Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/12/22: Inflation Numbers, Ukraine Military Aid, Journalist Killed, Overdose Deaths, MSNBC Turmoil, Left Infighting, & More!

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about the new inflation numbers, Biden's speech on inflation, Ukraine war funding, Al Jazeera journalist killed, overdose deaths record, Symone Sanders show flop, 'stop the steal' lies, media's inflation coverage, and the left's self destruction with Ryan Grim!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Ryan Grim: https://theintercept.com/podcasts/deconstructed/ https://theintercept.com/2022/05/08/maryland-campaign-brandy-brooks-progressive-accountability/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Many big stories breaking this morning to bring to you. So new inflation numbers out. The picture continues to be dire. We have all of the details there for you. President Biden also addressing this in a major speech, clearly trying to reframe the debate on inflation, which has been obviously very damaging for you all,

but politically dire for Democrats. So we'll bring you all of those details. But there's a lot else that is going on as well. A massive package of aid mostly going to defense contractors, ultimately passing with regards to the war in Ukraine. Very little dissent, but where the dissent came from is actually kind of interesting. So we'll give you the details of that. Also, a Palestinian-American journalist was shot and killed while covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank. We will tell you everything we know

about what unfolded there. Really a horrific, horrific tragedy. We also have new numbers with regards to overdose deaths. The numbers continue to go up. There was some hope that that might not be the case as the pandemic started to ease in 2021 and lockdowns came to an end. But in fact, the numbers just continue to get worse and worse. So the details there are also important to get into. And finally, we have some new numbers with regards to the ratings of Simone Sanders debut on MSNBC. Just how did her first show featuring the first lady? How did that go? We'll tell you about that. Ryan Grimm is going to join us as well. He actually reported out

an extraordinary story about the sort of derailing of a DSA progressive campaign, political campaign close to D.C. that is interesting and instructive. It tells you a lot. A lot of ways. So we're going to have him lay that out since he did the reporting on this. But we do want to start with those brand new numbers on inflation, Sagar. Yeah, that's right. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. These are really important numbers. So this is the overall year over year increase by price in terms of specific product categories. So I'm just going to read some of those for just who are listening. Gas, 44% up year over year. Airfare, up 33% year over year. Eggs, up 23% year over year. Utility gas, 23%. Used cars, 23%. Hotels, 23%. Bacon, 18%. Chicken, 15%. Milk, 15%. Furniture, 15%. Coffee, 14%. Beef, 14%. Flour, 14%. New cars, 14. Fish, 13. Electricity, 11.

Health insurance, 10. Rent, 5. So basically everything you need in your entire life is at a minimum up 5 and at a maximum is up around 20. So not a good situation. Now, the way that the media is trying to spin this, and I'm doing an entire monologue just on the media and inflation, is just so hilarious to me. Let's put this up there on the screen. The AP says, US inflation dips from the four-decade high,

but still causing pain. It's like, yeah, it dipped to 8.3 from 8.5. So not necessarily a huge win. And actually, in terms of the overall increase in price, which you see in the most critical categories like gas and food and gas, food, rent, housing, et cetera. I mean, you just have a situation where it's devastating for most Americans. The Biden administration, we'll get to his speech, is trying to spin it, talking about wage increase. Well, wages are up two to three percent. It's like that's not even going to cover your rent inflation i mean yeah it's not going to cover your rent inflation let alone food inflation let alone gas i mean the

lack of focus here on the most basic bread butter like household expenses by the administration is going to kill them and i think that the really depressing part about this and kind of was the end of my diesel monologue um on tuesday is there ain't no way out of this thing right now i mean gas right now is still 4 30 a gallon crystal airfare is uh very high specifically not only because of high demand because everybody wants to travel this summer but jet fuel is like seven dollars a gallon um in new york harbor eggs same thing i didn't know this but 10 of the of all the chickens in America apparently died of some weird bird flu this year. So we have some crazy—yeah, I know. It's like this year can't get any better.

Like, cannot possibly catch a break on a single freaking thing. Literally 10% of all the chickens died from a crazy bird flu this year. Wow. And then utility gas, obviously, that comes from natural gas. Hotels, demand is sky high. Bacon, I've talked before about the pig shortage and meat and there's all kinds of crazy things going on in the meat supply chain same problem with milk i mean you know just on i can go on forever every single one of these categories the price here is probably

only going to increase over the next year maybe even two years as the supply chain problems shake out and there's not a lot the biden mr I mean, they could have done something, you know, maybe a year ago, six months ago. At this point, they're just showing us that they're not really going to do anything. This is here to stay for a long time to come. And that has major ramifications. Yeah, no, that's right. And the way that they're trying to spin it and say, well, there are some good news buried within this report, even though actually the inflation increased more than they were expecting. So it was a worse report than they were expecting. And the stock market, once again, dipped because of that, because they're looking

not just at inflation, but they're also reading the tea leaves of, OK, if inflation remains high, that's going to force the Federal Reserve's hand in terms of having to tighten the economy more and potentially end up with what they did in the 70s and 80s, which is forcing the country into recession to try to get inflation under control. But so what they're pointing to is they say, oh, well, core prices, so-called core prices jumped twice as much from March to April as they did the previous month. But there are signs that supply chains are improving for some goods, prices for appliances and clothing both fell, cost of used cars dropped. You remember the used cars sort of like led the charge in terms, they were one of the first- It was a leading indicator.

Yeah, it was. It ended up being a leading indicator. But those prices for things that are essential to you for food and for rent and for gasoline, continuing to spike at such a rapid pace. I mean, those are the things that really hit household budgets and that there's just obviously no avoiding paying to get to work, paying to feed yourself and your family, for example. So it's an extraordinarily difficult situation. And, you know, I was reading one analysis. I thought this was interesting, too, about the how this impacts people psychologically as well, because, you know, even in a inflation, there's no mythology about like, well, this is really somehow your fault. Everybody, it feels completely out of your control. There's nothing you can do other than just like cut corners and cut back and cut to the bone what you're ultimately spending for yourself and your family budget. And that sense of powerless is also, I mean, that's just a really horrible

feeling where you know that there's nothing you can do to keep up with these rising prices, where you know that every time you go to the grocery store, you're going to be able to get a little bit less and a little bit less and a little bit less with your dollars. So I think that part of it too, you know, it's the reality of the cuts people are having to make. And also that sense of powerless that there's just nothing in your control that you can do about this whatsoever i think it's an excellent point you actually was talking about this with some friends yesterday about how i finally understand some of my like parents quirks about like paying down their mortgage and the way that they're like relentless and it's like well they had mortgages that were

like nine percent whenever they were uh whenever they came to this country. A lot of people had mortgages which were like 12%. I mean, I can't even conceive of what that looks like. And a lot of people, even probably older than my parents, really remember the 1970s and the chaos of having to stand in a gas line for eight hours or going to the grocery. I mean, at that time, runaway inflation was a really real thing. And then you have crazy economy and it just feels like the whole world is falling apart. I'm starting to understand how some of this stuff can imprint on you as a generation. For sure.

Honestly, I think it will probably imprint on us. I mean, 20 years from now, you're going to be like, hey, man, you don't know what it was like. I mean, I can't be the only guy. You go to the grocery store and you see the same pack of something you bought like two months ago. And you're like, what? Like, this is $10 more expensive. Yes. You're like, this is crazy town.

And, you know, you ring up. And even though you think you're being economical, you're like, it's $250. You know, it's like, what is happening here? This is one of those things where that is just going to stay with you for a long time. I mean, I think I try to think back on the Great Recession and how about mortgage-backed securities and like exactor, but I just looked at it. And then the fact that they got bailed out and then the fact that they all got rich, but so many people lost their homes. I just posted a photo yesterday, which really just bummed the hell out of me. And it was a side-by-side photo of Detroit in 2009, the same house versus the same house in 2019. And in 2009, there was a kiddie pool in the front and there was a guy outside mowing his lawn.

This is like Google Maps or something. 2019, the whole thing is overgrown, the garage is trashed, and the whole street is empty. And we're like, oh my God. That really is the legacy of that. That imprinted really heavily on me. I think inflation is gonna imprint heavily on all of us, Gen Z, everybody.

Well, the thing is too that these crises are no longer coming once a generation. It's like it's speeding up. I mean, you know, you live through the Iraq war and the crash and the and covid and the covid crash. And now this, you know, this chaotic economic circumstances that we see right now. So it just feels like it's all coming so quickly. I definitely saw my my dad is older. And so he was born during the Great Depression in West Virginia, you know, grew up in complete poverty. I mean, lived in like a one room shanty that his dad built. And you definitely see the way that that frugality

stayed with him his entire life, you know, continues with him today where he can tell you, like, he's the classic guy who had the same coat that he bought in the 70s that, you know, he's wrapped in duct tape and can tell you exactly what it cost when he bought it in 1973. Like, that's my dad. So there's no doubt that these things have massive generational impacts. And you also see right now, we talked some about the crypto crash and that stablecoin that we talked about before. The TerraUSD disaster. Yeah, I mean, it's a complete disaster. It was down to like 50 cents.

This thing is supposed to be pegged at a dollar. And now you have people who sort of put their faith in crypto and put their faith in the stablecoin in particular. They're posting on Reddit like suicide hotlines. They've lost everything. And so, yeah, is that going to stay with people for their entire life? Is that going to not just psychologically, but just from a literal, like, what do your life chances and choices and what does it look like for you from here on out? Yeah, that's, that's going to be with people and set their trajectory for their entire lives. So those are, you know, it's a very dire time. And I think when we, and this is a good way to transition to the politics piece of this,

when you look at the numbers among young people and how they feel about Joe Biden and the Democratic Party and how in just a year's time frame, it has fallen off a cliff. This is pretty extraordinary. And I think it has a lot to do with the sense of broken promises, number one, the sense that, you know, he came in, promised, I'm going to be FDR, and I'm going to do all these things. And then one by one, all of these things which were popular and important and would help people get through these difficult times get sort of like ceremonially shot in the head week after week.

And so now you have a situation where coming in, young demographics were the strongest supporter of Joe Biden. And now it's completely reversed. Actually, the older you are, the more likely you are to have to say have a favorable opinion of Joe Biden at this point. Young people are despairing of how this administration has ultimately gone for them. Now, that doesn't mean they like the Republicans or are going to vote for them, but are they completely disenchanted with what the Democratic Party led by Joe Biden has done for them? Absolutely. So the Democrats have apparently finally realized that inflation is a major issue and that this is hitting people, giving them a pay cut every single week.

