Forbes billionaires who actually generated their massive wealth on their own by starting their own company. This statistic is due to many of the past self-made billionaires aging into their 30s,

but they are not being replaced by others in a similar financial situation. And in fact, hefty inheritances are now starting what the outlet is calling the long-anticipated generational wealth transfer. The world's youngest billionaire is a 19-year-old in Brazil, college student with a net worth of $1.1 billion, who has a minority stake in her late grandfather's electrical equipment company, accompanied by her older sister, who also holds a minority stake, accompanied by a pair of

20-somethings from Ireland, who have a net worth of about $5 billion each. Same thing. Family money, you've got the sons of former Tata Group founders as well. Same thing. Inheriting their, I think their grandfather, maybe great-grandfather's minority stake in their company. I think the list can go on and on. In every single case, every billionaire who is under the age of 30 has inherited wealth. On top of that, if you actually take a look at the overall list, it is striking to me that the world's richest man is no longer a Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk who say what you want. They actually started their own companies. It is LVMH, the head of LVMH, the guy who sells luxury goods like Louis Vuitton and others, basically selling it to middle-class folks in order to flash wealth around. That is now the

most valuable and richest person on earth. So the reason we wanted to spend some time on this, I think, Crystal, is this is the sign of a sclerotic economy. Many of the previous self-made billionaires in their 20s and others in the 2010s were people like Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey or the other tech founders. You may criticize those companies and the creation now, but at that time, it was genuinely entrepreneurial and it was adding a lot, at least in GDP-wise, to the US economy. But we don't even have that anymore for the very first time now. And it's not just here, it's all across the globe because America is the leader. Now it's, even if you look at the new entrance to the Forbes list, it's all private equity guys, financialization, and hedge fund traders. Those people would

disappear tomorrow and not a single one of us would know in terms of the economy. Not the same with Amazon, not the same with Tesla, but that's what's actually being rewarded right now. Yeah, that's so true. And I do think it's noteworthy that most of these young billionaires, they're not even inheriting the money from their parents. They're inheriting it from their grandparents. So it shows you that this trend has been, we've been headed in this direction for quite a while. And, you know, it ties in with also some of the corporate failures that we see, like at Boeing, where even within a large established corporation,

it's not innovation that's rewarded by the market. It is financialization. It's cutting costs. It's union busting. It's pretending like you're a Wall Street stock trader instead of a company making planes. It's putting Nikki Haley on your corporate board and all of the direction that that entails.

That's the reality of our economy now. And so many of the quote-unquote best and brightest, you know, people who have abnormal skills in terms of science and math, et cetera, so many of them decided that the way that they could make it big was go to Wall Street and become, you know, glorified gamblers. And even at the corporate level,

it's not like corporations have really been competing to offer the best product. They've been competing to game the system and generate anti-competitive advantages. You know, that is one thing the Biden administration is doing that I support, is trying to roll some of that back and force a more actually competitive marketplace versus what CEOs now are rewarded for is, how can I rig the market? How can I create a monopoly so that workers and consumers have no choice? That's reflected in the fact that you have very little innovation across the economy. That's just not the thing that's

rewarded. And then the other thing that is very reflective here, especially in American context, but as you said, Sagar, and for better or worse, America really sets the stage for the rules of the game economically around the world. You've had now years of very low taxation rates, and especially these gigantic loopholes where you can pass these large fortunes from generation to generation, with very little in the way of taxes being paid back into the societies that you come from, especially in an American context. And so you build these massive pots of generational wealth that get hoarded and very little shared

with the rest of society. So we've got this massive, almost unparalleled historically inequality, rest of society. So we've got this massive, almost unparalleled historically inequality, levels of inequality. And this is some of the sclerotic ossified results that you end up getting at the end of the day. Yeah, it's very bad. And it's one of those where if we are having, I mean, look, again, it's who is getting Like, if you're a very ambitious person and you're going to college and you're looking out there, previously, a lot of people were inspired in the 2010s. They're like, I'm going to go start my own company. Well, if you're looking at this and nobody's even getting rich starting their own companies, you're like, well, should I do that or should I just go work at a safe job where I can work from home, make a relatively upper middle class salary?

That's not really something that you want to reward or worse. You're like, well, if the only way to become a billionaire is to go work on Wall Street, so be it. That's just the way things are right now. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is similar to the conversation here. Business Insider writing, quote, millennials and Gen Z's trendy new splurge is groceries. They say that younger generations are now spending more on groceries than other categories, according to a McKinsey report. And according, I mean, look, I would take what McKinsey says with a grain of salt. But here, at the very least, what they are saying is that the increase in grocery prices

that we've seen with inflation are being disproportionately felt then by people who are in the lower end of the income spectrum and not at the height of their earning potential and that they are having to spend more on groceries simply in order to maintain like a medium quality of life. You can take it the other way. I've seen previously people be like, oh, well, this is like the new avocado toast criticism of the millennials. They're like, oh, they're spending $14. It's like, oh, they're spending too much money on groceries. But if you think about it, this is something, spending more on groceries actually indicates that you're eating out much less, which is already a significant behavioral change from where things were previously. So it's like,

if you spend money on going to brunch, you're being criticized. Now, if you spend money buying food, maybe even marginally better food than you previously would have done to still try and save money from eating out and to have some enjoyment in your life, you're also being criticized here. Yeah. I love the way that they are framing this as some sort of like decadence that you're eating. How dare you spend money on groceries? Because to your point, yeah, that's the advice. Anytime there's like a financial call, how do I save money, et cetera. So one of the first things they say is stop eating out, eat at home.

And then they do that. And then they're criticized for that as well. Not to mention, you know, the bottom line here is that millennials and Gen Z have been able to build much less wealth than the boomers. So they've been hit much harder by inflation. You know, it's still the case that your groceries, the same basket of groceries, cost $445 more a month to purchase versus a year ago. So even as we have this conversation,

oh, inflation is coming down, it's not as bad as usual. Well, the prices are still really high and none of these corporations are gonna bring them down on their own because why would they? They're making record-breaking profits. So yeah, I just think it's amazing the ways that news organizations find to smear people

or even indulging in like the most basic of luxuries. Oh, I bought an extra snack item at Trader Joe's is one of the things that they mentioned in this article. And now you're being basically smeared for that. And at the same time, you contrast that with these billionaire millennials and Zoomers who inherited it all from mommy and daddy. And you see the massive gulf that has emerged between people who did absolutely nothing to

quote unquote earn their station in life, will never have to worry about money, will pass their billions down to their kids and their grandkids. And the Zoomers and millennials who didn't have mommy and daddy's bank account backing them and the way that they have really struggled to be able to get a foothold and just to be able to make it on a basic level. Yeah, and we can also see how the grocery thing is actually fitting into an overall trend of reduction in lifestyle. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. This is from a new report from Redfin showing what renters and homeowners are skipping essentials like meals and medical care to try and keep a roof over their head. So they say the top sacrifices that people have made recently in order to afford housing. Keep in mind, this is not just people who are homeowners, but this also includes renters,

