Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/13/24: Dems Float Online DNC Amid Protests, Bitter Hillary Trashes Young Voters, Trump Unleashed At Rally, Hannity Attacks RFK JR As Radical Lefty, Billionaires Pay Lower Tax Rate Than Workers

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Dems float online DNC amid protests, bitter Hillary trashes young voters, Trump unleashed at massive rally, Hannity attacks RFK as radical left, billionaires officially lower tax rate than workers.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of interesting things unfolding this morning. So you guys will not believe this, but the Biden campaign is so terrified of protesters. They may be moving the DNC remote. It's going to be good. Incredible. We'll bring you that. Hillary Clinton also making some incredible and contempt-filled comments. Break that down for you. Trump doing a pretty wild rally in New Jersey, making some very interesting comments there. So I'll give you the latest with regards to him. He's also got a big legal week coming up. Michael Cohen testifying,

all sorts of stuff unfolding there. We've got some new data that for the first time in history, billionaires are paying less in taxes, an effective tax rate, than regular working class Americans, which is utterly disgusting. So we'll show you the numbers behind that and what it means for society. We also have a lot of developments with regard to Israel in particular. Egypt is now joining that international court of justice genocide case alongside South Africa against Israel. That is an extraordinary move, incredibly consequential. We'll break that down for you. We also have some interesting doings from Secretary of State Tony Blinken. They issued a report from the State Department saying, eh, Israel, they're probably committing some more crimes, but we're just going to pretend it's not happening and continue shipping weapons. So give

you all of the details there and his comments on the Sunday talk shows, which were also quite noteworthy. Yes, that's right. Before we get to that, though, we teased a major announcement, and you guys all thought it was just counterpoint. But there's actually another major, major announcement that is coming later on this week. Possibly even more major. Possibly even more major. And CounterPoints Fridays was a big idea. Many people are saying, you know, not only, you thought five days a week was big. Well, we'll just wait to hear what we have to say. It's actually coming on the heels of our three-year anniversary.

So all of our premium subscribers will be the ones to both reap the rewards of this major announcement and be the very first ones to actually find out about it. So if you want to be one of those people, breakingpoints.com, you can stay tuned. And I think people are really going to enjoy it. So there's a lot of work behind the scenes that the team and we are going to be doing over the next several days. So we really appreciate you at a time like this. And we thank you very much. Sign up if you can. All right, let's start with the DNC. As Crystal said, this is arguably one of the most important stories and it is not getting the attention that it deserves. The DNC is considering moving their convention, quote, semi-online as a result of the protests that have broken out across college

campuses and out of President Biden's own fear, as we've seen, where he screens religiously all of the people who are entering into his events, his campaign staff, or blacklisting folks who are known protesters and others. They're terrified at this point of their own delegates, especially considering how many the uncommitted vote was able to garner. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. It says, the DNC is preparing for the worst in Chicago, quote, without the help of the city's mayor. As Democrats plan their convention, they will have to address the elephant in the room, how to mitigate the threat of disruptions and work with a rookie mayor who unabashedly sympathizes with the protesters. But the one

that really caught my eye here, Crystal, was about the moving of the events to a semi-online. One of the reasons, apparently, is that they have a lot of practice from the 2020 BNC convention during COVID, during a pandemic in which everybody was not allowed to attend. And so they think this would be an elegant solution. I mean, really what they're trying to work around is anything that would happen that would be much alike 1968. One of the big differences between 1968 at that time was that Mayor Daley of Chicago was very anti-Vietnam War protesters, actually his police officers, which were involved in quite a bit of the violence. And they want to avoid that at absolutely all costs, try and create any reminiscent pictures or any of that that's been coming out of that. But I mean, it's major just because, you know, just this morning, and we'll talk a lot about it tomorrow, new major New York Times Siena poll out for President Biden, which just shows a total rip apart amongst the Democratic coalition. So before we get to any

of the polling or any of that, you want to weigh in? Yeah, I mean, obviously, the solution here isn't to hide from your own voters, which is what they've been doing, not just with regard to this, but we've covered how Joe Biden really can't even visit college campuses. He's supposed to give the commencement address at Morehouse, historically black university. And there's a lot of fear there about, oh my God, what if there's a protest? God forbid. The last time he spoke on a college campus, it was actually here in Northern Virginia at George Mason University.

It was interrupted 10 times. So they know that as long as their policy doesn't change, there is going to be continued upset, continued disruptions. And frankly, they're terrified of being able to handle that. The political dynamics are such that you have, as Sagar alluded to, you've got a new mayor in Chicago, Brandon Johnson, who comes from an activist background. He was actually like a labor leader. And he has expressed sympathy with the protesters and expressed that he wants to avoid having this sort of like authoritarian police state crackdown that we've seen in all kinds of other college campuses across the country. As the governor, you have J.B. Pritzker, who is sort of more aligned with Biden and the pro-authoritarian crackdown crowd.

But Pritzker has said, if you're wondering if they would call in the National Guard or whatever, he said he would not go over the head of Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago. Apparently, there's some icy tension between the two of them. So that's the landscape. So I guess they're trying to cut their losses and embrace the hybrid work model, work from home model. And it's part and parcel with the direction of Biden's campaign in general, where the interviews are few and far between. They're completely controlled. They're with absolutely friendly interviewers so that you're not going to be caught off guard. Everything is super controlled, number one, because they know the climate amongst what should be their base of voters, young people in particular, but

also African-Americans, also Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans. There's a huge swath of the Democratic base that does not agree. In fact, a majority of the Democratic base, whether they are participating in protests or not, does not agree with Biden's position on Israel. This is the area where he has the lowest approval ratings, whether you're talking about Democrats, independents, or Republicans. So he knows he's got a big problem there. And rather than actually changing course and trying to deal with that problem, they just want to control everything and hide. So I can't say that it's a stupid idea. It's probably better for them to strategically, since they're not going to change course, to try to control everything to this

degree and make sure that nothing unexpected breaks through. And I think it's also a testament to the savviness of these protesters who, even though the Biden campaign has gone to great lengths, even to the extent of like basically racially profiling to try to keep any potential protesters out of their events. They've been very savvy and very clever in how they've been able to disrupt and confront a lot of these politicians. So just a wild state of affairs and shows you how frankly poorly and how hamstrung this campaign is both by an aged president and by their terror of their own voters. Yes, that's right. Let's actually get to some of that. CNN's Harry Enten, who is one of the good ones over there, used to work over at FiveThirty. He always does a fantastic job of breaking some

of this down. He's highlighting some of the coalitional splits here. Let's take a listen. Let's look at the choice for president in 2024 among Biden's 2020 voters, all right? Because I think this sort of illustrates sort of how Biden's getting pushed a little bit. So if you like Biden on the Israel-Gaza war, look at that. He's getting 87% of the vote. RFK Jr. is getting eight. Donald Trump way down here at four. But if you dislike Biden, if you disapprove of the job he's doing on the Israel-Gaza war, look at this. He's getting just 50% of that vote. My goodness gracious. These are people who voted for him last time. RFK Jr. is getting 20 percent.

