Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/25/23: DeSantis Announces, Trump Mauls DeSantis with Announcement Memes, Republican Progress Debt Ceiling, Uvalde 1 Year Later, Ukraine Behind Drone Attacks, China EV Race, Public Housing Solution, Skanda Amarnath Explains Debt Ceiling Solution

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss the tumultuous DeSantis 2024 announcement over Twitter Spaces with Elon Musk, Trump mauls DeSantis with mocking memes, Dems Freak over Republican progress on Debt Ceiling, Uvalde One Year Later as there is nearly zero consequences for the cops who abdicated their duty, CIA admits Ukraine behind Drone attacks on Russia, Krystal looks into how one city solved their Rent Nightmares, Saagar looks into Biden losing to China on the Electric Vehicle race, and we're joined by guest Skanda Amarnath from Employ America to talk about 1 Weird Trick That Could Solve the Debt Ceiling.Skanda's Article: https://www.employamerica.org/blog/14th-amendment-debt-ceiling-perpetual-bonds-the-treasurys-political-misjudgments-are-hiding-in-technocratic-failure/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.

This is an iHeart Podcast. I also want to address the Tonys. On a recent episode of Checking In with Michelle Williams, I open up about feeling snubbed by the Tony Awards. Do I? I was never mad. I was disappointed because I had high hopes. To hear this and more on disappointment and protecting your peace,

listen to Checking In with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the ad council.

Looking for your next obsession. Listen to high key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell and Evie Audley. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff. We can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things. Cowboy Carter.

I know girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys. Ready or Not 2024 is here.

And we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do.

There is a lot to talk about this morning. So as we previewed for you last night, a just utterly disastrous attempt to launch his presidential campaign for Ron DeSantis last night on Twitter had a bit of a better outing on Fox. We've got some of the highlights of that. So we will bring you that as well and discuss the whole situation. We also have the reaction from Donald Trump, who, of course, is not going to let him get off easy for any of the mistakes and disastrous technical glitches that he suffered through along with Elon Musk. We also have some big updates this morning for you on debt ceiling negotiations. Kevin McCarthy saying they are getting close to a deal. We will see.

We also wanted to take a look. You know, you're we're a year out from Uvalde. Who has been held accountable? Very few, very few of the officers that stood by as kids were literally bleeding out in those classrooms. So we'll take a look at that. And also, listen, you called it in particular, but we both called it in terms of who actually was behind those drone strikes in the Kremlin. Lo and behold, three weeks later, U.S. intelligence agencies are saying, well, it was Ukraine, but Zelensky didn't have any idea. Yeah, he's just totally in the dark there about what's going on. Also excited to have Skanda Amarnath on to talk about the debt ceiling with the Treasury. Could do. Before we get to any of that, though, thank you

so much to our new premium subscribers. You are helping us so much to build out this new set. Pieces of it are starting to arrive. Actually, the monitors showed up last week. Exciting. I did not know they even made monitors this big. It is the biggest television I have literally ever... I saw the box

and I was like, how was this delivered? Literally in an 18-wheeler. So, yeah, it's getting pretty exciting. Things are cool. We're only two weeks out or so from when we began

the initial build and then the debut. So if you guys can help us out, breakingpoints.com. We've been in communication with the RFK Jr. campaign, the Marianne campaign, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, the Trump campaign, all of these people. All of them have expressed interest on coming on the show

and scheduling specifically on the new set. So that's what you guys are enabling and helping us to do. The set is definitely a great selling point, if you will, in terms of getting them in here and sitting down for a long conversation. So if you like that format, if you want to continue that, BreakingPoints.com, become a premium subscriber today. But let's go ahead and get to DeSantis. By the way, I also have sent a message to the DeSantis campaign.

It's still waiting on a callback. Yeah, they've been in touch. It may be hard to get Ron on. We'll see, Rob. But we put in our requests, and his team is interested in coming on a panel some things like That yeah, we'll see. Yeah. Yeah, all right Okay, so let's start with what exactly happened last night as we previewed for you He made the unusual decision Rhonda Santis did to launch his campaign on Twitter spaces

Well, apparently I'd never used Twitter spaces before but apparently apparently the platform is beset with issues under the best of circumstances. When you add in more than half a million people trying to join to listen to what the man had to say, it ended up being an utter catastrophe. They went 25 minutes of the thing crashing and people not being able to get in and no one being able to be heard and various hushed whispers on a hot mic before they pulled the plug on the original spaces. Ron DeSantis left altogether. They had to launch a new one before they could even get to the substance of what his campaign announcement was. We have a little taste of what that all sounded like last night. Take a listen. I'm pleased to introduce two individuals who've done more to loosen the grip. All right. Sorry about that. We We've got so many people here that I think we are kind of melting the servers, which is a good sign.

Let's keep crashing, huh? Yeah, I think we've got just a massive number of people online, so servers are straining somewhat. All right, we're just reallocating more server capability to be able to handle load here. It's really going crazy. And I think we melted the internet there. Yeah, that was insane.

Sorry, we are actually doing this from David Sachs' Twitter account because it looks like doing it from mine basically broke the Twitter system. Governor DeSantis, are you there? Can you hear us? I think you broke the internet. I'm here. I know. I

think I think you broke the Internet there. We had over half a million people in one Twitter space and it was growing by like fifty thousand a minute. So congrats on on breaking the Internet there. Well, yeah, I mean, try some new things. You're going to. Yes, it's adventurous. So, yes. OK, so we did an entire 20 minute video yesterday, uh, breaking down, uh, not only the launch, but one of the reasons why I thought it was a huge mistake to actually do that as a launch, because it was plotting, it was long, it was scripted. Um, there was no production to it. I just think he would have been 10 times better off putting out a traditional Twitter video, which he did at exactly 6 PM Eastern last night. and then doing the damn rally of which you control the optics, all of it. We would have

covered it. The networks would have covered it. He gets to control the elements. You know, that's a produced piece of content, which then could be rolling on every single screen this morning. Unfortunately for him, that's not what happened. And ironically, I hate being in the business of praising cable news, but you know, at the the very least, their stuff doesn't break constantly. And DeSantis sat for a long interview, live interview with former Congressman Trey Gowdy on the Fox News Tonight show yesterday around 8 p.m. Eastern. And honestly, it was way better. Not only was it not beset of glitches, there was more of a pacing, not only to his answers, but to the questions themselves. They delved into quite a bit of territory.

The first and foremost was actually a question I was begging them to ask on Twitter. I was like, hey, electability, how are you going to beat Trump? DeSantis lays out his case of electability here. Here's what he had to say. Are there policy differences or is it more about electability and how you would implement those policies even if you agree on them? Well, why now? I think it's because the country's going in the wrong direction. We have another four years of the Biden administration. I think some of the damage is going to be irreversible. Why me? Well, I think what we've been able to do in Florida is two things. One, we've had unprecedented policy success. All the things that we believe as Republicans or as conservatives for many, many years, we've been able to take those values and

those principles and actually turn them into reality. Do you plan on participating in all the debates? And would you have a word of counsel for any candidates that were maybe equivocating on whether or not to participate in all the debates? I think we should debate. I think the people want to hear it. You know, I grew up blue collar, working minimum wage jobs and learned nobody's entitled to anything in this world, Trey. You've got to earn it. And I think all of us have to go out and earn it. That's exactly what I intend to do. And I think the debates are a big part of the process.

A couple of big takeaways. So on a meta level, his message to GOP primary voters is Trump said it. I will actually do it. Florida is booming, open for business. Nobody has entitled to it. You have to earn it. So overall, I actually think those are, you know, decent, compelling points. The question is, is that compelling to enough of the GOP primary base? Well, and it's also an argument that sits very uneasily with the disastrous launch that he had.

