Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/15/24: Fed Says Rates Will Stay High, Biden China Tariffs, Cohen Testifies In Trump Case, UNC Cancels DEI Program

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Ryan and Emily discuss Jerome Powell saying fed rates will remain high, Biden imposes sweeping tariffs on China, Mike Johnson and Vivek go to Trump trial, UNC cancels DEI program. 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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to the bin news this hour podcast on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts i think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack

of our lives. Like, that's what's really important and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. All right. Good morning and welcome to CounterPoints. Emily, we've got a little bit of housekeeping to start out with, right?

Yeah, that's right. So we have some exciting new updates. Just make sure to stay tuned to your inbox because those are going to be hitting your inbox next week. Some new updates on the future breaking points, exciting stuff coming down the pipeline. So again, just make sure you stay tuned to your inbox and pay attention to the show next week. Although it won't be in your inbox if you don't go to BreakingPointpoints.com and subscribe to this show on the premium version. That's right. Although we presume that all of you are doing that because why on earth would you not be doing that? We've got some exciting election developments from last night. Angela also, Brooks, upset David Trone, the owner of Total Wine, who spent at least $60 million to lose the Democratic primary for

Maryland Senate. Money is not worthless, though. AIPAC did manage to defeat the Capitol cop, Harry Dunn. Incredible. So Democratic voters were faced with a choice of, do we go with AIPAC or do we go with the Capitol cop who fended off the January 6th insurrection? In Baltimore, Annapolis area, they went with AIPAC. So you have to choose between MSNBC and AIPAC. Except, of course, AIPAC didn't say, like, do you support genocide? If you support genocide, vote for Sarah Elfrith. They just did a bunch of attack ads and, you know, spent millions of dollars supporting her. So those were primaries that were held last night.

And we have a great guest coming up, by the way, on the Friday version of this show. Beto O'Rourke is gonna be on with us talking about immigration and the border. We're very excited about that. So stay tuned. Again, that hits your inbox if you're a premium subscriber Thursday nights. Otherwise, for everyone else, it's out on Friday mornings. Breakingpoints.com again, though, if you wanna be premium. Beto versus Emily on the border and immigration.

And me just chiming in saying, why don't we just have completely open borders? Just three white people talking about the border. Bunch of Irishmen. Yes. Yes, actually. Actually, my grandmother's maiden name is McGrath. So I think I kind of qualify. Yeah, we're all allowed to participate in this conversation then.

Perfect. Well, we're going to to participate in this conversation then. Perfect. Well, we're going to start today on today's show with the economic news, because there's been a lot this week between Biden's tariff announcement and actually Jerome Powell was giving remarks yesterday about inflation. And man, just some more depressing news on the economy. That's where we're going to start today. We're going to then move to Donald Trump's trial in New York, where a flock of Republicans, a literal flock of Republicans came to offer their support. We have some soundbites from Vivek Ramaswamy. They're looking for the jury at lunch

to try to just intimidate them into what, I don't understand what's going on. It's not how we do criminal trials, but we don't usually prosecute the former president. So it's not going to be normal. UNC, the University of North Carolina, is refunneling all of its money from DEI into safety, public safety expenses. Not an onion headline. Not an onion headline, but Ryan, actually, some interesting thoughts on that. We have Bill Burr versus Bill Maher, and then, Ryan, we have some really, we have a very interesting guest that you have set us up with here. Yeah, and they talked about this on the program yesterday, but I reported on Monday that upwards of 20 medical staff, American medical staff, are currently stranded in Gaza because Israel has closed the Rafah border crossing.

They're running low on water. Some of them are on an IV drip. There's massive dehydration, vomiting, diarrhea. And these are the American medical professionals, which tells you just how brutal the conditions must be for the general Palestinians who've been there for seven months facing these conditions. And so we're going to be joined by a nurse who lives in Oregon. She's from Canada, but she's currently in Gaza, unable to get out. Monica Johnston, if her internet holds up and if the situation allows for the interview, we'll be

talking with her later in the program. We spoke to her yesterday to get a sense of what the conditions are. And it's just utterly harrowing from start to finish. Yeah, absolutely. And then you have a monologue that you're going to be talking about more AIPAC stuff. Yeah, absolutely. And then you have a monologue that you're going to be talking about more APAC stuff. Yeah, we uncovered some kind of secret APAC money flowing into the Portland, Oregon primary. We're going to unpack how they managed to do that and why they wouldn't just spend and say, hey, we are APAC, hear us roar. It's basically an episode of Portlandia, so stay tuned for that. That's right. All right, so let's start today with the Fed, because Jerome Powell was in Amsterdam yesterday at the Foreign Bankers Association's annual meeting where he commented on the future of interest rates. Let's take a

look at what Jerome Powell said. The question of restrictive policy, as I mentioned, our policy is the highest it's been in quite some time. The rate is at 5.25% to 5.5% is high relative to recent history. So we think that it's probably a matter of just staying at that stance for longer. Okay, so let's put this next element up on the screen. This is from the New York Times. This is a headline. Fed holds rate steady, noting lack of progress on inflation. The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged for a six-day meeting and suggested that rates would stay high for longer. Now, again, a couple weeks later, on May 14th, just yesterday, Jerome Powell, you could hear