This is just a 30 point margin compared to a 79 point margin among those who approve of Biden and the Israel-Gaza war. This is a huge dividing line within the Democratic Party. And that's something, of course, we're seeing right now between the progressive wing and those more centrist or mainstream Democrats. Do you believe that America's support for Israel is too much? The clear majority, 60 percent of those folks who are currently not voting for Biden, but did last time around say that America's support for Israel is too much. So there you go. It's very clear. other thing is that they're calling out the big guns for fundraising because they don't have, Crystal, as you said, the organic activist donor base that the Bernie Sanders campaign, or even honestly, the Trump campaign has had at certain points. We haven't seen it yet materialized,

but I would not sleep on it. So they are now calling in the big guns. Let's put this up there on the screen. Hollywood and Obama. Biden is tapping Obama, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and the Clintons for, quote, mega fundraisers. He's done two trips now that are planned to Silicon Valley. Remember that New York City spectacle where they had $26 million that they raised in a single night? He's expected to hold a fundraiser with Hillary and with Bill Clinton on the East Coast in this summer. It will raise similar amounts. The Ocean's Eleven crew set to tap millions and millions of dollars in Hollywood. So they are tapping every big dollar donor, basically, that they can get their hands on. From what I understand, Silicon Valley's Vinod Khosla, which is a major venture capital firm, him and his wife just hosted a major fundraiser in Palo Alto.

Biden is heading back to Palo Alto. So all of the titans of traditional Democratic industry are pulling out the guns to give him as much cash as possible. Yeah, so the fundraising landscape is as such. Biden has thus far been able to significantly outrace Trump. Trump also has a problem because a lot of his money is going to his legal bills from his campaigns and affiliated super PACs. So that's an issue for him as well. The grassroots fundraising thing, Biden has never had a grassroots fundraising base. I mean, that's just never been a thing that has been there for him. And so this is nothing new.

But the apathy among the typical sort of grassroots donor base. This is a Democratic Party and Republican phenomenon across the board. In fact, I think it may have hit Republicans a bit harder because Trump has so aggressively hit their grassroots low dollar fundraising base so much that every other candidate is basically screwed. But there's also just a fatigue. You guys, if you guys ever get, I mean, all these emails, I don't know how they have my freaking number, but I get texts all the freaking time from these people. And I tell them to stop, but I still am on some list somewhere where I'm getting a million of these freaking things. I'm sure many of you are like that or their emails or whatever. And so when you get your 35th email from Nancy Pelosi

saying like, we have to donate $20 to end, stop fascism or whatever, at some point, it starts to have a little less impact. So the grassroots fundraising era, I don't know if it's permanently on decline. I don't know if it's just the nature of these candidates, the nature of these moments, but that's actually a problem for both political parties. The expectation is that this fundraising quarter, Trump is gonna, for the first time, start to eat into the Biden advantage. So that's why they're trying to pull out all the big guns with George Clooney, Julia Roberts, whoever. I just wanted to underscore the polling there that Harry Enten was breaking down, because I think it's really important,

because we've talked about this before. is the upset over Biden's Israel policy, which, you know, clearly the Democratic base in particular, very upset with Biden's Israel policy. Is that going to be a problem for him electorally? And I think these numbers make it very clear that yes, it is. Even if it's a small, even if it's a minority of his base that are leaving him over Israel. And I think these numbers underscore that that is one of the primary reasons that people have fallen out of his coalition. Even if it's a relatively small number, he won by a very narrow margin across a handful of swing states. So when you have those who are dissatisfied with the Biden-Israel policy, which is a large group within the Democratic base. And 50% of them are saying, I'm not with Biden anymore. That's a big, big deal. And some people might try to argue like, oh, it's maybe some of them think he's not supportive

enough of Israel, since that's the new talking point on the right, which I think is completely absurd. But anyway, that is the talking point that's out there. But then when you dig into those numbers, you see, no, by a two to one margin, they're saying he is going along with far too much with regard to Israel, he's doing far too much for Israel. So I don't think there's any doubt that this is a major electoral problem for him. There's clear evidence that these protesters are getting to them. They are absolutely terrified. I think that that is a feather in the cap, frankly, of the protest movement that this campaign is having to shift. And I think the Biden moves, as we discussed before, at least signaling that maybe potentially if there's a quote unquote major invasion of Raf, which we'll talk about more

in the Israel block, then they may withhold some weapons, the pausing of at least one weapon shipment. I also think that that is in part a testament to the protest movement and the pressure that they have successfully put on this campaign and this administration. It's interesting too, because actually Matt Stoller flag, let's put this up there on the screen. Definitely aligns, I think, with my ideology. It says, Americans overwhelmingly think that the US is spending too much in military and financial aid to Israel. The quote, stop sending my money on Israel argument is far stronger than quote, a sending my money on Israel argument is far stronger than quote, a free Palestine argument. This is about a question that's been tracking now

for several months, record high right now to this answer. Thinking about US military and financial aid to Israel following the attack by Hamas, do you think that the United States is spending, and the answers are too much about the right amount, not enough, and don't know enough to say. Interesting here that, you know, even back in November of 2023, it was at 43%. It actually dropped in the interim. Now it's at a full-on 47. So not only plurality, we're getting near majority status. That's including a lot of people who are saying don't know enough to say. I would also add that secondary to Matt is that the Ukraine question

is actually now a clear majority. We're now at 53% of people who say that we are sending too much. So it is very clear, I think, that the argument about foreign aid and specifically slavish devotion, you know, just to any foreign state is very repellent to the American character. I was actually just walking my dog on Sunday and I saw one of those trucks with the screens that you can rent all around. And instead of, there was no Gaza baby, nothing. It was just like, Israel is a rich country. Why are we sending our money to them? And I was like, hey, that's pretty effective right there. I don't think it'll have any effect on my boomer neighbors, but all it takes is one or two people to see something like this is a country with universal healthcare. This is a

country with a very high GDP per capita. They're richer than Canada, just so people know. They make $55,000 a year per capita. I mean, this is a very, very wealthy nation state. They have got plenty of trade. Like I said, if you ever visit Israel, they'll shove it in your face. High tech startup nation, all this other stuff. It's like, fine, okay, that you guys could pay for your own stuff. That is very, very, it hits hard, I think, to a lot of Americans. You could walk into almost any room in this country outside of a few elite enclaves and say, listen, why are we stripping all of this money abroad for these other countries' wars? Don't we have problems here at home? And everyone will nod their head.