where we've seen a major spike in rental prices. They say took no or fewer vacations. You've got 34% of people who are saying that. Skipped meals is 22%. Worked additional hours, shifts at my job is 20%. Sold my belongings is 20%. Borrowed money from friends or family that I will pay back, 18%. Dipped into retirement savings, 18%. Delayed or skipped healthcare and medical treatments, 15%. Worked an extra job is 15%. Worked a side hustle like food delivery, 14%. And received money from friends or family that is not expected to be paid back is 14%. So overall, across the board, you're seeing a reduction in lifestyle, skipping meals, having to work additional hours. Now, I have no problem

with some of these things if it is to save up for something which is a luxury or to upgrade your lifestyle. But the problem here is that this is just retention of lifestyle. It's to live exactly the same life. So you have to live the exact same life that you were living four or five years ago, but you actually have to give up a lot of things to just maintain that. That's not the way that things were supposed to go on an upward trajectory. You're working a side hustle so that you can move into a bigger house. Cool. I think that's awesome. But having to work a side hustle or something like that, so you continue to make rent in the same place that you've been living for five to 10 years with no hope of being able to buy a house, that's a very, very different story. And that's actually what comes across to me in some of this data. Yeah. Housing is so key. It's such a central part of

this story, too, because really the top line from this piece is that they found that half of renters and homeowners are struggling to afford their monthly housing payments. I mean, it's insane just to have a roof over your head and not like any sort of luxurious fashion, but just a roof over your head. People are having to skip meals. People who are working full time are doing all the things right. And by the way, you know,

if they went to college and did that thing that they were told to do, they've also got these giant debt payments hanging over them from the jump when they start their careers. And then to add insult to injury, they got to be smeared when they quote unquote splurge on the trendy new thing, buying groceries.

So, you know, we've said this a lot of times. We've got another story here about housing that is really important. But this is such a central determinant over whether or not people have sort of a basic stable, not even luxury, but just stable lifestyle. Able to eat meals on a regular basis, able to, oh my God, actually maybe go on a vacation once a year. Imagine that. And the fact that housing is so extraordinarily high in so many places with no signs of abating has really stolen those sorts of simple splurges, simple luxuries, basic living standards from entire generations at this point. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing.

No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.

Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter.

She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled

the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, My son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now?

Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is, and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like, he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me, just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. That's what's really important, and that's what stands out,

is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy, or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

your podcasts. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. 22 inches. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist. Get a job. 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 for the love of Lil Nas X? Let's do a show with all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is.

My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn sad eye into sermons. Pain into punchline. And grief, and here we are now. We turn side eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies.

Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. There has been some significant change in the investors moving into the real estate market. We'll go ahead and skip ahead, guys, to the second part here. We'll put the Bloomberg tear sheet up, please, which is C5. We are seeing Blackstone, this was a deal just

announced yesterday, which is part of the reason I really wanted to make sure that we got this, is that Blackstone, the major investment group, is now signing a $10 billion deal, quote, is the latest bet that property is near lows. The firm will acquire the real estate owner apartment income rate. They are planning now to invest $400 million into the portfolio. So the reason that it matters is that we're seeing continually gobbling up more and more shares by institutional capital into apartment, into real estate, and basically into the housing market. This is increasing now to a point where what we are seeing is that this bet that single family landlords and others can be rolled up to create consistent rental income that is coming to you.

They can try and reduce the services. It's a basic economy of scale argument. But the reason it matters is that this is one of the largest real estate managers in the entire U.S. that wants to continue to invest in property and to roll up said income. And it actually comes at the exact same time that we have seen the apartment landlord, AIR, that they now acquired, that there's been more investors than ever that are moving into the market.

So we actually have some interesting Redfin data that came out just last month. It shows that investors bought some 26% of the country's most affordable homes in the fourth quarter. That is the highest share on record. They say that elevated home prices and mortgage rates, which sluggish rents have made low price,

is increasingly attractive now to investors. Investors bought 18% of all homes that sold in the fourth quarter, slightly up from a year before. Overall, investor home purchases had dropped a bit from the year earlier, but still maintain the highest share than ever before on record. And especially it is in Florida and California that investors are hungry for homes and are still not able to find properties to purchase from an increased housing shortage. So you've got the shortage, you've got the highest number of shares

on record. Some of these may be small-time investors. I don't necessarily think there's a problem with that. But whenever you reach the $10 billion level, then I think we're looking at a very significant problem. And now we're looking at a point where if you're renting in this country in the future, especially in a big city, there's a good chance that your landlord is a large private equity organization. And you may not even know it. That's right. And they're making it more difficult for people to, you know, get their first foot on that ladder of homeownership, which is really a central dividing line in American society between haves and have-nots. Are you a homeowner? Are you able to build that like basic wealth for yourself and for your family moving forward or not? And so they're buying somewhat fewer homes because there are less homes to buy.

But as you pointed out, as a share of all of the homes that are being purchased, their share continues to go up. And it makes sense from a capitalist perspective. Part of the reason why people are struggling to be able to afford a home right now, in addition to the astronomical prices themselves, is, of course, mortgage rates are up from where they were previously. That doesn't impact these large institutional investors as much because they're, by and large, not getting mortgages. They're coming in with all cash. Now, the interest rates still affect

them in other ways. They take out loans for other things, potentially the cost of flipping the house, et cetera. So it impacts them some. But they're at a massive advantage because they can pay all cash and not have to worry about the cost of those high mortgage interest rates. So it's a huge disadvantage for just regular people who are trying to buy a house and really will be one of the most consequential developments you can imagine in terms of how the economy shapes up moving forward. We've also covered here the way that these companies increasingly use algorithms to basically rig the market.

And de facto, and this is the legal allegation, actually, is that they're de facto colluding with each other to artificially lift rent prices in a lot of markets across the country. And there's also a lot of documentation about how these large landlords, I mean, they're impersonal, they're anonymous. They never have to look you in the face. They have to look you in the eye when they're kicking you and your kids out of your apartment or when they're jacking up the rent to make it so that you're having to skip meals and can never even imagine going out to eat or going on a vacation. They don't have to look you in the eye when they're doing that.