Biden gave what was billed as a sort of major address on Tuesday to try to reset the narrative around inflation and lay out what he thinks is going on and what his plans are versus what the Republican plans are. Let's take a listen to a little bit of that. I know the families all across America are hurting because of inflation. I understand what it feels like. I come from a family where when the price of gas and food went up, we felt it. It was a discussion at the kitchen table. I want every American to know that I'm taking inflation very seriously, and it's my top domestic priority. Let me start with the Putin price hike, high gas prices and energy prices. My plan is already in motion. I led the world and other countries to join with us to coordinate the largest

release of oil from our stockpiles of all the countries in history. 240 million barrels. My plan is to lower every day costs for hard work in America and lower the deficit by asking large corporations. The other path is the Ultra-MAGA plan put forward by congressional Republicans to raise taxes on working families, lower the income of American workers,

threaten sacred programs Americans count on like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and give break after break to big corporations and billionaires, just like they did the last time they were in power. Well, if there's one thing the Democrats are good at, Sagar, it's coming up with a cringe tagline. Yeah. Putin price hike is genuinely one of the most cringe things I've ever heard in my entire life. Ultra MAGA, also pretty bad. Yeah. What does ultra MAGA mean? That's the thing is like, if you're going- What are you saying? It doesn't mean, that's the thing, is if you're going to

have a slogan or tagline like this that you're going to lean into— and by the way, some of the reporting suggests that this came from Bill Clinton's addled mind, because they met last week, and it sort of is along the lines of the type of political strategies that he engages, I guess. That's the speculation about this. But, yeah, for your average person, it doesn't land. It doesn't mean anything, really. They're just like, OK. And I mean, he's right.

The Republican plan laid out by Rick Scott totally sucks. It would be wildly unpopular. It does entail a tax hike for millions of Americans. It also has this bizarre provision of like, we're going to sunset every single social welfare for every program every five years so that we have to go and re-up Medicare, re-up Medicaid, re-up Social Security. And, of course, they're going to, like, extract their pound of flesh. He's right about all of this. But this is hardly a confidence-inspiring speech.

He only barely called out the corporate price gouging that's going on. And we'll get to a little bit more of that. And, you know, he's laid out stuff that they already did, tapping the strategic petroleum reserve. OK, well, how much did that do for us? Not a whole heck of a lot. And what he lays out going forward is also really sort of milquetoast. And most of it doesn't have any chance of succeeding in the Senate as it's currently constituted. So he has no plan. Zero. And at this point, I don't think we have should have any trust in the president's ability in order to do anything about it. And the other point is, I don't really understand what universe these people live in. But you and I both caught this article yesterday. Let's put this up there on the screen about how Representative Katie Porter, who I actually like, has some great times sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. Some of these CEOs in Congress.

You know, she says only after Representative Katie Porter put bacon in her cart at the local grocery store did she notice that its price had spiked to $9.99 a pound. Reluctantly, she put the package back. It was a dose of reality that Porter and a single mom of three has long understood, but she's not all sure her Democratic colleagues share her interests. And so she said only after she gave an emotional speech like last week to the House Democratic caucus did maybe Congress begin to understand. And here's the thing. As many people pointed out, do you know how to read a poll? This has been the top issue for a year. It's basic. I mean, how much of a bubble are these people living in that they could not understand that stuff is way too expensive all across the

board, causing chaos in people's lives from gas to food to housing, electricity, everything that you have to buy these days is too expensive. This has been self-evident for 18 months and really especially in the last year. What planet are you living on? That's what it feels like to me. It's like Biden's – the theme of Biden's speech in the Southern New York Times wrote it up was Biden urges Americans to have patience. No, dude. You run the country. You people literally run it. What are you going to do for me? Why should I have any trust? And especially what it took one lady buying some bacon

in May 2022 for you guys to wake up. What's happening here? The story that was, I mean, that was crazy, right? Like, I mean, we've been talking about inflation for a long time now. I don't, I just, I genuinely don't understand how you could have missed this dynamic. And then one of, purportedly, according to Katie Porter, one of her colleagues said to her, well, it's not showing up in the polls. I'm like, but that's not even, like, people have been saying for how long that inflation is their number one issue. So the whole thing is bizarre. I mean, Katie Porter, obviously she earns a congressional salary of $174,000, which is a lot of money, way more than what your average American earns. But in fairness to her, she has to maintain

residence in two very expensive locations, and she's a single mom with three kids. So it rings true to me that she has to pay a lot more attention to her budget than most members of Congress. And she doesn't have family wealth. Right. Who are, you know, multimillionaires. Most of her colleagues, this is completely—they can afford to be completely oblivious to whatever the price is of whatever they're buying at the grocery store and whatever the cost of the pump ultimately is. So it does strike me as true that she would be one of the ones who would actually have to pay attention to like, oh my God, this pack of bacon is now $10. This is not going to work out for me. But the fact that I just, I can't even believe

that it's taken till now for them to really register what a massive problem and total crisis this is for Americans. But we've seen it in the rhetoric. I mean, for how long have we seen them trying to spin the economy and basically say, like, you don't really understand how good the economy actually is. Right now, the negative numbers are almost as high on how people feel about the economy as they were during the Great Recession. I mean, that's how dire things are for the American people right now and how much they're feeling the squeeze of every single month their paycheck goes down and down and down in real terms as a result of inflation. So they were trying to paint it as like the media is not covering properly how good the

economy actually is and look at how low the unemployment is. But if you have a job, but you can't pay your bills, like that's still a really bad economy. That's still a dire situation for you. Thank you. This is the stuff that drives me. They're like, did you not know that your paycheck went up? It's like, dude, I can't afford the stuff I used to buy. It's simple. That's it. Yeah. I mean, that is how people think about the economy. And honestly, that's how they should think about the economy. Nobody cares about nominal GDP and GDP per capita when the stuff that you experience in your daily life is more expensive and there's no plan in order to bring it down. And you know, Americans are really

unanimous right now in terms of inflation causing a problem, but they don't really agree on what's causing it, which I think is really interesting if you look at how the breakdown is. So here, this is from the New York Times in terms of their polling. Now, a lot of people, about 45%, blame the COVID-19 pandemic. And I think that's very fair. So a lot and a little, 45 plus 38. So about 86% of people. Now, supply chain disruption is, again, almost universally agreed upon as a lot or a little in terms of blaming inflation. But things begin to break down a little bit. So people, 40% of people blame corporations a lot, 38% a little. So, again, generally unanimous.

But then things start to get real split whenever it comes to policy, Crystal. The American Rescue Plan is 30%. A lot of people blame probably mostly Republicans. 37% say a little, 30% say not at all. And then the war in Ukraine is also very, very split. The Putin price hike. And so I was just going to say, which one is the administration going with, Crystal? Which of those are they blaming inflation on the most? The one that the least amount of people agree with. And by the way, this is what I love about America. They, our people are not stupid. Like they look at that and they're like, I don't believe you. And you shouldn't. They're like, stuff has been way more

expensive before Russia invaded Ukraine. Don't gaslight me. Most people are like, yeah, I think it's COVID and I think it's supply. Now look look, we can all disagree on why exactly that is. But, you know, some 80 to 90 percent of Americans are not dumb. They're like, yeah, there's a supply problem. There's all this crazy stuff going on with China. And also the pandemic is kind of crazy. You know, and of course, the administration goes with the war in Ukraine. Yeah. To blame this stuff.

It's not because that puts it totally off them. And even that, though, is disingenuous because obviously we are very involved and we're going to talk in the next block about this more. But we are very involved in what's going on in Ukraine. And this administration has set a policy of we don't actually want the war to end. with, you know, dire consequences for Ukraine and Ukrainian lives and also dire consequences for Americans and what they are ultimately paying at the pump and paying, you know, in terms of food prices. But to your point, the reason people are not going with that explanation, I mean, I think they buy like, OK, that has something to do with what's going on right now. But obviously, inflation was going up before the war started. So like we didn't forget. Gas was still $3.50 a gallon.

Right. The Putin price hike. But that's I mean, that's their way of being like not on us. It's it's Russia's fault. It's Putin's fault, as is apparently everything that happens in this country. Bad ever to Democrats. And, you know, Stoller is has really been laser focused on how much of this has to do also with corporations who have monopoly power looking at this landscape and saying, aha, we can use this as an excuse to further raise prices. And here's some more numbers to back that up.

He says this is a very weird inflationary period with an unusually large share going to profits and an unusually small share going to wages. So this is yet another indication. They have 54% of normal and recent contributions to growth in unit prices in the non-financial corporate sector. 54% of that is going to corporate profits, and only 8% is going to labor. So overwhelmingly, the increase in prices and costs is not coming from, you know, a lot of times you hear this from right, like, oh, wages are going up. And that means that everything's going to be more expensive. No, that's that is not what's going on here whatsoever. Wages have gone up a little bit, not even close to enough to keep up with inflation. Meanwhile, corporate profits are skyrocketing. And no surprise, given that we've

heard CEOs saying basically like, this is a great time for us because we can lift prices and consumers just have to take it. And they will take it because they understand that inflation is happening right now. So again, it was frustrating to me because that is of everything that's going on in the world and contributing to inflation, that corporate price gouging part is actually the part that the White House could do the most about. And so the fact that they, you know, he had like one line about it. He said that the two major causes are COVID supply chain and Putin's price hike buried in the speech is like, oh, and by the way, corporations are lifting their prices too much. But that's the piece you should actually be really focusing on because, number one, it's clearly a significant contributor here. And number two, it's something that the administration could do a lot more about than, say, you know, whether or not Shanghai is locked down right now.

You know, I feel like I'm just repeating myself over and over again. But, you know, I was talking with some friends yesterday. Like, the Biden administration should declare a national emergency over the baby formula shortage right now, invoke the Defense Production Act, talk to the FDA and say, hey, what's the problem? OK, Abbott Foods isn't producing enough. What can we do? Oh, Europe has a ton of baby formula. Let's go buy some. I mean, this is one of those most basic functions of government.

These are little, little kids. And then expand that across all of the entire economy. The meatpacking thing. I was talking about this with some friends yesterday. What happened to that investigation? They ordered some investigation into the meatpacking supply chain. That was six, seven months ago. So what's happening? I mean, meat is still really expensive.

All kinds. And these are the tip of the spear types of things that you could do to affect the economy. But, you know, they're focused on other things right now. By the way, we learned on the baby formula shortage. I might do my Monday monologue on this because this is just so enraging, but also so perfect. Part of what happened and why there is such a disastrous shortage right now and why moms and babies are, I mean, this is, it's just, it's horrible. I can't imagine being in that situation where you don't know where you're going to get your babies next meal. Horrible, horrible. Abbott had to recall all of their formula or significant amount of their formula because you had four babies who had a bacterial

infection, two of whom died. And now we're learning that apparently they had refused to repair dilapidated drying machines, and that, you know, made their plants into potential petri dishes for these bacterial infections. At the same time, Sagar, though, they didn't want to take the money to invest in actually making sure that babies are safe. Instead, they did invest $5.73 billion in stock buybacks. I was going to say, she's about to say stock buybacks. Stock buybacks. Every time. Too perfect.