the frustration in his voice. Well, to the extent that you can pick up on any sort of emotional connotation from what Jerome Powell was talking about, Ryan. You could hear it. But yeah, it was pretty interesting. He was on this panel to glean from what he was saying that frustration they have. Did you catch the rest of his remarks there? Yeah. And he was saying, look, earlier in the year, we were hopeful that we were going to be able to cut rates before the end of the year. Maybe we still will. He's still leaving open that possibility. But then there were some economic indicators in the beginning part of the year that showed it running a little bit hotter than they wanted to. And so they're keeping it at this rate. He also said, look, when people hear that inflation is coming down, they respond by saying,

yeah, but prices are still way too high. And he said that is what is guiding them. And the White House is going to hear that and be deeply frustrated because they want to see a rate cut that gets the economy kicking again. You've finally started to see a slowing of the economy. But so much of this is using a tool that was developed when the U.S. had a different economy, a more manufacturing-based economy. And now, so much of our kind of frozen economy is related to real estate and rent that it's really in some ways the wrong tool. JP Morgan, their top analyst, was arguing recently that keeping interest rates high at this point is actually driving up prices.

And curious for your take on this. And everybody has a take on this because everybody interacts with the economy. Everybody's either a renter or a homeowner. So everybody understands all of the different phenomena that we're dealing with. But what he argues is that so many people refinance their homes during homeowners, refinance their homes during COVID, and now they're locked in these 2.7 or 3% interest rates. So they don't want to move. So nobody's selling their homes. That means all of these people are renting who would rather, who do have the ability to buy but can't because nobody's selling. So that's pushing up rent prices.

It's also holding housing prices artificially high as a result. He's saying if interest rates come down, all of a sudden you unlock the supply of housing. And all these people who were waiting to sell are all going to start to sell. Now, there's an alternative argument that says, well, there are so many people who want to buy. What you would do is that you would unlock demand and you would drive prices even further up. So nobody actually really knows what would happen. Nobody knows, do you have more kind of pent up folks who want to sell their homes? Or do you have more pent up renters who want to burst into the housing market? And the answer to that question would then decide whether

or not housing prices go up or down. And if housing prices go down, rent goes down, inflation goes down. So that is the thing that is really keeping these prices high at this point. Another quote from Powell yesterday, he says, is inflation going to be more persistent going forward? I don't think we know that yet. I think we need more than a quarter's worth of data to really make a judgment on that. So not good news.

If you're one of, like you were saying, Ryan, I mean, people are experiencing the economy differently, but if you're somebody who's looking for interest rates to go down for different reasons, many different reasons, that's really not what you wanted to hear. It's definitely not what the Biden administration wanted to hear on that point. But that's where Jerome Powell is right now. And, you know, it's, he said, I don't know if you caught this part. I just, I barely caught this. I almost missed it. He said something like, you know, we

know this is hitting people in different, in like lower income brackets harder, and they're looking for relief, and that's front of mind, something like that. Of course, it's not just people, but it is disproportionately being felt. The New York Times had a good story. And that you're talking about the huge surge in prices from 2020 to over the next couple of years that really has sapped their spending power. Inflation, right. Yeah, basically. And it's just, I mean, the New York Times had a story on that this week, basically how you're feeling it differently if you are in a low income bracket. But all around, I mean, it's just bad news for everyone all around, basically.

Right. Because, yes, everything is just, everything is much more expensive than it was a couple years ago. All your basic expenses. Yeah. So by the time now, you know, it used to be like you're scraping to get to the end of the month. Now it's like halfway through the month.

You're like, oh, God. And like you said, it's a different economy. So I mean, I think about all of the people graduating right now. I mean, it's May. Everyone graduating right now, going into the workforce and trying to start a life and own a home. I mean, it just feels so completely unattainable. And that's going to trickle into other areas of our politics that aren't just economic

obviously it's going to express itself in all kinds of different angsts and well-founded angst because It sucks. Yeah, and a fascinating and difficult to actually measure part of this has been the immigration surge And we're gonna talk about this with with Beto later on the Friday show. But, you know, there was this massive labor shortage. And then you had this, you know, big surge of immigration. You're still seeing wages going up even relative to inflation. Yeah. But I think there are reasonable signs to say that at some levels the wage growth has slowed.

Yeah. But a lot of the inflation during the pandemic was related to the labor shortage. Right. Supply chains were broken. Restaurants were charging a lot more because, like, they couldn't get people to come to work. Like, there is an inflationary impact of not having enough workers. So in some ways, immigration grows the entire economy.