That's true. Because if your case is he tweets about it, I get it done. And then you're unable to even effectively get done your own campaign launch. And not just the technical glitches, which, you know, he should have foreseen. They should have been asking some really hard questions to make sure this platform was up to snuff. But also, you know, audio sounds like crap on Twitter. It always sounds like crap on Twitter spaces. People, you know, I can say this as someone who people complain about my voice being annoying. His voice is annoying, too. So if you just have the audio and you don't have music and staging and visuals and everything to back it up, it's a very hollow and sort of it really makes you appear smaller.

He was like a panelist in this conversation and he just read his like standard stump speech. That's why it was a mistake. So, you know So if your core pitch, which I think there are two problems with the electability, and I'm the guy that can get it done pitch, which is number one, it's not clear to me that that's what the GOP base is really after. But number two, they also are already not convinced that you're more electable than Trump. In that Harvard-Harris poll that came out just this week, the voters were divided in the Republican primary about who was actually going to be more likely to defeat Joe Biden. So you already are not really having a strong case there on electability. And then when you have these kinds of disastrous issues on your campaign with your very first start, which were foreseeable,

then, you know, that you're going to take a hit there. And by the way, you're up against a guy in Donald Trump who is going to make you pay for every mistake. Honestly, if it was just the media being like, ah, you know, mocking DeSantis for this, I think he could overcome that because I think voters, especially in the Republican Party, they hate the media. If you're getting attacked by the media, maybe that's a good thing. Donald Trump is not going to let you get off easy. And the other thing that I would say, putting the technical glitches aside on the substance and the contrast between DeSantis and Trump, Trump is hitting DeSantis on wanting to raise taxes, on wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare. It is largely a very bread and butter focused attack. DeSantis, it's no accident that

his strongest base of support in the Republican Party is among college educated voters because he fixates on these, you know, ESG and DEI and the Chevron defense, these things that are, you know, important to some sliver of the Republican base. But most people are just trying to know, like, what are my taxes going to be and am I going to be able to survive? And are you going to get inflation under control? So I think Trump has also staked out a much more effective position in terms of the actual substance of the issue set that he's focused on. I agree. And that's another reason why I thought that the Fox interview was better, is that here he actually did have an answer on the economy and specifically tried to speak to the bread and butter, the kitchen table issue. Here's what he had to say. So you need to spend less money. You also need to expand domestic

energy production. Energy costs contribute to inflation. We have an abundance of resources here that this president doesn't want to use. So we will reverse Biden's energy policies very quickly. But we also need a Federal Reserve that's going to focus on maintaining a stable dollar. So he's going after the Federal Reserve specifically for printing money, which is an interesting attack because that's the second time. He brought it up at the very end of the Twitter spaces. I thought it was interesting to see this new political candidate come out specifically against the Fed and kind of combining it with the Biden message.

Now, will that work? I'm actually not so sure. I don't think most people know how the Fed works at all. It's kind of esoteric. You know, I mean, listen, we talk about it a lot here. So I'm not saying the Fed isn't an important issue. God knows it is. It's one of the most important issues in terms of how our economy is actually doing.

But, you know, the way that you talk about that has to be accessible. And if you're going into esoteria about how the Fed functions and, you know, how they contribute to the stability of the dollar and what people are not directly connecting that to their lives and their ability to like make ends meet at the end of the month. And so, again, I think it's no surprise that he has found his strongest base of support among college educated Republicans who have the luxury, who are more affluent and have the luxury of worrying about these niche concerns over, you know,

if there's ESG backing in their portfolio and what's going on with colleges and some of the sort of like super online lingo that Ron DeSantis casually threw around cryptocurrency and these sorts of concerns that were casually thrown around in particular in the Twitter spaces. And Elon Musk also is like the patron saint of that part of the Republican base. So, you know, I think you saw even putting the technical glitches aside, some of the challenges and hurdles that DeSantis has to overcome in this primary. Yeah, I agree. This is why it's difficult because I'm like, yeah, I actually care a lot about those issues, but I'm not an idiot and I would never run on them if I was running for Congress, right?

So it's one of those where we can both think that issues and areas are important and understand their salience to overall voters and what they look at. And I think that is, in my estimation, one of the bigger miscalculations on what he chose his time to focus on. This is way too online. Yeah, and in terms of the political interests. Now, in terms of what political may come for backlash from him, his answer on abortion will likely be one of the most important answers that he gave. So let's go ahead and roll this. Whenever he was asked about abortion on Fox, here's what he had to say. Well, I've been proud as governor to stand for a culture of life. And I think all Republicans need to do that. As you alluded to, we were able to sign legislation protecting unborn child with

a detectable heartbeat. And we think that that's a humane thing to do. And it's similar to what Governor Reynolds did in Iowa. And I applaud her for that. Dobbs returned the issue to the elected representatives of the people. And so I think that there's a there's role for both the federal and the states. Strategic shout out there to the governor of Iowa. I'm sure he just plucked her name out of the, uh, plucked her name out of a hat. This one governor, we're just going to go ahead and picture her. So not an idiot, uh, there, but overall, uh, we have shown you here before, while in a primary, it may not matter. Um, it will certainly matter in the general election. The other answer we don't have, we're not going to play it for everybody, but it was on Ukraine.

And this actually kind of gets to what you're discussing, Crystal. And this is actually just more of a training issue. He was specifically asked by Trey Gowdy, what are you going to do about Ukraine? And his answer was, our military has become too politicized. We need to get away from focusing on woke issues back to commitment. I'm going to increase recruitment. Oh, and in terms of what's going on in Eastern Europe, I would like to see a settlement. I'm like, dude, he asked you specifically about Ukraine. Like what specifically do you think?

Trump, look, I mean, it's certainly a talking point, but Trump is like, I want the dying to stop and I'm going to try and bring it to an end within 20, or he says, I will bring it to an end within 24 hours. He has absolutely floated negotiation and basically everything on the table. Do you agree with the leading candidate for president? Like, what is your differentiated? Do you have the same position on Ukraine? You have a different position on Ukraine. What do you think about what's going on right now? Yeah. The abortion answer, you note there, he says, I think there's a role for state and federal, which I actually think, listen, in a GOP primary, his abortion position is no problem. If anything, it's an asset. And he thinks that, you know, he can get to the right of Trump on a handful of issues. He also talked a lot about

COVID in the Twitter spaces. I don't know if that came up as much in the Trey Gowdy interview, but he's still trying to hang his hat on Florida's COVID policies, which of course are popular in a Republican primary. I just think people have really moved on from that issue. It had a lot more salience, you know, a year or a year and a half ago. So that's one piece on abortion. Again, I think it's fine for him in a Republican primary. It does kind of dent his electability case and it has made donors, some donors very uneasy about backing him because look, they don't care about the issue of abortion per se, but they do care about whether this man is going to be able to win the White House. And they've seen what a potent issue this has become for Democrats.