You know, this is a good example, though. This is about monopolization, which is that Abbott has a direct contract with WIC, the WIC program, which we talked about earlier. We need more competition in this sector. And I've now known much more about baby formula than I ever did in my life. But you know, I was telling you, there's a wealthy black market for European baby formula. A lot of Instagram moms are obsessed with European baby formula because it doesn't have plant-based additives like ours and has more, whatever. We don't have to get into all of the science on it. But the point is, is that there's already an existing market here for European baby formula. Now look, I'm a protectionist at heart, but if we

don't have it and we have a crisis, let's go get some. I mean, these are not hard things to do. I was also reading that there are certain facilities and others that we could easily convert if Biden invoked the Defense Production Act in order to spin up baby formula production. Instead, you know, thumb up the you-know-what at the admin administration doing absolutely nothing and i got you know i got two friends actually right now i have newborn infants and both of them texting me about how much one of them is a prepper actually so he foresaw this crisis and he's got like three months but he's like listen man i don't know what i'm gonna do after three months because i really hope that you know there's not still short his wife is freaking out talking to him about it i

don't want to be in this i can't imagine imagine being in that situation. Yeah, I was reading about moms who have babies who have allergies or particularly like, it's one thing. I mean, this is bad for everybody. And there are states where it's as much as 50% out of stock. I mean, if you go on Amazon, for example, you can't possibly buy it. But if you need a specific kind of formula for your baby in particular, it is a really, really bad situation. Of course, it's even worse if you are low income and it's hard for you to afford to start with, and then prices are skyrocketing. So, I mean, I can't imagine a more clear-cut instance of, we have, this is a complete crisis. We have to do something about it now. Like, if that isn't

a clear-cut case for whatever it takes like go and buy the baby formula you're bring it here give it out for free defense production act whatever you ultimately have to do and the last thing i'll say about all of this is you know the whole promise of this particular system of sort of like radical free market capitalism that we have is that listen yes corporations are going to listen, yes, corporations are going to get rich. Yes, your jobs are going to get shipped overseas. That's all true. But your prices are going to be low and you're never going to have to worry about like the, you know, food crises that they have in communist countries. That's not going to happen here. Well, guess what? You got the jobs shipped overseas and you still had prices increase. You're still paying too much. So none of the

promises of this system, the way that it was architected, have ultimately come true. And, you know, I think that's a big learning to take from all of this as we move forward. Huge learning. And, you know, I was reading yesterday about these moms on Facebook groups who are having to like swap breast milk. And I'm like, that is some failed state, like 1915. Completely. Completely. I can't even imagine it. Completely. Okay, let's move on because it somewhat pertains to the baby formula crisis.

This is about Ukraine. So let's put this up there on the screen. So this is the only article I could find where it talked about the U.S. House passes $40 billion, which actually listed, Crystal, what that actual aid does. Everybody just says $40 billion. Okay, that's a lot of money. What kind of weapons? What is earmarked? Exactly which billion is going where?

So here's what they wrote. And I guess VOA is American propaganda, so it kind of makes sense. The package includes $6 billion for security assistance, including training equipment, weapons, and support. $8.7 billion to replenish stocks of existing U.S. equipment sent to Ukraine. Think Javelin missiles, those type of things. Then $3.9 billion for European command operations. I don't know what that means. In addition, the legislation authorizes a further $11 billion in presidential drawdown authority,

which allows the president to authorize the transfer of articles and services from U.S. stocks without congressional approval in response to an emergency. Biden had only asked for $5 billion. So let that sink in. The president said, I only need $5 billion in discretionary authority to send whatever the hell I want from U.S. military stocks to Ukraine. Congress was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But what if we doubled that and then added an extra billion? So why don't we give you $11 billion for you to send, again, without congressional approval, whatever you want. Why does this matter? Because the administration and the president in particular now has the capacity and the congressional authority

if this bill is ratified by the Senate in order to send offensive style weapons to Ukraine. Now, look, he already has a limited ability in order to do that, but Congress has now given him $11 billion worth of military equipment. Think everything that we have, if he so chooses to do so. And now he is the sole discretionary authority over what exactly gets sent over there and not in regards to this particular pool of funds. You cool with that? You want to put all that power in the hands of a single man? It's not like the president doesn't have enough power. Now, I'll continue. $4 billion in foreign military financing to provide support for Ukraine affected by the

crisis. So in effect, we're backstopping some of the loans and other things that they've taken out. And then in addition, the U.S. has rushed $3.5 billion worth of armaments to Ukraine since Ukraine invaded, including howitzers, anti-aircraft stinger systems, anti-tank javelin systems, ammunition, and recently disclosed ghost drones. Again, not a lot of clarity on what exactly those ghost drones are doing. Now, how exactly did the vote on this break down? Let's put this up there on the screen. Well, it went 368 to 57. Now, every single no vote on that bill, Crystal, were Republicans. And I think it really bears noting that not only did not a single Democrat dissent from this, but there was no explanation given to the American people as to why the administration

asked for $33 billion to Ukraine and Congress is like, yeah, but we'll give you 40. Why? Who is this money going to? Who exactly is the beneficiary of this extra? Oh, we know who the beneficiary is. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. They're all here in the Beltway. All the defense contractors that got massively wealthy during the Afghanistan war and during every other conflict. We need to ask these questions.

And look, I'm not going to say all these 57 Republicans were noble. We have a list. We can put it up there on the screen. I think a lot of them did so for deficit reasons. But hey, look, whatever. I will say, I actually thought, and it pains me to say this, that one of the better responses on this was actually Marjorie Taylor Greene. So let's put this up there. Here's what she had to say. Let's go to the next one there, guys, which is that she

says, in America last, and forgive her rhetoric, $40 billion Ukraine first bill we are voting on tonight. There is an authorization for funds to be given to the CIA for who knows what and for who knows how much, but there is no baby formula for American mothers. Now, look, before the inevitable trolls come out, of course, it is not a one-to-one situation. But to me, it's about what gets default bipartisan overwhelming support and billions of dollars of funds with no questions asked, no public debate, et cetera. And what gets talked about on podcasts and online and on Facebook groups amongst millions of new moms and gets no support in Congress, no attention, no statements, nothing. So let me speak to the Democrats first. It is so pathetic that there not only was there not a single no vote there was not a word of

dissent as far as i could see and you know early on you had at least ilhan omar i think she might have been basically the only one but raising questions about hey guys maybe we need to slow down maybe we need to actually debate these things because we are going really far and really fast. And I think we should press the pause button and actually dig into what we're doing here, what the goals are, what the end game is. Not a word of any of that from anyone. And given that we now know the administration's goal is not to achieve peace in Ukraine. It's to, quote-unquote, weaken Russia, which means to keep this war going indefinitely. Now that we know there are reports that Boris Johnson,

when he went to Ukraine, met with Zelensky specifically to say, we do not want a negotiated peace right now. Given all of that, where are the elected voices on the left saying, hey, guys, $40 billion for defense contracts, and we're just throwing around extra billions and giving $11 billion to Biden to do whatever the hell he wants with it and potentially offensive weapons, which was supposed to be more or less off the table? Like, what are we doing here? OK, not to mention that originally the idea was this was going to be tied together with COVID money,

which was going to go to things which should be uncontroversial, in particular, making sure that people who are poor can still get tested and can still get vaccines, which seems kind of important for a domestic population as well. Well, there was Republican dissent over that, so they put that off the table. So think about what that says. Funding a proxy war against Russia to the tune of multi billions of tens of billions of dollars is actually less controversial in Congress than making sure that poor people can get a covid vaccine.

Like that is mind boggling. And there was someone on Twitter who said basically Congress is just an arms dealer now. And that's effectively the case. Now, I do want to say on the Republican side, listen, these people are full of shit. Because ultimately, number one, they didn't want to vote for the COVID, like the stuff that would go to the population. I don't know what was in the COVID. Number two, like, listen, if we actually had a bill that was like, we're going to give out free baby formula to the population, do you think that these people would actually vote for that madison cawthorne was out there saying like imagine if we spent 40 billion on on veterans instead of doing this this dude just voted against 20 billion for burn victims like last month right so let's be clear that on all of this they're all full of shit good it'd still be good to put it i would love to see it put on the floor i'd'd love to see them vote against it. What, the baby formula? Yeah, I mean, put it.

Yeah, let's do it. Go for it, yes. I would love to see that get put on the floor. I think when it comes down, look, I support sending weapons to Ukraine, some type of weapons. I support supporting Ukraine. I think that Ukraine's cause is righteous.

Now, all of that being said, the reason I'm framing it this way is we need to have debates about grand strategic aims. Now, if the Ukrainians want to continue fighting on, that's great. Now, what exactly are we also doing in terms of ensuring that Congress exercises its constitutional authority to say, well, okay, we support you on this, but we don't want offensive weapons going over there, so why is it not written into the bill that Biden isn't allowed to do that? I mean, why are we not making it so that Congress has an overwhelming advisory

authority on exactly projecting the people's will, which is what Congress is supposed to be, is if most Americans agree we should help out Ukraine. To what end? And this is the problem with what I see, which is this is just runaway, which is that they come to us, they're like, we want $33 billion. And we're like, okay, we'll give you $40 billion. Well, where's that extra money going? And it's like, this is what Glenn wrote about. Let's put this up there on the screen, which is that Biden wanted 33 billion for Ukraine. Congress quickly raised it to 40 billion. Who benefits? And look, I think we all know who benefits, which is that there is a defense industrial complex here in DC. And also, this is taking away from a lot of others. You know,

some people who talk about Ukraine say that they care about Taiwan. Guess what? Taiwan's been trying to buy weapons for us now for a while, and they're not able to get the weapons that they want because we sent them all to Ukraine. Here's the other problem. We have a semiconductor crisis in this country. Every Javelin anti-attack weapon system requires a ton of semiconductors, so much so that the administration is now trying to sell Congress on passing this new semiconductor bill by saying we need these semiconductors to put into our weapon systems so that we can send it over to Ukraine. Now, you don't have to agree with that. I think that's kind of crazy. But my point being that we are, you know, we may need these weapons sometime, too. What are we going to do? we have enough javelins? By the way, the answer to that is no, because we've sent all of them over to Ukraine.

