Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/23/23: Ukraine Attacks Russian City Belgorod, Dems Kick Themselves On Debt Ceiling, Polls On Tougher Migrant Policies, Tim Scott 2024, Uber Chief Cancelled, History of Failed Debt Negotiations, FBI Infiltrates Anti Mandate

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Saagar and Ryan discuss Ukraine backed forces attacking the Russian city of Belgorod, Biden's plans to turn Ukraine into Israel, Democrats kick themselves for not acting when they could on the debt ceiling debacle, a poll showing majority of Americans want "Tougher" Migrant Policy, Saagar and Ryan debate Desantis' immigration crackdown as Florida construction sites are empty, Trump cheers on Tim Scott's entrance to the 2024 race, Glenn Youngkin considers running in 2024 after seeing weak DeSantis, the Diversity Chief at Uber is put on leave after her "Don't Call Me Karen" seminars, Saagar looks into Biden illegally shipping 3 billion dollars to Ukraine, Ryan looks into Biden's history of failed debt negotiations, and we're joined by guest Lee Fang (@lhfang) to talk about his recent piece on how the FBI infiltrated activists groups like Anti Vax Mandate and others.Lee Fang's article (https://www.leefang.com/p/fbi-surveillance-contractor-probed)To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We're going to talk about the debt ceiling. Ryan, you're going to give us your extensive Capitol Hill experience and break all this stuff down. You've got a great historical knowledge of the last time this all went down. I think it will be very useful for a lot of the listeners just because it is a crazy situation. We're getting closer and closer possibly to doomsday scenario. We're going to talk about some new polling about migrants, about how Americans are feeling about the border crisis. And then Ryan actually flagged some interesting stuff going on in Florida. Well, maybe going on. Might be going on. TikTok says it's going on. TikTok says it is going on. They say there's a labor strike in Florida after E-Verify was put

into place. So we'll take a little bit of look at that. We're going to talk about 2024. Tim Scott, we're always, of course, covering 2024 here. Tim Scott officially announcing. Give you some thoughts. Glenn Youngkin also thinking about throwing his hat there in the ring. We'll see how that works. And then, oh, I'm just, I love this story. Uber's head of diversity has been put on leave for saying that people should not discriminate against white women. And then they called her manager. And then they called her manager. They actually were the parents. That's the most hilarious. This is a great story. We're going to break it down. And just to follow on to everything about how D and I is a complete scam. But before we get to that, I just want to say thank you all to the premium subscribers who

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inboxes to make sure that you keep updated. But let's go ahead and get to the show. As I alluded to with Ukraine, extraordinary action happening yesterday. Let's go throw this up from the Wall Street Journal. Ukrainian-backed troops have staged a cross-border incursion into Russia. The Ukrainian military intelligence identified the fighters as two volunteer groups of Russian citizens, kind of like those little green men that walked into Crimea. Right, Ryan? So what they said is that President Putin was the first to make the accusation after open source intelligence suggested that there was some major cross-border activity happening in the Belgorod region of Russia. For those who aren't familiar, it is a town that's about a half hour's drive of the official Ukrainian border.

And it's kind of been a hotbed of activity since the start of the invasion. But actually, really going back all the way to 2014, Belgorod itself has not been unspared in this conflict. Apparently, the Russians accidentally dropped a bomb in the middle of the city not that long ago. So it goes to show you that great Russian military and how good it can be sometimes bombing accidentally their own citizens. But the

reason why this is so significant is that there is basically no denying that these two groups, who they call themselves, Ryan, were like free Russian fighters. Yeah, the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Free Russia Legion. Right, the Free Russia Legion. But that is part of the overall foreign legions that are overseen directly by the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate, otherwise known as HUR. For those who don't know, HUR has been the one behind all of the, quote unquote, covert Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil. And it's why many of the assurances by Zelensky and others that, oh, we've never attacked Russia, it's ridiculous, you know, ridiculous on its face. So what do you make of the attack, Ryan? Approximately eight people or so were injured.

Doesn't appear to see too many killed. incursion, or at the very least, this is the first and most brazen incursion yet by Ukrainian-backed forces, and really de facto US-backed forces, onto Russian soil since the beginning of the conflict. Right. And they're not really trying to hide it because they're doing this funny rationale where they're saying, yes, it's true that these fighters are affiliated with us, but when they go into Russia, they're no longer affiliated with us, and then they're acting independently. But they also made clear through the entire operation that they had excellent communication lines open. So they're basically saying without saying,

because if you say that we have now invaded Russia and so on with these troops, then diplomatically and militarily, that is an escalation, even though it's just words. Yeah. Which is what's so absurd. Are we really going to say that this didn't have anything to do with the F-16s? Like the one thing that they wanted, which of course, you know, President Biden said yesterday,

oh, we would never, he gave me an assurance. We won't use it to attack Russia. Like the day after you see the most brazen, and you know, here's the other thing. Like I said, they're not even bashful about it. A spokesperson for the Ukrainian intelligence directorate said that the aim of the operation was to create a buffer zone to protect Ukrainian civilians. We expect that such accidents will become more frequent. And I think this is the time to put in the same caveat that I always have for the NAFO folks. Everyone's like, how can you blame Ukraine? I can't. I can't blame them.

It's not about judgment. There's no judgment happening here at all. This is about strategic calculus and blowback for the United States. If I was them, I'd be doing the same thing. And guess what, though? If you experience the risk of some catastrophic retaliation, well, that risk should be 100% borne by you. And instead, we're the ones who are supplying this army. We're the ones who are

basically running all of their ops out of the Pentagon. That was probably the most significant thing that came out of those leaked docs. Like we're literally running battle damage assessments for the Ukrainian military the way that we did in the past for like our airstrikes on ISIS, except, you know, we were actually trying to kill. We were the ones engaged in the fight against ISIS. We don't really have anything to do with this. Yet the same level of military operational, you know, capacity is being used to support them. So overall, once again, the reason why this is important, put this up there on the screen.

The Ukrainian government continues to deny any accusations of attacking the Belgorod region. They say that it's anti-Putin militias, as I've said before, but they are slowly and really, I mean, almost completely at this point, eroding any credibility that they have. And again, people are like, oh, what are you saying? You believe the Russians? No, I believe videos coming out of Belgorod of people getting shot. So I'm like, well, I wonder who's doing this. I'm not saying the Russians are like, oh, what are you saying? You believe the Russians? No, I believe videos coming out of Belgorod of people getting shot. So I'm like, well, I wonder who's doing this. I'm not saying the Russians are trustworthy. But the real jump the shark moment, I think, for the Zelensky government, Ryan, was when they immediately blamed the Russians for those two deaths in Poland after their anti-aircraft missile hit, anti-aircraft missile killed two Polish civilians. And they were like, this is Russia. This is why we need a no-fly zone.

And then immediately after it comes out, it's like, no, that was actually Ukrainian anti-aircraft. And here's the other thing. They never even apologized. They still deny that it was ever them. And we're all supposed to just brush past the fact that we're like, oh, like we literally cannot trust you at all. Like you're a liar and you are a liar specifically because you want to draw us further into your conflict. So how do we know? Here's the other question too. How much command and control does Zelensky have over this? Because every time I read in the New York Times about how some strange men who happened to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline who may or may not have been connected to Ukraine, they're like, but Zelensky had no idea. So either that's false or it's true. Both are actually very troubling. Both are a big problem.

Sure. And Zelensky, fairly new leader. Yes. Overseeing a disorganized, young kind of military country. So you could imagine that you would have, in a country that previously had so many different power centers organized around regional powers and oligarchic powers, you could imagine that that is not the kind of thing that's easily going to be condensed into the power of just one presidency. Could you kind of explain that? Because I think that there is often a bias of people who grew up only in the West who are used to democratic countries. In developing countries, and specifically post-Soviet republics, power is very often not concentrated in the hands of just an executive. It's disparate. It technically says one thing on paper and actually works very differently in practice. And that's actually very typical for a post-Soviet state like Ukraine and

would explain why Zelensky really doesn't run the show. Yeah. The West came into all of those, to Russia and the ones, countries outside of it with what they called shock therapy, which is they took all of the kind of Soviet Union assets, public assets, say, whether it's the gas companies, which then hired Hunter Biden later, all the rest of the economy, and they held auctions. And only particular flunkies, if you were close enough to the right people, were able to be in on those auctions.

And so they were able to buy, say, Gazprom, for pennies on the dollar. And then overnight, they own Manchester United or whatever. That's where you get Russian oligarchs. That's where you get Ukrainian oligarchs. They always own some type of gas company or something like that. And so from that comes power because then we tried to just layer on top of this elections. Rather than kind of building the institutions and the

culture of democracy from bottom up, we just said, okay, we don't have a communist party anymore. We don't have public ownership of all of these assets. We have private ownership of them. And on this date, you're going to have an election. And so the oligarchs are like, okay, cool. Here are my candidates. You know, the other reason I think, Ryan, that this is all important is it's about command and control. It's about whether if—so, A, like I said, Zelensky had knowledge and ordered the attack, which I think is likely. I think he probably did, given the intelligence assessments that we have privately. Is this one the Ogorel? Yeah, absolutely.

And you know why? It doesn't take a genius. They just suffered a massive battlefield loss in Bakhmut. And I actually want to spend some time on this as well, because I think it's very important for people to understand. Let's go into the next part here, and I'll explain why I think it's important to put the whatever happened in Bakhmut and then also tie it to the way that the U.S. is continuing to increase its aid. So the Wall Street Journal says, to aid Ukraine in a fight against Russia, allies are looking to a security model like Israel. Now, here's the problem, Ryan. I don't think a lot of people understand this.