Ukraine is sort of the same deal. He has a challenge here to navigate because what the donors want to hear on Ukraine is different from what the base wants to hear. That's why he, instead of taking that question head on from Trey Gowdy, he went into his side, you know, his pet issue of like wokeness, which he applies to literally everything. And then gives this one little sort of safe practice line at the end in order to actually answer the question that Trey Gowdy was asking. And it's because he's in a difficult position trying to put together the coalition that he needs to be able to win. And Ukraine is one of the issues where that coalition is most divided. I agree. And also in terms of Fox, they were actually very salty about being snubbed by DeSantis because he did his announcement there and not on Fox. They took their opportunity to go after Elon pretty hard. Go ahead and put this up

there on the screen. They said that they were aggressively hyping, much hype presidential DeSantis. A disaster on Twitter was the headline on Fox. And then go to A7, guys. They have a picture of Elon there, not even Ron DeSantis. And the caption says amateur hour. Amateur hour. Not good. Go to the next one. And you can see that the banner that was actually on foxnews.com during the Twitter spaces was, if you want to hear what actually, actually hear and see Ron DeSantis, tune into Fox News at 8 p.m. Eastern time. So look, I'm not in the business of cheering on cable news. I wish for their demise. But, you know, if you're going to come at the king, you best not miss. And I think there certainly was a miss whenever it came to this. Overall,

I think it's like you said, Crystal, it remains to be seen. So we are going to talk a little bit about his plans and all that. But in terms of the headlines for the candidate, it was bungled just simply because I've checked every single outlet, save for the New York Post, is talking about the issue with the launch. And listen, the way that I've heard some of the response from the pro- DeSantis people is like, yeah, but if you listen to his answers, like they're great on policy. It's like, what are you an Elizabeth Warren fan now? Like this seriously, like this, this is serious Warren vibes, like in terms of, oh, but he's so good. Listen, I care a lot about the policy. Like you said, I care a lot about ESG. I care a lot about DEI, but I'm not going to say

that I'm sit here and I'm the prototypical Republican voter because I'm not out of touch. And I think that was the issue is that people are transposing like themselves into how this is going to play with people who have no, they don't follow politics day in and day out the way you and I do. Or even frankly, if you listen to this show every day, you're in the top 1% of political media consumption. You know, the vast majority of people are just like, huh? They're saying, oh, they're like a Florida guy. It's like, that's just not really how it all lands. So remember that things that may seem normal to you are really not normal at all whenever you hear them outside of that vacuum of the internet.

It's a very wine track candidacy. And even putting the glitches aside, if you listen to the substance and the content of what they were focusing on, which was overwhelmingly not bread and butter issues. It was the culture war issues that, you know, he has used to make a name for himself, no doubt. You can see why this has appealed to the audience that it does within the Republican base. And you can also see why that appeal has been limited. Now, I think there continues to be a lot of affection for the man within the Republican base. I think no one here is like writing him off like it's over for him and that's the end of the story. You never know. These Republican primaries are long, but you only get one chance to have this focus on your campaign and it's when you launch and you can control every aspect of it. And candidates spend a lot of time and a lot of money thinking about what this is going to look like, what they're going to present to the public, exactly what they're going to say, how they're going to message it.

And it was the whole thing was a horrific conception from the start, which does call into question his judgment. I think there's there's no doubt about it. So, you know, on the sort of overall takeaway here, I think you don't get the bump in the polls that even Nikki Haley got with her campaign launch. And there's also a lesson here, maybe for all of us, of you don't have to reinvent the wheel. There's a reason why candidates launch the way they do, because it's effective. He didn't raise nearly as much money as they, I'm sure, thought he was going to raise. It was about a million dollars an hour, which is not bad. But as you and I know, a lot of these are prearranged donations. Right.

He was, and this is also painful. He went straight from his various appearances to a fundraiser at the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami. Donors were sitting there listening to this whole thing unfold on audio before he shows up at the fundraiser. So yeah, he had a lot of this lined up for a top candidate like this. A million dollars is really not that impressive. And they went on Twitter spaces from having with the original one that they had to bail out of having over half a million people listening to having half of that at its peak when they were able to actually ramp it up and get it get the thing going again you just don't get those chances over again you don't get this moment where the media is completely

focused on you and hanging on your every word and analyzing what you're doing you just don't get those moments back so is it a campaign ender no is this a real blow for him at a time when he was already kind of struggling in the polls there's just no doubt about it that's the I would put it. So let's go to the second part here and just talk about like if he's going to rescue himself, how he's going to do it. Well, we've talked here before about the early ground game. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. This is a peek very much into his overall plan. So the DeSantis pro DeSantis super PAC is planning on spending $200 million in a voter outreach push all across New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, and Iowa. And the reason why, Crystal, is they believe that with the small number of voters in those states, those early primary states, that with the right amount of

money recruiting the right number of people, door knockers, that they can go and hire 2,600 field organizers by Labor Day and knock on any potential DeSantis voter four or five times on their door. So if you have in any way expressed this and you live in any of these states, good luck to you. Buy a ring doorbell or something. You're in for it. But it's your own fault, though, because you expressed it. Rob is going to be at your doorstep every day. Rob will be at your doorstep. Rob and his people are going to be at your doorstep. But overall, I actually do think this is a smart play. So he's got, what is DeSantis' core strength? He's got a ton of money. He's got more name ID than anybody else. If there is any person in this race who poses any threat to Trump at all. It is Ron DeSantis. So what does he need? He needs good earned media, great headlines to give voters post early States, the permission to vote for him.

He has to win Iowa or New Hampshire. I think there's no, if he does not win either of those States, I think he's absolutely done for his plan. If there is such a thing that could work is Iowa or New Hampshire, maybe a number two finish or a number one finish in South Carolina, decent showing in Nevada, and then a 40, 50% showing, half and half in Super Tuesday, where you steam into the Florida primary, you give Floridians the opportunity to put you up over Trump in both of your own home states. That gives you credibility going into the race. And it's going to be a race all the way to the convention. That's the only possible kind of map

where that you can look at for a way this is going to work. But it's all predicated. Have to win one of those two first states. No question about it. Maggie Haberman is reporting, among others, this morning he's planning a four-day swing through 12 cities in early states next week. You know, part of the contrast they want to strike with both Trump and Biden is the generational contrast as well. Smart. I mean, he's only 44. Yeah. It is smart. But, you know, even though Trump is no spring chicken, there just aren't the same age concerns about him as there are with Biden. And, you know, Nikki Haley has really tried to make this case as well with her whole like competency test for people who are over the age of 70 or whatever her her line in the sand was there. And I just don't know that it lands in the Republican

primary the way that it lands with overall voters in terms of concerns about Joe Biden, because people age in very different ways. And there's just no sign that Trump is really slowing down or any real demonstrated concerns about his energy level or just like technical competence to handle the job. So I'm not sure it's as effective an attack on Trump as it is on Biden or that those concerns exist in the same way. But this is the strategy you have to employ. I do think his, you know, some of his cultural right positions, in particular on abortion, I think they help him in a state like Iowa. Iowa's very grassroots.

It's very hands-on. They expect to hear directly from the candidate and from the candidate's surrogates. They are rolling out an operation. We'll see how effective it is after this Twitter launch, but they're rolling out a large operation to try to reach voters directly. And, you know, potentially this is the way that if he's able to overcome the odds in Iowa and take off, take that early state, maybe that does cause other voters nationwide to take another look at him and reconsider whether they're going to stick with Trump. We're going to talk a little bit more about Trump's response to DeSantis, but, you know, he also continues in both the Twitter spaces and the interviews that he gave later on. He didn't say Trump's name. And I understand why. Right. Again, this is the prisoner's dilemma issue here. He takes these little jabs about, you know, if everybody's got

to earn it there, no one should be entitled to anything in this world. He says to Trey Gowdy about, you know, the expectation is that's about Trump floating that he may not debate. But are you really giving people enough to move off of a guy that they really like, that they've put in office before? Yeah, some of them love him, are committed to him. 90% of the Republican base at least likes him and has affection for him and likes generally his policy positions and his plans, et cetera. I don't think that he has given voters enough to move off of the guy that they already like. Now, maybe Chris Christie comes in as a torpedo or somebody else does the dirty work for him. That's probably the best thing that he and these other candidates can hope for.