So they're perfectly happy to squeeze you for absolutely everything you're worth, to delay maintenance, to basically, in some instances as documented, actually have your living conditions be unsafe if they can possibly get away with it. So it really is a nightmare scenario in a lot of ways. One of the things that we were talking about yesterday is how this divide between the housing haves, like ownership in terms of ownership, the haves versus the have-nots,

may also be driving some of the political voting behavior that we're seeing that's otherwise head-scratching. So why is it that older voters, at least according to some polls, and let's take it all with a grain of salt, but some older voters seem to be more favorable towards Joe Biden, whereas younger voters who have been moving left and voting more and more Democratic in the modern era have been moving away from him? You'd be hard-pressed to find a story that doesn't fit better than this story of housing haves and have nots. Younger voters, by and large, haven't been able to purchase homes. They're struggling. And the economy has made it very difficult for them. If you're a boomer and

you have your home or your silent gen and you have your home and you're building all this wealth and you've seen your housing price do nothing but go up and up and up and increase your wealth, you don't care that mortgage interest rates are high. You're doing just fine. This economy is actually working pretty well for you. So that could actually be a really key political dynamic that's largely ignored, that's playing out right now in this election before our eyes. I definitely think you're right. And it's interesting, too. I was just noting from one of my notes I forgot to mention, is that this Blackstone deal is just a continued acceleration. They had just done a $3.5 billion deal to take a company

called Tricon Private, which has some 31,000 single family residents across the US and Canada. Now this adds thousands of more apartments. So when we consider the have-nots and others, the entrance of all of this in, we've got to find some sort of regulatory solution. We've highlighted here previously, there are some state local efforts actually to trying to keep large institutional capital outside of the real estate market and not allow them either to own large segments of single family housing or to not allow them to at least be the first bidder. But we haven't seen anything be taken up like that on the national level. I think whoever is willing to do it, if you can get housing prices in this country, or at very least rental income

and all that down in this country, or even stable, I think some people would be happy with that. That person would have a political winner on their hands, but it's just not in our lexicon right now. Luckily, some states are doing it. Yeah, there is a little bit of a conversation happening in Congress, but it doesn't seem to have nearly the national momentum that it does because, let's be honest, there are a lot of powerful, wealthy interests that are arrayed against it, and that's always going to make it difficult to be able to get something through the Congress. Let's go on, move to another business story that is kind of funny, to be honest with you. Let's put this up on the screen. So you may recall that Amazon

rolled out with great fanfare, these quote unquote, just walk out grocery stores where you go in, you just put the stuff in your cart. They allegedly had this high tech that was scanning things. As you're replacing them in your cart, you walk out, it charges your card, you get your receipt, you're done. You don't even have to go through a checkout line. Well, they just announced that they're killing this just walk out tech. And the reason is because it never actually really worked. In reality, this sophisticated AI, et cetera, et cetera, was really powered by somewhere around a thousand human beings who were watching and checking

what you were putting in your basket and making sure that you were getting charged for the right things who were based in India. So shoppers were reporting, you can come back up on me at this point, shoppers were reporting that they weren't getting their receipts for hours and hours. And like, what is going on here?

Now, listen, it's always in any sort of AI model, you have to use human beings at the beginning to help the system learn. But apparently the tech was so clunky, it really wasn't learning. They were continuing to have to rely on human beings surveilling you as you shop and having all sorts of problems with, you know, the design of the store and having to make sure everything is precisely in place or else it didn't really work out. I bet there was a high mistake rate as well if you're having to rely on these sort of, you know, tech kludges and human being reviewers in order to make this work. So ultimately, the idea of this just walk

out technology was basically a fantasy and a fairy tale. And I think it kind of ties in with what we were talking about earlier, how all of these companies have moved more towards financialization than actual innovation, because apparently they didn't have the chops to get this thing to work. Yeah, this is actually hilarious because there was one here in D.C. and I actually went to one. And the entire experience, it was exactly as you said, I didn't get the receipt for a long time. And I just wanted to try it and just see how it was.

The whole thing actually felt very creepy. And I'm very glad that the technology was not nearly as dystopian as they made it out to be. It wasn't AI. It was just a bunch of guys in India and Bangladesh reviewing footage, then ringing it up. And like you said, there's a huge amount of human error that can then result in it. The funny thing is too, now that they are closing, they have blockbuster deals if you have, by the way, been able to take advantage of this. For example, they're selling like olive oil, like a liter of olive oil right now in D.C.

for like $2. So people are just going through and stocking up, taking advantage. So if you have one in your area, I highly recommend that you take advantage of that. You need olive oil, guys.

This is the place. It's an expensive place. It's expensive. People were getting Raoul's sauce as well. But this does highlight. I'm not really a fan of that. But anyway, go ahead.

I've never even had it. Apparently, it's expensive. Okay, that's apparently what I've been told. This is one our producer found, which is amazing. Let's put this up there on the screen where you have a cashier at a, I think it's a coffee shop there, that is zooming into New York City to help you with your transaction from the Philippines. Incredible. to help you with your transaction from the Philippines. And apparently though, this is not the first time

that this type of technology has been debuted. And there's a lot of various self-service type places where if you do need a little bit of a human help, you can have somebody Zoom on the screen there that actually can help you ring them up. They have some security features and others where they can like help open the can help you ring them up. They have some security features and others where they can like help open the door for you and all that, but you can pay them only five to $6 per hour to operate like that. So why wouldn't you try and take advantage of your,

you know, in one of these types of businesses, as opposed to paying a actual human being that is there. Now, look, I still think it's creepy and it won't necessarily take off. But if enough people do it and if they could refine the tech into some sort of, I don't know, like a hologram or a bigger screen or something. Maybe they need a screen as big as ours that's over here. They could make it work. It is just clear, though, that things, you know, we're promised AI and all this awesome future of the Jetsons. It's just a lot more dystopian than that. Yeah, it's being used to make life shittier, not better, by and large. You know, with exceptions. Sagar likes his Apple Vision Pro thing. That's right. That's a tease for future. We got a little

update on that for you guys. But the company, according to the gentleman who tweeted this out, who has a sub stack, by the way, It's called Happy Cashier. It's apparently operating in five different Asian fast food places in New York City. And so, yeah, when you're doing your self-checkout situation, which of course now has become totally commonplace

in all sorts of different restaurants, CVS, grocery store, whatever. If you're doing that and you have trouble, I guess that's when you get the call-in, the Zoom call-in from the Philippines to assist you with your transaction. It's not really any different than we've all, you know, become very accustomed to the fact

that call centers are, many of them are outsourced, that when you're talking to someone trying to solve whatever problem you have on the phone, these people are likely dialing in from another location. But it does show you that, you know, the idea that service sector work would be immune from, certainly from

technology, we already know that is not the case, but from offshoring is obviously not true as well, because, hey, why not? Why pay an American worker, you know, a higher minimum wage and have to deal with labor standards when you can get someone who's less expensive overseas and, you know, who really cares about labor standards from the less expensive overseas and who really cares about labor standards from the company's perspective, who really cares about customer experience, if all of my competitors are gonna do the same thing, you're not really gonna have any choice anyway.

So there you go. Absolutely. This ties in with something that is unfolding in California, which we covered previously, you guys might recall. They have established a fast food industry council in California that uses something called sectoral bargaining to basically set standards throughout that industry for workers in terms of safety, in terms of wages, in terms of hours, kind of every aspect of the working environment. This is similar to a model that's used more commonly in other countries, where it's almost

in lieu of, it's in lieu of shop-by-shop unions. You set one single standard for the entire industry, then everybody's competing on the same level. You have representatives of business and workers who are on the council, and so they come to some sort of agreement. Okay, so that's the backstory. So California, as part of this workers' council, they established a $20 per hour minimum wage for fast food workers.