Before Ukraine, there was one country in the world that got more money from the United States than any other. Do you know what it was called? Israel. And it was also a high-tech developed democracy. It was always a little bit curious why exactly they needed that money. So they say, NATO membership is not on the table for now. Oh, for now? Why not forever? And then U.S. and European allies could create key guarantees for weapons and advanced technology. Now, the reason why I think that the F-16s are now flowing to Ukraine, that they are engaging in these cross-border Bolgarod attacks and why they recently attacked Putin and all that is, look, on the one hand, things are going well for them. They killed a lot of Russians in Bakhmut. They obviously had massive success in their spring counteroffensive. On the other hand,

the Russians also killed a lot of them in Bakhmut. And guess what? The Russians are the ones with a population that can easily backfill all of those dead people. They have an industrial base. They have an intact economy. Their homeland is not ultimately basically decimated or scorched earth. Whereas Ukraine has lost 20% or so of its entire territory. It doesn't have an industrial base, massive refugee crisis. They're drafting 55-year-olds. I mean, things are not going well over there. I think even Zelensky would admit that, which is why he's constantly begging for ammo and for weapons. Well, one of the things that we're trying to do is basically pump as much into Ukraine as possible to make sure that they can

maybe make some more gains in the spring offensive. From what I've read so far, spring offensive looks like it's still probably coming. The issue for them right now is that the ground remains still muddy. I was reading an excellent analysis yesterday about how muddy ground actually can persist all the way up until June and that heavy rain is still forecast in the reaches. We still could be waiting for a week, maybe two weeks, three weeks, something like that. They're really waiting for the conditions on the ground to get better. After that period, that's kind of the off switch for USAID to Ukraine, maybe. So they're trying to pump as much into Ukraine as possible to kind of freeze the conflict where it is right now with Israel. But here's, you know, one of the dangers that I think that comes from that. You know, it's not like we didn't suffer the consequences for 60 odd years of our policy

towards Israel in the Middle East that has caused not only about consternation there, it caused real issues for us. I mean, go back and read some of the original justification for why Osama bin Laden and all of them wanted to attack the United States or Chechens, you know? And there's, the point I'm making is it wasn't a costless decision, not only in terms of money, but also geopolitically. So are we signing up for basically a guarantee of Ukraine security forever? And if that's true, then you're basically, you know, giving them de facto NATO membership almost at that point. Because Israel has sort of de facto NATO membership in a way. Yeah, I mean, we basically let them have news.

You have so many different interlocking security guarantees. And then you wonder who are the Palestinians in the Ukrainian question. Is it Russian-speaking Ukrainians? Right. Who are then, because before the invasion, the Russian speakers in Ukraine were treated in a way that here in the United States, we would find appalling to say, like, if we ever see anybody saying like, no Spanish, you can't speak Spanish here. We're like, get out of here. Like, this is a melting pot. If they

want to speak Spanish, they can speak Spanish. So, you know, attempts to ban the Russian language and things like that. So is that what they mean by, you know, or does that flow from that model? If you actually put up this last element here. Let's go to the next one, guys, please. Yeah. This is like the vision that some war policymakers here in the United States have for, and have for how this war could end. And it's not crazy. Like it's. No, this is actually. This is actually the most likely ending. They call it a freeze. So if you think about, well, actually, Israel-Palestine, a decent one. Or South Korea, that's really what they point to. South Korea, where they basically have never signed a peace treaty, but Israel-Palestine, too.

There are just sort of lines that people recognize, not as legal lines that demarcate different countries, but lines over which we're not going to shoot at each other. Yeah. And so then Russia keeps territory, but doesn't, quote unquote, keep territory. Yes. But there's a lot of perils to that. I mean, first of all, North Korea, you know,

it didn't work out so well for us. We were like, ah, we'll contain it, hermit kingdom, it'll collapse on itself. Well, turns out they actually not only survived, they also created nuclear weapons. And now they can bomb and destroy Los Angeles if they want to. And we have this basically madman, not even mad, they're pretty rational, but they're also crazy. And they have nukes. And it's 45 minutes away from Seoul, which is one of the most dynamic and incredible cities literally on planet Earth with massive amounts of GDP and companies making awesome cell phones like maybe somebody

just got. And those are all in danger. And also, people forget this. We have spent billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. We have bases all over South Korea. We have thousands of U.S. troops who are stationed on the peninsula at all times, specifically in case there's ever a jump off between North and South Korea. So once again, it's not costless what has happened. But I think we've spent more in South Korea than anywhere else in the world. Might be right. After World War II. And when you're at a state of perpetual war, because you've never declared peace, it also erodes whatever democratic institutions

you have inside there. South Korea, for that reason, was a series of military dictatorships and coups. Until the 1970s? Yeah, absolutely brutal, horrific place to live for anybody who was remotely critical of the government because they would use, well, look, these North Koreans are right across the border.

They're going to come marching into Seoul. So, therefore, we need to crush dissent. You could see Ukraine developing that type of authoritarian culture if they're constantly under threat because it makes sense. Like Abraham Lincoln was not the greatest Democrat at the height of civil war. Well, let me flip it to where I would actually say it was probably worth it in South Korea You know why it's like I just said cuz they got cool companies like Samsung and a lot of us dry Ask a lot of us drive Korean cars. They have incredible technology. They are Great allies because they spend a ton of their money on defense. They're not moochers in any way

They draft their their own men have mandatory military service service. That's what Ukraine will do too. Ukraine will be one more place where we can dump all of our excess military capacity. Well, there's certainly that. But what I would posit is I don't see the next Samsung, no offense, coming out of Ukraine. I'm sorry. I don't know. Well, maybe they'll all get wiped out. But for 10, 15 years, I mean wiped out by AI or whatever.

But for 10 or 15 years, Ukrainian engineers and software developers were the thing that was powering big tech. So you're right. But a lot of them left. They don't live in Ukraine anymore. Actually, those, from what I have read, are the very first people who actually left. They had connections already. They all either came here or they went to the West. They already had dual citizenship or any of that.

So, look, again, it's not a slight. I'm just saying out of one of the most corrupt countries on earth, I'm doubtful that we're going to see. And also, frankly, at this point, this is a down market region of Europe, which is already down market GDP relative to all of Asia. Sorry, Europeans. I mean, South Korea is massively corrupt too. South Korea was massively corrupt too. And just milking the US as well.

I think this is a good point. So I guess people can turn it around, but I would just point at general trends and directions and just be like, well, which way am I betting my money on? I'm betting on Asia. And I'm looking at,

so what's some of the things that are happening here? And the Israeli and the South Korean model, I think two things that you and I can agree on were they cost us a hell of a lot of money

in the long run. And not only that, we signed up for security situations, which have definitely imperiled us. I mean, you know, and again, that can be worth it. I think it absolutely is worth it in terms of South Korea. But we should acknowledge that, you know, one of our major cities, Los Angeles, or Hawaii, for example, one of our states, is literally at risk of annihilation because of our relationship with that country. I think that's a balance and a trade that is probably worth it in the long run, given the amount of economic activity and cross-cultural connection and all that that we have. But that needs to be a conscious choice by the American people. And I don't think that is a conscious choice right now for Ukraine.

And if they want it to be that way, well, you've got to sell it to us then. You've got to come out and say, like, all right, guys, we're signing up for a 100-year commitment here. And we're going to turn Ukraine into the next South Korea. It's like, OK, well, are we all ready for a trillion dollars or so to be spent in terms of economic development there? That seems like a big, big lift and not something necessarily that has a democratic support. So they have to sell it to us first. Right. None of these wars were like declared and voted on. Right. Bingo. So Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden met in the White House yesterday. Here's Kevin McCarthy,

House Speaker, after that meeting. The president, he said that he's willing to cut spending, but he also wants to raise revenue as well. Are you willing to talk about that? No. Just to be clear why. When you talk about raising revenue, if you look at the 50-year average of America, how much money have we brought in by revenue?

That would be roughly about 17% of GDP. Right now we're bringing almost 20% of GDP in in revenue. Now, how many times has that happened in modern history? Only twice, in 1944 and in 2000. So you're bringing in more money at a higher percentage than any other time. Can you explain, first of all, that was his reaction right outside of the White House, but we have a thread, Ryan, could you break this down, I think, for the audience? Let's put it up there on the screen. These are just about what exactly the GOP wants.

And can you put it in plain English for everybody? So basically what Republicans are saying is that spending increased significantly under the Biden administration. So therefore, it's unfair to say that we're going to do the normal cost of living inflation adjustments because we did such significant bumps over the last couple of years. So therefore, we need to spend less. And that's the thing that might get Republicans hung up completely is that, and you can move to the next one so people, if they want to read this while we're talking. Republicans are saying we want to spend Absolutely less like not just as a percentage not just a slower rate of growth But less than the year before nominal right and and they want us and they want to spend more on the Pentagon

so if you want to give more to the military and You want to give less overall then you have to give a huge amount less and if you want to give more to the military and you want to give less overall, then you have to give a huge amount less. And if you have already agreed accidentally in a state of union not to touch Medicare and Social Security, that limits you to discretionary spending. Which is less than what? That's like the EPA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It's veterans. A lot of that is veterans, which is what is also getting Republicans hung up because they're like, oh, no, no. Of course we're not going after veterans.

Like, OK, so you keep saying there's all these things you're not going after. And that leaves them with, right, snap. Yep. And then they want to go after some of the climate tax credits in IRA. And for Biden, that's a red line. And he wouldn't have the votes for that in the House or Senate anyway. And so then they're stuck. Now they're back to then, well, okay, what can we do about food stamps again? And then they're going to say, well, and we're only

going to do work requirements for able-bodied people without dependents. The number of people getting food stamps in that situation is very slim. Really? And the amount they get is like $19 or something. Okay. $20 a month. Yeah. So this is where he's talking about, if we can go to, yeah, they're talking about both are agreeing on permitting reform. This is one where I'm pretty pro-permitting reform, Ryan. Can you steal me? Okay. I was going to say, can you at least steel man where I am on this? Because I don't think people understand this. It has to do with, okay, it's framed by its detractors as just about oil.

But it's not just about oil. It has to do with all clean energy. So as somebody who is very anti the current regulatory regime around wind, solar, and nuclear, especially nuclear, permitting reform to me actually does look like an incredibly good idea, but maybe explain it to why people are opposed. Yeah, I'm kind of a heretic on this, but to make the argument against permanent reform, what people say is like, look, they're already telling us we have five or ten years to cap emissions at what are already catastrophic levels that are putting humanity at risk like of

Existence of an existential crisis like that. That's the that's the argument and there's a lot of climate sciences that says Yeah, yeah, actually that could be right and that if you do permitting reform that is geared toward fossil the fossil fuel industry. And the fact that API, the American Petroleum Institute, left its watermark on Joe Manchin's permitting reform really poisoned the well, so to speak. So oftentimes, legislation is written on K Street by lobbyists. And Newt Gingrich helped bring this about in 1994. When he took over, he gutted the amount of staff that the public had.