That's just why I think Trump's not going to go to the debate. If it was just DeSantis on his own, then it would actually look terrible for him not to come. But if DeSantis is on a stage with Vivek Ramaswamy, with Nikki Haley, with Chris Christie, with Kristen Nunez, with Asa Hutchinson, and all these other people, then he will stay. And they're all gonna be taking shots at him. Bingo. And they already are.

They're probably taking shots at him. Yeah, I mean, just last night, I saw Vivek Ramaswamy going after DeSantis as a scripted candidate. Nikki Haley made fun of him for his failed launch. Tim Scott and all of them are absolutely taking notice. So if DeSantis looks like one of many against Trump, then he fails. When he looks like one of many against Trump, then he

fails. When he looks like the only alternative to Trump, then he's going to, or he has the possibility to succeed. Trump is having an absolute field day with this one. He's having the most fun online that he's probably had in a long time. His team put together this video, which shows a SpaceX rocket falling on its side and exploding with a Ron DeSantis logo that has been rejiggered as a Jeb logo. Here's what they put out on Twitter. You know, I didn't even pick up on the Jeb exclamation point on there.

First thing I saw, I was like, that's Jeb. It's a stroke of genius. Look, you got to give it to Trump. Him and his people, they're good trolls. Let's put this next one. You and I did not like this particular one. This was his first reaction. Rob, my red button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working.

Truth, yours does not, per my conversation with Kim Jong-un of North Korea. He's referencing, I guess, his red button that was in reference to the fire and fury, but he has redeemed himself, I think, with some pretty hilarious videos that have since been put out. They've got one that was distributed by the campaign. This is more of a policy-focused one. Let's go ahead and take a listen to this. 2016, President Trump defeats the liberals and heads to Washington to train the swamp. But swamp creature Ron DeSantis is about to start his third term in Congress, and he's already voted repeatedly to cut Social Security and Medicare. 2017, Trump passes huge tax cuts for nearly everyone. And Ron DeSantis, he's pushing a bill

that would swap those tax cuts for a new 23% national sales tax, making families pay more. 2018, Trump is building the wall, securing the border, fighting the invasion, while Ron DeSantis is voting against funding for Trump's wall. In Washington, one was a leader and one let us down. So what can you see from there? One was a leader, one let us down. They're having a much more policy case that they're prosecuting. And that's why I actually think their two-pronged attack has been smart. They've both been trying to hit him on Trump is the real person on immigration. Also, this didn't escape some commentary, but it did not escape me. DeSantis actually pledged to finish the border wall in his Fox interview

last night. And I was like, that's smart because it's one of the most common critiques that I hear from MAGA Republicans who support DeSantis is DeSantis actually believes and is going to do what Trump said he was going to do. But Trump is hitting DeSantis on a Social Security Medicare case, on a immigration case, on a Ukraine case, and then also from a humorous trolling case like he did against Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. It's a chief poster case, yeah. Exactly. So those two things together, I actually think that's pretty potent. I think it's going to be effective. Trump's attacks and his issues that are, in my view, much smarter and more strategic. You know, I mean, Ron DeSantis, first of all, he won't even say Trump's name.

I mean, that's part of the asymmetry of this dynamic is Trump throws everything at DeSantis. I mean, we've seen probably like 50 different types of attacks against DeSantis, just throws everything against the wall, fair, unfair, in between, and sees what sticks. But the most consistent things they seem to be leaning into are Medicare and Social Security, maybe number one. I mean, I hear that from Trump and from his team very often. And now we also have this new hit on DeSantis wanting to raise the sales tax. This is like the fair tax stuff that routinely comes up in Republican libertarian circles that would raise sales tax a massive amount across the board for everyone. So and they're hitting him on immigration, which DeSantis is trying to do, but he has to do it in this oblique, passive aggressive way where you don't even mention Trump or your actual critique

of him. And that's obviously a core issue for the Republican base as well. So it seems to me like Trump is focused on issues that are of much higher importance and resonance to a broader swath, not just of the Republican base, but of the country at large than Ron DeSantis is, who's running this more sort of like niche online campaign. And this is all reflected in the polling. Our team has made some graphics on this. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from the latest poll that you can see. Just first choice amongst Republican primary voters in a multi-candidate field. What can you see? Trump at a majority, 53%. DeSantis only at 26%. Let's go to the next one there, guys, because this one is important. When it says Trump is my first choice, but I would consider,

then you have Ron DeSantis as the overwhelming second choice candidate above Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, and Larry Elder. I always forget Larry Elder is considering. Yeah, I forgot about this. Is he officially in or is he just considering? I'm not sure. I have a soft spot for Larry after the California recall. Let's go to the next one up there on the screen.

Are you satisfied with the current field of Republican candidates? 73% say they're fairly satisfied. 18% say very. 7% say not at all. So that is actually a very important figure. This reminds me of a ton of the analysis that we used to do back in the day on the early rising shows, where we were talking about Bernie Sanders voters. Second choices were usually Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren and Biden. Second choices were often Bernie Sanders and then Elizabeth Warren. The key point was that being a number two second choice candidate is often just as powerful in a multi-candidate field because it shows that you have lasting power and it means

that you are really the only other alternative at that time, in our opinion, it was really just a Biden and a Bernie race. He probably should have treated it that way if he wanted to win. But that's all spoiled milk. Water under the bridge. Yeah. Now, though, we're in a time where all candidates who are not named Ron DeSantis, your target is Ron DeSantis, including Trump and then everybody else. Then for Ron DeSantis, your target is everybody else and Donald Trump. It's a very, very difficult, it's a very difficult needle to thread.

The other problem is Trump is sitting at 53%. That is a near outright majority. It once again just shows me like he has got to really prove himself in these early states because otherwise if he comes in second in all four of the earlies before Super Tuesday, he's done. He's absolutely dead in the water. And I think that's the problem.

He's got to have great headlines and give the other 50% a reason to coalesce around him. That's the only way that this is going to work out. Yeah. And there's another new Quinnipiac poll that's out just this morning that shows Trump expanding his lead over DeSantis versus their last poll in the field. And, you know, I think it's always important to look directionally where these polls are headed because any one of, I mean, they've been all over the map, they've been wrong in every direction, et cetera. So you should also always take them with a grain of salt. But when you see all the polls moving in one direction, you can look at that and say, OK, there is some movement

here. Do we know exactly what the absolute numbers are? So Trump now at 56 percent support among Republican and Republican leaning voters. DeSantis second at 25 percent. That is a significant improvement for Trump over the last time they took this poll back at the end of March when he received 47 percent and DeSantis received 33 percent. So he is significantly widened his margin there. I also, you know, we were talking earlier about whether the age of candidates, whether it was the same hit on Trump as it is for Biden. And they actually asked that question in this poll as well. So 65% of all voters think Biden is too old to effectively serve. With Trump, the numbers are almost reversed. 59% think Trump is not too old to effectively serve. Only 36% think that he is. And I would bet within the Republican primary, those numbers are probably even further apart, like more Republicans feel that he is up to the task of serving in the next

term. So I'm just not sure that that generational contrast in the Republican primary is going to be an effective hit on him. Bottom line, DeSantis is going to have to find some way or hope that somebody else makes the case that is going to move people off of Donald Trump because right now he has an outright majority. Even if everybody else dropped down, even if Obama, their version of Obama intervened and everybody dropped down at the right time, et cetera, Trump still has a majority of the vote. It's not particularly close right now. So you've got to find some way to pull people off of him. Maybe the answer is a strong showing in early states. I'm skeptical that that dynamic

is going to work out for him, though. We'll see. Yeah. I mean, this is also I think people need to understand we are not going to be talking mostly in general election terms till that time comes, because we have a narrow slice of the electorate whose opinion is what determines this. I don't think it should be that way, but it is. So that's the way that we'll have to tailor our now. And that's one of the ways I think everybody who's listening to our show should always remember is not how am I internalizing this? How is somebody who votes, unless you are a GOP primary voter, who is older. In Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina.