And this is not your little mom and pop small businesses. These are large chains that have been doing quite well that have record-breaking profits in many instances where they can theoretically afford this level of labor cost. So this came up as a conversation on the PBD podcast with guest Jesse Waters, making some interesting comments

about what he thinks McDonald workers should earn. Let's take a listen to that. See if you can do this in your head. You probably can. If you're making $20 an hour to work at a fast food restaurant, right? Is that six figures? Are you making?

No, no, no. 40 grand. 50 is just to exit and add a few zeros. Okay, so. 40K a year. Okay, 40K a year. So, and then if your husband or wife is also there, you're making $100,000 as a family. Sure.

Both working at McDonald's? 80 grand. Okay. That's crazy. That is crazy because that job really doesn't require much. So it's inflating the entire, you know, uh, labor sector and the happy meal and the happy meal unhappy, very unhappy, which I'm very unhappy about. But I believe Gavin Newsom will be president one day. The man is smooth. He's already currying up to the Republican side. You saw him go on Hannity. He dive bombed a couple of Fox News events. He's savvy. So a lot there, soccer. But first of all, the attempted math where he thinks, first of all, that $20 an hour is going to net you six figures. That's his first initial reaction.

It was like, dude, what? And then you try living on $40,000 in LA, Jesse Waters, and tell me how that goes. Even $80,000, you got kids, a whole family. You tell me how easy that is to do. And then for someone whose whole job is like us to sit on their asses in front of a microphone, to be saying that McDonald's workers, it doesn't require much for them to do this job. It's just complete nonsense. They're adding way more tangible value and doing a lot more difficult work

in this economy than you are. So for him to say, oh, it's crazy for them to earn 40K a year for working full time and still at 40K a year, I guarantee you're going to be rent burdened. I guarantee you're going to be struggling to make ends meet. It's just what a bubble, what a bubble you are living in. So I've got some math here in front of me. Jesse, didn't do this one in my head. It was a little bit easier. So $20 per hour, I'm going to assume this is a single filer in the state of California, $41,600 working 40 hours per

week. After tax, you are netting $34,350, which means that your monthly take-home pay is $2,833. The average rent, fair market rent for a residential rental property in California today as of 2024 is $2,345. So if we take $2,800 and we minus it by $2,345, you have approximately $300 to $400 that is left over to pay for health insurance, presumably, that's not included here, to pay for gas because you're living in the state of California. We're talking about five, six dollars a gallon, depending on that, and you're driving a lot. You have to pay for internet, phone bill. Do you have a single dollar left over at the end of the month? If you're living on 34k a year, take home, you're a single guy and you're working here at McDonald's, you are barely able to survive. And most likely,

statistically, you're going to be significantly in debt, credit card debt specifically. So what do we learn from that? That's actually not a quote unquote livable wage. I completely understand here, by the way, people who have concerns around minimum wage, inflation, all that. But what they ignore in the state of California is that we're talking here, one, about the sectoral bargaining that was put in place by the workers to achieve this. But two, is that we already have an incredibly high rental market standard of living and others at a baseline level, which makes it where the past minimum wage was not even close to being able to get you there

So if you put it in the context that I just gave you you can't help but take away That if you were working in one of these jobs that it's almost I would say basically impossible to quote-unquote survive $34,000 a year you'd have to work a shitload of overtime or you're gonna be having to do Uber Uber eats or something like that in order to supplement your income. And you are still not making a lot of money. To keep this in mind, people are doing Uber Eats and all this other stuff are taking a ton of depreciation on their cars. I think they had to pay extra fees because they have higher car insurance rates. There's a lot of phantom costs that come into any of these quote unquote side hustles too. So I would just again illustrate that it's not even close to six figures, even as

he is talking about, if you have two people who work at McDonald's, $40 an hour, that's going to be $83,000 a year take-home pay. After tax, that is roughly the national average for a household here in the US. But national average in California, that's not going to cut it. You need to be making $120,000 to be living a $70,000 life on a national average in California, that's not going to cut it. You need to be making $120,000 to be living a $70,000 life on a national average in the state of California. So you're mostly below actually where you need to be. Yeah. And God forbid you have kids, right? And are trying to, you know, afford that. Imagine on a single salary, trying to be a single mom and on 20 bucks an hour in California, forget about it. I just can't take the classism of this,

you know, oh, they don't work hard. There's not much involved here. Have you ever worked a fast food job? This is not an easy job. It's actually a very demanding job. And so this condescending notion that, you know, Jesse Waters is working so much hard, contributing so much more than a McDonald's worker.

I just find that whole worldview to be so grotesque. I, you know, maybe I'm old fashioned. I think if you are an adult working full time, you should be able to afford to live, to have an apartment and eat three meals a day. That's just me. I think that's where we should be. So the reality is $20 an hour in many places in California

still doesn't get you there, but at least it's an improvement. We can put this up on the screen, some more details from the LA Times about what was passed in California. I sort of already went through this, but it says your guide to California's new $20 an hour minimum wage for fast food workers.

The pay increase was established by Assembly Bill 1228. It applies to California fast food workers employed by any chain with more than 60 locations nationwide, covers corporate owned and franchise location. The state has more than 540,000 fast food workers, about 195,000 of them in LA and Orange County, according to 2022 figures. By the way, the previous minimum wage was $16 an hour. So they're getting a $4 increase, which I'm sure is significant for a lot of people, but is probably not going to be life-changing. Like I said, they probably need a significantly higher wage increase to actually be able to live in LA and in San Francisco

and other parts of the state of California. And then the last thing that I pulled, Sagar, is I looked up McDonald's annual gross profit to see whether or not they could weather the storm of the increased wage costs. Which again, I want to remind you, this wasn't set by the workers themselves. This was set through a council and through a negotiated process that included these businesses, by the way. But McDonald's annual gross profit for 2023 was $14.56 billion. That was a 10% increase over the year before. 2022's profit was a 5% increase from the year before. 2021's profit was a 29% increase from the year before. 2021's profit was a 29 percent increase from the year before. So if you look at the trend, McDonald's is doing OK. Their workers, not so much. So God

bless them. I hope that this helps make life a little bit easier for them as they're working hard in there. Well, and let's not forget about the Panera Bread bread exception that we covered previously, which is still a real outrage. Yeah. So just to remind people, there was a specific carve out. Turns out Newsom is buddies with the like big Panera franchise holder in the state of California. And so they made this specific carve out in the legislation where if you have a bakery involved in your fast food enterprise, for some reason, undefined reason, this doesn't count for you. So Panera gets this just total corporate carve out. That's the real outrage here. What's funny though-

Not that workers aren't making more money. It's that the Panera workers are getting screwed. Well, actually, Crystal, I just checked just to make sure. It was after the outrage, they then were like, okay, we will comply with the minimum wage law. Oh, okay. There you go. Good job, guys, no, but only because that that story went viral, including on our channel. And I think across the state of California, people said this is complete bullshit that they said, okay, okay, we will raise our minimum wage to $20 an hour. So in some ways, it's a hopeful story where they could try and be corrupt. But if they get caught doing it, then guess what? They're actually going to have to, they're actually going to have to come into compliance. So I'm actually somewhat pleasantly

surprised by that. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case,

bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for.