So the public gets what it pays for. And so members of Congress outsource a lot of their legislative writing to K Street. So the American Petroleum Institute wrote Joe Manchin's permitting reform legislation, put their watermark on it, and forgot to take it off when they circulated. So what is your pro- for permitting the pro case is that we have learned from you know recent in inflation politics and also from the yellow vest protests in France that turning around climate politics by forcing working-class people to pay more for energy is just maybe in an ideal world where you're an authoritarian and you can just crush all dissent can do it but it's not going to

work it's gonna produce popular revolt and your policies are gonna be repealed so what's the point of trying to force through a policy that's just gonna get repealed amid anger the only way you're gonna get there is if renewables and clean energy can compete. And are cheap. And are cheaper than fossil fuels. And so you're not going to be able to keep everything in the ground by force. The way you're going to keep things in the ground is the way you're keeping coal in the ground now in the United States,

which is companies look at it and they're like, it's not worth the money it takes to dig that out of the ground. Yeah, it's cheaper to burn natural gas. No one is saying natural gas is great, but it's a hell of a lot better than coal. And so the argument for permitting reform is you can't get enough wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewables online at scale in order to drive the price down if every single neighborhood can look at a transmission line and say, you know what, we'd prefer actually not to have a transmission line. Oh, really? That's interesting. That's surprising.

We've never met anybody who would rather not have construction in their backyard. It's like, yeah, guess what? That's our choice. And if we want to have 9 billion people on the planet who are using this much energy, we're going to have to get the energy from somewhere. This is important for people to get because this is like one of the biggest wars in Washington right now. And that's another reason why I was pretty annoyed with Biden whenever he phrased it as like some massive giveaway to the oil industry. Sometimes the two things can be true. Industry can want something that can also still be good, you know, whenever it comes to cost. And

like what you're laying out here, the way our regulatory regime, I've talked about this before in terms of like nuclear reactors. Like we haven't had a new nuclear reactor built in the United States or at least that's come online in the United States since the 1970s. There's one currently in the works. Allegedly. It took way too long to build and it cost way too much money. Now, some of that is definitely on the companies itself. A lot of it, though, is also on the government.

And there's some crazy breakthrough technology happening right now in the world of nuclear reactors. They're looking at them. They are so small they can fit literally inside of a truck. I mean, nuclear fission technology, most of it is happening, the research, not in the US. And it's specifically because they don't think they can do business here. Unfortunately, the Europeans, while they sometimes have a better permitting regime, they also are anti-nuclear ideologically. And so we're really not seeing the uptake on this in the world's most developed economies. The Asians are the ones instead who are like, hey, come over here, except Japan. Now Japan is out also. Well, yeah, because they had a little

bit of a situation. Well, it was their fault. Okay, I'll maintain that. But that was 100% on them. The problem, though, also, Ryan, is that the way that this all fits is, as I understand it, this is a major Republican priority. But they are also not willing to trade on some revenue raisers. And this is where let me call out the Republicans here because this stuff drives me absolutely crazy. They specifically shot down closing the carried interest loophole, which is literally only beneficial for people who work in private equity and venture capital who are multi, multi, multimillionaires just so they don't have to pay a tax, which is equivalent to income tax like you or I or anybody else would, and can pay dramatically lower on their millions

of profits. So like, let's be clear. That's number one. Number two, where they're talking about here is wonky, but it's about pharmacy benefit managers. Can you explain that one to people? And these are the new folks who are really in the crosshairs of everybody in Washington. Scum of the earth. Insurance companies and drug makers who are some of the, two of the most powerful lobbies in Washington were like, who can we take out? Right. It's like, ah, it's the pharmacy benefit managers. And these are the folks who are basically middlemen and are negotiating. All they do is add cost. Like that is literally all they do is add cost

to prescription drug. And it's, and, and, um, yes, sure. You know, nuke the pharmacy benefit measure. It's not going to save everything, but it'll do something. Right. And it's hilarious because the public is clamoring for something. And the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry are like, here's something you can do. And finally, Congress is like, yes, sir. Yes. And there was a really funny part, Ryan, here that we were talking about

yesterday. Let's put it up there on the screen about how there is a growing sense of regret within Democratic ranks that the party missed an opportunity to neutralize the debt limit when they fully controlled Congress and White House for two years. Oh, yeah. You think? What a stupid idea. You know, my favorite part, Ryan, is that the best it's been explained to me, the reason why they didn't do it is because they would have had to put a number on it. And by putting a number on it, they thought that would be a bad headline. So they were not willing to sacrifice one bad headline for having to now cut all the programs that they passed while they were in office. And look, the ball is in the Republicans' court. There's no question. I mean,

they are completely controlling the playbook here. Biden and all of them have bent the knee almost in every way. Speaker McCarthy also spoke at the Capitol yesterday after he returned from the White House. Let's take a listen to what he said. So what we would like to do is sit down. We have to spend less than we spent last year. And you've got to know why. The Democrats spent $6 trillion. That brought us inflation, more dependent on China. We've had three of the biggest four banks failures just in the last couple of months. So what we want to do is limit the amount of spending that we could do in the future, about 1%. That is an idea by Joe Manchin. Get our supply chain working again. So work requirements for only able-bodied people with no dependents Okay, so what do you get from that Ryan is that he's drawing it out when he said able-bodied people

But the problem is I just don't see how you reach the overall top line numbers here So I think that the TLDR is we're trying to explain to everybody here like what exactly they want what the White House Doesn't want and the consequences. I mean we've talked about ad nauseum at this point, but are very grave. From what I have seen, one current estimate says 1.5 million people could lose their job within just the first 40 hours, that we would have Medicare and Social Security payments that would stop on June 8th if they let the crisis drag on, not to mention a very likely market drop of some 20% or so on the S&P 500. But here's the other thing. Nobody knows. Absolutely nobody knows how it will go. Even the 14th Amendment now and all of the consideration on that stuff, it's up in the air because Biden decided that he wouldn't do it,

now it's maybe on the table. So overall, it's a very chaotic situation and it's not good. Where do you think things will progress from now? I think it depends on what Republicans are willing to say yes to, because I think that Democrats, if Biden agrees to something, there'll be enough Democrats to, you know, you get a hundred, maybe you get a hundred Democrats in the House to go with it. So what's your sense on how many Republicans there are who would take a deal that is good for them? Let's say you're freezing spending and you've got two years worth of caps and then you can fight it out in the next election against what the status quo was. It's a huge win, but it's not everything they wanted. Do you think that there will be a revolt? That seems to be the

big question. I don't know. There's no question. You know, the other idea that I heard floated to me by somebody was, hey, man, I don't think we'll devolve. They'll probably just do some one-month extension or something like that to September, which, I mean, it's possible. I'm not so sure, though, that the far-right people, like the Freedom Caucus-type people in the House would go for that. So I genuinely don't know. I don't know what they would be willing to agree to. They could get an extension, like Democrats would vote for an extension. Dems would definitely vote for an extension. And it's possible

they could say, look, the other thing is, and I kind of said this to Crystal yesterday, is I really think that nobody's going to budge until the markets crash. I think something's got to really crash. That was, by the way, I kept wondering, why do they keep holding these meetings at 4.30 p.m. or 5.30 p.m.? Yeah, somebody looked at me like it was an idiot. And I was like, duh, Sagar, they don't want the markets to crash. And I was like, oh, that's so obvious. That actually makes complete sense. So the reason why, everyone, if you're wondering why these are taking place later in the day is because they have to wait until markets close so that there's no reaction to what they do. Poor Biden. He's like, four o'clock, man, I'm done. Yeah, I know. The

guy never works past four o'clock. That's why I was shocked. I said, since when does Biden have a 5.30 p.m. meeting on his calendar? But yeah, this apparently is the answer. Let's go to the next one here. These are some interesting polling, Ryan, around the border crisis and probably one of the more vulnerable areas for Democrats right now. Let's put it up there on the screen. CBS poll asked directly, do you think the Biden administration should be tougher or easier on migrants who are trying to cross at the U.S.-Mexico border? 58%, actually, plus four from April, say tougher. Easier, only 20%. You know, what's fascinating is that even amongst Democrats, you've got 41% saying tougher, 20% easier. GOP is 84-11. Indy is 54-25. And then you've got the racial breakdown,

ironically, Hispanic as well, which is often held up as some monolith, you know, community is also at 41% tougher, just so everybody knows. I think it's an interesting breakdown, Ryan, in terms of the broader and how much people are thinking about it. Put the next one up there on the screen. Because people's feelings on this are more nuanced than you would think. So for example, if you ask people, would you favor housing migrants or think there are facilities to do so, they're at 52 to 37. If you say housing migrants willingness versus space concern, most people are very much in favor of housing them. However, in terms of some of the bigger breakdown, like do you think that you should be tougher? Well,

then yeah, the vast majority actually say yes. For example, Ron DeSantis got a lot of heat for sending migrants to Martha's Vineyard. They say, do you actually say yes? For example, Ron DeSantis got a lot of heat for sending migrants to Martha's Vineyard. They say, do you approve of migrants to sending northern states? They say, yes, you think we should involve parts of the country. Those places have more space and resources. People don't like it whenever it sends a political statement, but on its face, they're very much okay with spreading migrants to places which don't have to bear the brunt. For example, I know it was a big thing with Martha's Vineyard and they were like, yeah, you're dealing in,

you know, with what we deal with literally in like 30 minutes in El Paso or Eagle Pass or any of these other places. They say, in general, what you find is a more nuanced view of the migrant immigration situation than I think is genuinely presented by the media. So what do you make of it? I mean, one of the big concerns that the left has been forecasting over the last decade is what they call eco-fascism, that there's going to be so much popular resentment toward migrants driven by climate collapse around the world,

war and climate collapse, that you're going to have countries in the developed world, you know, the haves are going to keep out the have-nots, and that you're not going to just see demagogues pushing for walls in the United States. You're going to see that, you know, all over the Western and developed world outside of the Western world. And so I think that this is a step in that direction. I think you're going to see this. I think this is going to be where popular opinion is. At the same time, we're facing labor shortages

and we're facing birthright issues that are going to make it so that, ironically, the countries that are able to bring in the most young people who are able to work are going to be the ones that are going to grow in the 21st century. See, this is where I'm not so sure. This is a quasi-libertarian argument that I hear sometimes. And it's like, well, what's wrong with higher wages? I think higher wages are great.