I mean, this is an incredibly populist position. And not only do you have almost a majority of very clear plurality saying we're doing too much here with regard to Israel, the number that says we're doing too little, which is the Israel. The number that says we're doing too little, which is the position of like 95% of these representatives here in Washington is 11%. 11%. That's how popular that position. I mean, you are hard pressed to find honestly that type of majority overwhelming opposition to anything when you only have 11% who are like, yes, we need to ship more money, aid, weapons, etc. And yet, I mean, you saw the way they moved heaven and earth to make sure they did give that more money that 90% of the country is like, we don't want you to do. So extraordinary disconnect between the elite political class, the elite media class,

and the vast majority of Americans, I don't care if they're Democrat, Republican, Independent, et cetera, on how they feel about funding these foreign wars. You put up the numbers before. Israel, as you said, is a wealthy nation. They've got universal health care. We don't. They have a much more robust social safety net and welfare program than we do. You know do. BB's out there lately saying, hey, we'll stand alone if we need to. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, I say take them up on it. Go ahead.

I say let's do it. Meanwhile, I've got a $10,000 deductible. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. We've had a walkout over at Duke University. Here you can see there were, I think it was about 100 protesters or so out of several thousand that walked out disrupting Jerry Seinfeld's. First of all, who would book Jerry for a commencement address? Am I just a chauvinist or something? I mean, I'm sorry. Unless it's, the only entertainer I would like to hear from, Conan O'Brien. He did a great one several years ago to Harvard.

And I actually recommend people go watch that on YouTube. Otherwise, I wanna hear if somebody is genuinely accomplished, but I guess that's just me. So anyway, the highlight of it is the DNC is in shambles. The Biden coalition is completely being split. They are panicking. They have money problems so much so that they're having to tap full on Hollywood. That's all they can rely on to try and drag them across. And foreign aid remains very unpopular because it is very clear that our politicians have dual loyalty. Yeah. But with that, I think let's get to Hillary Clinton.

Yeah, the last thing on this, Fred Guttenberg and other people were like, see, they're walking out on him just because he's Jewish. It's like, give me a frickin' break. This man has been aggressive, his wife helped fund the UCLA counter-protesters that went in and bashed people's heads, went and did some like, you know, fantasy land IDF tour in Israel. He's been aggressively pro-Israel. Has nothing to do with his religion and everything to do with his ideology. So just had to put that out there.

But yeah, the reason I show you those protests, there were additional protests at a number of commencement ceremonies across the country. This is the type of thing that the Democrats are apparently so terrified of. God forbid you have some protesters, some chance, some walkout, some disruptions, whatever. They're so terrified they have to move the entire DNC online, which pisses me off on a personal level because we're right now trying to plan what we're going to do. And now it's like, well, is this even going to be worth it? Are there even going to be things happening anyway? That's more of a personal problem. We'll be there anyways. Yeah, I hope they don't screw it up for us. Yeah, I mean,

look, I mean, I feel like it's not going to stop protests from coming anyway. It's going to be online. It's still going to be in the damn building. So regardless, we will be there, folks. What is it called? The United Center? Oh, I have no idea. All right. Well, I'll be there. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders.

I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try.

She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council.

She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her her until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real?

Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh.

I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's check in with Hillary Clinton. How's she doing? Not bitter at all, I'm sure. Invited on to Morning Joe, which has just been a font of so much wonderful conversation, Sagar, as it always is. And apparently, you know, this is Joe Biden's

favorite morning program. And this is the type of content that he's consuming there. Let's take a listen. I have had many conversations, as you have had, with a lot of young people over the last many months now. And you're right. They don't know very much at all about the history of the Middle East or, frankly, about history in many areas of the Middle East or frankly about history in many areas of the world, including in our own country. But with respect to the Middle East, they don't know that under the bringing together of the Israelis and the Palestinians by my husband, the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the then head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, then the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat.

An offer was made to the Palestinians for a state on, you know, 96 percent of the existing territory occupied by the Palestinians, with 4 percent of Israel to be given to reach 100% of the amount of territory that was hoped for. And this offer was made. And if Yasser Arafat had accepted it, there would have been a Palestinian state now for about 24 years. Is there a more bitter person on planet Earth than this woman? You know what I also think is funny? And look, I don't dispute the fact, I don't think most people know a lot about history in general, regardless whether they're protesters or not. But you also shouldn't smear sad people by saying, oh, well, they don't know anything about history.

Because I've met a lot of pro-Israel boomers. And let me tell you something, these people don't know a damn thing about history either. If anything, a lot of them are basing their support for Israel literally on the Bible. So it's like, well, you know, it's like, well, who's more informed, a biblical scholar or, you know, somebody who's like listening to John Hagee and then going out and protesting for Israel or somebody who's watching the news every day and is outraged by what's happening. I mean, I would say in terms of being informed, either relatively on par or somebody on the latter group is going to be imbibing a lot more actual information. Thank you.

I totally agree with that. So, I mean, there's a lot to say about this. First of all, I don't doubt there are people in the protest movement that don't know all the ins and outs of history. And you know what? That's fine because it doesn't take a fine understanding of every nuance and detail of history to oppose the carpet bombing of babies. Okay? All it takes is a little bit of humanity, which clearly this lady completely lacks. That's number one. Number two, how many interviews have you seen with some of these young protest leaders that are incredibly impressive,

who have a very nuanced understanding of the history, a far greater one, frankly, than Hillary Clinton, who has this very one-sided revisionist and, frankly, fake version of her husband's efforts. Now, listen, I think it's probably true to say that was the closest that we ever came to having some sort of a deal. But to even call it that they were offered a state, even that is inaccurate. This was always the idea was state minus. They wouldn't have full control over their borders, etc., etc. To frame a negotiation as just like it's one side's fault and they walked away, I think it's to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of negotiations. There's a give and take. Once they can't come to a mutual agreement, that's one thing.

So the popular conception that Yasser Arafat just walked away and that was the end of the story, that's just literally not true, especially because the negotiations didn't even end then. They continued on at Taba. And then you had the election of a right-wing Israeli prime minister. And that's when things sort of fall apart. So in any case, her explanation of history is incredibly favorable to her husband to the point of utter dishonesty. It has been widely accepted by the press, however. And her contempt for young

people is clearly the overarching dominant narrative here. And there's no surprise why. We can put A8 up on the screen. She hates young people because she lost them to both Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders utterly crushed her among young people. So her cope is that this shows that Bernie beat Hillary by 70 points among young voters in Iowa back in 2016. Her cope is that young people are just stupid. They don't understand. They don't have the sophisticated understanding that she and her husband and her elite circles do, blah, blah, blah. The other thing, Sagar, that is outrageous is she backed the Iraq war. She has been complicit in some of the worst foreign policy decisions,

not just the Iraq war, in all of American history. So to lecture young people about their morals and their political stands, when how much blood do you have on your hands, lady, is the height of arrogance. It is so utterly repulsive to me. And that people would give her a platform to spout this nonsense? Who are you other than a failed presidential candidate who has gotten many of the major significant foreign policy decisions in our nation's history utterly and completely wrong? So if you're going to listen to her, maybe listen to her as a cautionary tale of the direction to not go in. Yeah, I would take somebody who doesn't know history

as somebody who supposedly or fakes knowing it who backed the Libyan campaign. Thank you. Which just resulted in the destruction of the entire state, the creation of modern slave markets, a massive migrant movement on top of like millions of people suffering to this day. And that's totally not only something that she backed,

but was primarily responsible for. One of the major voices in the Situation Room, you can go and read every memoir, she was the most forceful in terms of trying to remove Gaddafi from power and advocating NATO, a military alliance in Europe, bombing the shit out of Libya. For what particular reason?