There's all kinds of downstream effects here. And then also, when the president sends over existing U.S. military stock, well, then the military has to go buy new ones. So who benefits from that, Crystal? Like, this is what I'm saying. There are all kinds of downstream, very big and

nuanced discussions that need to happen whenever it comes to what do we want to do in Ukraine. This is, you know, what? It's been two months now that this has been going on. Ukrainians have fought a righteous war. They're going to, they've battled them in the East. They're keeping them basically, you know, it's a rough stalemate. I'm not saying that hundreds of people aren't dying. That isn't a tragedy. Where do we go from here? Is flooding the whole country full of weapons? Is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don't know. I mean, we should all have independent assessments. And the fact that they just not only rubber stamped it, but gave even more is what troubles me the most. And I, what I know with war is there's always 40th order consequences. Of course. Of course.

I mean, how many times do we have to learn that lesson over and over and over again when it comes back to bite the entire world, but also us specifically? I mean, Glenn points out, isn't it convenient that just as their grift in Afghanistan ends, they get a new, even more lucrative funding project for the defense contract. You know, for those of you who are suffering in the market right now, you certainly couldn't go wrong with buying in on Raytheon or Lockheed Martin or one of these defense industrial complex machines, because ultimately Congress is very reliable in making sure that they have even more funding than ultimately what's requested. Think about the disparity in how this conversation unfolds, because if the administration was found to be putting pressure on the Ukrainians to make concessions and negotiate a peace, there would be outrage about that. How could you? How could you do that? But we know that they're putting pressure effectively on Ukraine to continue the war,

to continue fighting. And somehow that's fine. That part, for us to put pressure on them in that direction, because I know people say, oh, well, you know, the Ukrainians, they want to keep fighting, they want to keep going. Do you really know that? Because it was someone close to Zelensky who leaked that news to Ukrainian Pravda, by the way, that Boris Johnson was putting pressure on them to continue the war and to continue fighting. So, yes, listen, Russia is the aggressor in this situation. All of the conversation about NATO and all of that, very clear, like the way that this was ultimately predictable. But they're the ones who are responsible. They're the ones who invaded.

None of that is justified whatsoever. And they could end it tomorrow. And they could end it tomorrow. And that is certainly the case. But, you know, there is there is no I even saw an article where Biden was saying, like, oh, I'm worried that there's no off ramp for Putin. It's like, what do you think your whole policy of your administration has been? I mean, you all are admitting this out right now. So that's a bigger question is right now the U.S. policy and this 40 billion dollars is part of this is to keep war going with Russia. Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton admitting, is to keep war going with Russia.

Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton admitting we are basically at war with Russia now. Did you vote for that? Is that what you really wanted our representatives to be doing? Do you want this all to unfold and us keep going further and further and further and further with no public debate about what any of it means, with no accountability whatsoever about who or what this money is ultimately funding, is that really what you wanted to hear?

Yeah. And I think, look, that is the ultimate question that all of us should ask. And this is Congress, and specifically the House, the people's House, is supposed to be where the most raucous debates and all that stuff happen. So when they come in and they're supposed to control the purse, that's what the founders intended. So when they come in and they're supposed to control the purse, that's what the founders intended. So to have the most direct democracy, democratic body in the world, not do that, it's a serious issue. Indeed. And, you know, another thing I've been thinking about lately, and this transitions into our next block is there are a lot of righteous causes and a lot of atrocities unfolding in the world. And it's incredible the way that the media can focus

attention on one specific one. I mean, I was thinking about this in context of I drove by like a minivan that had a support Ukraine flag on it, which, okay, fine, well and good. But, you know, all of the other tragedies that are unfolding in the world and all of the other causes, which are just like the cause of Palestinians, for example, those get pushed aside, those get whitewashed if they happen to involve someone that the U.S. state considers to be an ally. So let's talk about what is unfolding in Israel right now. Let's put this tear sheet up on the screen. So a really trailblazing, iconic Palestinian-American journalist for Al Jazeera was shot and killed while reporting on

an Israeli raid in a Palestinian refugee camp, Janine, within the occupied West Bank. And let me just read you a little bit of what everybody is saying happened here. So Shireen Abu Akla, who was one of the first female prominent journalists in the region, who has been sort of like a household name within the Middle East for her reporting on the Palestinian cause. So she was killed at this refugee camp. She was there with multiple other journalists. There were several eyewitnesses on the scene. And what all the eyewitnesses and the fellow journalists say is that even though this camp is known for having active armed Palestinian military fighters, none of those people were there or active when this occurred, that the

shooting came from the Israeli military. Shireen, at the time that she was killed, she was shot in the head. One of her fellow journalists also was shot in the back. She was wearing a press jacket. She was wearing a press helmet, as were her colleagues who were there on the scene. Also, reportedly, they had alerted the IDF to the fact that they would be there and what their general position would ultimately be. So needless to say, Al Jazeera has put out a scathing, scathing statement about this killing.

They said that this is a blatant murder, violating international law and norms. The Israeli occupation forces assassinated in cold blood Al Jazeera's correspondent in Palestine, Shireen Abu Akhla, targeting her with live fire early this morning while conducting her journalistic duty. The network called on the international community to hold the Israeli government and military accountable for the, quote, intentional targeting and killing of a journalist. Al Jazeera, we should say, is partly funded by Qatar. Let me give you the Israeli side, which I actually think is very telling. So initially, the Israelis said it could have been the Palestinian military. There was fire that was being exchanged, which again, the eyewitnesses on the scene and the other journalists who were there said that's not the case.

The only ones who were firing at this location at this time was the Israeli military. So they said it could have been that there's reason to believe that it was armed Palestinians. They said it appears likely that armed Palestinians who were firing indiscriminately at the time were responsible for the unfortunate death of the journalist. What they put out, they offered no evidence, but they did put out this video that showed Palestinian militants at that same camp shooting down an alleyway and saying that they hit someone. And they sort of suggested like, this could have been what actually happened. Well, then they got called out for the fact that that video didn't occur anywhere near or during the time frame that Shireen was ultimately hidden killed. And so they kind of walked that back and said, oh,

we weren't suggesting that this was actually what happened. And there's no way to know. So their final statement was not, it appears likely it was Palestinians. What they landed on was no way to know what ultimately happened here. So on one side, you have multiple eyewitnesses and multiple journalists saying that she was killed. And in fact, what the language they use is that she was actually targeted for being a journalist and that she was shot and killed by the IDF. And Israelis going, who can know? Let me also just say that this would not be the first time that Israel has targeted journalists or journalistic outlets. You will recall that almost exactly a year ago—in fact, it was like in three days, it will be exactly a year ago—Israel bombed in Gaza the building that housed both the AP

and Al Jazeera. We have a tweet up on the screen here. It says, A reminder, one year ago this week, the Israeli military bombed a civilian building in Gaza housing the AP and Al Jazeera. And, Sagar, what they said at the time was very similar to this. It was there were militants involved. There were militants in this building. We're going to give you the proof. Don't worry. Well, Ned Price, the State Department spokesman who yesterday was grilled by journalists and totally, of course, carrying water for Israel and promising, of course, they're going to do a free and fair investigation. He was pressed again on, okay,

well, did you get that evidence that there were militants in that building? And so the targeting of these journalistic outlets was ultimately justified. And he had to admit, no, they said they were going to give that they never provided the evidence that that was ultimately the case. Not to mention, according to international human rights organizations, something like 50 journalists have either been killed or injured by Israel. You had the U.N., after the Great March of Return in 2018, issuing a report saying that there was cause to believe that Israel had targeted in that not just journalists, but also people with disabilities, also medics, also children. And 6,000 plus civilians who were injured or killed during that time period.

So, again, Israel has a history of targeting and injuring and killing journalists. And right now you have eyewitnesses and journalists on the scene saying that is once again what happened here. Yeah. And, you know, I think what's particularly crazy is that some of the details really don't line up. So the map locations that were determined by the GPS coordinates were nine hundred and fifty feet apart, which is, you know, if you think about it's like, what, one fifth of a mile away from where a previous firefight had occurred. And post reporters, Washington Post reporters who actually visited the fight,

confirmed that there was a big distance between the two locations, and they found no setting similar to the one that was depicted in a video that was released by the IDF. And what they point to and why that matters is that the people who were there on the ground say that there were just shots that kind of rang out of nowhere and they hit her producer in the back right so like he was either fleeing or like trying to climb something and that she was actually again according to them she was hit in the head so obviously you know devastating critical wound and i think she died on site before she was reviewed there. And yeah, I mean, I think the most telling part of this is that the Israeli, the IDF initially said that she was very likely killed in Palestinian gunfire, and then they walked it back significantly afterwards.

Once they got called out. Yeah. So after they got called out, even their own Lieutenant General, the Chief of Staff of the IDF himself said, at this point, it is not impossible to determine to the source of the gunfire, which hit her her and they're calling for an investigation. Okay, we'll see. I think that the media treatment on it is outrageous. Look, you can even like Israel and just be like, hey, this is really crazy.

It's very clear that there was a major gunfight here. And instead, the way that the media wrote it up is just like American reporter dies of a gunshot in western neutral language yeah it's like wait what how yeah wait but who and yeah ask yourself how it would be covered if it was russian forces right a journal killing and injuring that almost happened remember there was that american journalist who used to work over at the new york times by the way nobody knows how he died. But at the time, I still think it was an outrageous event. Or my friend, Trey Yangst, his partner who works for Fox News. I forget his name.

Benjamin Hall, I believe it is. I mean, that guy lost his leg in all this Russian shelling in Kiev. And anyway, that should be not only condemned, that's crazy. He's going to be crippled for the rest of his life thanks to these people. We should condemn that fully and the U.S. State Department actually is the,

I think they helped airlift him out of that country. But, you know, look, this woman was one of our citizens. She's not just Palestinian. She's an American citizen.

And I very much feel like, you know, there's like a saying, you know, at the time of the Roman Empire, as long as you had the crest of Rome, like you were protected all throughout, I think it should be the same way regardless of where you are. She was an American citizen, an American reporter, and she was killed according to her network, which, you know, I obviously have my beef with the Qataris. I don't know if they're telling the truth.

But a lot of the evidence seems to line up behind that. And I think that Israel should have to pay a price for this. We should say it's not just Al Jazeera journalists. Right. Washington Post journalist is back. There were multiple journalists on the scene. They all say the same thing. There were additional eyewitnesses who also say the same thing. And yet the New York Times, how they report this is Al Jazeera said one of its journalists was killed in the West Bank city of Jenin during clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen. Again, there isn't actually any evidence that there were clashes at this point going on between-

Which that you can understand. Right, between IDF and Palestinian gunmen. So this isn't even accurate. Set aside the fact, you know, they're trying to use this like neutral language, trying to play, oh, we're, you know, we're neutral and balanced down the middle. No, when you phrase it like this, you are in fact taking a side. And it wasn't just the New York Times. I mean, basically every American media outlet, including the ones, including the AP who just had their shit bombed a year ago, still using this like amid clashes and they say this and this one says that. So the media coverage of it is, and I do think it again fits with the fact that, you

know, the media has, has understandably and righteously focused attention on the just Ukrainian cause. But, you know, if you even post like a Palestinian flag, you can get like banned from Instagram or whatever. We've seen that happen. So it's very selective which conflicts and which atrocities they feel are worthy of bringing to the American public and really whipping up righteous outrage about ultimately.