Well, he talked about that yesterday, too. Yes, yes, exactly. He actually mentioned, yeah, right. He actually mentioned the influx of new worker migrants, which we probably disagree on that, and we're going to get to that in our conversation. The question is whether they're productive economically, and a lot of them are young, a lot of them are working age,

a lot of them are here to work, a lot of them came here because they saw the stories of high wages and labor shortages. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually

like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future

where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the war on drugs podcast season two on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content,

subscribe to lava for good Plus on Apple Podcasts. The other big half of the economic news this week actually was the Biden administration announcing these pretty significant new tariffs. And we can put this tariff sheet up. This is a three from the Associated Press on the tariff hikes that Biden has implemented. He gave a speech at the White House earlier this week making the announcement. He sort of traded some shots back and forth with Donald Trump. Let's first start with what Biden said when he announced these tariffs in the Rose Garden earlier this week. That's why today I'm announcing new tariffs in key sectors of the economy that ensure that our workers are not held back

by unfair trade practices. They include the thing I'm announcing today, 25% tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum products. And we'll counter China's overcapacity in these industries. And we're making major investments in clean American steel and aluminum. Clean American steel and aluminum. It's a big deal. Clean because of the way we manufacture it here. It emits half as much carbon

as steel made in China. Last month, my administration announced the largest investment in clean manufacturing in all of history, up to $1.5 billion in six clean steel projects across America, creating and supporting thousands, thousands of union jobs. Next, a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles made in China. People say, wow. Because we're not going to let China flood our market, making it impossible for American auto manufacturers to compete fairly. We're also implementing a 25% tariff on electric vehicle batteries from China,

and a 25% tariff on critical minerals that make those batteries. Folks, look, I'm determined that the future of electric vehicles will be made in America by union workers, period. Trump said today China is eating our lunch. What do you say, Ms. Fox? He said China is eating our lunch. What do you say in response? He said China is eating our lunch. That's what Trump said today. We've been feeding them a long time. If you didn't catch that, said Donald Trump has said that China is eating our lunch.

Yeah. Biden said he's been feeding them for a long time. He's been feeding them for a long time. And Trump- Makes us all dumber for having watched the back and forth. So true. Trump said that outside, I think it was outside the courtroom earlier this week. He said China's been eating our lunch. The Biden says, well, he's been feeding them for a long time,

which is, again, it's kind of hilarious coming from Joe Biden. But these are the tariffs on electric vehicles, as Biden mentioned, semiconductors, lithium-ion batteries, all kinds of stuff, syringes, needles, solar components, all kinds of stuff. And the tariff on the EVs, I'm curious what you think about this, Ryan. It's like 100% tariff. I think he hiked it from 25 to 100. Yeah, it's 100% increase in the tariff that was up from actually like 27%. And this is all happening under Section 301 of the Trade Act, so mid-70s piece of legislation. Pretty bold decision from Joe Biden, actually. Those are rookie numbers, though, on those EVs,

100%. If China's producing EVs that can sell for like $11,000 to $12,000. That's what people are saying about these and saying that these are nice little cars. You're going to have to do more than 100% at $11,000 to make the American industry competitive. So I probably have a pretty heterodox view on this. I would say that we need serious protection of our domestic solar, EV, clean energy manufacturing industry if we are serious about having an industrial base. If we want to be a country that makes things, we're going to have to do this. But I think we shouldn't do it in the sense of a war with China. I think China should be congratulated. Like, good job. Like, you guys are leading the world when it comes to EV production, when it comes to clean energy production. But are they leading the world by cheating via labor?

I don't mean cheating in terms of like IP theft, but yeah. You know, we have trade deals. Let's inspect the labor conditions. You know, obviously the reason that American companies outsourced to China over the last, you know, 30 years was because labor costs are much lower. A lot of business leaders will say the reason that we now need these tariffs because, for example, like they would say this to you. I'm playing devil's advocate here, actually. Like, well, you're the guy who wants all of our plants to be unionized, and that's why we now need this tariff.

And also protectionism. Yeah. Go ahead. I'll protect them. Yeah, it's going to—look, I do want our workers to be paid a living wage. Yeah. And I want China's workers to be paid a living wage. Yeah. And I want China's workers to be paid a living wage too. And China has done far more, frankly, to raise wages for their own workers

than we have over the last 30 years. You know, they lifted like 800 million people. They had to lower. They're going for that. Yeah, they had a lot more room to grow, but it's been a miraculous rate of economic growth. You can say whatever you want about the human rights condition and so on. Although I think that's exaggerated to some degree by just our general perspective on things. Though, of course, there's merit to some of the claims. But South America needs EVs, needs the products of a clean energy manufacturing base that China has.

Africa needs it. Europe needs it. Russia needs it. Japan needs it. There's plenty of people China can sell to. Go ahead, sell to the rest of the world, and let's protect our industry and see if we can build one. It might be the case that we can't, that the United States of America just doesn't know

how to do industrialization anymore, that we just can't, that the United States of America just doesn't know how to do industrialization anymore, like that we just can't. Like the Inflation Reduction Act put like $15 billion into like basically subsidizing solar production. It was supposed to launch, like four plants were supposed to launch so far. I think one of them said, you know what, we're actually not launching at all. The other three are kind of on ice and all of those it's because generally because the cheaper imports can't be competed with by American production at this point. So you're in a chicken and egg thing like that's the that's the situation.