That's one of those flash moments which none of us really remember. I'm putting Syria aside here. We're not even going into all the stuff that that lady wanted to do, including a no-fly zone, if you'll recall, Crystal. That's absolutely right. Shooting down Russian planes and starting World War III over a conflict which we basically were instigating from the beginning.

There was also an interesting moment here in terms of the divide. Here you have Chris Van Hollen, centrist Democrat from Maryland, and the way that he responded to Hillary. Here's what he had to say on the Sunday shows. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on another network this week that the failed diplomacy of her husband's administration was the best missed opportunity for a Palestinian state. She said that before. but she said student protesters don't know very much about the history of the Middle East or frankly about history in many areas of the world, including in our own country. What do you make of the characterization and the

concerns right now among so many young voters? Well, I thought, Margaret, that Secretary Clinton's comments in that regard were quite dismissive of students' concerns about the awful humanitarian crisis and high civilian death toll in Gaza. And I should point out that we should be able to keep two ideas in our head at the same time. One is the right of Americans to peacefully protest, but also the need to make sure that students feel safe on campus. And of course, we also need to make sure that we stamp out anti-Semitism and hate wherever we see it. But I believe that the great majority of the students who are protesting are following very closely what's happening in Gaza. They see what's the very high civilian death toll. And so we can certainly revisit history and past negotiations. But I believe that the overwhelming majority of the students, not all, and there are some very bad elements that are involved, as well as on the counter-protest side.

But I believe that the students do understand what's happening in Gaza with respect to the civilian casualties. Interesting, just because he's a very centrist senator. I also think he's right. In my experience, there's a horseshoe kind of thing going on with information. The rabid pro-Israel side is like always online and is always either defending or showing or putting out their own narrative. And then I see the same thing in terms of a lot of people who are very, you know, following the conflict on a daily basis. The New York Times actually wrote this up. They talked to a lot of Gaza protesters and they were like, how do you guys get their news? And they were like, not from you.

We get it from a lot of alternative media, from the Intercept, from YouTube, from podcasting, TikTok, et cetera. And I found that really interesting, actually. The more honest assessment was the one from Mitt Romney. And was it Tony Blinken? Who's he talking to? I'm forgetting. I want to say it was Tony Blinken. I think it was Tony Blinken too. But in any case, where they were lamenting, it was Tony Blinken. They were lamenting that the young Tony Blinken, they were lamenting that the young people were getting too much information and it wasn't controlled in the way that it once was. They were, you know, yearning for the bygone era where everyone just like read

the same newspaper and watch the exact same newscast. And so it was much more much easier to control the flow of information. No, the problem for Hillary's position with young people is actually that they know too much, that they see too much of the horror coming out of Gaza and they can't ignore it. That's the real issue here. And Chris Van Hollen is an interesting character in all of this because on the one hand, he makes comments like these. He also, we're going to cover later the State Department report, total bullshit thing that came out where they're like, yeah, they're probably doing more crimes, but we're just going to pretend that we don't really know that and we're going to keep shipping weapons. He was also critical of that on this, on I think that same Sunday show program. On the other hand, you know, he still goes on votes for the aid.

So it's like, okay, it's nice that you're saying these things, but where's the legislative action to back it up? And I think part of why he's kind of, I don't know, I get the sense he's kind of tortured on this is because he actually went, he actually saw the aid process. He saw the way aid was being blocked. And ever since he came back from that trip, which I believe he took with Senator Merkley, ever since he came back from that trip, he's been much more outspoken. But because he is such a party loyalist, like, go Joe Biden kind of a guy, he's still voting the party line. So in any case, it's interesting to hear him critical of Hillary's comments. And I would dare say he's much more in touch with the student protest movement and has probably actually spoken to more young people and take it seriously what they have to say. But let's also be clear, it's not just young people and it's not

just protesters. Majority of Democrats think Israel is committing genocide. What's your cope on that? Are they just also too stupid to understand? This is something that liberals use a lot to try to quash any dissent with regard to Israel because they basically shame people into thinking that they're too dumb and they don't understand enough to really have an opinion on you know, quash any dissent with regard to Israel because they basically shame people into thinking that they're too dumb and they don't understand enough to really have an opinion on the conflict. And that's just bullshit. It's just complete nonsense, especially right now at this moment. People can see what's happening. They see the tens of thousands of children that have been killed. They see what the State Department even acknowledges now was a majority of women and

children who've been killed more so than any, you know, even Israeli propaganda about the number of quote unquote Hamas militants they've killed, which we all know, they just count every single man that they kill as a Hamas militant. We can see the utter destruction, Dresden level destruction across all of the Gaza Strip. We can see the humanitarian situation, the babies who are starving to death. And you don't have to know, you know, what happened in 1943 or whatever to have an opinion about the slaughter of innocent people. You really don't. And so I think to dismiss their concerns, like, again, good luck with your campaign. Good luck with bringing these people back into the fold when they get nothing but utter and complete contempt from everyone from Joe Biden to Hillary Clinton on down. I would zoom out too. I would say it's not just Israel. I think it's everything. I remember, I mean, for years, and no offense to Thomas Frank, because it's not his fault, but people basically

misconstrued his book to be like, look at these idiot whites who support Republicans. You're talking about what's the matter with Kansas. About what's the matter with Kansas. I mean, the entire thesis bet was bastardized by a lot of elite liberals, mostly the Clintons, was like, look at these idiot white folks who vote for people who raise their taxes in exchange for rich people. Now, you could believe that if you want, but let me tell you something, growing up around a lot of very conservative white folks, try saying that to their face. What do you think exactly is going to happen?