And so it's an extremely sad situation. And the other thing that we know from history is that it's very unlikely that they'll face any accountability. Again, this has a lot to do with the U.S., the way we protect Israel in particular at the U.N. and make sure that they don't face any scrutiny. That's partly why, you know, potentially some of their soldiers feel that they can act with impunity is because what is the cost? Ultimately, there's never any accountability. Yeah. Well, that's the biggest problem, I think, on this one. Okay, let's go ahead and move. This is such a terrible and a tragic story. Let's go put this up there on the screen, which is that we were hoping that 2021 was a flash in the pan as a result of the pandemic of a major increase in overdose deaths. Sorry, 2020. But

overall, we now have initial data compiled by the CDC that the nation actually saw even more of an increase in deaths from overdoses in 2021 by 15% crystal. So that surge in overall deaths now overwhelmingly includes fentanyl and methamphetamine, and in some cases, actually, a combination of both. And so right now, we have a catastrophic increase of deaths that have increased to 108,000 Americans who died last year of a drug overdose. 108,000. And we'll recall, you know, last year, it actually overtook some of the other causes of death amongst people who are between 18 and 65. It's one of the most common ways now for people who are our age in order to die, is if they do die, is a result of a drug overdose. And actually, what's really nuts is if you consider the overall increase,

2020 was already a 30% increase year over year to 2019. And now we're up 15% 2021 on 2020. And actually, all current indications out of a lot of the people in the community are that this year will be just as bad, if not worse, as 2021. We did a lot of work in this country, 2017 onward, where we actually not dropped, but relatively stabilized the opioid overdose death rate. The pandemic destroyed that. It destroyed AA meetings, NA meetings. A lot of people went back and overdosed as a result of, there was isolation. A new study just came out that said American friendships are at a record low. There's obviously all kinds of things that are happening. You combine that really with synthetic fentanyl and methamphetamine, which is largely coming

from Chinese chemicals shipped over to Mexico, manufactured by the drug cartels and brought up over the border. Well, you now have a growing combination of what they point to, Crystal, in this article known as speedballs and as goofballs, which is an increase in the use of stimulants and potent opioids, both of which are likely to be spiked with fentanyl. And so that is apparently one of the most common causes of almost immediate overdose and death on the American street. So it really is just a total disaster. Let me read a little bit of this because I think this is actually really important because they say the pandemic was definitely a contributing factor, no doubt about it, but it doesn't explain the entire spike, especially since you've continued to have an increase even after lockdown has eased. They say a recent study of illicit pills seized by drug

enforcement authorities found a substantial share of what is marketed as oxy, Xanax, or Adderall now contains fentanyl. So you've got kids who think they're getting Adderall or oxy, and they're getting fentanyl. Yeah, that's a very common way that people die in accidental overdose. They say the spread of these counterfeit pills might explain a recent sharp increase in overdose deaths among teenagers who are less likely to inject drugs than older people. They talked to the Oregon Health Authority director. Apparently, Oregon has had a massive spike in overdose deaths. And Pat Allen said that,

as was the case in other states with surging overdose deaths, the clear difference in 2021 was the ubiquity of fentanyl. Children as young as 12 are considered at high risk of obtaining counterfeit pills containing fentanyl. High schoolers are overdosing on them, believing they're opioid painkillers or anti-anxiety medication. The state was working to send naloxone toolkits to schools, similar to a program it's used in fast food restaurants where people were overdosing in bathrooms. And I have to say with all of this that the reason that kids and people are dying at this rate, I mean, when you look at the facts of this, a big part of this is because of prohibition and the war on drugs.

People don't want fentanyl. That's not what they think they're signing up for. And that's how they end up ultimately dead. So we know the pattern of, you know, we know Purdue Pharma and how they pushed Oxy on, you know, got people addicted to Oxy. But it's actually typically not the Oxy that kills them. It's when they get their script cut and the doctor won't give it to them anymore

and they go to street drugs and they don't even know what they're getting or what they're taking. That's when people die. And so that's why when you look at this data and you look at what's happening and causing people to actually die, not just get addicted to drugs, that's how you can see very clearly the prevalence of fentanyl in these counterfeit pills is a direct result of our still don't think we should legalize drugs. But Michael Schellenberger is somebody who pointed out the Portuguese model, which does seem to have a lot of benefits. I don't know if it can be replicated on the American system with federalism and all of that. But the basic premise is that over there, drugs are legal. But if you're an IV drug user just sitting in a park like the people are in San Francisco or in Los Angeles,

like that's not going to happen. You're going to get arrested and you're going to get sent to treatment. And what some, he's running for governor. I encourage people to go check him out. I think he's an interesting guy. And one of the things that he's pointed out is that we have a situation where a lot of these people need to be removed if they're going to be insisting on forcibly using drugs to outpatient facilities, like far away from the urban centers that are drug treatment, already heroin and opioid recidivism is sky high. But it's kind of more of a paternalistic model. And that's hard to square for a lot of people. But the current system, I will agree with you, is completely nuts and insane and people are dying. At the very least, something that

I've seen advocated for that I think makes a lot of sense because obviously, listen, Biden's a drug warrior. I mean, he hasn't even descheduled marijuana, which he could personally do. And, you know, it's extremely popular. It has like 80 percent approval rating at this point and still won't even do that. So Biden is a drug warrior. I think it's ideological. I think he's always been that. I think he will always be that. But another thing you could do in terms of harm reduction that doesn't go all the way to where we should go, which is ending the war on drugs completely. But if you made it easy for people to test what they have so they

know what they're taking, that would at least, I mean, that would help in terms of harm reduction so that you know if you think you're taking Oxy, you're actually taking Oxy, not fentanyl. You think you're taking Xanax, you think you're taking Adderall. I mean, how many of you all took Adderall when you were in college or when you were in high school or even now?

It's a commonly abused drug. Totally common, and you never would think, I'm gonna take an Adderall and I could die. It actually happened with Xanax. I think it was Eric Bolling's son. His son died of fentanyl. Jesus Christ. Yeah.

So, I mean, so listen, again, I don't encourage people to abuse drugs or whatever, although I have no problem with recreational drug use personally, and I think it's been demonized. That's another discussion for another day. But you should at least have the ability to know that what you think you're taking is what you're actually taking. And the fact that fentanyl has become so ubiquitous in all of these illicit pills and black market drugs is just a complete health disaster. And it is killing our teenagers. I don't know, though, if the testing strips would make all that much of a

difference. So as I understand it, and again, this is from some YouTube videos and stuff I've watched with interviews of addicts who are on the street, a lot of them want fentanyl because it gets you really high. And so actually, I remember there was a funny interview with a guy who was like, look, man, I just do heroin. He's like, I don't want any of this. He's like one of the few guys on Skid Row who just wants to continue using heroin and not have anything fentanyl laced. But you know, a lot of people actually who are opioid users users especially the ones who are deeply strung out they want fentanyl and a lot of them you know they're okay with basically rolling a dice so i'm not saying it wouldn't reduce anything i do think we just need to move to a much more rehab focused one one of the things that they point to um in here is that loosening permit take-home methadone treatment was very beneficial, actually.

Look, a lot of this is going around on the edges, but I do think moving towards a much more of a forcible rehab type situation and a lack of permissiveness. Like what's happening in Los Angeles, I told you, I went to Skid Row. I was horrified. I'd never seen anything like that in the Western world. And that's not a homeless problem. That's a drug problem. Like all of, almost all of those people and it's all are 100% strung out on drugs. And I don't, I'm not mad at them. I feel bad for them. Like, like it's a human tragedy.

I had a, actually Uber driver who picked me up in Skid Row and he's like, yeah, two years ago, I was one of those guys. He said, I was sitting right out there on the street. And he told me about how he got arrested, how he turned his life around. But look, that's very much out of the norm. That's the other part of the Portuguese model, which has been extremely successful by every count in terms of reducing addiction, reducing certainly overdose deaths. I mean,

is that if you are getting your hit in a clinic with government officials, with people there who can get you help, then you are connected to the system. You're not disconnected from the system. And so the moment that you're ready to say, I'm ready for – like I want to change, not only are you kept safe in its incredibly important terms of harm reduction, but then the minute you're ready to actually commit to making that change, that the resources are ultimately there for you. But again, with regards to these kids who are taking Oxy or Adderall and it ends up fentanyl and they end up dying, they're not looking for fentanyl. That's a good point. Let's also talk, it's not just IV drugs, unfortunately. Let's put this up there on the screen. Alcohol use disorder deaths have risen during the pandemic. I mean, look, everybody knew it, that it was already happening, but this

is from the Journal of American Medicine. So here's what they point to. Based on the figures from the last eight years, deaths caused by alcohol use nationally are 22% higher than projected last year, Crystal. They were 25% higher already in 2020. So this isn't just heroin. This is legal grade A alcohol. And look, I'll just tell you on a personal level, I drink probably 80% less than I used to. I feel better than I ever have in my whole life. and for a lot of people who are out there I understand you know the social pressure and all of that but alcohol is not good for you It's incredibly bad actually and casual alcohol use can spiral for what 15 something percent of the population Into going to a direction that you don't want to go to and there's a lot of cultural reasons

Why exactly that we don't address this but to. And there's a lot of cultural reasons why exactly that we don't address this. But this is a catastrophe. I mean, alcohol will kill you as very obviously it killed millions of people just last year. And I don't think there's enough focus on, I think the people who hold my position on drugs and on recreational substance use and all that don't do nearly enough talking about alcohol.

And like, look, alcohol, it kills a lot of people. A lot of people are suffering right now from Alcohol use I think it's a total catastrophe and I you know We need to have a serious conversation happening here because I think this is all derivative not all of it But a lot of is derivative of loneliness. I did that whole thing on friendship a couple months back You know most people just have a lot more friend a lot less friends than they did 20 years ago most people only report having like one or two friends and in the way a lot of friends than they did 20 years ago. Most people only report having one or two friends. And in a lot of ways, work from home was a disaster

because we oriented our entire culture to making it so the only friends you make are at work. And so you work from home, you don't have a lot of friends. Loneliness is higher than it's ever been. Antidepressant use and all of that is sky high. Combining that with alcohol, which every antidepressant on earth, even though I'm against antidepressants,

tells you not to do that. So, you know, you just have a whole cocktail of things that are flowing around in people's systems while their macro-socio-political life is falling apart. I don't know. It's very concerning to me that alcohol use like this is just so high. And I don't think enough people are talking about it.