And if that's the current situation, we will never catch up because these plants will all fail or they won't even get off the ground. Like they'll they'll just gobble up a bunch of subsidies and then they'll do a ribbon cutting and then they won't actually open the factory, which is what happened with at least one of these and might happen with all four. So if you want to compete, you just have to basically just keep it out. Did you see Jared? And 100% might not even do it. Did you see Jared Paulus's reaction?

No, what did he say? He flipped out on Biden, basically. He's a neoliberal. Like, this cuts their core. Right. And yeah, exactly. Like, it has been. I mean, it has been a neoliberal freakout kind of across the board.

But when we look back, for example, on WTO, and we look back on NAFTA, and we look back at deindustrialization, basically, and a lot of people, even on the neoliberal side, will look back and say, you know, we didn't do enough in the transition period to help American workers. And, you know, they were going to lose these jobs anyway or the economy was going to change anyway. But we should have had some more cushion to literally cushion the blow from the changing economy. Well, the economy is changing again right now and in this direction. And I actually kind of see these as part of the transition. And if it's going to happen, if it's inevitable, we should make the transition to the extent that we can, you know, re-industrialize. That's great. I'm skeptical

of that. And I wish it were true. I hope that it's true. I hope that I'm wrong. But to the extent that we can give American workers something to hold on to in a transition process, I think that's what these do. But you know the quirky world socialist website? Oh, God. Yeah. What are they, Trotskyites? Yeah. They're like, they're like, they're record sectarians who like show up at every strike. Basically, if WS whatever it is, is not funded by the bosses themselves, like they then the bosses are getting a free ride. So they had an interesting take on the tariffs, which is basically that in lieu of. I'm on whatever I'm on the opposite side of where they're going. So let me I want to hear where these guys are. Yeah, that's why I'm bringing

up I'm curious. So they had this really interesting take where they were like, instead of actually cracking down on the financialization of the economy, this is just kind of a life raft to the robber barons. Okay. Yeah. Okay. When they make like the broad sweeping left-wing arguments, okay, that's fine. Yeah, that's true. I mean, yeah, it is sort of like- But we're not going to nationalize Wall Street. So in the meantime- Yeah, it's Biden like posturing to the camera about union workers, blah, blah, blah. But in the meanwhile, this is a big. You're not going to do industrialization and you're also not going to be the center of financial power.

And China can compete with us militarily. Then what? What are we doing? Especially when China owns like half our farms. Well, that's the other thing with like syringes and needle tariffs. I mean, this should be some common sense stuff. Yes, and we should be able to make syringes and needles. Yes, it's that like the fact that we can't produce those basic things should scare us.

That should have been. It should lead to some radical trade policy. And I actually think it's funny that most of the headlines have been on Chinese EVs, have been on semiconductors, when to me, that's some of the biggest news is that like Biden actually, that's a really, really, again, anathema in the circles that Joe Biden runs in, but like a really obvious policy move that is a huge deal, a huge deal. And we'll create jobs here. Yeah. And I don't know if we can do it. Like, I don't know if the U.S. has the ability to see through an actual industrial policy. Like, does Trump come in and reverse these because they are Biden's tariff policies? And even though,

you know, nobody loves tariffs more than Trump. But now if they're Biden's, does he get rid of them? Like, I just don't know if we have a system that's, you know, functionally capable of competing with China's. This is the last thought that we have here. Let's roll A5 because Biden basically opposed these tariffs when Donald Trump was doing them. And then in a very, like, direct way, I mean, he basically replicated what Donald Trump did. Let's take a look. I know that these new tariffs are seen as more targeted and strategic, in a very direct way. I mean, he basically replicated what Donald Trump did. Let's take a look.

I know that these new tariffs are seen as more targeted and strategic, but the administration has chosen to keep in place those Trump-era tariffs on some $300 billion worth of goods, which Biden himself had said in 2019 that Americans are paying for. So why make that decision to keep it in place? And aren't you concerned that it's going

to keep prices elevated? So first of all, let me say a couple things. In terms of the price that Americans paid for in the previous era, some of that, maybe a lot of it, was about the chaos and unpredictability that it created and the escalation that resulted, right? Secondly, I think that I'm a trade lawyer by training, and at USTR we are deep into the technical issues. The Section 301-based review that we undertook required us to look at a couple questions. One of them was the effect of the practices on our economy. And there you have our response, which is a targeted strategic response that is meant to work together with

the investments that we're making. The other aspect that we had to look at was the effect of the tariffs on changing China's behavior with respect to the IPR abuses and the forced tech transfer. There, the findings in my report, which you can find on the USTR website right here, it's a serious report, is that not only have we not seen the problematic practices subside, in some areas we have seen them get worse. And in that light, there is actually no reason for us, no justification to relieving the tariff burdens on the trade with Beijing. It's a funny logic there. And what she's saying there. Catherine Tai, Biden's trade representative.