I mean, there's no – labor shortage has frankly been one of the best things that's ever happened for the American working class. There's a lot of dispute on this, but there is some evidence, some evidence is what I'm saying. And again, it is in dispute, I should be honest, that part of the Trump administration's at least reduction in overall migration had an impact on the overall wage inflate, had an impact on overall wage increase from 2017 till 2020. Obviously, 2020, things got a little bit wonky. Post that, I don't think you can say that the current wage conditions really had anything to do with immigration or not just because of the madness of what happened with COVID and everything. But from before that period, yeah, I think there's

good evidence. On the birth rate question, that one is where, and look, I think all of this presumes that this almost puts immigration on the same footing as legal versus illegal. And I think that that is where some people like me and Alice have the most objections. Like, look, I think it's not necessarily the best position, but I think it's a defensible one to say, oh, well, we need more immigrants in order to take jobs, et cetera. It's like, okay, well, then you need to come here in an orderly process. Like you can't be, for example, you know, we had 30,000 slots for asylum that people are allowed to apply for. We had 1.5 million people apply for that. That's insane. You know, and then here's the other thing. It's not fair to them either. These are people don't even speak any English paying some coyote to drag them across Mexico, many of them being raped and killed in the process.

Then they get here because they think they can just like waltz across and go to work. And it's like, oh, it turns out you're living in a shantytown in Mexico for the next two years. So, I mean, it's not a good situation for them, for a child, for a single mom or a single adult male either. I mean, none of these things are good, I think, right now for anyone. Right, right. We say you got to go through an orderly process, but our system is incapable of or uninterested in producing an orderly process for them to go through. And so you're seeing states start to respond to it. Governor Ron DeSantis earlier in May signed into law a new immigration bill, which by July is going to require all companies to use E-Verify, which basically requires you to run your employees through the federal system. If you don't, the fines are extraordinarily

large, I think $10,000 a pop or something like that. It also requires hospitals to take kind of the immigration information from patients who come in and other ways to tighten the screws around the immigrant population. Here's how some of the local reporting has been unfolding even before it has gone into actual official effect. But a new immigration crackdown by the Florida legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis is now making it harder for them to live and work in the state. And even though the policy is not yet in effect, CBS's Miami's Garbera Larzola shows us how it has already shaken the undocumented community along with employers they work for. A recent survey from the Migration Policy Institute

says there are around 800,000 undocumented immigrants right here in the state of Florida. Many taking jobs like construction and agriculture, but that may not be for long. Around South Florida, labor workers are becoming more and more scarce by the day, according to some employees. People aren't showing up to work because they're scared of being deported. And critics say Senate Bill 1718 is to blame. Not on the desk, Mr. Speaker. According to the bill, businesses could face up to a $10,000 fine per undocumented employee, and the state could revoke their license.

For construction workers like Jose, he says half of the workers are already gone. Many workers are leaving thinking they're going to be deported, so they're going to other states. And if you notice, that was TikTok. So this is a big thing on TikTok. It's a local news report that went on a TikTok and these types of reports have been going viral. And it's creating an impression that might not quite yet be justified by the numbers. But I wanted to play one more just so people have a sense of what's going around TikTok. Here's one more that's really been making the rounds if we can roll this side. Hello, everyone. This is an update. Today is Tuesday,

May the 16th. It's not Sunday. There is my truck with grass and this is a construction site here in Davenport, Florida, 20 miles from Orlando. And this is all you see. It's 9 a.m. Usually at this time there's a lot of people here working, all kind of contractors doing their job roofers of course a lot of noise and loud Mexican music this is what you hear today so it is happening it is not fake it is not a joke you see one contractor there this is all thanks to ron de santos anecdotal obviously but we don't know if it's uh fully there that said it's probably not a surprise i mean because this was long predicted i'm even looking here at tampa bay business journal They have a headline that just came out literally yesterday saying immigration law could significantly impact Florida's construction and agriculture industries. Here again, though,

I'm just like, okay, yeah, that's true. It is true that enforcing the law will have consequences. That doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. It just means like, okay, well, then we need a process through which we can rectify this mismatch in the way that apparently all construction and agriculture operates with under-the-table illegal labor and we're all just supposed to be cool with that. That just doesn't seem like a good status quo. And look, I'm not saying it doesn't have consequences, but maybe consequences are worth it. Well, we have – people have a couple significant complaints about life in America right now. One is that housing is too expensive. Very true. Two is that food is too expensive. All true. This policy will drive up the prices of all of those

things substantially. I think the big mistake we made came actually, ironically, when we hardened the border and made it much more difficult for seasonal laborers to go back and forth between Mexico and Central America and the United States. Because we had this incorrect sense that people who were coming here to work the fields, to work construction jobs and sending money home, didn't want to live in Mexico or El Salvador and Honduras. They really, really wanted to live in the United States. And it's kind of a chauvinistic, almost quaint, cute idea that really our country is so awesome that everybody wants to move here. No, in fact, they wanted to come here, work really, really hard for four months, send money back home, relax back at home with their families, do work back there, and then come back at home with their families, you know, do work back there and then

come back, make American money again, send, you know, send money back home and keep that going. We did that. That worked for like 100 years or something like that. And then we said, no, you're not doing that anymore. So now all of a sudden you had all of these migrant laborers who are now trapped north of the wall, north of this hard, hard border. So then they send their, they send for their families to come up with them too. And you start then, then they start building roots here in the country. And so we've always had a system where, you know, we, we don't pay 15 to $30 an hour for fruit pickers. Like that's not- But I think we should. And look, if strawberries cost more,

like they cost more. And I think that's kind of what I'm getting at. It's like, I just feel like some of this is almost reverse chauvinism, as in the idea is that strawberries can only be picked by people who aren't from here. It's like, well, wait, why not? I mean, people will do anything for the right wage.

It's just that the wage is low. But the second, but we have a system that the second that wages start to rise second, but we have a system that the second that wages start to rise, our system, our, our fed chair, whoever it is and whatever party is going to watch it. You know what? We have too many people working. We need to push wages back down. So we have built a system in which wages can't go up. And so the only thing you can do is then allow people to do labor arbitrage where, you labor arbitrage where the amount of money that they're making in the field isn't a lot if they're going to live full time in Florida. But it would allow them to actually have a nice life and send enough money back to Guatemala.

No defense here of the Federal Reserve? I'm more saying like you have got – look, something has got to give. In my opinion, I'd rather the Fed give and not U. know, U.S. immigration law, where you actually effectively have a complete lawless system. And we have no idea how many people are even here in the U.S. illegally. Literally none, because there's no proper census. And then yet somehow we do have a census, and yet they also count whenever it comes to the electoral college. Somebody go ahead and riddle me, even though they can't vote. Riddle me that one. I still have never exactly gotten my hand around that. And I think that generally comes, and look, I hate bringing personal stuff into this, but it costs my parents thousands of dollars to

become citizens of this country. It's a pain in the ass to go through the green card process. You can't just waltz into any other country on earth and just say, you know what? I'm staying here. I want to go to work and you can't do anything to me. Try doing that in literally anywhere else. And they will, they'll laugh at you and throw you out almost immediately. Do I think we should be above that? Yeah. But that doesn't mean that we have to have such a permissive system as what we have right now. I have nothing but empathy and compassion for people who want to come here. Obviously everybody on earth, a lot of people on Earth at least, want to come to the United States. But that also doesn't mean you have a right to do it based on your terms. It's supposed to be

a mutually beneficial transaction, not something where it's just up to one person. And I guess what populace itself doesn't get a real vote. And I think that's where some of the, you know, what you referenced earlier, that is where the tougher mindset comes from. You're like, hey, hold on. They're like, this is not fair. And I think that's what, that's what's reflected, I think, in the polling, right? I guess who, who's going to do, who's going to do these jobs? I mean, I just see no reason why Americans – I mean, listen. If I was younger and came from a different background and if it was $18 an hour, like maybe I would do it. Or maybe a lot of Americans would do it.

Like there's a lot of – there's no reason why American citizens can't do these jobs. It's just a lot of them don't want to because it's very cheap. Then strawberries and orange juice just become luxury items for the super rich. I agree. That doesn't necessarily mean – I mean, listen. Eggs, for example, have not gone up in price since 1970. You want to know why? And it's because of an aggressive government subsidy program. Well, I see no reason why. Except for recently when we had to kill a billion birds. We had crazy ag inflation. We're actually below overall inflation. Fun update for everybody. But overall, in the aggregate, ag prices have not risen for a long period. Why? Because we just decided as a society, we're like, yeah, you know what? We're just not going to charge update for everybody. But overall, in the aggregate, ag prices have not risen for a

long period. Why? Because we just decided as a society, we're like, yeah, you know what? We're just not going to charge for eggs. Everyone needs eggs. Yeah. So I don't know why you necessarily can't do the same thing for other products. Although that's the big government part of me. Now you're talking. If you want massive government subsidies to lift low income people up into a middle class. I've always wanted that. That's all I've ever advocated for on the show. Works for me. Let's go to the next one here. Tim Scott throwing his hand in the ring. We put together a compilation of his pitch, why he thinks he can be, I guess, the new Reagan in this race against Donald Trump.

Here's what he had to say. Hello, North Charleston! And for those of you who wonder if it's possible for a broken kid and a broken home to rise beyond their circumstances? The answer is yes. And our nation are standing at a time for choosing. Victimhood or victory? Victimhood or victory? Victimhood or victory? Victory! Victimhood or victory? Victory!