I'm a supporter of people doing whatever they need to do to get through the day um i'm not i'm not gonna judge anyone for any of that um i will say i'm like personally in a much like happier and better place in my life right now and i also um i'd like barely drink i had like one drink last week and it was the first time in like months yeah and so And so, I mean, all these, the reason why you see skyrocketing drug use, skyrocketing alcohol use, skyrocketing anti-anxiety and depression use, medication use, it's all because people are, people are miserable. You know, they're lonely, they're disconnected. They don't have meaning in their life. Like, you know, I don't, I'm not going to say that's like the only factor.

But when you look at the fact that this country is an outlier on these measures, there's no doubt that this is a even as lockdowns eased is yet another sign that, you know, it's just it's really dire and grim and stressful and depressing and lonely for far too many people out there. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Let's turn to something a little bit lighter here. Simone Sanders, who at one time worked for Bernie Sanders. Yes, that's right. That's right. Then switched over to Joe Biden. Imagine what that says about you. Right. You could just be like all that stuff I said about Medicare for all. Now I'm going to be with the dude who says he'd veto Medicare for all. OK.

So then she ended up in Kamala Harris's shop working for the vice president once the administration started. So she was among a number of Kamala Harris staffers who exited amid what seems to be very tumultuous. And we'll use the word toxic as the hot buzzword work environment over there in the vice president's office. And she has been given a show on MSNBC on the weekends, 4 p.m., called Simone. And we have the numbers now about how her debut show actually went. Let's go ahead and throw this up on the screen. So she drew overall 361,000 total viewers in the demographic, which is actually the only thing that matters i shouldn't even say the 361 because those people are completely irrelevant the whole thing in terms of advertisers is the 25 to 54 year olds 29 000 viewers oh my god that compares to uh fox's competitor at that

time did 163 000 viewers i mean this in fairness the 4 p.m. slot on Saturday is like the worst possible time slot that you could have. But, I mean, this was her debut, her big launch. She had a big get, as they say in the biz. Dr. Jill Biden, the first lady, sat down with her. And I have to say, I find Dr. Jill, she's probably one of the most sort of like in touch with reality people in this administration as far as i can tell because she's continued to teach yeah that's um and also she it's funny she also told joe not to pick kamala harris for her uh vice presidential nominee but anyway so she had this big get this big sit down she had promised that she was no longer going to just like carry

water for the administration that that was in the past she's going to tell it like it is but of course it was an extremely fluffy interview ultimately i find dr jill to be a delightful lady uh i think she's uh very very nice and i think one of the things is that you know people don't say this enough i think something admirable about biden and actually obama too was you saw they genuinely love their wives and their families i think that's i think that's a cool thing yeah uh in order to president. She stepped into their, you know, they suffered a loss. She signs up with these little kids. Yeah, the whole bit. I want to put that out there because I think there's too much negativity sometimes whenever we talk about this.

But whenever it comes to Simone Sanders, her show is a total flop. And the reason why we have to look at it is that this is a precursor to somebody who's leaving the White House this week, Crystal Jen Psaki, who is headed straight over to MSNBC, where she too is apparently going to be playing the Simone Sanders playbook, having some sort of peacock type show, and then also being like once a week on programming. So let's put this up there on the screen. You know, MSN, Fox actually had a decent write up. Now, obviously they have an incentive in order to write up their colleagues. But this is actually a pretty good analysis. And what they're saying is that MSNBC, during Maddow's

absences, is just really seeking its identity. It doesn't know what to do. Rachel Maddow was the backbone of that entire network. She had to come back and basically try and save it once a week whenever she's on. But she's working on all these different types of products. And in the meantime, they have no idea what to do. Nobody else rates. They just fired, not fired, let's be kind, moved Chuck Todd off the air onto NBC News Now, which of course everybody is watching out there. And for Meet the Press, I mean, that's humiliating and embarrassing for him, but it's a titanic shift because now they're like, okay, straight news definitely doesn't work. And Chuck Todd obviously sucks. They're like, but what do we do in the meantime? Simone doesn't rate. All of their peacock shows have been a complete flop and a disaster. They're not releasing any of those

for a reason and none of them get any real press. Well, so now what? At this point, I think this is a harbinger of how the Psaki show is gonna go. At the end of the day, Simone Sanders and Psaki cannot tell the truth about the Biden administration. They used to work there. It's just not possible. And so they're gonna have to continue to fluff

the least popular president of our lifetime. And at the same time, anybody who would have a critical point of view of the Biden administration can't be on because they're going to anger the core base of the entire network. So they're in a real catastrophe. Outside of Maddow, they got nothing else. That is true. Yeah, because it's really, I think the fact that Simone's show didn't really, it really doesn't have anything to do with her.

Yes. It has to do with the fact, and this is why we can so confidently predict like Jen Psaki show is also not going to perform well. It has to do with the fact like who's really interested in another hour of the same like, yeah, like pro-administration Biden propaganda. You can get that in any number of places. It's boring. It's predictable. It's not interesting. There's really no reason to tune into it ultimately. And MSNBC also has a sort of they have a structural problem because as as compared to Fox News, because the liberals who watch MSNBC, they feel comfortable with any range of news outlets. They can go to the New York Times. They can go to CNN. They can go to ABC, NBC, anywhere. And they feel NPR. They feel like they're getting their sort of views of the world mostly validated, and they feel comfortable there. Whereas with the conservative base, they only effectively feel like they can get the truth from Fox News. No, they're not getting the

truth from Fox News, but that's the sentiment. And so that means that you have almost like a monopoly. I mean, now we have Newsmax and One American News Network, but Fox is still overwhelmingly the juggernaut. So they have sort of a monopoly on the conservative base, whereas the liberal base is splintered across all of these different news networks. And yeah, so ultimately, I think it's not that, you know, there's anything wrong with Simone Sanders per se. It's that the entire ideology is like boring, predictable, nothing different, no real reason for people ultimately to tune in and show up for it. Well, I won't go as far to say that there's nothing wrong with Simone Sanders, but I mostly co-sign all of what you said. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, friends, conservative activist Dinesh D'Souza is out with a new movie that purports

to blow the lid off a massive election rigging scheme that handed Joe Biden the win over Donald Trump. And because I love you, I watched it, wasting my $30 on it so that you don't have to. Apparently, the movie, called 2,000 Mules, is actually getting a lot of traction. In its first 12 hours, it grossed more than a million dollars on alternative platforms Rumble and Locals, good enough figures for it to crack the box office top 10. The movie has also gotten a boost from the former president himself. Notable supporters of Trump, like Kyle Rittenhouse, Jenna Ellis, and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene were among those who attended a screening last week, Wednesday, at Mar-a-Lago. As you know, we here at Breaking Points and at Rising previously, we've tried to

approach Stop the Steal claims not by outright dismissal and censorship, but by engagement and by analysis. Dinesh D'Souza has every right to put on his film, and I have every right to tell you, after watching it and evaluating the claims, that it is a dishonest, error-riddled, propaganda-filled hustle from beginning to end. This film really has it all. It's got it all from massive obvious holes to outright lies, and it relies on little more than conjecture dressed up as data and evidence. It won't convince anyone that the election was

stolen by thousands of vote-harvesting human mules, but it will persuade plenty of true believers to part with even more of their cash, feeding it once again into the perpetual MAGA grift. I can only presume that that was the intended goal, so on that front, mission accomplished, I guess. Let's dive in, shall we? The title 2,000 mules refers to the thousands of people that D'Souza alleges were involved in five key swing states, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Now, in turning in ballots that they were not authorized to handle, that's the allegation. But in fact, in order to arrive at sufficient vote totals to switch the election result from Biden to Trump, D'Souza posits that there were really more than 50,000 of these individuals operating in just these five states. Now,

before I get into the sketchy data undergirding those assumptions, just ask yourself if that theory passes the smell test. Do you believe tens and potentially hundreds of thousands of Americans could be enlisted in a national vote-rigging scheme without anyone breathing a word of it and no one sniffing it out. Does it seem plausible to you that anyone could execute such a mammoth undertaking in complete secrecy?

The basis for D'Souza's outlandish claims is data gathered by the conservative nonprofit True the Vote. True the Vote was birthed during the Obama era by a leader of a Texas Tea Party group. So this organization, they purchased cell phone location data in these five states and then posited that any cell phone which traveled near a number of ballot drop boxes multiple times and also near some unspecified nonprofit organizations during a similar time

frame must definitely belong to a mule who is part of this nationwide election rigging scheme. Now, there are some obvious problems with this. Number one, cell phone location data is just not that precise. Number two, there are any number of innocent reasons why someone going about their day, going to and from work, delivering Uber Eats or Amazon packages, or just generally living their life might pass by a number of ballot drop boxes on any given day, especially because those ballot drop boxes were often intentionally placed in highly trafficked areas. Number three, the non-profit entities central to this whole cell

phone data-driven mule theory were, as far as I can tell, just picked at random and none of them are actually even named in the film. And number four, based on an analysis of the data in Georgia at least, the whole thing is actually just completely made up. Just outright lies. According to a Georgia reporter who reviewed the film, quote, they claim there were more drop boxes in Metro Atlanta, 309, than actually existed in the entire state, just under 300. The cell phone pings of, quote, Antifa rioters don't really correspond to real places, like there were a bunch in a cemetery, the mule route does not line up with drop boxes. So yeah, basically none of what they were resting their entire mule case on was real at all. D'Souza then couples this with surveillance footage also

gathered by True the Vote showing individuals placing multiple ballots into drop boxes. Now this video footage is supposed to be the real smoking gun catching D'Souza's mules in action. In reality, there is nothing inherently sinister about the video evidence at all. It's just regular looking voters putting a handful of ballots in a drop box, something they are legally allowed to do under certain specific circumstances. And I'll get to that. I believe the largest number that I could see of ballots that their video show dropped was five, maybe six. Now, a number of states actually permit voters to quote, harvest ballots,

which just means collecting sealed mail-in ballots and dropping them in the mail or at a designated drop box. But even in the states like Georgia, where so-called ballot harvesting is illegal, you are still permitted to drop off multiple ballots for family members and for the disabled if you are their caregiver. It is quite easy to imagine why one voter might drop off multiple ballots for themselves and for their family members,

especially during a pandemic when we were all trying very hard to keep grandma and grandpa from getting killed. Was this obvious and very innocent rationale floated at all in the film? No, of course not. Instead, in typical propaganda style, every single action is viewed in a potentially sinister light. Voters casting ballots at odd times of day, that's proof of sinister motives. Voters casting ballots in the middle of the day with others around is also proof of sinister motives. In one instance, a voter takes a picture and they concoct an elaborate story about how this picture was necessary for this mule to get paid.