If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives.

My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family?

It means a lot to me, just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like, that's what's really important, and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy, or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide,

listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. My superpower? I've got the voice.

My kryptonite? It don't exist. 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

for the love of Lil Nas X? This is gonna show all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends

that like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020 working the drive-thru and here we are now. We turn side eye into sermons. Pain into punchline. And grief, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline,

and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. So in spite of the fact that the IDF has actually withdrawn from Southern Gaza at this point,

Bibi making it clear yesterday the planned Rafah invasion will go forward. We can put this up on the screen. He was speaking in Hebrew here, which isn't all that useful for me, at least. So I'll read you part of what he said. He said, today I received a detailed report on the talks in Cairo. We are working all the time to achieve our goals, primarily the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over

Hamas, whatever that means. This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. He goes on to say, it will happen. There is a date. This noteworthy for a lot of reasons. Obviously, as we've covered before, you have over a million Palestinians who have been pushed into Rafah in dire humanitarian conditions, who have been displaced there, Rafah, up along the border with Egypt. Egypt has been very strongly asserting that they have a major problem with the idea that the IDF would directly invade RAFA. The US government also

pushing back on the possibility of a RAFA invasion, originally saying, hey, this is a red line, then sort of shifting and saying, well, you got to figure out the humanitarian situation first, but still raising a lot of concerns about Rafa. There were further questions after the IDF, as I mentioned before, withdrew from southern Gaza about what this meant. But Bibi Hir Sager making it clear, there's the date, he set on this Rafa invasion. And in a sense, I mean, for his own political posturing, that always seemed obvious to me that he wasn't going to back off of this because the moment the war ends, the moment there will be a reckoning with him and his political future. And so he can't allow that to happen.

Also, the most psycho parts of his coalition are very determined to have this full-on onslaught into RAFA. So that's where we are. Yeah, we have evidence of that. We can put that up there on the screen. You can see it clear as day. Here we have Ben Gavir. He says, if the prime minister decides to end the war

without an extensive attack on Rafah, he will not have a mandate to continue serving as prime minister, making it as clear as it gets for what is at least what is going on inside of his coalition. But at the same time, Crystal, we have some developments with the ceasefire. We're getting conflicting news reports. I'm not exactly sure where we stand.

Yeah, so let's put this up on the screen from CNN. There was a report yesterday. This is actually from Jerusalem Post based on a CNN report. But they said that Hamas rejected the latest hostage deal proposal. You know, they always frame this as like Hamas is the problem, but in reality, there are negotiations going on. There's a give and take here. Some of the issues that I've seen reported are, there's always this problem of Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire and Bibi is obviously saying, listen, even if we get to some sort of a deal

here, it's going to be temporary because we're still going into Rafah. So that's a sticking point. The number of hostages that would be released in the early phases of this potential ceasefire also appears to be an issue. Israel has been asking for 40 hostages, this is all based on reports, in the humanitarian category, meaning not IDF soldiers. And effectively, some of the reports indicate that there aren't 40 hostages in that category who remain alive, which is horrifying. And we don't know the circumstances under which they may specifically have perished, but we're six months into a war that has been characterized by absolute annihilation, destruction, starvation, dehydration,

cut off of medical facilities, et cetera. It's entirely predictable that alongside the tens of thousands of Palestinians who've been killed, that some of the hostages would perish as well. So this really confirms what a lot of people who were including the hostage families who've been pushing from the beginning

and some of the hostages themselves after they were released in the early ceasefire saying, listen, the way you're conducting this war, you have no idea where these hostages are. You're not keeping them safe. Every day this goes on is imperiling their lives. And so I think we have, through the number of hostages who have been killed at this point, sad confirmation that at least some of that was really true.

Yeah, it's really unfortunate that they're not being able to even account for a lot of them. As you said, it is predictable considering that many were killed outright either on the ground or many of them said that they were being bombed. It's possible to – I mean we don't know whether Hamas, PIJ, any of these other organizations, what that level of treatment was like for these existing hostages. It's obviously a very chaotic situation. These are – many of these people could have been malnourished and all this other – anyway, it's very devastating. We did, however, see an interesting clip that came out of the U.S. State Department where, again, the great journalist Matt Lee just presses the State Department spokesperson over and over again where he's like, hey, so if you were able to get aid in this time, why weren't you ever able to do it before? What is the line?

And he's completely exposed here. Let's take a listen. I will tell you that the step that they are taking now is important, but it's overdue. It should have happened months ago. A lot of these steps should have been happened months ago. We're happy that they're happening now, but they need to be increased and they need to be sustained. So I'll stop after this. But in recognizing that often hindsight is 20-20, shouldn't you have done, put the ultimatum, or shouldn't the president have done that months ago? So we have made clear to them for months what we expect them to do. And we have seen them take steps at our urging. And some of those steps have been important, but they haven't been sufficient. And all I can say is that we welcome the initial steps they've taken over the past few days.

They represent a dramatic improvement if fully implemented, but we're going to judge them ultimately by the results. So you can see it there right there, Crystal. We're going to judge it by the results. We'll see. But he's unable to answer the very basic question. Yeah. Democrats have caught themselves in a complete trap here with their Netanyahu bear hug strategy as led by the Biden White House, because their position has been, oh, no, Israel's not blocking humanitarian aid, which they had to say, because if they acknowledge that Israel was, in fact,

instituting a siege, blocking humanitarian aid, using starvation as a weapon of war, then under our laws, we would not be able to continue transferring weapons to them. So they've had to deny that reality. Okay, well, now you've actually not even changed your policy, but just threatened to potentially, possibly in some undefined way, change your policy in the future. And lo and behold, you get some still inadequate but notable changes from Israel where it's very apparent, oh, all that they're not blocking humanitarian aid was a complete and total lie.

It was a lie from the Israelis. It was a lie from the Americans. So you're caught in this bind of what do we say about this now? How do we position ourselves? How do we acknowledge also the reality that we could have done this long before, but just chose not to? Wasn't a problem for us, a sufficient problem for us when we were watching a dozen Palestinian babies die a day from starvation.