Grievance or greatness? Greatness! I choose freedom and hope and opportunity. Will you choose it with me? Will you join me as messengers of hope, as missionaries that believe that the strength of our ideas can change our nation again? I will. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go Let's go

Let's go Let's go Let's go Wow Certainly something Is he running for vice president there? What's your read? I think he's genuinely running for president

So I don't know if a lot of people understand this But people who are in the Senate love Tim Scott. They love this guy. Personally, I don't get it. But John Thune, the number two Republican in the GOP caucus, he spoke at the introduction for Tim Scott, endorsed him. A lot of other fellow senators really want him to run. On a personal level, he's built up a lot of relationships with them. But honestly, I think he believes it. And here's

the thing. It only takes maybe one billionaire, maybe named Larry Allison, to underrate your entire campaign for the guy who's worth like, what is he worth today? Like 90 billion or something like that, the founder of Oracle. Here's the other thing. Trump himself is welcoming Tim Scott into the race. Put this up there on the screen. Trump says, good luck to Senator Tim Scott entering the Republican presidential race. It is rapidly loading up with lots of people. Tim is a big step up from Ron DeSantamonious, who is totally unelectable. I got opportunity zones done with Tim, a big deal that has been highly successful. Good luck, Tim. Here's the thing. Everyone was trying to understand, like, why is Trump not attacking

Tim Scott, but he attacks Ron DeSantis? It's obvious, Ryan, because he knows Tim Scott is not a threat to him, and DeSantis actually is. Thus, the more people who jump in the race, the better off he is. He even alludes to it. It is rapidly loading up with lots of people. He's not an idiot. He knows that that's why he won in 2016. And guess what? They're proving him right. Tim Scott's in the race. Chris Christie that that's why he won in 2016. And guess what? They're proving him right. Tim Scott's in the race. Chris Christie's want to throw his hat in the ring. Chris Sununu, the governor of North Dakota, will save you. The next one, Glenn Youngkin, plot twist, we'll do a whole block on that. And a second also thinks that he wants to throw his hat there in

the ring. And, you know, look, I got to be honest here. This down market Reagan pitch from the 1980s, it's like, who is this for? I get why Senate GOP voters want it. But how can you look at the politics of Donald Trump and his popularity with the GOP base and think that's what people want right now? Even DeSantis, what did we just do a whole block on? Immigration, one of the strictest immigration laws in the country. Why? Because he knows that's what GOP voters want. This comes from a place of being on the back foot of feeling

like we got to take something like that's not the forward message that, uh, that people are want. I mean, it didn't win in 2016 and it's not 19, you know, 1979 right now. It's a very different time. And I think Tim Scott there is doing a bit of a kind of racial politics bank shot. How so? So what I hear from that is he's telling Republican voters that A, none of you are racist or bigoted because you're all supporting me. And you saw Herman Cain rising in what, 2012? 999, yeah. In ways that people were very explicit in their support for him. But then secondly, look at the rhetoric that he used. Victimhood versus victory.

Victimhood and then grievance. See, I read that as a shot at Trump. I'm surprised you read that as a shot at the left. I mean, it can be both, but I do think that Trump is locked into that. I read it as playing into the kind of Trump supporter or Republican mindset that look, yes, slavery was bad. Yes, redlining was bad, but we had the civil rights movement and everyone is equal now in the United States. Stop playing victim and stop just leading with your grievances. Let's be more optimistic. Let's look for opportunity. Sure. I guess when you put it that way. I thought that that was kind of how he was coding himself. But I feel like it's

much more of a 2012 message. Yes. And that's kind of what I was getting at. Than a 2024. Right. Yeah. I'm totally with you. I think that I will, I would say instead, I read it as a shot at Trump. At least that's how I saw the initial report. Interesting. I can see that, but...

Because the grievance... Maybe it's a double. Yeah, it's a double entendre. Let's put this up there on the screen. It's important, as I noted before, some of the people

who were spotted at the VIP section. One of them, Mark Sanford. Appalach which is, yeah, Appalachian Trail Mark, John Thune, as I alluded to, and billionaire Larry Ellison, the multi-billionaire Republican donor who loves Tim Scott. Scott is like made in a lab to appeal to some of these Republican voters who are like, we just want, you know, a really nice guy, like somebody who's not like Trump. And the problem is, is that that's not what the voters want. And even if you saw the energy,

I mean, there was not a whole lot of, at least to me, my personal observation, I was not seeing a lot of organic enthusiasm there. And he really kind of had to goad the crowd into cheering. Whereas Ryan, I'm not sure if you've been, but if you've ever been to a Trump event, you don't have to goad those people into are doing anything. All right. Like they are ready to roll. They've been tailgating. Yeah. They've been tailgating. It's so hard to explain to people

who haven't been to various different political events, but Trump events are something like, literally, it's like being at a concert. It's like being at a football game. You, if you've covered politics professionally, as you and I have, there's nothing else in all of politics like it. Some Bernie rallies came close. I will give him that. Bernie also kind of became a bit of a lifestyle thing.

But Trump and Bernie, like they are in another league compared to what I'm seeing at right now. And the concert analogy is a good one because you have a lot of people in the crowd

who are hoping he'll play certain songs. Yes, that's right. Play the hits, man. He's got his, you know, you can't always get what you want that he walks out or walks away from. They love it. Some of them go to all of them. But then some of his riffs, they want to hear those too.

It's like, oh, is he going to do the toilet riff? Right. Yeah, that's a good point. The snake. Are we going to get that one? I used to know the snake by heart. I can't say it anymore. For those who don't know, it's a great old Trumpism. Let's go to the next part here that you flagged for us, Ryan, and put it up there on the screen.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is reconsidering his 2024 bid. Now, the reason why this is interesting is he had already ruled it out in April. Whenever he was asked whether he was going to run for president, he said, quote, listen, I didn't write a book. I'm not in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina. I am wholly focused on the Commonwealth of Virginia. However, apparently that has changed in the last few months. Why? Well, it's exactly what we covered yesterday.

It's because DeSantis, apparently to Youngkin and to many others, is looking rockier. And Youngkin is thinking, hey, why not me? He says, quote, one of his top advisors told Axios he's reconsidering. He'd be in his own lane. He's not never Trump and he's not Trump light. A top Virginia GOP strategist told Axios there, quote, serious discussions happening on reengaging in the presidential race. I did take notice, definitely, Ryan, after he dropped this like morning in America type video on Twitter two days ago. And I was like, what are we doing here? You know, this ain't about Virginia. And can you also explain the convoluted gubernatorial

process in Virginia? Right. This is why you kind of would want to run for president. Right. You can be governor again, but not consecutively. Exactly. So he's out after this one term. And so, you know, he's got to find something else to do or go back to Carlisle. And yeah, so I think that if you think about Ron DeSantis as sort of like a cork that was keeping the kind of champagne of the Republican primary in the bottle, without his strength anymore, it's uncorked and everybody's coming out. Because now, we're not going to hold back for DeSantis anymore because DeSantis seems kind of blood in the water, which is quite a reflection. Because if you think back to when he was saying he wasn't going to challenge Trump or DeSantis. DeSantis was doing much better.

I mean, and look, a lot can change. DeSantis is literally not even in the race, and apparently we're writing his obituary, which we have to be careful of, right? Be like, look, he is certainly entering at a disadvantage. But we've never seen him go up against Trump. At the same time, though, I view it in the same way that I look at the Tim Scott decision,

which is, at the end of the day, Tim Scott entering the the same way that I look at the Tim Scott decision, which is at the end of the day, Tim Scott entering the race is it's a zero sum game. He thinks I'm better than Ron DeSantis. I'm the guy who can go up against Rob. Nikki Haley doing the same thing. Vivek Ramaswamy doing the same thing. Asa Hutchinson doing the same. And what do we learn from all of those people at an individual level? All of them are doing the right thing. But on a macro level, like if you really believe that Trump is such so awful, then you're actually drawing votes away from Ron DeSantis. There's no question about it. You're just splitting the field. And Yunkin, look, I don't think Yunkin would ever place that high in a Republican primary, but 4%, 5%, why not? Also, I don't know if people remember this, Virginia is

a very important Super Tuesday state, of which Marco Rubio won last time. I believe it was the only state that even won in 2016. Well, they've got a decent amount of delegates. So now you just robbed DeSantis of a headline, probably, or maybe reduced his headline that he would have gotten otherwise in a sweeping victory. So again, I pointed this out yesterday. Obama is the reason that the Klobuchar and Buttigieg dropped out in 2020. But the GOP does not have that same forcing function for somebody to come in and be like,

hey man, you had your chance, it's time to go. Nobody's doing that. RNC has no credibility. And Trump himself, he wants as many people in there as possible. And it looks like he's getting to go. Nobody's doing that. No, RNC has no credibility and Trump himself He wants as many people in there as possible and it looks like he's getting his wish Right and I one thing that was keeping people out was the nervousness that Trump was gonna turn them toxic Right like he did the Rubio. Yes for or so Christie's to some degree Yeah, and so for him to welcome Tim Scott in tells other candidates, come on in and bask in my love. That's right.

I only hate Ron DeSantamonious, not you. You're fine. Yes. And look, I think it's a problem for Ron. I think it's a big problem. The biggest loser in all of this is Ron DeSantis, especially if Youngkin comes in. Because what did we just point out? Youngkin not only could draw from him

politically, more importantly, he could draw him from the money. Like he has, you know, not only is he personally wealthy, but he knows a lot of these traditional GOP donors. Northern Virginia is like the hotbed of, you know, GOP consultants, number one. Two, literally used to work for the Carlyle Group and private equity defense contractors and all that. So he would have money well enough to stay in the race, and he would have enough money to stay throughout the time period and also draw money away that would otherwise go to Ron DeSantis for donors who otherwise would not want Trump to run.