It's about a theory of persuasion. And there's also a theory of like interrogation, actually talking to people like, hey, okay, why do you support the people that you do? You might find out something. You may find out, you know, how to actually convince people very differently. So I think elite liberalism has always had a major problem of, oh, these people just don't know what's good enough for them. They don't. Basically, they're always trying to lecture to them. Obama, Obama-ism in itself was the, you know, the throat high up and lecturing right down at you as to why you're a moron for not supporting him. And that we see the consequences of that with Trump. That's really what Trump-ism I think is a total reaction to, like the academic leftism that kind of took over with, with the elitism of the Clintons and the neoliberal elites basically

post the 1990s. Yeah. And if you're not a credentialed expert, then you don't get an opinion and just trust us. We've got this. Well, you don't got it. You didn't have it on the bank balance. You didn't have it on the Iraq war. You didn't have it on Libya. You didn't have it on some of the most consequential decisions of our entire lifetimes. So yeah, people look at you and they're like, why should I listen to you? Why should I listen to you? Okay, you've been in DC longer. That's actually a point against you. That's a point against you because we see the type of decision making that has gone on there. And to bring it all back full circle, we see the way that you prioritize shipping foreign aid to

Ukraine and Israel, even though only 11% of the country agrees with you on this position. And meanwhile, you've got all housing issues, and you've got homelessness, you've got healthcare issues, and you've got climate changes. None of that can be attended to. But we'll make sure to meet over the weekend and work overtime and twist every arm that we possibly need and pull out every legislative trick in the book possible. And even Democrats now suddenly are big Mike Johnson, House Speaker Mike Johnson supporters, because he gave them the thing that was most precious to them, their war funding. Disgusting. There you go. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country

begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey.

We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care.

Visit adoptuskids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real?

I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move on to Donald Trump. There's been some interesting developments with the Trump campaign and a wild rally that the man had in New Jersey, of all places, trying to make sure he gets some of the, I

guess, crossover vote there from Pennsylvania and just trying to whip liberals up going crazy by holding a major rally in a blue state. First, we'll kick off with the actual most consequential news. There was a report from Axios that Nikki Haley had been under consideration for vice president. Trump himself felt compelled to come out and immediately quash that. Let's put this up there. On the screen, he put out a truth saying Nikki Haley is not under consideration for the VP slot, but I wish her well. He signs it DJT, making it clear it was a personal message. I have no idea what to even make of that.

I thought it was fanciful and foolish, the idea that she would ever even be considered for vice president. I'm not really sure where these VP reports even come from. Just in general, Crystal, from all the people I've spoken to, there is no VP. So traditionally for campaigns, you have a committee. If you ever watch that movie, I forget exactly what it's called. It's on HBO, Game Change. I think it is. Oh yeah, the Heilman Helper one with Obama. Right. But it goes, the movie is specifically about how they pick Sarah Palin as vice president. Yeah. The reason it's worth watching is that's the old way. There's a committee, people have selections, they're being vetted. That doesn't

exist on the Trump campaign. Trump, in terms of his committee, is just hanging out with his friends at Mar-a-Lago and be like, what do you think of this guy? What do you think of that guy? He's just floating things to people constantly. He will make up his mind probably like the week before as to who he's going to pick. He maybe has three or four people that are there, but anybody who's telling you that so-and-so is actively being considered, or there's a short list for all that, I don't believe it for a second. Yeah. I think some of these press reports are basically like, sort of like trial balloons, which may be coming from Trump himself, or may be coming from people around him, or who want to put some idea in the news so that, you know, as a way of getting it in front of Trump. Like, I'm sure that there are operatives in his circle who are seeing some of the numbers in these primaries.

What was it, Indiana recently when Kay Haley got like 20% of the vote randomly, even though she's been out of the race for a long time. She got more than 100,000 votes. And it's a lot of suburban women. And they're looking at that going, this is kind of going to be a real problem for us. What if we brought her on the ticket? That would probably solve the problem. We'd probably be in a better position to try to win. Maybe that's true.

Maybe it's not. I really don't know. But some operative is thinking that. And then that operative is like, let me leak to the press that this is under consideration and see what the reception is as a little trial balloon. And then maybe if it's really positive, maybe that'll be a way to persuade Trump that this is actually a good direction to go in. So if I had to guess, it was something like that is how these things end up in the news media. But to Saver's point, I wouldn't really take a lot of the VP speculation that is out there floating around right now too seriously, because most of these people are just sort of testing the

waters, seeing what the response is, playing their little games about their favorite candidates, et cetera. I think it's mostly what's going on. Exactly right. And if you go back and you think too about, you know, Mike Pence, I mean, it was a game time call. It really was not that, or, you know, it's not like it was happening months before. There were a lot of calls back and forth that leading up to it, and then it was like, okay, we're going with Mike Pence. So something very similar, given my experience with Trump world, it is always haphazard last minute. And, you know, is you will know when it actually something is announced.phazard last minute. And, you know, you will know when actually something is announced. Now, in terms of his rally, there are some wild moments. So we had

our team cut together what we thought were the most consequential. So let's take a listen. There's so many people here. There's so many people here. Man, over 100,000 people. This is supposed to be, you know, they thought that hit 40. So they more than doubled it. But you can't even see the end. I wish we didn't have the press here. I wish we moved them the hell back so they'd have, because they can't see in the back. Crooked Joe surrendered to the terrorists just like he surrendered to the Taliban.

And now he's surrendering our college campuses to anarchists, jihadists, freaks, and anti-American extremists. Those people that you see putting up all that money for all those signs, you know, you can always tell a fake protest when every sign is beautifully made by a printer, all the same color, green signs, everything to have the same, you know, they're all made by the same guy. And you say, the old days, they used to everything to have the same, you know, they're all made by the same guy. And you say the old days, they used to make them in the basement. Everybody would have a different sign. Now, every sign is like green. Beautiful. They do a beautiful job. In fact, remind me to

find who that printer is because they've done a beautiful job. I support Israel's right to win its war on terror. Is that OK? I don't know. I don't know if that's good or bad politically. I don't care. You got to do what's right. Silence of the Lamb. Has anyone ever seen the Silence of the Lamb? The late great Hannibal Lecter is a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last scene? Excuse me, I'm about to have a friend for dinner. Is this poor doctor? I'm about to have a friend for dinner. Is this poor doctor? I'm about to have a friend for dinner. But Hannibal Lecter, congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter. Incredible. Late, great Hannibal Lecter. I'm not really sure where that one was coming from. Anyway,

you could see, I did find it funny that Trump was going after protesters for having the same signs when everyone had the exact same signs behind him. I didn't see any handmade signs. By the way, that's part and parcel for campaigns. They just hand out signs, right? Whatever coming to that. Anyway. He's also the man who, remember when he first launched back in 2016, he paid people to be. Yes, of course. I'll never forget. It turns out he didn't need them. Turns out he was the most popular one in the race. I'll never forget that one. Yeah. I also, I mean, listen, not to pick, he's just, he's a mess.