But when our buddies, aid workers whose lives deserve to be, you know, honored and cherished as well. But that was the line for us. I mean, it speaks volumes and there's really no way you can get out of the implications of what we've all seen unfold. And I think actually to transition to some notable comments

that Elizabeth Warren apparently made last week, I mean, she's in a similar bind here because it's become so undeniable the amount of atrocities that have been committed in front of us that especially for Democrats, anyone who wants to preserve an image as any sort of humanitarian, they have to acknowledge that. And yet they still haven't shifted from all out, full throated policy support of Israel. So let me play these comments from her. She was answering a constituent question.

I believe this was in Boston about whether or not Israel is committing genocide. And she says, actually, yes, they are, that there is sufficient evidence. Ample evidence, I think, is the word that she used, that they will be found to be committing genocide by the International Court of Justice. Let's listen to her specific comments in response to this constituent. Do you think that Israel is committing a genocide? So I think that what's happening now is there's going to be a long and involved debate over what constitutes genocide when you ask a legal question. For me, it is far more important to say what Israel is doing is wrong.

And it is wrong. It is wrong to starve children, women, a civilian population, in order to try to end them to your will. It is wrong to drop 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated civilian areas. I think I can make a more effective argument by describing the behavior that is happening and whether I believe it is right or wrong and look people in the eye and say, do you want to tell me if you think it is right,

and that it should be in the policy of the United States of America to support those actions. So that's how I analyze this. No, I did analyze the question. It was a yes or no. The second question was a yes or no question, to clarify. So if you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that it's fine that it is genocide. And they have ample evidence to do so. What I'm also trying to tell you is I'm trying to get people past a labels argument, which seems to throw out the screen, and to get them to look at the behavior on the ground,

to get them to look at the children, to get them to look at the mamas and the old people and the people who have been displaced and the people who are living outside and the people who are drinking dirty water and talk about what the role of the United States is in connection with supporting the Netanyahu government was put, the people who caused it in that position. So you can hear very clearly there, she says, as a matter effectively of international law, I believe they will be found guilty of genocide and believe there is, quote, ample evidence to support that conclusion. But this raises a lot of uncomfortable questions for Elizabeth Warren because she has supported the Biden policy in terms of how she's voted. She voted to defund the number one aid organization on the ground in Gaza, UNRWA, which has been essential in terms of,

you know, at this present moment and previously as well, getting aid to Gazans who are now starving to death. So if it's a genocide, you have aided in that genocidal policy. And she has continued to vote in terms of military aid to Israel. So you can see the discomfort in the way that we can put this next piece up on the screen. Her spokesperson is trying to walk this back a bit, these comments, and I guess sort of nuanced troll on them. She says, in a Q&A, Senator Warren commented on the

ongoing legal process at the International Court of Justice, not sharing her views on whether genocide is occurring in Gaza. In January, the ICJ found that it is plausible Israel has committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention, as the senator said at the mosque. What is far more important than any label that comes out of this legal process

is the question of whether it should be the policy of the U.S. to support Israel's actions in Gaza. Senator Warren believes Prime Minister Netanyahu and his right-wing war cabinet have created a massive humanitarian disaster in Gaza, have not taken reasonable steps to protect civilians. As she said at the mosque,

it is wrong to starve children within a civilian population in order to try to bend to your will. It is wrong to drop 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated civilian areas. The senator has worked with her colleagues in Congress to push for a ceasefire, the return of hostages, for conditioning aid to Israel, for free flow of humanitarian aid in Gaza,

and for movement toward a two-state solution. So, you know, even in the interaction, you could tell that she was uncomfortable with having to actually say the word genocide, but also couldn't really get out of it. So now they're trying to walk it back a bit by saying, oh, this isn't really her personal view. She's just sort of evaluating this process that is unfolding at the International Court of Justice. But I mean, they're the ones that from a legal perspective make the determination. So if you think they have ample evidence that this is a genocide, why are you still supporting a Biden administration policy of aiding and abetting this genocide?

The whole thing is very silly in the way that she handles the question. It's like, lady, either say it or don't. Just put your opinion on the table. Stop trying to tap dance around this. Either you voted for it, defend the vote, say you changed your mind that you don't believe it or that you do. I'll be honest, again, I don't use this type of language specifically for this reason. I think international law is fake. I don't think this type of language specifically for this reason. I think international law is fake. I don't think anything can be proved or disproven. She's actually returning to her almost like, did you notice that, her law school route of like, well, if you want to look at the legal question. I'm like, well, this isn't a legal question.

I mean, I guess it is technically, but it's one of those with no enforcement. You either support the policy or you don't. And it's clear, too, that she is one where she's trying to square it with, I think, trying to keep progressive credentials or any of that and all that together. And she's just not giving her straight up opinion, which is actually my biggest takeaway, especially, too, in terms of clear up. If you believe it, then say it, you know, but have the courage to say it. That's all I would say. I actually think that the fact that an Elizabeth Warren feels pressured to acknowledge that there is ample evidence this is a genocide is proof that the ICJ process has actually mattered. You know, that sort of language, you know, was considered totally outside of the Overton window of mainstream acceptability early on in this conflict. And I do think that South Africa's case, the fact that the ICJ overwhelmingly, including the American judge, by the way, which was kind of shocking, found that there was sufficient evidence here to say, okay, it's plausible this case can move forward. And of course, we've continued to see the evidence of not only what

was done in terms of the annihilation, but the way that starvation continues to be used as a weapon of war here has made it very difficult for people like AOC, people like Elizabeth Warren, anyone who sees themselves as being a progressive, as being on the left, as being a humanitarian, to avoid the implications of that. So I actually see it as consequential. The fact that you have a mainstream United States senator who's actually now gotten to the left of Bernie Sanders in terms of what he's been willing to say, it is pretty extraordinary. Now, again, it's a little empty given her voting record. But this is toothpaste that Israel can't really put back in the tube. You've now had a United States senator say that you are committing a genocide. I mean,

a state that was founded out of the horrors of the Holocaust, obviously a horrifying genocide. And now you're being accused by a senator from your top ally and benefactor of committing a genocide. It is extraordinary. It is something I couldn't have, just like Nancy Pelosi signing on to the letter saying, hey, maybe we should condition aid to Israel. These are things that would have been unthinkable a year ago. And, you know, I don't know how to put a, how to conclude this because on the one hand you think, okay, well, in the future, this is really going to matter in terms of how things have shifted in U.S. public opinion, et cetera. In the short term, I can't say that it's really going to make a difference vis-a-vis Joe Biden and how he conducts himself because I

think he's such a locked-in ideologue. But the language that we've heard throughout this conflict about the way that Israel is becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage, about how they're becoming increasingly estranged from one of the two major parties in the United States, not necessarily the politicians, but the base,

this is all true. And you can ask South Africa, the white apartheid regime of South Africa, how it went for them once they faced a high level of global estrangement for their apartheid regime and crimes. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her

and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for.

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I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is, and they're starting to

be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is your girl T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, loud, and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. 22 inches. My superpower? I've got the voice.