Who are the prototypical people. So just be honest also about where you fall in the typical demographic and just be like, OK, how are these people going to internalize what's happening here? And that's very important. OK, let's go to the next one. We had to save our own segment for this just because it's so funny. The use of artificial intelligence already rearing its head in this race. Trump put together an AI ad or sorry, an AI attack on Ron DeSantis making fun of the failed Twitter space's

launch. Let's take a listen. It includes voices from Elon, from Adolf Hitler, from all these other folks. Klaus Schwab, George Soros is in there. Dick Cheney they've got in there. Dick Cheney is somehow in there. Let's take a listen, guys. It's really funny. Hi, everyone. Welcome to our Ron DeSantis

Twitter space. Hello? Is my microphone working correctly? George, can you just wait while we know? Can you hear me? We can all hear you, George. Can you just hold on for a second? I don't think they can hear me. I hear you fine, George. Just speak. I don't think George knows how to use Twitter. Hello. Can you hear me now? Can I please make my big announcement now? Everyone just hello Hello. Just shut up, George. Can somebody just mute George? Dick, could you try not to cough on the phone?

OK, so how are we going to take out Trump, you guys? Guys from the FBI, this is not a private call. This is a public Twitter space. Everyone can listen in. God damn it. Anyway, guys, we invited everyone to this Twitter space so Governor Ron DeSantis could... Everyone just shut the hell up so I can make my announcement, okay?

You go, girl. Wait, the devil is gay? So what? Everyone in this call is gay. Gotta be honest. It's good. What can you say? Also, I mean, I will say it's obvious that it's AI,

but they're getting dangerously close there to where it might. The DeSantis voice is pretty. I also thought the Elon, you know the problem with the Elon one? The Elon voice is close. The Elon is very on. The problem is they still can't match his bizarre pause cadence. That's actually the issue. I'm like, that's actually too cogent of a way in the way is they still can't match his bizarre pause cadence that's actually the issue is like i'm like that's actually too cogent of a way uh in the way that you speak it'd be like for

me you have to factor in my swallows every like 12 seconds or whatever uh or my inarticulate nature that i know everybody hates my in order twos and all those other things do you know if did they make this or they just somebody else made it and they posted it so it was posted on insta on his instagram it was posted. He posted it on his Instagram. It was posted on Instagram and it was also posted on his Truth Social page, which then migrated over to his campaign staff, which posted it on Twitter. So I don't know. I do know that all of the campaigns are very interested in all this, given the fact that the GOP had that AI response to Joe Biden's initial launch. You had a couple of other AI ads that have already

debuted. So this is just the first, the first of many, most likely. I just look at this and I'm like, how are you going to compete with this guy? Like he can just get away with things that no one else can. I can't imagine advising a candidate to post that video. But for Trump, not only is it advisable, it works. And meanwhile, you contrast that, okay, which is just scathing and they got the FBI in there, they got the devil Adolf Hitler all in there like backing Ron DeSantis for president. And then you can contrast that

with Ron DeSantis' little tepid, passive-aggressive jabs, which is all that he feels comfortable to do against Trump. And again, I don't think he's wrong in making that decision. Because when he did take a more fulsome swing against Trump, which was still just kind of passive-aggressive about like, I don't know anything about hush money to porn stars, people freaked out about it. I mean, well, Trump can post this. He can call Ron DeSantis a groomer. He can launch a thousand different, you know, policy attacks against him, smear him all day long. And everyone's just like, ah, it's Trump. I don't know how, I just genuinely don't know how you compete against it. You know, I think that Ron DeSantis has tried to position himself in the most intelligent way that he can.

I do think there are missteps there. I think his campaign is way too online. I think the issue set is way too niche. I think it's way too wine track. I think those vulnerabilities were on display last night. Obviously, the Twitter spaces thing was a disaster. But I can't say he's mishandling all of these things. I just don't know that there is an ability, barring some unforeseen circumstances, which absolutely could happen. I don't know that there is a lane to take out Donald Trump this election cycle. It's just very hard for me to imagine it. I've always believed that. And that's why, look, I've always thought it's going to be, it's going to be very difficult. And, you know, look, let's, let's present the best case for him,

which we always do. Trump is old. He could literally die. He could go to prison. He could say some, I mean, I find this hard to believe given that I've covered him now for seven years. It's never happened before, but he could say something which legitimately disqualifies him in the eyes of the GOP electorate and of the entire country, which makes him completely unelectable. Again, I very much doubt that's the case, but it's possible. That's basically it. I think he could self-immolate politically. He could go to prison, although I still think that would make him stronger, but maybe that would also self-immolate him. Maybe that would hurt him on the electability case.

That would make the DeSantis electability case stronger, right? I mean, at the very least, you can still run and be, can't do rallies from prison, so you wouldn't have your eyes on the, although I still think it would turn into a media circus, so I don't know. And then the third case is, like I said, Trump. Something could happen to Trump. He could have a health event where he doesn't necessarily have to die. He could just drop out or whatever of the race.

He's old, so who knows? Those are basically the three cases, Crystal, where I think it runs. So basically DeSantis' greatest hope is if Trump drops dead. Yeah, but here's the deal. I've told this story before. Lyndon Johnson was one of the most powerful people in Washington when he's a Senate majority leader. And everyone was like, Lyndon, why would you want to be vice president? And he said, and he literally looked at a reporter and he cited the number of presidents who had died in office.

And he was like, 25 percent. I'll take those odds, darling. Something like that. And, hey, it worked out for him. So it's one of those where sometimes, let's say maybe the chance is 10. He's only 44 years old. That's not bad. He'd be one of the youngest presidents. He'd be the youngest president in a long time, actually. I believe 43 is how old Kennedy was. Obama was, I would say later 40s. So yeah, he would be quite young to be president

of the United States should he be inaugurated. So, you know, why not? Yeah, I mean, I still think even as I have made the case pretty forcefully that I think it's very difficult to succeed. I think his circumstances are not totally under his control. I think something has to happen. I don't know if it's as dire as Trump like literally dying. But something big has to happen to shake up the race, in my opinion, for Ron DeSantis to have a shot. But I still sort of agree with apparently what his wife told him, which is like, look, you get one moment and this is this is it. What I just said, you know, this is when you're at your peak.

And maybe if you perform well in the Republican primary, but you come up short, Trump can only, if he wins election again, he can only serve another term. So then maybe you're in the poll position for the next time around. You keep yourself alive for that opportunity. I mean, I could just as easily see it going the other way, which is that you flame out so disastrously or Trump torches you so disastrously that you're sort of dead to the GOP primary base. But I genuinely think that could go either way. So if I was in his shoes, I'd still think I'd run this time, even though the odds at this point are really clearly against him. And the last thing that I'll say about all of this is I know people feel that the media treats or some people feel the media treats

Ron DeSantis unfairly. But I actually think the media was they don't want this race to be over because it makes it less interesting, right? It makes it, there's less cable news fodder. There's less to write about. It just makes it less sort of ratings and click driven if the thing is basically over before it began. And you could see in the articles that they were writing leading up to this launch, you know, like the one we covered about his $200 million plan to win, which was written before the disastrous launch. There were all these pieces about like, okay, here's how he could do it. And here's what his aides are saying. And they're saying, don't worry about the early missteps and all this stuff about him not having

a real personality. This is all nonsense. Look at how effective he's been in Florida, et cetera. I think that they were ready to write his resurrection narrative just to keep this thing interesting. But now obviously that the option of writing the resurrection narrative is off the table for the moment. I'm sure it will come back around. Absolutely. Why don't we talk about the debt ceiling? All right. So there is a movement this morning. Let me read to you the very latest. This is from Jake Sherman over at Punchbowl, who posts up and always gets comments from McCarthy, et cetera. So he says, we don't have an element from this because it's just breaking this morning. Republicans feel very good about a deal to lift the debt limit. Ours expect the compromise will

come together sometime in the next few days. Intense pressure to wrap negotiations up as soon as possible in order to get a bill through in timely fashion. We anticipate the debt limit will be extended through 2024 as part of any agreement. And the GOP leadership feels as if they will be able to win the support of the majority of the House Republican conference for this eventual package. Every negotiation needs its caveat. It could all fall apart, but we were getting very positive signals from the leadership until late last night. Also want to lay down a marker once again and tell you the anger in the House Dem caucus right now is palpable.