Like he's he'll say whatever all over the place. He'll say whatever gets applause in the moment. Obviously, he said all kinds of things all over the map with regard to Israel. But I think it's very clear the Republicans now are staking out the position of like Biden's not being strong enough with Israel, not standing strong enough with Israel. And he said that thing, though, about Biden's surrender to the Taliban. That just irritates me because Trump's supposed position, remember, was that he wanted to withdraw with Afghanistan. He signed a peace deal with them. He took a lot of heat for negotiating with the Taliban, you'll recall at the time, and

signing that deal. And Biden's the one who actually did it. And I certainly want to criticize Biden here, but also praise him when it's merited. And that took courage to actually withdraw from Afghanistan. But Trump will just, we're going to play his attack on RFK Jew. It's the same thing. He'll just say anything that he thinks is going to resonate, whether it's consistent with his position or, you know, in line with his position or not in line or whether they actually support that position or whatever. He'll just, it just goes with him. I don't even know what to say about the silence of lamps digression. That was a classic Trump in general. That's the way I would put it. Now,

in terms of Trump and his legal and money problems, arguably more consequential of Michael Cohen's testimony will be coming. That will of course be important because Cohen was one of the people who pled guilty previously in federal court. That's Perth. There's a charge that Trump is actually being pursued here in a state court. I know it gets complicated, but the TLDR is he is the most important witness because he's going to claim that it was specifically Tormy Daniels was paid off for election purposes. So let's see what he has to say. Although he has been embracing the diaper Don conspiracy. So he may be, or maybe it's not a conspiracy. What do I know? I'm not in the courtroom. There's also this development with the IRS, which is very important. Let's put this up there on the screen, where Trump may actually owe nearly $100 million

in double dip tax breaks. So a previously unknown focus here of an IRS audit is, quote, a dubious accounting mover that effectively meant taking the same write off twice on a Chicago skyscraper. So this is from a previous interest in the IRS tax filings of Donald Trump and of several other rich people. But basically what they say is that the revision by the IRS would actually create a new tax bill in the immediate term of $100 million plus interest and potential penalties. So very important here because he's already facing that $100 million bond that he had trouble putting up previously during his previous judgment around E. Jean Carroll and a defamation. So with this, this is also very important. And just in general, the more financial pressure

he is under, the more it will impact his own campaign. And it's why he's spending no money. And I would say also, you know, linking back to the Israel stuff, I think one of the reasons he's taking this position is he needs money. And there's a lot of billionaires out there who are very supportive of Israel. That is true. That is true. We'll have more on that later with regard to a billionaire who is very upset with Joe Biden about, you know, his threats to halt weapon shipments to Israel. It just really gives you an inside peek into the type of pressure that can be applied directly to these politicians. Without getting too technical on what happened here, my understanding, any of you have been to Chicago, you've probably seen this giant Trump Tower.

I think this was one of his last major construction developments in recent years. It's been an utter catastrophe from a moneymaking perspective. He's lost his ass on it. And effectively, he took the losses immediately. In fact, he argued to the IRS that the thing was quote unquote worthless because he didn't think he had any chance of recouping what he paid for the building himself. And then he was able to do some sort of complicated maneuvering to shift the technical ownership, even though it was to entities that he still controlled and take a further loss on it. And so that's the piece that's in dispute now. The Trump people, I think they got in touch with Don Jr. or Eric or somebody in the Trump family,

said, we've got a real theory of the case. We've got tax lawyers who say this is all legit. It's still under investigation, so it's not a done deal. But this would be a significant financial hit to him. And he's always bragged about how he's very aggressive on his taxes and bragged about how it's basically for suckers to pay without trying to do some legal trickery, etc., and use every loophole that's available. And frankly, that's quite consistent with the way that most billionaires operate with regard to our tax system. They've got the money for the lawyers to fight this out. The IRS is really outmatched and outgunned in that regard, which is why they spend so much more time focused on auditing working class people, because it's much easier to go after them. They're much more defenseless.

So this is part and parcel of Trump's typical approach to the tax code and is also, I think, part and parcel with how he's owing this other extraordinary amount with regard to the business fraud in New York, where he was found to have inflated or deflated asset values, depending on what was convenient for him in the moment. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother.

She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades,

a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real?

I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move on, as Crystal said, to the RFK Jr. part, because this is pretty important.

The Trump campaign really is beginning to ramp up its attacks and conservative outlets on RFK Jr. They've been repeated now, videos, announcements released by Trump going after him. Here was his latest in a video that was put out by the Trump campaign. Let's take a listen. RFK Jr. is a Democrat plant, a radical left liberal who's been put in place in order to help crooked Joe Biden, the worst president in the history of the United States, get reelected. A lot of people think that Jr. is a conservative.

He's not. He's more liberal than anybody running on the Democrat side. A vote for Jr. would essentially be a wasted protest vote that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him. Junior is totally anti-gun, an extreme environmentalist who makes the Green News scammers

look very conservative by comparison. A big-time taxer, he wants to tax you, an open-border advocate he wants those borders to be wide open for more people to come in from prisons and mental institutions. And he's anti-military and he's anti-vet. He's an extreme liberal. He's radical left. And radicalized also are his family.

They'll never allow him to be a Republican. They've said that we will not let him be a Republican. And his chief funder is the VP candidate that nobody ever heard of except her ex-husband, who's been stripped of a big chunk of his cash. And he knows exactly what she's all about. She's even more liberal than RFK Jr. Wow. Okay, there's a lot going on there. Basically, a lot of that is not true, I guess, in terms of, look, all we can say is it's very clear Trump can read a poll and he sees that RFK Jr. has taken a decent amount of support from him.

I've teased already, New York Times-Siena, they did a three-way, actually a five-way mashup. They included Cornel West and Jill Stein in there as well. And what they find is that RFK Jr. draws equally away from Donald Trump and from Joe Biden. If we look at his favorability amongst Republicans, I think what Trump is trying to do is to nuke his favorability and any crossover appeal for any sort of potential Trump voter. But I mean, obviously, the problem is none of this is true.

I mean, basically, none of it rings true. Yeah, certainly he said a lot of quote unquote liberal things in the past, but I mean, this is not in at all in the way that he comports himself today. And I think people can see that, you know, in terms of a lot of his support, it comes from people who engage, frankly, with a lot of audiences like ours who are independent minded, people who are on the internet, YouTube, podcasts. Plus you have the Boomer Kennedy affection. I don't think this is necessarily going to go against that. So anyway, that's my take. I don't think it will be all that effective, but clearly he's trying. I mean, he's trying hard. Yeah. I mean, they really made this bed with regard to RFK being seen much more favorably on the right than among Democrats because, you know, back when he was running against Biden,

they loved him. They were having him on. They were having love fest over on Fox News. Steve Bannon loved this guy. And he's still, though, very popular on the sort of right wing media podcast circuit because, look, they're about the numbers. They're about the clicks. And he still drives a lot of engagement in those circles. So, yeah, I mean, it's very clear what Trump is trying to do here. At another point, he says something. This is just, again, this is the head scratching nature of Trump. He says that RFK Jr. isn't really anti-vax, which is like, but you are the one who made the, you're not anti-vax.