No explanation why the other mules apparently didn't care enough to get paid to also take a picture. In another instance, a voter wears surgical gloves to open the drop box and deposit ballots and then discards the gloves. This is taken as ironclad proof that they were trying to avoid having fingerprints on the envelopes. Of course, an alternative explanation is that it was the middle of the pandemic, before vaccines, and some people were still freaked out about touching surfaces that have been touched by a lot of other people. In the beginning of the pandemic, I kept a box of surgical gloves in my car and used them for pumping gas and going into convenience stores. Was I paranoid? Absolutely. Was I illegally ballot harvesting at the sheets? No, I was not. Also, by the way, if I was a paid mule in a nationwide vote rigging scheme, pretty sure I

would just put my ballots in mail privately, not at a public drop box with a surveillance camera, but that's just me. Even the details of what ballot harvesting actually is are left intentionally murky. So ballot harvesting is actually perfectly fine and legal in 26 states. But even if these supposed 50,000 mules really did exist and really did engage in ballot harvesting in states where it was illegal, that would actually in no way invalidate actual legitimate sealed ballots that were cast, even if they were cast by one of these mules. The ballot harvester could be charged with a crime, of course. But when real voters cast real votes, they still count regardless of how they ended up in the drop box.

And it's not like you can just invent voters and have them cast fake votes out of whole cloth. In Georgia, for example, every absentee voters is assigned a unique absentee ballot, which must be returned along with signature, registration, information and a barcode. Has to be inside of a sealed envelope. And obviously voters can only cast one ballot. Now the film does not explain how the secret billionaire cabal circumvented all of these protections. It is also very noteworthy what the film does not show.

In not a single instance do they show one individual making multiple ballot drops, even though that is what they allege is happening in the film. They allege, remember, 50,000 plus mules making dozens of ballot box drops, and yet they couldn't find a single mule actually making one of their repeat trips? Odd. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution did a good job analyzing the film, especially with regards to the claims made about Georgia, which were central to the film.

According to the AJC, several of the ballot drop box videos were reviewed by election investigators and no fraud was found. In fact, according to the Republican Secretary of State, one Gwinnett County man who came under particular scrutiny for dropping off five ballots was investigated. Turned out, guess what? He was dropping off ballots for family members, as is permitted by law. I know you'll be shocked to learn that this rather inconvenient fact was also left out of the film. The other piece of evidence offered is the fact that although in several of these states Trump was up early in the night, vote totals shifted in Biden's favor as the evening turned into night. Now, they put together a whole montage of anchors acting really surprised at this shift. But if you were paying attention or you were watching Rising at the time, you know to expect exactly this dynamic.

Trump famously told his voters not to vote by mail, but instead to wait and cast ballots in person. In a number of states, the day of election ballots were tallied first, and those then predictably skewed towards Trump. Democrats, on the other hand, leaned into mail-in voting, so when these ballots were counted, they predictably skewed towards Democrats. That was not evidence of fraud. It was just evidence of Trump's really

stupid strategy to keep his people from voting by mail. The result was both predictable and was actually predicted by us among many other people. Honest actors who were not just trying to lie and manipulate their audience explained all of this so that people could understand the results as they were coming in. The movie also leans into the charge that it was cities like Philadelphia and Detroit where mules were most active. The fact that Trump actually improved his performance in these cities is kind of inconvenient to that claim too. So what are we left with here? We're left with the cell phone data, which is strange, circumstantial, and based on outright lies. So obviously that should be completely disregarded. The Dropbox videos are easily explained by perfectly legal actions of voters dropping off ballots for family members

and don't show a single instance of one individual making multiple drops, as they claimed happened literally hundreds of thousands of times. And the macro data might have surprised some Trump voters who were fed a steady diet of propaganda, but it was exactly what anyone with good information might have expected. In fact, the only election violations associated with this film come from the filmmaker himself, who was found guilty of making illegal straw campaign contributions. Kind of ironic, huh? The only fraud are from those who would sell this pack of deceptions and lies as truth.

Now, let me be clear here. My contempt for this film, and I have plenty, and those pushing it, does not mean I have contempt for those who buy into the Stop the Steal. Because I genuinely understand why people don't trust a single American institution, including your electoral system. Nor do I think that it's remotely off-limits to question the legitimacy of our elections.

Just look at what they did to Bernie in 2016 or what they did to Al Gore in 2000. That's why we have taken a lot of time and why I took a lot of time today to review claims and lawsuits and judicial rulings. But what I find absolutely disgusting is using people, lying to them, exploiting the well of built-up mistrust, not to make things better, but for your own profit. There is a special place in hell for those who would claim to expose the truth but instead knowingly peddle their own personally profitable deception. So Sagar, there you go.

You have much more patience. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com.. All right, Tiger, what are you looking at? Well, on Tuesday evening, Joe Biden gave a speech on inflation in which he sought to blame everybody but himself for the situation. His main message to Americans was please have patience, which you might think is an okay message if he was running for something instead of the guy who has been in charge of this entire with his entire party in the seats of power for more than 15 months, where at this point, if he had a plan and a way to fix it, we would probably know about it.

Biden's solutions at this point were as follows. Well, the Fed can act. You should pass Build Back Better for drug price reduction, which, look, I definitely support that, but it's not even in the top 10 of inflationary effects right now. You should tell companies not to price gouge. By tell, I mean, yes, literally tell and do nothing about it. You should increase biofuels, even though biofuel conversion is part of the reason

that we have a diesel crisis right now. We should, quote, speed up the ports, which he's had at this point well over a year to do so, and we should, quote, promote competition. Literally all of those things are nebulous and things that should have been done a year ago because it was easy. So the answer is he's either been holding back this entire time or he's unable to do anything and much more drastic action needs to be taken and considered right now. Obvious question is, okay, Biden, how are you going to do that? How are you going to lower the price of gas? How are you going to produce more energy to lower the

cost of living by balancing also our future problems? How are you going to punish companies using the executive office branch? How are you going to, quote, promote competition with your administration? Those are the obvious questions. Instead, the media asked two questions on inflation, and two of them, the only two at the top, are so idiotic and emblematic of how dumb they are, but of the mindset that the elites in this country really have. Let's take a listen to the very first question after Joe Biden's speech. Today you have retail gasoline prices and diesel prices at record highs. Yes.

Yet you have yet to ask Americans to consume less. You're a trained guy. Have you ever thought your administration asking Americans to drive less, to take public transport? Well, if you ever raised a family like mine, you don't have to tell them. They're doing everything in their power to figure out how not to have to show up at the gas pump. The vast, that's why, for example, one of the things that's going to help a lot, but it's going to take time, is our infrastructure bill. The very first question to the president about inflation is not how are you going to fix it? It's not what's your plan.

It's why are you not telling Americans to drive less? And honestly, Biden is right. You think people at home aren't already figuring it out? Some people have to work, lady. Maybe that's never occurred to you. They don't have company-sponsored Ubers and Metros to their urban accessible abodes. Some people, and by that I mean most of this country, have zero access to public transit, and they got to drive to work. In effect, the media is asking Biden why he isn't telling people to limit travel and quality of life as a way in order to lessen

the price of gas. It is a purely scarcity mindset. It's also an elitist mindset. And worse, it is one that lets him off the hook. It's his job to fix the most pressing problems in our life that are tied to government policy. This is where the overwhelming action can at least lessen the burden in the short term, or at least give people a plan on a way out. Instead, he abandoned us. Gas right now is probably going to decrease, possibly in the next month or so. Not through any action by Biden. It is due to the overwhelming lockdowns in China, which is the largest importer of gas on the planet. You cannot count on that to save you. He needs to do something. But of course, our media is letting him off the hook. They put the blame

on you for living your life. The second question was dumber too, but it also reveals something core about them. Scarcity and neoliberalism are the only things these idiots understand. The second question to Biden was, why is he not dropping the tariffs on China in order to fight inflation? To which he had the audacity to say, they're actually considering it. So let's really go through what the media is saying here. Why don't you drop tariffs on China to reduce inflation? When the cause of the vast majority of the inflation that you all are experiencing right now is a result of the fact that we don't make anything here anymore.

Really consider how dumb that is. Here is a list of where Americans are experiencing the most inflation. Gas, airfare, eggs, utility gas, used car, hotel, bacon, chicken, milk, the furniture. The only one of those that I just listed that comes from China is furniture. And it's literally all the way at the very bottom. Tariffs off of China would be a boon to the Chinese economy, which is struggling.

It would be a boon to the corporations who would buy things for cheaper and still price gouge us. And it would be a robbery away from the American businesses who are trying to compete in the marketplace. We got into this situation because we have an executive branch, which for more than 40 years talked a big game and did virtually nothing to increase overall American industry

so that when a major crunch like COVID hit, we have zero resilience in the system, no ability to produce anything for ourselves. This has led the media and many Americans to assume there is nothing can be done. Hence why the first question is, hey, why don't you just not drive since you literally don't need to? Or the next one is, why don't you cut tariffs when not having tariffs in the first place are how we even had a country eviscerated at this time. The media mindset matters much more than many of you might consider, because as I have explained previously, the White

House only responds to incentives in the media. Those incentives are the most well-known to us as the questions that they ask. They prepare based upon the pressure that they get. So if the only pressure is not to drive and to cut tariffs, what do you think they're going to have to do to get good media attention? Nobody is asking Biden right now, have you used the full force of the federal government to ensure that we have more drilling ASAP or on the progress of his foreign relations with Saudi Arabia or Venezuela or a multitude of other things? The languishing state of our politics, where we assume nothing can be done, squabble about abortion, and then have an idiotic press not actually hold our president to account, is seemingly how we got here and why we are ruled

by corruption and idiocy. We deserve a hell of a lot better, and we should actually demand a lot more. And I really hope I live in a country like that someday. I mean, first question. First question. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now, we have the Washington bureau chief from The Intercept and host of The Intercepted podcast, the one and only Ryan Grimm. Great to see you, sir. Great to see you. Okay, so let's go ahead and throw your latest reporting. I don't know, maybe you've written something after this.

But the latest thing that I read from you up on the screen, restorative just injustice, the implosion of a Democratic socialist campaign. In it, you in a lengthy piece, which I really recommend that you read from top to bottom because it is quite a journey. You go into detail about a candidate who was running with the backing of DSA for Montgomery County City Council. So the big question is why? Why did you what was important about this story? What did you want to lay out for people? I mean, I think there's so much in it. As people read it, they will see all sorts of different themes that we've talked about for years, kind of all coalescing right into this particular race. It is.