Who's a good, who's great on trade. Like she's, if either party could get somebody like her in there in general. It's great. Yeah. There was this review that tested, okay, is China basically gaming the system by saying like, okay, you're not allowed to have a concentrated industry in a particular field, solar panels, all in one country. So, are they forcing transfer of property to like Malaysia and Vietnam and other places?

But it's actually just paperwork and it's fake. And it's all actually a Chinese controlled supply chain. And the resulting review was like, yeah, they're busted. That is actually what they're doing. Then she says, so we put these tariffs on as a result of this legal process, but their behavior didn't change. And then she says, therefore, we need to continue the tariffs because their behavior didn't change, which is kind of a funny logic. Because on the other hand, I guess you don't want to say, well, we punished you and you didn't change your behavior, so we're not going to punish you anymore. That also doesn't work.

But the point is, we don't really have a policy lever that can play here because China is extraordinarily powerful and effective economic giant astride this planet right now. It just is. So what we have to do is we have to boost our own manufacturing. We have to compete with them. The idea that we're going to be able to significantly change their behavior, I think, is a relic of a sole superpower period that we just have to get over. Well, and the idea that the American free market is just going to take care of our need for syringes and needles. Exactly. And so what we can do is we can protect our own industrial domestic economy.

Like, we can do that. Right. We can influence that. We can try to build plants. But we're not really going to tell China what to do anymore, even if they are breaking the rules. Yeah, I mean. Which they are. Like, they were doing paperwork stuff to try to cover for the fact that they were dominating

the market. But our answer has to be to actually push back and produce things that we can sell to the American people and around the world. So, Ryan, just as we're wrapping this segment, do you see this as, I know that you don't actually, it's a leading question, but the neoliberals are saying one-two punch basically in the economy this week. Tough news for people all around. Between Powell and the tariffs, how should people be feeling about the economy right

now after this? Well, the stock market said that they're very excited about the fact that Powell is not going to raise rates. Right. The recent jobs report at unemployment under 4%, again, wage growth was still at 2.8%, which is slightly above inflation. So if wages are growing faster than inflation and there are plentiful jobs and union density is growing and militancy is strong, in general, that is a good thing. Jobs potentially coming back.

There you go. All right. I mean, long way to go. The pandemic ripped through the economy in a brutal way that we're still recovering from the inflation of 21 and 22, but less so than anywhere else in the world. You look at our, I cover Pakistan, they're still sitting at 70% inflation. Incredible. So, to have single digits for two years was painful for people, but relative to the rest

of the world, we're still out competing, believe it or not, notwithstanding what I just said about China's productive capacity. And interest rates still, I think it's the highest in 23 years. Still sticking in that spot. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family

that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame

one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the war on drugs podcast. We are back in a big way, in a very big way, real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star studded a little bit, man. We got a Ricky Williams, NFL player, Hasman trophy winner. It's just the compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things.

Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Speaking of Donald Trump, we have some footage from outside the courtroom and the so-called Hush Money, Alvin Bragg trial in New York, where Republicans have devised a strategy of basically flooding the zone, going up to New York. I'm sure it's great for fundraising on their end. And speaking out on behalf of their beleaguered leader, let's roll this clip of Mike Johnson and Vivek Ramaswamy in New York yesterday. They were also accompanied by Doug Burgum, all kinds of different people. I think Byron Donald was there. Let's take a look. Anybody here in the press, anybody at home, anybody at MSNBC or the media afterwards

to clearly state what exactly is the crime that Donald Trump committed? Oh, wait. We have not heard a good answer to that question. It has been vague until today. You heard Michael Cohen's testimony, after which I would say it is less clear than ever what that crime actually was. They'll say falsifying business records. Well, let's look at who did we learn falsified business records today? Get what? Our two hours felt like it could have been seven hours of Michael Cohen talking about how he falsified business records.

OK, so you have a guy who has been a perjurer in the past that is now saying he falsified business records. What is the crime that Donald Trump committed? Now, it appears to be what they might allege is some sort of bookkeeping error or whatever. The real bookkeeping that we need accounting of is Judge Merchant's own family member collecting millions of dollars as a Democratic operative using the existence of this trial as a fundraising ploy for Democrats.

This is unconscionable. Imagine if the same shoe fit the other foot. I'm an attorney. I'm a former litigator myself. I am disgusted by what is happening here. What is being done here to our entire system of justice overall. The people are losing faith right now in this country, in our institutions.

They're losing faith in our system of justice. And the reason for that is because they see it being abused as it is being done here in New York. The facts here are very important. Facts are always important in a trial, or at least they're supposed to be. The president's actions in this matter were previously reviewed and no charges were filed. Why is that? Because there's no crime here. Now, eight years later, suddenly they've resurrected this thing. They brought it back. And why is that? Well, just apply common sense. Everyone can see. It's painfully obvious They were now six months out from an election day.