Many rank and file Democrats feel as if they're going to be asked to vote for a package that is slanted toward GOP demands with little for them in return. Biden is going to have to work hard to get this thing through, and it's a real test for Hakeem Jeffries and Catherine Clark. Let's say, for argument's sake, that the agreement comes together tonight. It will still take roughly two days to convert any agreement into legislative text. And you've got in there that 72-hour review of the bill that Republicans forced through as part of their speaker negotiations. So happy talk from Republicans last night about we may be coming to a potential deal. I will just put in there, as always, that I'm skeptical until I actually see it come together, because I do think you have problems in the Republican caucus with the hardliners. I think you have big problems in the Democratic caucus with people who don't want to vote for work

requirements, who have drawn some red lines, who don't want to vote for stripping tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act. So this is a long way from being over, as my assessment continues to be my assessment. I agree. So here, let's say the positive, I guess, positive side, which is we appear to be coming closer to a deal. Now, here's the problem. Even once we have said deals, we've always warned about we have defections, not only in the House. I don't know why they're only talking about the House. There's also this chamber called the Senate. You would have to have Democrats sign on to it, or at least some Democrats who sign on because, you know, this guy named Chuck Schumer is actually the one who has to bring it to the floor. So if he doesn't support it or if a huge portion of his

caucus doesn't support it, then how exactly is he supposed to do that? There's that piece. But let's focus on the House. Already, there's a sizable portion of Republicans in the House who are not going to vote for this. They don't want to vote for a deal, period. And in fact, they want Democrats to have to come over the top and go ahead and vote for this thing. So there's that.

Now, also, as you have pointed out, the AOC, Jayapal, and all those people, they are going to be furious about this, and are probably going to try and do everything possible they can to nuke it. And not just them. The Congressional Black Caucus, also very upset about the work requirements and those sorts of things. And it's not just like the squad and squad adjacent members. It's like the entire Progressive Caucus, which aren't even really that progressive, and there's 100 of them. I was going to say, that's about 100 members, if I recall. So, okay, so you've already, I would say, ruled that out, but it's going to be tough.

Now, what are the spending cuts going to be? And this is also where the big question is, not only do they have to have nominal cuts, they also want to increase military spending. Then they also don't want to touch of discretionary spending. They don't want to touch veterans' benefits, which is a huge portion. Ryan and I talked a lot about this. We're really talking about like 1% to 2% of the entire federal budget, which is on the table here because we also refuse to raise any taxes. And that one really pisses me off because I'm like, look, guys, even if we agree on

spending and all this, you have got the carry interest loophole, prescription, like give something. Like just because on merits, that's a great way to raise money. There's no reason why Medicare, the largest drug purchaser in the United States, should not be negotiating drug prices on all drugs. There's literally no, if that is one of those where put your business hat on, should a business be legally required not to negotiate? You can't do that. That's insane.

Except that the government here is the business. So that's one. That actually could save a ton of money. Carried interest loophole. We actually have no idea how much money that one would save. And then the same whenever it comes to pharmacy benefit managers. I mean, these people print billions off of not just us. They're printing billions off of your grandmother.

Like, that's why they're scum. Useless middlemen is all that they are, taking their cut. They really are going after, like, people like your parents or, you know, my parents, like, older folks, people who are on Medicare and who have private plans too

who are hitting caps that never should be in the first place. So like everyone agrees that those people don't deserve to exist. Like everyone agrees these things are way, way too expensive. So that is where I just wish they would cave, but they just refuse to do it. On the messaging front, I'm curious what you think

because recent polls have come out, which actually say a lot of people do agree with the GOP position. Here's a fascinating one that actually just broke this morning, Crystal, which is that the amount of people who say that they would blame Republicans is about 45%. The amount of people who say that they would blame Biden is 47%. You're basically looking at an equal split, which is a disaster for Biden. Yes. Because in 2011, Obama had a 15 point lead on the debt ceiling fight and on the government shutdown. When Boehner shut down the government, Boehner lost. I don't think people remember that. Yeah.

Boehner took the blame and the Republicans did with, they even called it like the Boehner shutdown, if I recall. This time around with negative partisanship and all of that, it's a wash. If you're a Republican, you are not blaming Republicans. If you are a Democrat, you are not blaming Biden. So it's one of those where that only gives even more heft. There is no political incentive for the Republicans now to negotiate at all. Matt Gaetz even said this. He's like, why would we negotiate with the hostage?

Yeah, he admitted that they're hostage takers. I mean, at least he's honest. I always prefer honesty. That's exactly right. I mean, the difference is Obama, for his many faults, was a very effective communicator. Biden, and they're not even saying anything. I mean, they're not even laying out their case. It's a muddled disaster. And it's not just me that's saying that the Democratic like normie elected Democrats who are super pro Biden are extremely frustrated with the lack of messaging. So he's lost the messaging battle. The strategic to the extent that there was a strategy has been a complete disaster, has handed Republicans 100 percent of the leverage where the only metric is like now how badly do Democrats lose out in the final negotiations? It's just a catastrophe for Democrats all the way around and an avoidable one also that they could have gotten rid of through reconciliation when they had power.

And also, even if they failed on that front, the lack of a coherent plan messaging strategy and the willingness to take off the table immediately any of the workarounds, that again, it just handed Republicans all of the leverage. It has been a worst of all worlds in terms of their approach. And I think for them, it really is a catastrophe. The fact that opinion is divided on whose fault it is, is such a failure. And then I also think, you know, to your point about some of the polling, and the polling's been kind of mixed because there was other polling that showed that a majority of people want a clean debt ceiling increase. I think it partly depends. Most people don't know

what the goddamn debt ceiling is. Right. And it partly depends on how it's asked, et cetera. But also, Biden has basically caved to the Republican messaging that we have a debt problem, that we need to cut spending, when, again, in the markets, there's just, there's no evidence that that's the case. So, of course, when you have both the Democrats and the Republicans basically saying, oh, yeah, we have an issue, we need to cut spending, then you're going to have a majority of Americans who are like, oh, I guess we need to cut spending because everybody is saying that that is the case. Going back to the math that's needed here, put this Politico piece up on the screen. Biden is increasingly expecting that they're going to need a significant number of Democrats, probably around 100,

to actually vote for the eventual deal because you have Republican hardliners who will never accept any sort of compromise on this. And so he's trying to figure out, all right, where am I going to get 100 Democratic votes for? What kind of a deal could we come together and get a majority of Republicans to vote along with 100 Democrats? I will say, you know, for all the protestations from Jayapal and the Congressional Black Caucus and everybody else, we've been to this show before. And usually these people ultimately when Biden comes to them is like, I really need you to do this. They're like, all right, fine, I'll vote for it. So do I expect them to have a backbone in the situation? We have seen very little evidence of said backbone previously.