And, you know, an at-large county council candidate represents a million people, which is more than a member of Congress, in fact. Though the things that they're deciding on are, it's not war and peace. It's property taxes. It's minimum wage for the area. But to have a democratic socialist in one of the richest counties in the country would have given them a toehold in a place where there is a lot of inequality. Like it is true that it's the richest or one of the richest counties in the country. But there are a lot of people who are struggling and certainly a lot of people who are struggling and certainly a lot of

people who are getting left behind as housing prices are exploding. And so there would be a lot that a democratic socialist leaning kind of council could do to help hundreds of thousands of struggling people in the county. So it's not that it's meaningless as a just small local story, but it's much more interesting for the larger questions. And the question to me really was, is the left, kind of like what's becoming of the Bernie left, capable of forming organizations and institutions and movements and campaigns that can be functional with an aim toward winning power? Right. Because that's now an actual open question. Yeah.

Like, is there something embedded in the movement that just makes it impossible for them to function? Well, part of the things that I really took away from that is on a micro level, the answer appears to be no. So why don't you detail for us exactly how the campaign fell apart? Right. So the candidate's name is Brandi Brooks.

She's still running. I think it's July 19th is the primary. She had the support of the local DSA, the Montgomery County branch, plus the like D.C. regional DSA. At some point, she got a complaint of a hostile workplace from one of her four kind of unionized employees, the shop steward, in fact. And they had been friends for several years. Nobody disagrees on whether or not she behaved inappropriately in the workplace. Like, everybody says, yes, she did, including her, that she took personal boundaries, pushed them beyond what should have been in a professional setting, and created a situation where there was sexual harassment. So she takes accountability for this and she enters into a mediation process with this employee. And so the question at this point is, is this sin that she's committed so significant

that she needs to be driven out of the campaign? Is this somebody who's just completely kind of irredeemable at this point? Give some details about what the incident in question actually is. It takes place at a—well, the major incident takes place at a Rockville Chipotle. So the staffer and her friend, the staffer, and Brandy are at the Rockville Chipotle. They have like a two or three hour raw lunch. They had a lot of these emotionally raw conversations over the years. And this one, she eventually says at some point in the conversation, I'm so glad that we're able to be vulnerable with each other. And she says it's very difficult for me actually to be vulnerable around people.

And she's implying like you, who I have a romantic and sexual attraction towards. And there's something so classic about just saying that rather than flirtatiously alluding to it. Just coming right out and saying romantic and sexual. They both agree that she used that phrase, romantic and sexual attraction. And she says, then she changes the subject. This is inappropriate. She's totally embarrassed. She changes the subject. This is inappropriate. She's totally embarrassed. She doesn't want to talk about it.

The person on the other end of the staff, the staffer, feels like the situation changed for them after that and that she started being retaliating in ways that are difficult to put your finger on but a much less pleasant workplace

environment, which is totally, totally plausible. Totally understandable. And what you lay out from Brandy's perspective is she recognized, okay, this, this was a transgression. This went too far, even though I do think it's important, the context. And I mean, you and I have been around enough campaigns and I've actually run a campaign to know that within them, there's a lot of blending of the personal and the professional. It's not like a, you know, office environment. This is someone who she had been friends, close friends with for a lot of time. I do think that context matters. So she recognizes there's a transgression. what was perceived by the staffer as almost like retaliation,

she was actually trying to draw these lines more carefully and create a more professional environment so that she wouldn't sort of cross the lines again. Right. And then the staffer also tried to create some lines as well. And the whole thing got pretty emotionally messy. And then eventually the staffer goes to her sister, who's the campaign manager.

It's the sister and the mother who are on the campaign, good friend on the campaign. This is kind of a very typical local campaign. Yeah. It's your friends and family who are helping you run.

And says, I feel like this is a hostile workplace. Environment, these are the things that have happened. The sister recommends mediation, restorative justice. Like, let's, we always talk about restorative justice. You know, let's see ifiation, restorative justice. Like, let's, we always

talk about restorative justice, you know, let's see if we can work this out. So they enter into this process, this mediation process. They go through two sessions. She writes an accountability statement, and the agreement is she will read it to her entire staff and her advisors, laying out what she did and taking responsibility for it. She does that. She then does it a second time because there was agreement that everybody would hear it and two people had missed it. And then afterwards, the person says, you know what, I don't actually feel like you've taken full accountability. Even though this was what was agreed to.

Right. And so I've since, the staffer declined to speak to me for the article. I have since been able to speak to the staffer. Okay. What they say is that when they signed this paper, and the paper says very clearly, I will not push this complaint any further. I feel like this was entered into in good faith. We can move beyond this.

They say what they meant is that they wouldn't sue. They wouldn't go to the EEOC. They wouldn't otherwise grieve through the union process this complaint. But it did not mean that they were accepting of Brooks continuing to run the campaign or that they wouldn't talk to outside endorsers and other people. So that seems to be a pretty fundamental disagreement over the purpose of what this mediation was. I think I'm sorry to like get bogged down in the details but your reporting also indicated that not only did the staffer say yes I agree to this this is acceptable the staffer actually said this goes beyond what I even was expecting here so it wasn't like I don't really love this but I guess I'll sign on to it it was

a sort of right full-throated embrace. And this goes beyond what I was even expecting in this statement. Correct? Yeah, no, that's right. That's right. And now rumors then start seeping out into the progressive community that she's trading sex for job offers. And so because the person said that they felt like they had an offer for a chief of staff job, which they felt like was rescinded, she disputes that. She says, I was willing to talk about it then. I'm still willing to talk about it, whatever. So she starts hearing those rumors and she calls all of these endorsing groups and says, these rumors are not true. I'm not trading sex for like job offers and retaliating against people if I'm turned down. And so that also seems to have set people off

because now she's seen as like walking back her previous accountability. But it puts her in a very difficult place. Is she supposed to just allow these rumors about her to just continue to circulate as the rumors aren't just rumors. They're being used by some organizations to reconsider whether they're going to endorse her.

And if they unendorse, then boom, she's done. So let's just put it in the broader context. Why does any of this matter? Like why is all this hand-wringing and feelings and mediation? Why does that matter for a broader political project? I'm still trying to get my head around it, but I think that the problem that the current left has is that they exist in a structure that tells them that common projects are really not possible.

Liberalism followed by neoliberalism, basically with the structure of capitalism over top of it, has said that the individual is the only thing that matters. What would Margaret Thatcher say? Like, there is no such thing as society. And so the left's idea has always been, I want to be part of something that's bigger than me. But there's now a belief that there is no such thing that's bigger than you. And so getting involved in politics becomes a way for you to signal and for you to live out your values. You don't actually necessarily believe that a common project can make the world a better place. But what you do think you can do is you can live your

own values. And that's the most important thing as an individual and so if you're part of a campaign that is supposed to benefit a million people in Montgomery County but you don't necessarily believe that it's actually going to benefit a million people you don't necessarily consciously think that but unconsciously you've been taught that nothing is possible this is all all we're doing is all we can do is be our best selves and live our best values. It's a weirdly libertarian idea. Right, because it's fundamentally embedded

in the structures of individualism and neoliberalism. And so when you get presented with this situation, you say, well, I'm going to live my values. And my values are workplace harassment is wrong and we're out of here. And so the DSA's response to this has been, I think, telling on this point. They've consistently said, look, nobody has a right to our endorsement. And on the surface, yes, of course.

Of course nobody has a right to endorsement. But focusing on your endorsement as a right of an individual gets you right back to this libertarian idea. It's not about that person. It's about the million people who live in Montgomery County. It's about the people that the movement is trying to benefit. It's one thing. I mean, listen, you're certainly not arguing, and no one would, that if you had someone who really was, like, chronically sexually harassing people. Because that speaks to then, okay, are you actually going to be able to fulfill the mission to better lives for, you know, this million people?

But it reminds me of the reporting that you did, and I'm blanking on the dude's name, who was running for Congress in a Democratic primary. And he gets accused, and it comes out, it's basically a setup. Oh, Alex Morse. Alex Morse, yes. Running against Richie Neal. Yeah, he gets accused of sexual harassment, all the initial accusations, they're very vague, they're very squishy, but with no proof,

a bunch of progressive groups unendorsed jumped out of the race, and even though the truth ultimately came out that the allegations were baseless, that it looks very much that they were done in collusion with Richie Neal, it was kind of too late. You know, the wind had been taken out of the sails. And so this instinct towards the, you know, the, that my like living my values and what's happening in this little narrow instance is the most important thing. I mean, it's the direct opposite of solidarity, which is supposed to be the core value of the left

and how you ultimately form coalitions and ultimately build power in a serious political project. Right. And these are all worthy principles and values sometimes in conflict. Because of course you want to live your values. Nobody's saying don't live your values. But if the most important thing is to be seen like you're living your values, then the thing you do is immediately denounce Alex Morse or you immediately denounce Brandi Brooks. Which is what happened. Right.

Because then if you haven't denounced, you start to have people saying, wait a minute, where's Krystal on this? Does she support sexual harassment? Oh, you're in favor of people trading sex for job offers? Is that who you are now? Yeah, I mean, that's what they do, and they, like, essentialize it in that way, too.

Yes, and there was the case of this kid, Aaron Coleman, who was running out in Kansas, who the New York Times reported when he was 12 had like done some revenge porn and some like bomb threats and like awful stuff and so I said wait a minute we should we should investigate whether or not this kid's behavior has carried forward as an adult if it's just if it's just a kid you cannot hold that against him for his entire life I then actually investigated what he had done as an adult and found that six months earlier or so had beat his girlfriend.

I spoke to his girlfriend. I spoke to witnesses. I got the Airbnb receipts, like proved it, ran the story. Like, look, you investigate. You pause. You investigate. And then if you find out that That this guy is still still who he is and to this day. I will have people saying to me What about it? What about Aaron? Whatever his name? I remember his name a second ago

I've never been home and at what about Aaron Coleman you defended Aaron come on. No, I did not defend Aaron Coleman I said you should look let's investigate. That's the whole idea Aaron Coleman did before deciding ahead of time. And it, okay, yes, it took maybe 48 hours. I was on vacation actually at the beach in North Carolina. So I could have done it maybe in 24 hours. But it took me 48 or 72 hours, broke the news on this, and then it's out there. And then you can say, okay, you know what? This guy's still, like now he's 19, 20 years old.

He's an adult. He choked his girlfriend. it's like bad news. So that's exactly the way it should be. I think this story really does tell us a lot about exactly like a meta political movement. I think it's been very valuable and I hope people take that away. Ryan, thank you so much for joining, man.

We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. And Ryan's gonna be doing some more videos for us, so you guys stay tuned on the channel. Yeah, Ken Clifton's coming in. The Intercept, it's very, very nice to have that. So again, more partnerships enabled thanks to the premium subscribers.

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