It's like, what? Yeah, exactly. I mean, he definitely has much more of a claim to being anti-vax. If you see that as a good thing, then you do. So, again, he's just one of these, he'll throw everything out there and see what works. But you're right that a lot of what he says isn't even technically true. Like, The border thing is just completely wrong. RFK is at this point, whatever he might have said in the past, he's very

aggressively in favor of a hard border crackdown. He went and visited the border. He talked about here. He said we should learn from Israel and their policy with regard to the borders. So in any case, this is a clear attempt to, as you said, Sagar, try to drive down his favorables because you can see Republicans a much more favorable impression of him. It could be a real problem for him. We'll just have to see how it all shakes out. In terms of Sean Hannity, too, you're seeing here an escalation. Obviously, the two of them remain talking. Yeah. Basically, the exact same stuff that Trump said is exactly what Hannity said.

You can take a listen and see. He could be maybe one of the most liberal candidates to ever seek the presidency. He supports everything from a carbon tax. He supports, let's see, reparations, affirmative action. He once called the NRA a terrorist group. He endorsed just about every major Democrat this century from Kerry to Clinton to Obama, et cetera. His hashtag on Twitter at the time has always been keep it in the ground. He's against fracking, he's against fossil fuels of all kinds. Fidel Castro, incredibly charming. So you could clearly see that they got their oppo files. To me, I mean, it just reads as like

boomer nonsense, honestly. I mean, the people that they're speaking to, people watching Sean Hannity or people who are on Trump's truth social watching these videos and aren't watching it because we clipped it. Well, those people already agree with you. That's not really who you have to convince. And RFK, whether you like him or not, you know, the more that that America value pack ad of just like vote for Kennedy in 1960s nostalgia and screw the two-party system, that's mostly what people know him for. Well, for that, you're not going to penetrate with any of this stuff. I just don't think they'll believe it. I don't think they should because it's not true.

There is some percentage of like – we talk a lot about disaffected Biden voters. But there is some percentage of like young disaffected Trump voters or youngish disaffected Trump voters who are like, buddy, you didn't do the things you said you were going to do. Like you're not the screw the system guy that you pretended to be. And so we're looking in other directions. But, you know, I really sort of respect the total inartfulness of that Hannity segment where they just have the scrolling list of the entire oppo drop, just like maybe one of these will resonate with you. Let's just go through the whole thing and see what lands. And of course, previously, Hannity and RFK Jr., I believe, had a fairly decent relationship. He would go on there,

even in the pre-presidential run days, etc. So anyway, they've turned on a dime here and trying to make sure their audience understands, no, he's really actually super left. He's super liberal. He's maybe the most liberal person ever to run for the presidency. Total absurd nonsense. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother.

She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family.

They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people.

Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcasts. At the same time, I wanted to take a little bit of a look at what our taxes look like in America right now. For most people, pretty high. For billionaires, apparently pretty low. Let's go and put this up there on the screens. For the very first time, actually ever, richest Americans are now paying less tax than the working class. So in the 1960s, the 400 richest Americans paid more than half of their income in taxes. By 2018, America's wealthiest individuals pay approximately 23% of income in taxes. Meanwhile, the bottom half of income earners pay roughly 24% of their income in taxes. The effective tax rate now on lower income Americans is now higher, and in some cases, orders of magnitude higher than the absolute richest Americans. So not just

the 400 richest, but actually people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk. The counter that I often get, Crystal, is like, well, Elon Musk has paid more tax than any other American in history because of how much money he actually has and because of some capital gains. So in absolute terms, they often defend what their overall tax burden is. But what I think is very clear here is that they often, you know, it's almost like a Trump or Romney-esque talking point about the 47% simply pay no taxes. I mean, we know that this is just simply not true. And that in many cases, the effective tax rate when you consider Medicare, Social Security and others and their effect,

especially with inflation, is that the dwindling income of a lot of wage earners as they are right now with taxes has made it so that they have been totally screwed now over the last 25 years or so. And you've had that combined, as we can see with all the data in the world, with a massive lowering of the overall tax rate on the richest Americans in the country. Yeah, that's exactly right. The idea that we have a progressive tax code, not in terms of like progressive ideology, but in terms of the wealthier you are getting taxed more, your effective rate being higher is just at this point, it's a fantasy, especially when you look at the very, very wealthiest. Actually, this ties into the Trump story we were doing earlier about the loopholes that he exploited potentially illegally to take an extra $100 million tax deduction that he likely was not entitled to. And so to flip it around, the rationalization of like, oh, the Elon Musk or

the Jeff Bezos of the world, they pay so much in terms of absolute numbers. Well, that's extraordinary in and of itself, because that shows you even with such a low effective tax rate, they have so much money and so much wealth. Like that's the reason why they're paying a significant amount. That's how much the scales are unbalanced. And this new data, which comes from Gabe Zuckman, who's an economist who's done a lot of great work with regard to inequality, both here in the US and around the world. He points out, today, America's richest people control a greater share of the country's wealth than during the gilded age of the Carnegies and the Rockefellers, referring, of course, to a period of unprecedented wealth concentration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, these taxes have been

significantly reduced in recent years. The top corporate tax rate in the US was cut from 35% to 21%. That was under Trump. The estate tax, and this is a really significant one, now generates only a quarter of the tax revenues that it raised in the 1970s. The estate tax piece is really important because what billionaires like Elon Musk and others do is they, number one, they don't take that much in terms of direct income from their companies. Instead, it's all held in terms of stock. And as long as they don't sell the stock, then they don't have a taxable event. And so in order to fund their living expenses, they'll take loans against their

wealth so that they can avoid that taxable event basically forever. And then because you don't really even have an estate tax anymore, they can just pass everything down to their heirs. That was a real interesting slip there. To their heirs. And then you never are able to capture any of the tax revenue that would rightly be owned on this massive accumulation of wealth. And obviously, this has huge implications. I mean, it has huge implications for the funding and financing of society. It has huge implications in terms of the basic sort of social contract. You know, people don't feel like this is a fair situation. And that breeds all kinds of justified social discontent when you see this massive gulf

that continues to grow larger and larger and larger. So that's why this is really significant and why you can see the way that policy changes over the years under really both Republican and Democratic administrations, more on the Republican side, but really this has been a bipartisan effort, have helped to grow this divide and helped to rob the Treasury of the sort of revenues that could be used to give us a universal health care system or do other things to help bolster the entire American public. Well, it's also just incredibly unfair to the people who really, you know, fuel the economy. So, for example, let's put this up there on the screen, right?