And that's the reason. That is the reason why they brought these these charges here and across the country. So there's a lot of fatigue and exhaustion with Alvin Bragg's decision here, even on the left, Ryan. I think it's interesting, you know, Tommy Tuberville, J.D. Vance. I think it's interesting, you know, Tommy Tuberville, JVD Vance, I think Rick Scott went last week. Yeah, he did go up last week to sort of go up to New York, have these moments like we just saw with Mike Johnson and Vivek Ramaswamy, sort of relish the spotlight, look like they're, you know, really, they have Donald Trump's back. From my perspective, you know, we just did a whole segment on the economy. I find it very interesting that people are sort of patting Mike Johnson, who continues to be a real person, we can confirm, on the back for this, when it's like the dude just flip-flopped on FISA,

and he's doing this to, like, make you feel like he's MAGA. This is, again, the case is ridiculous. But Mike Johnson is going up here. Other Republicans are going up here. They might not actually vote the way that you want them to, but they're going to do that and act like they're super MAGA because this is a really easy opportunity. I mean, even liberals in the New York Times are in vain against Alvin Bragg at this point,

saying, you know, at first there was an op-ed a couple weeks ago that was like, this is a grave mistake because he had to upgrade because of the statute of limitations. He had to basically devise the strategy to say this wasn't a misdemeanor, it was actually a felony because it was about breaking federal campaign finance laws, which is really unclear because if Donald Trump had classified the hush money payments to a porn star as something else, you know, it doesn't, it also doesn't really make sense from a legal standpoint that that's their argument. And even to say that it was done to break federal campaign finance laws, he has to prove that it was only about the campaign. There were no personal reasons for hushing up somebody who was alleging that they had an affair with you while your wife was pregnant.

So it's just a circus. Right. Because it's this interesting situation where nobody seems to doubt that he did what he did from beginning to end. The question is, well well is this a crime and later in this program we're going to talk about how aipac is spending millions of dollars secretly in a congressional race in order to influence it using shell packs in order to get around kind of disclosure requirements nobody's remotely suggesting they're going to be prosecuted for any of that nobody gets prosecuted for anything when it comes to campaign finance law. The idea that this would be the one thing

that would get prosecuted, I think, is the reason that a lot of his supporters are like, really? Come on. Yeah. Like, hush money is legal. Right. Right, it is. Okay, so, and then you're saying, okay, well, do we expect Donald Trump is like going over the paperwork that's filed on his behalf either to the FEC or to the, like, and what good would that even do? Can you imagine Donald Trump like going over paperwork with a fine-tooth comb? Like, basically criminalizing his existence, which I'm for. But it's hard to stand up that on principle. So Michael Cohen was testifying yesterday, obviously, and that was a big media circus as well. The New York Times writes, when monthly checks to Cohen started arriving,

most bearing Mr. Trump's signature, they disguised the nature of the payments Mr. Cohen testified. The Stubbs described the checks as part of a legal, quote, retainer agreement, but they were in fact reimbursements for hush money that Mr. Cohen had paid to silence a porn star's story of sex with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Trump was present when a plan to fictionalize the records was cooked up weeks earlier in New York. The testimony marked a pivotal moment for prosecutors. They charged Mr. Trump with falsifying the checks and other records, and Mr. Cohen's recounting drove those accusations home. So obviously, Michael Cohen was cross-examined yesterday as well, and he was admitting all kinds of stuff left and right.

This follows a week of Stormy Daniels testifying, and we had David Pecker, who owned the media group behind the National Enquirer, testifying And, you know, the cross-examination of Michael Cohen was, you know, basically what you would expect. So for, at one point, Cohen was asked whether he knew, whether he knew who he was, who, okay, this is confusing the way that I'm reading this, but basically here's the CNN. Donald Trump's attorney, Todd Blanch, began his confrontation with Michael Cohen on Tuesday by throwing the former fixer's language back in his face. Blanch confirmed the two had never spoken, but asked Cohen whether he knew who he was already

since Cohen, quote, went on TikTok and called me a crying little shit just before the trial began. Cohen responded, sounds like something I would say. Just Trumpian all around, like the peak Trump for Trump's trial. So he got grilled on the stand yesterday. But then the prosecution also felt like they got real concessions or got real admissions out of him that sealed their case, which is these checks coming from. And again, like if you don't think Donald Trump did this, that I mean, we all kind of know what happened here. In all likelihood, we all kind of know what happened here. And then there's also the witness intimidation slash shenanigans that Cohen testified to yesterday. Right. You know,

he called Trump and after the FBI raided him and Trump told him, according to Cohen, don't worry, I'm the president of the United States. There's nothing here. Everything's going to be okay. Stay tough. You're going to be okay. The message was then later relayed to him, sleep well tonight. You have friends in high places. A very clear suggestion from Trump that, look, I'm the president. I'm not going to let you go down for this. Yeah. If it's true, which again, I think most people probably believe, but Michael Cohen has also lied. And so just from the standpoint of this case strategy, this is a case based on David Packer, Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen. Yeah. And also the thing that comes through here is everybody in the Trump world knows that Trump

treats a lot of people around him terribly. He probably treated nobody more terribly than Michael Cohen. And now we know that Michael Cohen was harboring Mount Vesuvius level resentment against him. Yeah. That once Trump did not have his back, as he promised on this, has just erupted. Right. And so on the one hand you say, well, he's flipping, he's telling the truth on his old wretched boss.