Don't have a lot of confidence there. We also, just to show you how tenuous and back and forth these deals are and the negotiations are, put this next piece up. This was Jake Sherman had a quote yesterday from one of the key negotiators, Patrick McHenry, who said, I understand the deadline. I'm not yet an optimist on getting this resolved. We are, in my view, past what is a responsible deadline. And that was why when the speaker said, let's figure out in February, he meant it. So that's like the polar opposite of what they're saying this morning. Yesterday, they're like, I think it's over. We're going to default this morning. Like, oh, we're super happy. There might be a deal. So we can have a lot more roller coasters between now and however this gets resolved. Last piece that we have for you here is Bernie Sanders

actually wrote an op-ed for FoxNews.com, which I think he's penned a couple of Fox News op-eds at this point, which is interesting in and of itself. He's making his case still for why the president should go the 14th Amendment route. Put this up on the screen. His headline is Biden must resist Republican debt ceiling demands. Here's what he needs to do instead. The key lines here, he says, so where do we go from here? In my view, there's only one option. President Biden has the authority and responsibility under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution to avoid a default. The language in that amendment is quite clear. It says the validity of the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned. This is a constitutional guarantee. The U.S. will always

pay its debts, period. This is not a radical idea. And then he goes on to say back in 2016, then President Trump was correct when he said, quote, this is the United States government. First of all, you never have to default because you print the money. So Bernie and others still pushing 14th Amendment. Biden team hasn't totally taken it off the table, but they've really repeatedly poured cold water on it. They clearly prefer to try to negotiate some type of a deal here and try to deal with it that way, because Biden is the consummate institutionalist. He doesn't want to try out anything novel or different than what's been done in the past. So that's where we are, effectively. There we are. It does look very likely that a deal will happen. And it's like

you said, people will complain, but the Dems are going to vote for it. In my opinion, I think they all just going to vote for it. The real question is how many Republicans will actually vote for the deal. But if they can come through with something by the end of the day, I mean, how are the, I mean, the markets seem to be like yesterday things were not great. There was a crash yesterday on news that they were far apart. It wasn't going well. It looks like, yeah. So we're down by 1% just over the past five days.

I mean, that's not terrible. So we still haven't seen a major market reaction. We'll see how it goes. I do think the biggest forcing mechanism for a deal would be if they say there's a deal and it falls apart, then the markets will crash. And then you'll have to start seeing some real compromise there. And then possibly we'll see something increase from that period. That would be the biggest forcing mechanism. But until then, we'll see. We remain skeptical. We're all in their hands and it was not a good feeling. That's right.

Let's go to Uvalde here. This is one where we didn't want to drop. Look, it's one of those where I know a lot of you were so repulsed, disgusted by the story. I think everyone was. That's why it became such a national outcry. We heard from so many of you, you know, this is one of those where our outrage and just focus on the story over the last several months has been so important to you. And so we didn't want to let the one year anniversary of this go by, which just happened yesterday. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. It's just a perfect view, Crystal, into what we all knew was going to happen, but it's just so still insane one year later to say that, you know, of the dozens of hours of body camera footage and all

that that shows these law enforcement agents, specifically the early arriving police officers on the scene who stood back and did nothing, dropped the momentum, dropped the action and waited for border patrol guys to basically come in and roll in. Almost all of them are still employed by the same agencies that they worked for on that very day. One actually even got a commendation for his actions. And Uvalde residents have been campaigning and asking for answers now for over a year, really the only person who faced any real accountability, if you can even call it that, was Pete Arradondo, the chief of police of the Uvalde school district. And yeah, he left his police post because they disbanded that ISD police force. And he was

kicked off of the city council after hiding for weeks and kicking reporters out from any investigation. The Texas Department of Public Safety to this day has officially cleared almost every officer that was involved in that. Remember that personal, that Colonel Steve McCraw, who said that he would personally resign if his agency as an institution failed at Uvalde, he insisted did not. Who remembers McCraw the day after Uvalde giving a press conference basically telling us BS about what happened? What a great job they did, the responding officers. This is my other thing I've always thought about, Abbott. How they made you look like a fool.

They told you lies and you spouted those lies on television in front of the entire country. If anyone did that to me, I would not rest until every single one of them was fired and I would prosecute the hell out of them if I could. That's another thing I don't get about Ken Paxton and all these other, why are we protecting them? Everybody wants, they want to see justice for these police officers. And just like in every case, there's a line here that really jumps out to me. 190 federal officers were on hand. Those agencies have denied several public record requests by the media from national to local Texas media for any information on their employment status. I mean, to this day, one year later, they are hoping that all of us forget about what they did. They failed those kids. They failed all of us. Those kids bled out. Who knows how many of them could have been saved? And if you can even just save one, they still, every single one of

them deserves to be fired and to be prosecuted. They say in this piece, law enforcement's 77-minute delay did come with potentially deadly consequences. You had three victims emerge from the school with a pulse and later died. Teacher Ava Morales, 44, and Lopez, 10, critical resources were not available when medics expected they would be, delaying hospital treatment. Texas Tribune and ProPublica and The Post all found last year another student, Cazares, who was nine, likely survived for more than an hour after being shot and then died in an ambulance because these cops were standing by doing nothing. And what they talk about in this piece is, number one, that for these parents and for the loved ones and friends and family members that have to still live in this community, these people who failed them and let their kids suffer and die in this tragic way, they still have to run into them at the supermarket. They still have to look at them on the street face to face. Some of them are related to them and know

that there was zero accountability for these horrific failures. They also talk, there were 200, 200 responding officers from state and local agencies, 180 still in law enforcement. Even that dude, Arredondo, who became, you know, the real, the scapegoat, I mean, deservedly, like I'm not letting him off the hook, but there were failures all around. Let's be clear. He has had his, like, status shifted so that he's got a better shot at getting back into law enforcement himself. Good. One of the people that was supposedly fired is still somehow hanging around in law enforcement in the same job and hasn't actually been let go. They're hoping

everybody just moves on. And you have to think about it from these parents' perspective, like the national focus on this, across the board, horror, shock, and outrage at the manifest failures of that day. What has it resulted in? I mean, if your claim is like, okay, mental health, okay, if mental health is the thing, like where's the mental health resources? Well, Texas has cut mental health resources. If you believe that gun control is the answer, certainly you're not getting anything done there in terms of the Texas legislature. And then on the very basics of some sort of accountability for the wrongdoers who failed on that day, the people who failed to

act, failed to intervene, failed to save these innocent children's lives. Very little, next to nothing in terms of results. So I cannot imagine, because so many of these parents that they interviewed, they'd say at least this tragedy could help prevent another one. At the very least, make it so that my daughter, so that my son's life actually meant something and nothing, just nothing. It's shocking to the conscience. It truly is. Yeah. So we have a video of the courageous Uvalde mom. That's the third element, guys. If we can go ahead and play that. I always, at our live show, you came up with that great idea about superlatives, like biggest hero. She'll always remain my biggest hero.

Let's take a listen. Right away as I parked, U.S. Marshals started coming toward my car saying that I wasn't allowed to be parked there. And he said, well, we're going to have to arrest you because you're being very uncooperative. I said, well, you're going to have to arrest me because I'm going in there. And I'm telling you right now, I don't see none of y'all in there. Y'all are standing with snipers and y'all are far away. If y'all don't go in there, I'm going in there. He immediately put me in cuffs. She says after Uvalde police officers told marshals to uncuff Gomez, she ran towards the school. As soon as they uncuffed me, I jumped that first gate fence. And once I jumped it,

I went to my son's class. So, I mean, you know, she's, if people don't remember, she was at work, heard about it, drove there with like a 30 or 40 minute drive, speeding, was handcuffed, unhandcuffed,

went into the school, got her kids, came out of the school all before they actually stormed those classrooms. I remember reading those details

at the time and I was just I was just absolutely astounded. And put law enforcement on blast, and they harassed her after the fact. That's the thing. They harassed the hell out of her. Because of her willingness to speak out against them and defy their silence. She became a hero, and they punished her for that. And it's like, yeah, like you said, people have moved on in the rest of the country, but they can't move on. They still have to live in this community.