So overall, this would be a huge blow to DeSantis. For Youngkin himself, I'm not sure. I'm not sure what he has to lose by running, actually, since he can't be governor anyways. So he's in a tougher spot than most. Let's go. Oh, if you want. No, we got a new dispatch from the DEI Chronicles, right? That's right. We have our favorite dispatch from the DEI Chronicles and what's happening here. I love this. It's everything to me. Put this up there on the screen. Uber has now put its Asian

diversity chief on leave after employees, mostly led by some black employee groups, complained about sessions called Don't Call Me Karen that were intended to explore the American white woman experience. So she was put on leave after black employee, or I should not say black employees, some black employee groups, which maybe represent some portion of black employees at Uber, complained to management that they felt like they were being lectured about the American white woman experience and that it was inappropriate for that to be included because they did not view Karen as a slur. Now, I don't, I would not put that in a racial slur category, but if the overall, if the overall ethos of Uber is we don't judge people by the color of their skin and we want all employees to be aware of the personal individual struggles that each individual

human being is outside of their race, then a don't call me Karen session seems perfectly appropriate and fine. Now, especially given the amount of 16, 19 nonsense as most of these companies force upon their employees on a weekly basis. So one don't call me Karen session though was apparently though enough, Ryan, to trigger some of these groups

and has now led to the capitulation by the CEO of Uber, who has put this lady on leave and has now ignited a crisis within the company and is causing lots of consternation. to me because it shows you that the DEI in practicality really means basically like whatever white fragility, Robin, D'Angelo nonsense that is. It doesn't actually mean real diversity, equity, inclusion. And that's why I reject the term and the entire practice. And I think it's a complete grift and a farce. What did you make of this? The kind of funniest part of it was the way that the language was the same going in both directions, just with the shoes on the other foot. You have this, so the DEI boss responded to the complaints by, quote, telling the women that while the conversation may have been uncomfortable, sometimes being pushed out of your own strategic ignorance is the right thing to do. That is exactly what DEI bosses say to white people who go through these sessions and come out and say, you made me feel bad about being white. And they say, look, too bad.

You've got to be uncomfortable. You have to be uncomfortable because in that discomfort is where you find your insights. Instead, all evidence says that in the discomfort, you become more racist. Right, right, right. So I mean, forget the actual evidence, but what they say

is that the discomfort is a good thing. So she used that same line back to these women who were protesting, saying sometimes being pushed out of your own strategic ignorance is the right thing to do. Okay. And that didn't work for her strategic ignorance is the right thing to do. And that didn't work for her.

That blew up right in her face. That blew up in her face, huh? So they're not allowed to be uncomfortable, but you have to be uncomfortable. Got it. So it seems like discomfort's supposed to go one way. Later, as they're applauding the fact that they got her suspended, one of the women is like,

this sounds a little bit too much like what police do. Oh. So there was a little bit of maybe the kind of regret at their victory. Yes. That it might have creeped into the carceral territory because then you're reproducing the same anti-abolitionist tendencies that you are kind of fighting against. Got it. But separately, can we step back for a second and note that all of these managers and workers at Uber are getting paid by the exploited laborers, mostly black and brown drivers. I was about to say that. Their job is to figure out how to extract as much money from struggling gig workers as possible so that they can then pay to have these sessions where they accuse each other. That's the great irony of it all, isn't it?

Is that all of that is built upon 1099 contract labor of which they have spent and built a multibillion-dollar business exploiting. Now, maybe you're okay with that, but I would just say that when you look at the very basics, both on the consumer level and on the worker level, we have gotten to a very bad place because has anyone taken an Uber lately? They're actually really expensive. They're just as expensive as cabs. So now, Ubers are just as expensive as cabs, except now the driver doesn't have any benefits. And it's like, yeah, I mean, look, I like the technology. It's nice and it's convenient. But somewhere in the happy middle, we disaggregated driver from benefits and we basically rolled up that benefit into a company stock called Uber.

And that is what is paying for all of this nonsense happening when they're supposed to be doing work. So this is a good view into what's real exploitation, being a highly paid black executive at Uber, having to sit through a don't call me Karen, or being somebody who loses their job, has no opportunities except but to drive for Uber, and just burns their car into the ground in terms of its depreciating value while driving from 2 a.m. to, you know, the 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. shift for drunk people. Right. Sounds pretty miserable. And absorbing all the risks. Yeah. Like, right. The people who are executives at Uber are not the ones who are going to get vomit in the backseat of their car. And then be like, no, they only vomited on half the car. So here's half the reimbursement or something like that.

And look, yeah, sure, there's some benefit or whatever to some people who want to drive Uber and all that. But we have to still get to a better medium as a society about making sure that people are not taken advantage of and don't have access to the very basics of benefits and are protected, even from, they're the ones who have to buy the cars, maintain the cars and all that. And it can be, it's a real issue, you know, that I've seen for a lot of people. And what is Uber? It's Google Maps with PayPal on it.

The actual innovation of Uber is exploitation. They're just figuring out ways to take all of the risk involved in the actual work and put it on the worker, the contractor. They don't want to even call them an employee. And on a more meta level. And then extract all the profits. One of the reasons why a session like Don't Call Me Karen may be valuable for people is, what did we all just go through?

Put this up there on the screen. This lady in New York City who was accused in a viral video of stealing a city bike from a couple of black teenagers or young men who had surrounded her, was ridiculed and defamed really online, called the New York City Karen. Well, it turns out that records provided to media outlets and to others show that she genuinely did pay for the city bike in question at the center of this viral fight and now is looking to actually sue some of the people who defamed her online as some sort of racist, which is leading to, Ryan, a bunch of deleted tweets across the internet

from people like, no, I never said that, and from media outlets adding substantial and and large corrections as to what happened here. And you know, this, I, every time I see one of these things, I think the same thing. It's like, yeah, you know, not a great look for either party, but I wasn't there. I have no idea what preceded it or came after I'm going to withhold judgment. And it turns out, yeah, that's exactly the right move. And so jumping on some viral video and immediately, you know, Karen and all of that, of that doesn't genuinely lead to the best results. You know, if anything, what have you underscored for a lot of people? There probably are scenarios where people, not probably, there definitely are scenarios where people falsely accuse black youths of committing crimes. And now, though, you have set up a situation where people who always want to disbelieve that are like, no, this is just like the NYC camera or vice versa,

where every single time that you see somebody in this scenario, you're like, oh, well, that person is lying. Or, you know, we want to try and we've gotten to the point now where the default, whenever you see these videos is I'm going to withhold judgment and I'm not going to jump to conclusions because we've been burned so many times on fakes, which was the exact point of the don't call me Karen session. And it reminds, I think, everybody a little bit of the Nicholas Sandman case. Remember the little kid with the MAGA hat? Yes. And the drums. Who is one of the richest people in the country now because. Yeah, he's, yeah, good for him. Right. But one thing they both had in common, and I don't say this in a defamatory way, you watch the video and they both look like kind of punks.

Yeah, I agree with you. In the video. Right. Like, what's happening here? Yeah, like, none of them, neither of them looked good in the interactions. To me, I was just like, what an odd situation. Yeah. To find yourself in.

Yeah. Right. And the nurse, the crying, and they're like, she seems all, it seems all. To me, it seemed a bit histrionic.

Although, apparently, she's pregnant. She's five months pregnant and just finished a 12-hour shift. Right. Like,

that's more work than I've done in 20 years. Correct. Including never been pregnant. Yes. Doing it pregnant. So, but,

so, and just to explain to people how this all unfolded. So the way that these city bikes work, you know, you, you use them, we, everybody's used them. You, you, you put your phone in there. Yeah. You pay for it. It's yours. You unlock it. Apparently the kids like grabbed her bike and, or, and kind of like nudged her until it locked, locked again. She then like unlocked it a second time, pulled it out. And if she would have lost it to that kid, if she would have said, you know what, fine,

you take it. She's liable for like $1,200 if the kids don't return that bike. And if you're the kids and you didn't sign one, just keep it at that point. And so what she was able to show through her lawyer was a receipt that she had it for two minutes and then ended the trip and then a receipt again that she got it and took it home. Got it. And so that really fits with the story that it was hers because that changes everything. Of course. Because now these are people in an urban environment who are competing for scarce resources.

She had it first. Like, those are competing for scarce resources. She had it first. Like, those are the rules. Like, she had it first. Go get your own scooter. Yeah. Look, I think it's sad. I hope that, you know, I think public confrontations of any kind, A, make me deeply uncomfortable. And, B, I do my absolute best to avoid them at all costs.

Right. It's not worth it. That was going to say, that would be my advice is, and I would just walk away. You know, you really don't want to be. It sucks, but. It sucks. It sucks. I've been there, you know, where you just, all you want to do is say something or whatever.

And you're like, you know what? This is, you know, all this is going to lead to is trouble. That's not a justification for the behavior. It's more on an individual level. And the meta takeaway is that the don't call me karen session seems perfectly vindicated people people needed it yeah it turns out people did need it because strategic ignorance backfired here there's major strategic you know it turns out all of us do need to be or instead of being uncomfortable and having this you know we can have more helpful societal wide lessons uh which is hey

why are we all talking about diversity equity inclusion, and inclusion at Uber when we have a black and brown workforce, which is struggling? Maybe if we flip things on that end, it would be a little bit better. We could also be like, look, imagine if this is your mama. And when you're on a train, you see a pregnant woman, you stand up, you give them the seat. Well, you would hope so. When I lived in New York, unfortunately, many people did not. Even if it is your scooter, the pregnant nurse coming out. Yes. You know what? And thank you for your service. I'm with you 100%. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, there's been a lot of media lying about Ukraine

over the last few days. Somehow trying to spin their defeat in Bakhmut as some sort of real victory, trying to say, giving them F-16s, no risk to the United States. But perhaps the most insane story that has received basically no scrutiny is a dishonest trick pulled by the Biden administration to send them even more weapons and illegally usurp the power of Congress. Let's dive in. The news broke over the weekend. The Pentagon is claiming with a straight face, it has suddenly discovered it accidentally overvalued the amount of aid sent to Ukraine. This miraculous discovery means that they can actually send $3 billion more to Ukraine than previously thought. The way they achieved this was an illegal accounting gimmick by claiming that they had accidentally priced weaponry sent from US.S. stocks to Ukraine at too high of a value. Now, how exactly did they accomplish that? According to their methods, they originally priced all Ukraine aid based on the dollar value it would

cost U.S. taxpayers to replace it, which, you know, seems like the right definition when you pay for something and then you give it to somebody else. But the new definition instead prices the weapons not at the original price, but then depreciates those assets over time, as if this is some real estate or heavy equipment that you can sell in the future, and not literal guns, bullets, and bombs. A more simple way of describing this is BS. Of course, they have given themselves plenty of breathing room. The Pentagon now says that $3 billion is just what they've found so far. They told reporters in Congress if they go back and depreciate all the weapons, they

can probably find even more. It's just a coincidence that because of the current political makeup of Congress that no more aid can pass to Ukraine legally, and that Ukraine itself says that they're running out of bullets and ammo. Further, it just so happened to come in May, just months before the projected expenditure of all U.S. aid was likely to run out for Ukraine. So what is so disgusting about this is not just the Pentagon's accounting trick, it's that this is illegal. Congress decides the power of the purse. They have given the administration a lot of leeway, zero restrictions really, on the type of aid. But even on this, the White House cannot stop. Listen to their ridiculous explanation when they are asked about it.