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Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. All right, guys, we've been tracking closely how Iran might respond to that Israeli strike on their consular building in Damascus. Let's put this element up on the screen. There's been a very interesting report

that Iran may have actually offered the U.S. a sort of an ultimatum, or I guess issued an ultimatum saying basically, listen, we won't directly attack Israel in response if you're able to secure a ceasefire deal. Dr. Trita Parsi, who's standing by for further analysis, put out this tweet, taking a look at this report and what it could mean. He said in part, first, it's clear that Iran wants to avoid a direct confrontation with Israel, but it cannot evade it unless it secures a big win in the region. Tehran may suspect a ceasefire is already in the making, and as a result, use that as a pretext to both take credit for it and to avoid getting into a shooting fight with Israel. He continues, second, this is very risky, but also rather clever. If the threat compels

Biden to finally put material pressure on Israel in order to avoid a regional war, Iran can take some credit for having saved the people of Gaza. He goes on to indicate that this may suggest Iran might have figured out how to target Israel in a way that is proportionate, does not provide Israel with grounds for further escalation, striking Israeli consulates or embassies in the region carries tremendous political risks. And he continues to outline how it actually is more difficult than you may think to identify an Israeli embassy to target without causing other regional havoc, contrary to what the Iranians perceive to be their interest.

And as I mentioned before, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute, Dr. Trita Parsi, joins us now. Always great to see you, doctor. Good to see you, sir. Thank you so much for having me. So first, tell us a little bit about this report of this ultimatum and how credible you find it to be. So the report has been in the Arab media, and it essentially says that in this secret talks that are not that secret any longer between the United States and Iran, some of it has been taking place in Oman. And the Iranian foreign minister is on his way to New York now and have apparently gotten a visa from the United States. That's been a tricky part in the past, oftentimes getting it at the last minute, if at

all. But the report essentially says that as part of the communications between the United States and Iran, and we do know that the Iranians sent a message to the U.S. immediately after the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, that they have essentially offered an off-ramp for both sides, which is that if the United States secures a ceasefire, then Iran will refrain from retaliating. And that retaliation could be against embassies of Israel in the region, or it could potentially be against Israel proper. And on top of that, a vague formulation that it could also lead to a path towards greater understanding between the United States and Iran. Now, the White House has denied that this report is true.

I don't know how much stock I take in that, given what John Kirby says on a daily basis at the White House press these days. And the Iranians have given mixed messages on this. So it's not clear whether it is true or not. But what it does signify, however, is that there is some very interesting diplomacy taking place between the U.S. and Iran in the background. And they're both in a situation in which they don't want a further escalation. And they're trying to calibrate to what extent can they continue to have some lower level confrontation and to what extent

can they afford to put pressure on their partners or allies or proxies, whatever you want to call it, without causing too much strain between themselves and those partners? So we see from the Biden administration, there's almost zero pressure that he's willing to put on Israel, fearing that any real pressure would actually cost him dearly politically at home, a calculation that I personally think is a miscalculation. A similar calculation exists on the Iranian side. They have reined in the Iraqi and Syrian militias, but it has also cost them because of tensions

that that tends to create between them on this ground. So again, it's not entirely clear whether it's true or not, but it does indicate some very interesting developments behind the scene. And if it is true, then the question is, how will Biden react to it? And one of the things I've pointed out is that I find it very difficult for him politically to agree to this if the perception is that he is acting under duress because of pressure from Iran. But he may still go in that direction while denying that the Iranian ultimatum either is true or had anything to do

with his decision. Just in context, could you frame it for how extraordinary it was to strike an embassy? And is it even within Iran's option matrix to do nothing in the way that they have not yet responded to the U.S. retaliatory strike in response to the killing of three U.S. service members. Whenever it comes to Israel, is that even an option that's on the table? What's your analysis there? Excellent question. So let me start off with the first one. This is an extremely unusual attack by the Israelis and a very, very flagrant violation of international law. Striking embassies, according to the Vienna Convention, is completely off limits. It is as bad as when the Iranian students took the U.S. embassy in Iran back in 1979

and ended up taking 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days. Now, what is so sad about all of this is that we've seen now a pattern in which just the last couple of months, in which the Israelis have violated almost every international law and almost seem to be doing so deliberately to just further weaken these international norms. And it is quite noteworthy that it's only a couple of days after the Israeli attack, which was not condemned by the United States, that we also saw the Ecuadorian government take over the Mexican embassy in Ecuador to take a person who had fought political asylum there.

So we're seeing an erosion of these international norms. But we should not forget that these are norms that have been very strong and extremely uncommon for countries to engage in attacks of this kind. And even in the many attacks that the Iranians have been involved in against Israel, it has not led to those type of attacks. Now, the Israelis knew very well what they were doing because they knew that the Iranian red line was an attack on their territory and their embassy in constant is technically their territory and it goes to what you mentioned earlier on they have the iranians have taken a lot of hits from the israelis in the last couple of years particularly in syria without retaliating and part of what

they've said is that those attacks were on attacks against syria attacks against lebanon they were not attacks against iran even though iranians. This time around, they can't really say that because this is an attack on their soul. Now, whether they will respond or not is a very complicated calculation. But what is fascinating in all of this is that 15 years ago, the Iranians had a very explicit policy in which they actually simulated irrationality. It was called simulated irrationality. It was called simulated irrationality. They wanted to behave in an extremely unpredictable and uncalculable way because they believed that that gave them a margin of security.

If the other side doesn't know how you're going to react to one of your actions, you're going to be more careful because you cannot calculate what their next step is. This is very similar to Nixon's madman theory. Today, if you listen to what the Iranian officials are saying, it's quite the opposite. They're saying that they're going to take their time. The response is going to be rational and proportionate. It's a complete shift. And it is a lot of people inside the Iranian regime, hardliners, that are very unhappy about

this because they believe that this has weakened Iran's deterrence vis-a-vis the United States and Israel. And they're pointing to this growing level of attacks by Israel as evidence that Iran is losing its deterrence. And if that argument wins out, we may end up seeing an unpredictable reaction by the Iranians, something that has not been considered by most analysts on the Western side. And it can

lead to a very, very dangerous escalation in the region. So I think it's important to remind people that both the Israelis and the Americans have assessed that Iran was not directly involved in planning the October 7th attacks. I think that's important to keep in mind as there are many voices here in the U.S. that are constantly pushing for a direct war with Iran. But you have assessed here, Dr. Parsi, that neither the Iranians nor the Americans want this direct larger confrontation. So what do you believe is Netanyahu's goal here? What would he like to see play out? Why did he choose this moment to launch such a provocative and escalatory attack? Netanyahu is the odd man out in this equation

because he does have an interest in expanding the war, prolonging the war. The minute this war ends, he will likely go to jail. He's an extremely unpopular Israeli prime minister. There will be re-elections and there's already criminal charges filed against him for corruption. So he has an interest in prolonging and enlarging the war, which completely contradicts what Biden says is his interest. And this is part of the problem with Biden essentially deferring U.S. foreign policy to Netanyahu. It is the Israelis that call the shots on the parameters of the negotiations that are currently taking place about the release of the hostages. And increasing voices in Israel are pointing out Netanyahu does not want to win the

release of the hostages, because if all the hostages are released, it will be more difficult for him to continue the war, and he does not want to end the war. And the United States, under Biden, has essentially linked its policy to Netanyahu's preferences, and those preferences are in complete contrast to what Biden himself says that he wants. Another mistake I think the Biden administration is doing in its approach to these negotiations is that there has been a linkage created between the hostage release and a ceasefire. Now on a surface level, that seems to make sense, of course. Hamas has to give up these hostages and in return get a complete ceasefire.