Right. And you say he would like nothing more than just to see this guy convicted and go down. Right. And it kills him that Trump remains like a part of our national politics and leading the presidential race. Right. Yeah. No, I mean, absolutely. And Trump is facing, again, is facing prison over this. And I know we've talked about this before. I'm not. Yeah, I'm skeptical. I mean, it's a felony, you know, 34 felonies or whatever.

Right. I mean, it is a felony. And so the former president of the United States, the leading presidential candidate facing felony charges for this, there's a host of other cases, obviously, as well. As much as both of us are in favor of locking up white-collar criminals, personally, if you're just going to go after one party in just sort of ticky-tacky ways, I just think it's obviously, from my perspective, a very dangerous road to go down. And every day we hear testimony from this trial about whether or not Donald Trump was like wink, wink, nod, mafia style falsifying checks.

It's like, is this really what we're talking about with Donald Trump? Like, why are we doing this? Talk about something else. There's plenty to talk about when it comes to Donald Trump. And instead he's in New York.

Well, you know, we have to listen to Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels recount their various interactions with him over the years. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits

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I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

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Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. and this is season two of the war on drugs podcast we are back in a big way in a very big way real people real perspectives this is kind of star-studded a little bit man we got uh Ricky Williams NFL player Heisman Trophy winner it's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. via their board of trustees to divert, to funnel a lot of money that was spent previously on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, so DEI, into public safety. This just happened this week, and we can put the first element up on the screen. This is the headline from The Guardian, a $2.3 million DEI budget now going to safety and policing. The chairman of the board, his name is David Baliek,

told the Raleigh News and Observer that he expected jobs would be eliminated, quote, as a result of the reallocation. He said, my personal opinion is that there's administrative bloat in the university. Any cuts in administration and diverting of dollars to rubber meets the road efforts like public safety and teaching is important. Now, UNC became somewhat of a flashpoint in the greater encampment debate, because we're going to skip ahead with the elements here. We can put this VO up on, this is C3, of the fraternity brothers protecting the American flag after some protesters had tried to take it down, according to reporting Fox News, and replace it with a Palestinian flag. This went massively viral. I think they got like a $10,000

donation from Bill Ackman on a GoFundMe, although there were different fraternities who were getting donations and were going viral for doing things like this. But that, again, sort of thrust this back into the spotlight for UNC. Obviously, there have even been academic studies on this point. The rolling back of DEI spending has kind of happened across the board. Academia, it's happened in corporations. But, you know, I would argue and have interviewed people who watch this in the corporate space. Some of it is actually not really being rolled back. It's being rolled back in name. And then, you know, you're seeing it still happen intentionally in other places, kind of being disguised and obfuscated rather than fully abandoned. But in the case of UNC here, it's actually really being fully abandoned.

I think jobs will be lost. Ryan, before I toss it to you, because you have some interesting thoughts on this I'm excited to get to, is that when the president of the board said that they have administrative bloat, he's right. There was a Progressive Policy Institute, sort of, Ryan, would you describe them as kind of third way-y? It is, they're linked third way. They're literally third way, they're like third way's think tank. Yeah, they had a, so by that we mean kind of centrist, but they had a report looking at the student to faculty ratio at the top 50 universities that was released just last fall. So this was very recent. They found that there are three times as many non-faculty members as there are faculty per student at the top 50 schools in the United States. That's new. That's a shift. That's

something that's happened over the course of many years. So just a lot of people's student loan is paying for some of the positions that might be eliminated. And maybe rather than reallocating $2.3 million, you want to give that to public safety. You might want to give that back to students. But actually, neighboring Duke has one of the worst non-faculty to student ratios. And when I say one of the worst, they literally have more non-faculty than students at Duke. The ratio at UNC is 3.5 students to one non-faculty. So that's administrative position, basically. Obviously, you need some of those positions. But part of the reason that universities have been on this hiring spree is because of the constant increase in student loan potential, right? I don't know if we even disagree on this, but basically when you have

the massive subsidy in the form of loans, students are able to keep affording colleges, so the college just keeps marking up the prices. And that's definitely what's happened across the board. And what they've done with a lot of that money is hire administrators, have gotten into this administrative arms race. They've also had like the Lazy River arms race that's happened too. But you flagged an argument from Sam Adler-Bell that I was really interested in getting to as well. Yes, Sam Adler-Bell has been one of my ninja comrades over the years in fighting the kind of pro-DEI left from the left. And I say ninja because the attacks just keep coming.