What you guys can see from the data is very clearly the overall effective tax rate for the 400 richest Americans from 1960 to 1970. Now, to be clear, I think pre-1960s was crazy. It was like 90-some percent. And what happened with that is that we just had a ton of tax avoidance. But if we go to the next part here, you can see the consistent drop-off from the 1960-1970s period of 56 percent, which peaked then, down to 23 percent where it is today. Now, the 23 percent of where it is today is incredibly unfair because what you will also see

is that the way that we talk about highest income earners in America is totally wrong. These 3,000 wealthiest individuals of the $100 million or so, approximately more in net worth, have totally different taxable and income streams than a lot of other folks who may be considered

like community rich. The famous person would be like a car dealer. Well, a car dealer is actually making real income. They have a lot of dollars that are coming in. So their tax rate is something like 50, sometimes even 60%, depending on where they're living. It's almost three times. Now, the argument is that these people are job creators and all that. But in the internet age, it's just really not true, right? It's not. Henry Ford, you know, he used to argue, he's like, well, I employ tens and tens of millions and thousands of people. It's like, well, if you're a hedge fund manager and you're worth $2 billion, you maybe have like 25 guys who work for you. Are you really like a big job creator? I mean, honestly, they employ

like the same level as like a YouTube show or something like that. We employ a lot of people, but compare then the two, you know, the two and then how people are taxed specifically. So there's been a major loophole exploitation, as you said, of drawing down income, making sure everything is capital gain. In many cases, using the step-up basis to your advantage, Everything is to avoid taxation. And it actually is not fair to the people who make real income and to create businesses, cash flowing, as opposed to people who are just inflating their net worth through stock and through all these other events. And a lot of it is a design of the government system. flip that and you made it, you know, progressive and you actually went after the people who are the wealthiest in the country, it would reduce the burden possibly, let's say, on the people who are small business owners and even then amongst the 47% or whatever. It also is, you know, think it's crazy whenever we consider social security tax, like the social security FICA cap

on 150 grand. That's insane. Whenever you think about people who are, you know, two, 300 million, and their incomes, Jeff Bezos' income, for example, is like $99,000 because his real wealth is tied up everywhere else. He actually pays less than a huge amount of the rest of us into the social security system. It's not defensible. Yeah. And you may ask yourself, you probably don't because you probably understand how this works. Like, okay, if you ask people, should the wealthy be taxed more? They overwhelmingly say yes. Many Republicans say yes. Majority of independents, certainly majority of Democrats say yes. And yet we keep going in the opposite direction. And the reason that's the case, you'll be unsurprised to learn. I mean, a lot of it does have to do with money in politics and who is influential.

And the fact that there has been an ideological effort to tie together the sort of like the merchant class, like the small business owners you're talking about, and even the like upper middle class of wage earners who do not have available to them all of the extraordinary loopholes that the very wealthiest do. And yet there's been an ideological effort to convince those individuals that they have common cause with the billionaire class and the very wealthiest among us and that their tax interests are the same. And so since there is still some significant tax burden on that group of like wealthy but not extraordinary wealthy people, and those are the individuals who locally are, like the car dealerships. These are people who are, they know their state rep, they hold the local fundraisers, they're very influential in terms of congressional races, etc.

They have disproportionate impact in terms of the policies that are enacted at the federal level. I mean, this is also consequential in terms of thinking about the presidential election. Some of the Trump tax cuts are temporary and set to expire in the next term of office. And we played for you. We reported on the fact that when he was doing a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser with a bunch of billionaires, he's like, don't worry, I got your back. I want to make sure you keep your tax cuts. And I think that's a promise that he's very likely to keep because we saw the priorities during his first administration. So sometimes these things can feel like nothing that happens in D.C. matters, like it's not consequential to your life. But when you look at the numbers, you can really see the way that these discrete policy choices made over decades at this point have fueled this massive

gap, have been incredibly consequential in terms of the revenues that are being collected at the federal level and who is bearing that tax burden. And Sagar, I like the way you put it, that the people that I think the whole country understood during COVID were the ones actually doing the labor and making the country work. They're the ones that are getting the most screwed, both in terms of their tax burden and also in terms of getting audited too, which just continues to be absolutely outrageous. So they're certainly populist and popular majority sentiment in favor of shifting the tax code back towards the direction that it was in before. But because of the political capture of elites in Washington, it's very unlikely to happen. Yeah. So one of my friends puts it this

way. The reason inflation is still an issue is simple taxes. After health insurance, 401k, SS, Medicare, Fed state, a top 10% earner is actually bringing home approximately 54 to 58% of their gross pay. Rising wages need a 46 to 42% discount rate versus inflation, which compounds over time. Really, math speak and all of that is it may not be 54 to 58, depending on which bracket you're in. But what people do is like, oh, well, wage growth is X, Y, and Z, but they don't factor in, like I just said, all of the taxable items that get written off before you even get your paycheck, if you're even lucky enough to save for retirement. So when you do factor those things in, your overall take-home pay is very low. And then if you compare your modest 2% to 3%

increase compared to a 10% to 11% increase in rent and grocery store prices, you tell me how that works out in terms of your balance sheet. It's just very obvious. The reason people say that they have less money is because they have less money whenever they go and they're living their lives instead of trying to lecture people constantly. It just drives me crazy when we're always trying to change the way that people feel about the economy as opposed to how they're actually experiencing the economy. Ask anybody trying to rent right now, and you know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's gaslighting. You know, there's been a spike in inflation across the board, but the things that make up a stable middle-class life, housing, education, and healthcare.

There has been just astronomical inflation for years and years that has put those things out of reach. And then if we just look at the micro, the story of the Biden administration is not only this uptick in inflation, which we're learning more and more, what a large percentage of that was just directly caused by corporations and gas companies robbing you directly because they thought correctly they could get away with it. But you've also had the COVID safety net being stripped away and no more child tax credits, no more of the Superdome, no more of the certainly direct checks that were hitting people's bank accounts and were really helping them. And so that has contributed to this real sense that of falling behind, of going in the wrong direction. And as I said before, you know, if we look at these numbers on both inequality and the wild unfairness of the tax code, you can see why you've had, you know, this populist movement after populist movement. And people are disgusted

with Washington, disgusted with these institutions because they see it's not fair to them. They see it's not set up to serve them. And so I think many Americans looking at these numbers, they're not going to be shocked to learn that billionaires are paying less in taxes, you know, in terms of you experienced dad guilt i hate it hard and she understands but she still be pissed she might happy father's day the show may be called good mom's bad choices but this show isn't just for moms we keep it real about relationships and everything in between. And yes, men are more than welcome to listen in. I knew nothing about brunch. She was a terrible girlfriend, but she put me on to brunch. To hear this and more, open your free iHeart app, search Good Moms, Bad Choices, and listen now.

I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate

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