But in reality, that means that as long as the hostages are not released and Netanyahu is not trying to win their release, there's then a justification for Israel to continue its indiscriminate slaughter in Gaza. This is part of the reason why the American UN draft was rejected. It linked the two things, essentially saying there would be a hostage release when there is a ceasefire, there would be a ceasefire when there's a hostage release. The UN resolution that was passed delinked it and essentially said it is an independent imperative to stop the slaughter in Gaza. Holding the hostages is not a justification for Israel to

kill thousands of children and other innocents in Gaza. And there's also an imperative for these hostages to be released, but they are not linked. Both of them have to happen, but they shouldn't be dependent upon each other. Otherwise, as long as 130 or so hostages are held in Gaza, there is a justification for the killing of thousands and thousands of civilians. And no other country but the United States has signed on to that formula. Well, Dr. Parsi, thank you so much, as always, for your analysis today. It's been invaluable, and I really recommend to everyone that they read what you're writing over at Responsible Statecraft, and also make sure to follow you on Twitter, because your reaction to these events has been essential in understanding

some of the things that are unfolding. Thank you so much for your time today. Great to see you. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate you, sir. It's our pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Lastly, we time today. Great to see you. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate you, sir. It's our pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Lastly, we could not let the show end without revealing Sagar's activities yesterday during the solar eclipse. Let's put this up on the screen.

I didn't ask for this. This is Sagar, cringe posting. No better way to see the eclipse he's got his Apple Vision Pro on there. What is, so I guess I'll ask the serious question. What does it actually look like through the Apple Vision Pro? Well, it was great, Crystal, because I could, here's the thing, it's a digital representation of the real world. So my eyes were completely shielded.

Some people said that my cameras would get blinded and all that. I had no issues. I was able to actually put a nice dark filter using the environments feature. Here's the thing. I'm being roasted into covering this. I didn't ask to cover this. If I knew that we would, I would have filmed it. I would have filmed it for everybody. This was just simply I was enjoying the privacy of my home. I decided to tweet it out as a joke. I tweeted it out as a joke because I actually shared the picture with friends. It was Marshall who said, dude, you got to tweet that out. I said, okay, fine. So I did. And now here I am. But I will say the Vision Pro is completely fine. The cameras are fine. My eyes are fine. I am not one of the, yeah, I mean, I believe so. I mean, my eyesight is still very bad,

I guess. It continues to be bad. Yeah. Continues to be awful. No improvement or deterioration. There has been no improvement. I would be happy. You are not one of the people who could put this up on the screen. Apparently there was this massive surge in people Googling, why do my eyes hurt and my eyes hurt? My eyes hurt. Yeah, staring at the sun will do that to you. Absolutely a shocker.

Donald Trump, I guess, is a throwback comment. That picture of him and Melania is still iconic where she's got her glasses on and he's like looking up at the thing with no glasses on doing the exact opposite of what literally everyone says you should do. Classic Trump. Yeah. I mean, maybe they're lying though about how dangerous it actually is. I'd be curious. I want to know what the actual stats are because they always say that. They're like, don't look at the eclipse. Don't look at the eclipse. Is it because you're just not supposed to look at the sun period? Like period? Like something about the harmful radiation. And so every time that it comes

around, everyone says that. But I've never seen a case of somebody go blind from looking at the eclipse. Well, I think the thing is, I'm just like kind of making this up at this point, but everyone knows you can tell right away when you're actually looking at the sun, like it hurts your eyes in real time. You're like, oh, I should, I'm going to stop because this is not pleasant. But if you're in a totality or near totality, you could be looking at it and it wouldn't actually be having that same impact on you like, ah, I got to look away.

But it's still having a negative impact. I think that's the deal. I, we here in the DC area, I think we got what, like 87%? 87%, yeah. You could kind of, I mean, you could definitely, if you had the glasses on,

you could see the sun, you could see it happening. But if you didn't, you could tell it was a weird, there was like a weird dimness. It's like a strange, Kyle said the lightest having an identity crisis.

That was like kind of what it felt like. I went in 2017 to that when I went to Tennessee to see the totality. And I would like to do it again because it is a cool experience. I mean, it's crazy when it almost looks like a sunset and then things get so dark in the middle of the day. It is a weird, eerie, surreal experience. But, you know, I guess I'll have to wait till 2045 till the next one comes around in the US.

But to me, it was worth it making the trip. We went with the whole family. We actually like were out on a lake and it was neat. I enjoyed it. Well, the next map, 2044, is actually going to be in Montana. And you can go to-

Yeah, you can go to the National Park, Glacier. Now, I believe, I think it's Glacier National, I think, falls within the totality. I mean, I'm telling you, that place is beautiful enough as is. So the idea of doing that with the eclipse, that sounds pretty cool. 20 years from now, I guess I'm going to be there. I'm convinced because of the videos that came out of Austin that people were sending me of the actual totality, the blackness. And I was like, oh, damn, that actually sounds pretty cool. There's no comparison between being in the actual totality and getting even a high, you know, a 90%

or whatever we got here, 87%. It really is a completely different experience. So I don't, you know, I don't think it's cringey that people who made the trek to Cleveland or Buffalo or Austin or wherever they were able to see it, weren't they, but in Austin, didn't they have cloud cover? They did, but it didn't stop the darkness. So, I mean, they weren't able to see it. Weren't they? But in Austin, didn't they have cloud cover? They did, but it didn't stop the darkness. So, I mean, they weren't able to see the actual, like, event.

I think they were able to some. It depends on where you were. But the darkness itself, I mean, you couldn't stop that. Apparently, even, like, night animals were howling or whatever. Like coyotes and things like that because they thought it was so dark. That's pretty cool. I think that's cool. So, I see why people in the old times thought it was dark magic.

I get it now. Yeah, totally. Maybe they were right. All right. We are headed out, guys. Thank you very, very much. This week, CounterPoints will be doing the AMA, so please send in your special CounterPoints AMA questions for Ryan and Emily,

and they will send that to you on Sunday. Otherwise, we will see you all later. This is an iHeart Podcast.