Right. And we're going to just keep fending them off. Keep fending them, yeah. So these two tweets are in response to NYU faculty and staff for justice in Palestine, putting out a statement that said that NYU is punishing arrested students by requiring them to complete, quote, reflection papers and completion of, quote, integrity modules. And so this is the kind of students are protesting against what the DEI office is kind of punishing them with. So Sam says, for what it's worth, I do think this stuff should force the

left to rethink its hostility to the more sophisticated arguments against the DEIification of university administration. If this sounds to you like, quote, forced re-education and repudiation in response to thought crimes, unquote, maybe we should all reconsider the paradigms that have made this seem an appropriate response to political speech. So what he is saying there is that if you feel like you're being lectured to and re-educated by the administration just for stating your political opinion that Palestinians deserve justice, that Palestinians should not be the victims of an ethnic cleansing, that the university ought to divest from the Israeli military industrial complex. And they respond to you by this insane, making right reflection papers and, and telling you that

you've committed thought crimes. And what he's saying there is that flip it over, flip it around. Think about that from another perspective. You don't like it that the administration is telling you that you're guilty of wrong thing, that you're thinking the wrong things. You don't like that, do you? You should be able to think for yourself. Apply that to everybody. Take ownership of your own independent thought process. Don't outsource it to administrators. Yeah. Don't let them be the arbiters of what is good and what is bad, what is right is what is wrong. And, you know, I'm an old man yelling at clouds. But what I have been yelling at this cloud for several years now is that this empowering, this active empowering of administrators

is counter to the kind of free thinking, you know, people power that the left is supposed to be about. Like, back in, say, the 90s and 2000s, and before that, people were protesting against the administration. The protests over the last 10, 15 years are demands that more administrators be hired to cover particular areas. Yeah. And that more offices be created. Yeah. Driven by Obama-era Title IX policies.

And now those offices are being turned, predictably, as predicted, back against the left. Yeah. Yeah. So stop doing that. You're bankrupting working class people. You're bankrupting people on their way. You're bankrupting working class people. You're bankrupting people on their way. Bankrupting yourself.

Bankrupting people as they are on their way in the course of upward mobility, supposedly, as they're claiming their ticket to the middle class that higher education is supposed to be, plunging people tens of thousands of dollars into debt in large part to finance a thought regime, basically, and an inflexible thought regime at that. And I think it took a lot of people on the left, and I don't think the broader left is still cued into this, basically, but it took people a little bit to realize that these thought regimes actually are really restrictive. Not a lot of sympathy for the conservative students who end up on the wrong side of it and have for decades, but especially over the course of the last decade, post-Title IX, Obama-era regulations and post-cancel culture and all that, wasn't a lot of sympathy for conservative students. But this stuff is actually wrong. It is actually meant to advance the interests of people who are using it as window dressing for their basically neoliberal politics.

And it's disgusting and it's hollowing out. It's contributing to the hollowing out of the middle class. We have people spill blood to create laws in this country that forbid discrimination on a racial basis, a sexual basis, that we have a lot of laws on the books. To do that, college campuses are unique environments. I think especially in terms of questions like sexual assault, these are really serious conversations. But to say that these administrations have become bloated is even an understatement. We have just blown up universities in the name of now creating thought restrictions, whatever that people. And meanwhile, not only is the budget now being sent over to cops, which like we said earlier is like an onion headline,

but the overreach has empowered the Stephen Millers of the world to then fight back against all efforts to advance civil rights and advance diversity in hiring and in acceptance in general across the board. It's just getting, the baby is just getting thrown out with the bathwater because I'm somebody who thinks that, look, if you're grappling with the legacy of racism, things don't just go away on their own because you just want them to. Like it takes actual affirmative action on the part of a society to grapple with those legacies. And so even if that means what the NFL called the Rooney Rule, which is like, look, there is just a subtle, there's a subtle sense in the NFL back in the,

you know, it's not as pronounced as it used to be at all. But for years, there were no black head coaches and no black head coaches were even getting, no assistant coaches were even getting interviewed for the jobs. So they create a rule that said you have to interview somebody who's black or who's at least non-white. We're not saying you have to hire them, but for God's sake, just stop this thing where you just call your four friends. Like all your friends are white. And if you don't break that cycle, that's just going to be how it propels forward. And so the rule is interview someone.

And then it turned out like, oh, wow, this guy is really good. And we want to win. So we're hiring this guy. And so even though he's not in our social circle, he's not our friend. So you do need, I think, if you're going to break the legacy, and if you want a legacy to become a legacy rather than an ongoing part of your culture, you need some intervention like that. Instead, this DEI ideology metastasized and took over and became its own thing, and then was rightly targeted by everybody. And some nefarious people like

Miller are going to use it to toss everything out. It's definitely going to swing the pendulum or risk swinging the pendulum back in the other direction. Like if I'm on the left, yeah, I would have the exact concerns that you do. And I even on the right have concerns that there are people who will take it too far. But this is, you know, probably not an example of that, although I would just give the money back to the students in some way or another, because $2.3 million, it's chump change to a university. But there's got to be a better use for it, certainly than the DEI administrators. You experienced dad guilt? I hate it.

She understands, but she's still being pissed. Happy Father's Day. The show may be called Good Moms, 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. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7.

Because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. Like, that's what's really important, and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better.

Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.