There was this very bizarre admission from the Pentagon this week of an accounting error that suggested that the US has at least $3 billion that it didn't know it had that it can use for Ukraine aid. That's a hell of an accounting error. And it provides a lot of fodder to critics of USAID to Ukraine and critics who say there's not enough oversight going on. Are you concerned about this accounting error? Well, one thing I just want to make clear, that is not money that went out the door and disappeared. That is not a waste of that $3 billion. It is simply a tally of how much military equipment we have given them. And the way that the Pentagon was counting it was, what's the replacement cost for the

equipment we provide rather than just the actual cost of that equipment? Once you make that adjustment, it turns out we have an additional $3 billion that we can spend to provide even more weapons. Yep, turns out that's all you got to do. They're not even lying about it. They're so brazen about their illegal cost circumvention. The reason this is nuts is because $3 billion out of the $40 billion in appropriated funds

for military aid, do the math, that's 7.5%. So are we really saying the entire military budget is so fudgy that you can make it look basically however you want, plus or minus 8%? If that's the case, why do we keep giving them so much damn money? Just make them inflate their own books. Also, how much should we really even trust the Pentagon's accounting team? Seven months ago, they failed their fifth audit in a row, where they were only able to

account for 39% of $3.5 trillion in assets under management. Not only that, after failing their fourth audit in 2021, they promised that they would do better. And it turns out they made zero progress in that audit at all in one year. The same number of areas that they were unable to account for did not change whatsoever in a one-year period. How does the Pentagon ghouls account for this? You already know. They pretend it literally doesn't exist. Let's just relive one of my favorite clips from Jon Stewart's confrontation with the number two official at the Pentagon. There is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse within a system. Audits and waste, fraud, and abuse are not the same thing. So let's

decompose these pieces. Then please educate me on what the difference is. Sure. So an audit is exactly what you just described, which is, do I know what was delivered to which place? Right. The ability to pass an audit or the fact that the DOD has not passed an audit is not suggestive of waste, fraud, and abuse. That is completely false right there. So now it's a question of, it's suggestive that we don't have an accurate inventory that we can pull up of what we have where. That is not the same as saying we can't do that because waste, fraud, and abuse has occurred.

So in my world, that's waste. How is that waste? If I give you a billion dollars and you can't tell me what happened to it, that's waste. How is that waste? If I give you a billion dollars and you can't tell me what happened to it, that to me is wasteful. That means you are not responsible. But if you can't tell me where it went, then what am I supposed to think? And when there has been reporting, I mean, this is not, look, I'm not saying this is on you and that you caused this, but I think it's a tough argument to make that an $850 billion budget to an organization that can't pass an audit and tell you where that money went.

Like, I think most people would consider that somewhere in the realm of waste, fraud, or abuse because they would wonder why that money isn't well accounted for. Stewart goes on to blast her to her face for justifying corruption, but you get the point. You really believe they're just doing their due diligence or are they cooking the books for Ukraine? Maybe you're okay with that in this case, if you're one of those NAFO people, but ask yourself this, what about the next conflict or the one after that? What if you oppose that one? You want to set the continued global war on terror precedent where the office of the president can just do whatever they want whenever it comes to fighting wars in places that

you did not even vote for? That is basically where we are right now with Ukraine. And given what we have covered this morning in terms of Ukraine's cross-border activities, its new F-16s will soon make their way there, their recent loss of Bakhmut. You can rest assured this is only the latest last ditch effort to ship everything that is not nailed down to the floor over there. For those who are silent on this, I hope and I pray you live to see this same authority used by a president that you hate to prop up a conflict that you don't support, because that is how principles are supposed to work and why you didn't violate them in the first place. I mean, it's just so obvious, Ryan. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today

at BreakingPoints.com. Ryan, what are you taking a look at? From the moment Joe Biden announced his candidacy for president, the biggest risk the country faced was that he would wind up in high stakes negotiations with Republican congressional leaders and those Republicans would fleece him blind. Now, for months, Biden was that he would wind up in high stakes negotiations with Republican congressional leaders and those Republicans would fleece him blind. Now for months, Biden insisted that he wouldn't ever be in that room because he simply wasn't going to negotiate with Republicans over lifting the debt ceiling. Except he also poured cold water on the 14th amendment and the platinum coin and all the other things, which handed Republicans all of the leverage. Biden also had the chance to lift the debt ceiling when Democrats controlled Congress, and he didn't do so. This was a rare opportunity for Biden to actually deliver this line and mean it.

Senator, you can have my answer now if you like. My offer is this, nothing. Instead, Biden went into negotiations and also didn't make a serious offer of his own. He's made a few half-hearted suggestions that a way to cut the deficit that would be better is to target hedge fund managers and the super rich. But when McCarthy objected, he just dropped it. So now he's negotiating the size of the cut. And Democrats' only hope is that Republicans can't get their own party together to agree on what they want and they fail to seize the moment the same way they did back in 2011. And all of this reminds me of the last time Biden as vice president intervened in high-stakes

Capitol Hill negotiations. Afterwards, Harry Reid ordered the White House to never send him down Pennsylvania Avenue again. He did such a poor job, he got a worse deal out of Mitch McConnell than McConnell had already agreed to give Harry Reid. The circumstances were similar. I covered this moment in my last book, We've Got People, and this came at the end of the year 2012. So Obama had just stomped Republican Mitt Romney at the polls, if you remember, in a post-Occupy Wall Street campaign that centered on economic inequality. Democrats picked up two seats in the Senate, expanded their majority to 53, adding Elizabeth Warren to their ranks. Though Democrats won more House votes nationwide and picked up a net of eight seats, Republicans still held onto the

House narrowly. Now, the Bush tax cuts were set to expire at the end of 2012, creating what was called a fiscal cliff. If Congress did nothing, taxes would go up on everybody, but especially on the rich. Harry Reid told me in an interview for that book that going over the cliff was precisely his plan. Reid said, quote, I thought that would have been the best thing to do because the conversation would not have been about raising taxes, which it became, it would have been about lowering taxes. In other words, let all the rates go up and then bargain with Republicans to reduce taxes just for the middle class and the working poor. Minority leader Mitch McConnell similarly knew that the difficult position going over the cliff would put him in, and in talks with Reid, he agreed to let rates on people making more than $250,000 per year go back up. McConnell had a

strong sense that Reid intended to go over the cliff and put Republicans up against a wall. Reid felt like he had successfully pushed McConnell to the brink, so it was now Sunday, December 30th, 2012, and Democrats only had to hold out until that Tuesday to find themselves in a dramatically improved political position, as the dawning of the new year would mean the tax cuts expired and automatically reverted to pre-Bush levels. At that point, it would be Republicans who would be left pleading for those rate cuts. In desperation, Mitch McConnell reached out directly to Joe Biden, calling him on the phone and explaining that Reid was refusing to be reasonable. Over the course of the day, McConnell and Biden struck a deal. A former McConnell aide told me Biden gave Republicans everything they wanted in exchange

for fixing the fiscal cliff problem. But just like today, the fiscal cliff problem was only a problem because Biden allowed it to be a problem. Harry Reid was happy to drive the car off the cliff and then fight it out amid the wreckage. In the same way, Biden could just ignore the debt ceiling, invoke the 14th Amendment, and dare John Roberts to then blow up the global economy. On the morning of New Year's Eve, Reid was still feeling good about his position, ignorant of what Biden had given away. Then Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor and announced that he'd been in talks with the vice president, they were progressing well, and he was hopeful that they'd have legislation to move by the end of the day. As details of the deal began leaking out, progressive Democratic

senators were floored. A large group of them, including Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, Sheldon Whitehouse, Al Franken, and Tom Harkin of Iowa, stormed over to Harry Reid's office. The deal was awful, they told Reid, and it had to be stopped. Reid told them what had happened, that it was out of his hands and that McConnell had gone around him directly to Biden. He said he was working on improving it and would be in touch throughout the day. Now, none of the senators had any business scheduled. It was New Year's Eve, after all. So Bernie Sanders invited them back to his office in the Dirksen building. The Hart building has a popcorn machine, so Arharkin asked his staff to bring some by. The crew ended up spending several hours together in Sanders'

office thinking through potential strategies of opposition, waiting to hear from Reid, and chewing on popcorn. Instead, one senator's phone rang and it was Joe Biden calling to sell the deal that he had cut. In classic Biden fashion, he offered up a 10 to 15 minute soliloquy, a meandering argument that largely boiled down to, you can trust me, I'm your friend, this is a good deal. The senator could barely get a word in before the conversation ended. Moments after he hung up, another cell phone rang and it was Biden again. Unaware that the group was all together, Biden proceeded to call each of them one after the other, delivering the same spiel. Ultimately, it fell to Reid to drag the progressive senators into line. Once it was clear that the White House

was on board with Biden's deal and McConnell was all in, that meant that there would be at least 70 or 80 votes for it. The progressive bloc could vote no, but it would only send a message of discord and have no effect on the outcome, Reid told them, coaxing them to support the deal he himself loathed. In the end, all the progressive senators, including Bernie, except for Tom Harkin, voted for the deal. It passed 89 to 8. Years later, Reid still regretted how it went down. He told me, quote, if we'd have gone over the cliff, we'd have had resources to do a lot of good things in this country, infrastructure, development, but it didn't work out that way. Letting all the tax rates go back to pre-Bush levels would have yielded the Treasury around

$3 trillion over 10 years. Without the deal, taxes on dividend payments to the rich would have been set at 39.6%. Under the terms of the deal, they would be set at 20% instead, meaning that the super wealthy would be paying lower taxes on their passive dividend income than many working people pay on their wages. It helped fuel the inequality that keeps getting worse, and it added trillions to the debt at the same time. Now Biden has another chance to be in the room, and so far, he's getting outmaneuvered, Sagar, by Kevin McCarthy. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now, Lee Fong, friend of the show, a newly independent investigative journalist at LeeFong.net, I believe, or is it.com?.com..com. I'm sorry..com. All right, LeeFong.com,

of which we will have a link down in the description. I am a founding member of said LeeFong.com, and we are very happy to support your work, Lee. You're here to talk about a very important story. Let's put it up there on the screen, which is FBI surveillance contractors probed anti-vaccine mandate activists. Lee, you've been on the forefront of exposing a lot of the hijinks that the U.S. intelligence community, the FBI, have been doing by infiltrating groups and under the name of national security and others. So what did you find in this story and what bigger pattern is it part of? Hey, thanks for having me. This story is part of a two-part series on the threat intelligence industry. This is a subset of the cybersecurity industry. And when you hear the term cybersecurity, you might think authentication or passwords or what have you. But this is actually a surveillance industry. This is a type of firm

that goes into, that specializes in going into the parts of the internet, of social media that are private. There are a number of firms, about a dozen prominent firms that specialize in this. What they do is that they go into Reddit forums, WhatsApp groups, Signal Chats, parts of the dark web. They make fake online identities to gain the trust of the admins or leaders of online organizations or organizations that have an online presence. And they get invites to these private communications. They sweep up the messages, the chats, the communications, and they monetize them. They sell them back, these communications, they sell them to the government and to corporations. They say that they're looking for quote-unquote threat actors.

And, you know, they're largely saying that, you know, we're looking for hackers and other kind of cyber criminals. But a big part of what they do is also look at activists. They penetrate activist groups. They research their tactics and strategies and alert their potential targets. So, you know, this is a very interesting firm. This is one of the many threat intelligence firms of Flashpoint. And we obtained their marketing materials and some of their other documents.

Also, I interviewed them at a recent cybersecurity conference. And they have a history of going after left-wing organizations, investigating anti-pipeline protesters, anarchists, but also these groups, these worker-led organizations that were protesting the 2021 vaccine mandate. In this particular instance, these were workers in the airline industry, pilots, stewardesses, what have you, who were not comfortable with the 2021 vaccine mandate. These were, these were essential workers, frontline workers, many of whom were the very first people to be infected with COVID-19 and then recover. So, you know, they made, I think, the very reasonable argument that the vaccine

mandate should not apply to them because there's no exemption for people who recovered from the virus and had natural immunity, they were protesting this. And it looks like surveillance contractors like Flashpoint were investigating them. They were getting into their private signal chats. They were looking into their private communications. And so in order for the FBI to do some of this stuff directly, they would need warrants. They'd need some probable cause. Some of it, you know, some of it they can get away with. Others, like getting into private signal chats, I would think

they would need some type of warrant for that. And so they end up, these kind of surveillance contractors end up creating a kind of false distinction to me between the activity of the FBI that is prohibited and the activity of these private contractors, which is allowed. So what is the FBI's role in relationship with these companies? And is there an argument to be made that they're actually, they are just arms of the FBI and ought to be subject to the same laws? Well, there's a little bit of a gray area here where we don't know exactly where the line begins and starts with the client relationship. You know, a lot of these firms are publicly contracted with the FBI. Flashpoint is publicly contracted with the FBI. I've worked with them for many years.

Many of the other firms that I profiled are, you know, working for other intelligence agencies and the FBI, but they're also working for corporate clients here too. And, you know, I think that's right. You know, this, for the FBI to directly monitor the private communications of Americans, you know, they require a warrant, you know, it's a Fourth Amendment issue, but using a third party to gain access to these private communications represents somewhat of a backdoor, right? So just like the FBI has a long history of using confidential informants, confidential human intelligence analysts and informants to monitor and spy on groups where they might not have direct access, these private contractors, these private spies, again, represent a way for

the agency to gain access to materials that they don't normally have any kind of insight into. And we're seeing a greater demand for this type of surveillance after the Discord leaks. These firms publicly advertise Flashpoint, this one firm that monitored the anti-mandate activists, they publicly advertised that they are looking into Discord chats, that they can penetrate Discord communities. And after the Discord leaks, you know, there's just so much demand that we get into these private communications, because again, these Discord leaks appeared on a private Discord server. And, you know, allegedly these documents sat there for months without the government knowing.

This was a huge embarrassment. So there's more of a demand for these type of firms to go in and spy on gaming communities, you know, activist communities, any type of community where potential illegal or nefarious activity is happening. You know, Lee, one of the things, a constant I kind of see throughout your work is just the exposure of the slow creep of the surveillance state. It starts with the FBI and the DHS under a specific mandate. And then you helped with Ken Klippenstein expose that new disinformation complex. And now, as part of your series,

we're talking about anything from vegans to anti-vaccine mandate. It really just seems like they are willing to stick their tentacles into something if it goes against any basic established power center in the U.S. Or am I reading it the wrong way? Well, look at it this way. We have a massive infrastructure in this country, government infrastructure and government programs that fund an infrastructure that is based on surveillance. And there's this evolving mission that kind of skyrocketed since September 11th to find potential terrorists, to find threats that are vaguely defined by the national security state. And this is another great example of that that kind of fits into this rubric.

Flashpoint, this one particular firm, started out as a small consultancy from a guy named Evan Coleman, who went out and he worked with people who were infiltrating mosques and Muslim community centers. They were dressing up and going in and recording these communities and then taking that information back and selling it to the FBI. Evan Coleman then spun out his own firm and went online and found, you know, Al-Qaeda message boards and, you know, ISIS online social media accounts. He would save all the information to these multi-terabyte databases and then go to U.S. law enforcement and say, look, you know, I'm an expert.

I have all these online communications. And he's monetized that content. He's been accused of helping wrongfully convict some Muslim Americans, like in the Fort Dix case. But that was 15 years ago. Now today, as the war on terror has wound down, Flashpoint, rather than also winding down, has actually grown. It's grown exponentially. It's a huge firm. They just acquired another threat intelligence company last year. They're partnering with Google Cloud. They've got AI tools. And instead of targeting potential, you know, Al-Qaeda suspects, they're monitoring environmental activists. They're monitoring conservatives who are concerned about the mandate. You know, all they have is a hammer. So, you know, everything looks like nails for these surveillance

contractors. They need a new enemy, a new kind of threat to target, to monetize. And it's a lot like these other kind of mission creep of the security state, that the Department of Homeland Security, rather than winding down some of its programs, now it's kind of expanding its outreach and saying, oh, we've got to target misinformation or disinformation online. We need to create these new partnerships with Twitter and Facebook to censor really ordinary First Amendment protected speech. And in your reporting, did you find that it was a connection to the misinformation disinformation world that allowed for the kind of anti-vaxxer surveillance? Because as you think about the other groups that were, uh, that were targeted, uh, all right,

anti-pipeline group, they're going to, they might blow up a pipeline. I can see some potential violence there. The anti-abortion groups that you've, that you've, that you talked about being under surveillance, they've shot abortion doctors. Like, so you can step back and you can say, all right, I can intellectually see where they're going when it comes to like the potential for violence. Doesn't mean that it justifies kind of breaking fourth amendment laws, but I see where they're going. When it comes to the vaccine stuff, they might, it might be harmful to themselves, maybe-ish. But I don't see the, are they going to blow up the vaccine facility or something? Or is it really, it's flowing out of the disinformation complex? I think it's likely it's flowing out of the disinformation complex,

but really it's just a challenge to power, right? You know, you have big corporate centers endorsing these mandates, government endorsing these mandates, you know, for these airline workers, their own unions abandoned them. You know, I talked to a lot of these workers, you know, their union wouldn't even negotiate them. They wouldn't put some of these decisions up to a vote. And so they had to kind of, these workers had to form their own organizations to protest for their rights. You know, that's their view. I think the same kind of issue applies to some of these vegan and animal rights activists. These folks, you know, some of the particular groups that I've been writing about, they don't have a history of

any violence whatsoever. But, you know, I published last week an FBI memo from the Sacramento field office depicting them as a bioterror threat under the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate of the FBI, you know, using just really inflamed and exaggerated rhetoric to justify this kind of national security crackdown on groups, again, just kind of exercising their First Amendment rights. Got it. Well, Lee, you're doing a fantastic job over there, LeeFong.com. As I said, I'm a subscriber. I encourage everybody else to become a subscriber. We'll have a link down there, down in the description. We want to be able to support Lee's excellent work here. And you're welcome back on the show anytime, sir.

So thank you for joining us. Thanks for your support. Yeah, you got it. Great to see you, Lee. Absolutely. Good to see you, man. And thank you so much, Ryan, for sitting in for Crystal. A pleasure. Appreciate it. Bro show's fun as always. Crystal, like I said, will be on with Emily tomorrow. So Ryan, you've got Wednesday off. What are you going to do with yourself? Sleep. Yeah. Sleep and take care of your children. So there you go. That's what most people should be doing. All right. So thank you. And obviously watch CounterPoints. And obviously watching CounterPoints. Actually, that's my morning routine.

There you go. After I finally get to sleep in and put my earbuds in and I see what you guys are up to. Thank you guys so much again for supporting all of our work here at BreakingPoints.com if you are able. Otherwise, we'll see you all later. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war.

This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. 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. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community.

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