And I can't imagine having to look at police officers in the eye at the grocery store and just know that they could have done something to save your child's life. So yeah, I mean, look, no accountability. I wish there was a hopeful end to this. There's literally nothing that any of us can do about it. And I think that's actually the most insane part.

Yeah, another really tragic tale of just like a broken society, unable to protect the most vulnerable among us. All right. We've got an update for you guys on what continues to be an important story, which is what exactly happened with those drone strikes on the Kremlin, which appeared to be a potential. Not they're very effective, but potential assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin. Of course, Ukraine immediately denied it. Russia blamed Ukraine. We put in, you know, a little note of caution. You never know. It could be a false flag, but it looks very likely that this came from the Ukrainians who have a track record of attacking

on Russian soil. Lo and behold, New York Times three weeks later. Here we go. Ukrainians were likely behind Kremlin drone attack, U.S. officials say. They base this on some intelligence intercepts. Now, this is according to U.S. intelligence agencies, just to be clear. They base this on some intelligence intercepts where they're listening into the Russians and the Russians are not like, yay for our false flag. And also, this would be an embarrassing false flag for them to stage because it shows immense vulnerability and the failure of their own air defenses, which they would certainly not want to put on display. And then on the other side, you have, they picked up Ukrainian chatter where the Ukrainians were like, yay, go us,

we did it. Now, the hilarious caveat that they go at great length to put in here is that the American officials said they suspect Mr. Zelensky and his top aides have set the broad parameters of the covert campaign, leaving decisions about who and what to target to the security services and their operatives. In so doing, Mr. Zelensky and his top aides can deny knowing about them. So they go to great lengths to say, Zelensky, he probably had no idea about this. He didn't know what's going on with any of this, which if true is actually very troubling too, because it's like, okay, so these security agencies are just freelancing and doing whatever the hell they want without even permission from the top dude here, let alone with, you know,

us just standing back and wondering what hijinks they're going to pull next, like trying to assassinate the head of a nuclear armed superpower. So it just is, you know, it was it was very predictable. In fact, Sagar, you did predict it. Yes, I actually. You want to take a little victory lap here? I will take it. Because exactly on May 3rd, 2023, which is at that time was 21 days from the report. I said, New York Times three weeks from now, U.S. Intel believes Ukrainian group behind Putin attack, but Zelensky, of course, had no knowledge or involvement. Literally. That is literally what happened. On the exact day, Tim? Three weeks to the day, they say U.S. Intel believes Ukrainian group, it's always a group, and that Zelensky had no. So I will just say, I'll take a little bit of a victory route because I think it's hilarious. But I mean,

I don't relish it. I think it's bad because what they also point to is they're like, U.S. officials also say Ukraine is responsible for the assassination of the prominent Russian nationalist, the killing of a pro-Russian blogger, the number of attacks in Russian towns near the border with Ukraine, the most recent of which occurred on Monday, and the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline. So, like, in every single one of these, these are escalatory maneuvers. And I also want to get people like, what are they supposed to do? Sit back and not attack? They can do whatever they want. They, but then need to bear a hundred percent of the risk. Okay. So we should not have any, if let's say, and you already know how this go, if they attack Russia and then

Russia attacks back 10 times more, what are people in America going to say? Oh, well, we got to send more over there. It's like, well, you attack them. Why should we sign up for your collective defense if you are going to go and get yourself in even more trouble? Or let's say they get themselves in a situation where they're literally like it's existential for them. What are they? Everyone's going to say, we should go to war to protect. No, they're the ones who got themselves in that situation. Yes, I can believe it is defense, but you are operating in an unfair dynamic where one side has nukes and you don't.

Deal with it. Like, you know, I personally think it's a very impossible and difficult situation. Yeah. So that's the situation that you find yourself in. So be it. I'm not saying it's fair. Life is not fair.

Yeah. And that's why it's like so, it's so difficult to talk about this when people are like, well, I think you should be able to do whatever he wants. I agree with you. He can do whatever he wants. But if he's going to operate basically as a US client state, then no, you can't do whatever you want. You need to do what you're told. And he doesn't do what he's told. Because the problem is when you're dealing with a nuclear power, you cannot have one country that is assuming 100% of the risk because there's obviously like massive global implications. And even outside of the use

of nukes, we've seen the way that the Ukrainian war has upended, you know, supply chains and made food more expensive and fed inflation. I mean, I'm not saying that's anything like the devastation that Ukrainians have faced and the death toll, et cetera, but these are huge global costs that are being borne. So it's not even feasible to say, okay, well, if you all want to try to like drone strike the Kremlin, it's all on you. You bear the risk. That's just not even an option that's on the table. So, you know, this the context here is also that Biden has just greenlit F-16s. We know from the leaked documents that separate and apart from these attacks that we now know with pretty high confidence that Ukrainians were behind, that Zelensky had even more wild ideas about pipelines to bomb and attacks to engage in within Russia.

And it's just very hard to understand the risk calculus here from the United States. Biden swore when he, you know, offered up training for Ukrainian pilots with F-16s. Oh, Zelensky told me that they won't use them in Russia. Why would you believe him? Why? Like, you can't believe him. There's just no way you're naive enough to believe him. There's no way.

They lied and said we didn't have anything to do with the prominent attack. They lied and said we have nothing to do with the cross-border. Like, there's no reason to believe them. None. Look, you can be in the right, you know, and you can also still be an untrustworthy liar. I don't know why that is so difficult. Yeah.

People in this, you know, people in this country have lost their minds. It's like, you know, there's this, I really believe that Twitter for this war has been a disaster. There is an entire portion of, like, mostly young, disaffected men who, like, love Call of Duty,

who are living through, like, vicariously, effectively, through effectively through Twitter by like posting maps, calling themselves like OSINT specialists, being like, no, actually the Bakhmut faint like using technologies if they served in the military and are living as if they are centrally involved in this, except the actual Ukrainian soldiers are and these idiots online bear none of the risk

and they're the ones who are constantly being like, oh, you know, this is obviously a false flag. Well, what do you morons look like now? Yeah. It's every single time they just jump. They're like Zelensky mouthpieces. There was a huge backlash from my, you know, assumption that this was probably I always left the option open. You never know what Russia is going to do. But this was very likely the Ukrainians' huge backlash to that of people who were like, no way. Like Zelensky denies it. Why do you think that? He's a liar. Exactly.

Because we know that he's a liar. And we also know he has an interest in escalating this thing and forcing us more onto his side. That is where his interest, because that's the other piece of this. From a U.S. military perspective, we're like, these attacks aren't even smart. Right. Because you are galvanizing the Russian people behind the effort and you're making it more likely that people are going to sign up for the military when there's another draft. They're going to comply. They're going to be behind the regime. You are actually, in a way, strengthening the Kremlin's hand in a certain respect. And so that's why our Pentagon is like, why are you doing this? But the logic from these

intelligence agencies and from Zelensky within Ukraine is that if they do get that escalation, that's not all bad for them, because then maybe that forces us, the world's superpower, fully and clearly onto their side in the effort, which is their best hope to fully win the war. Last thing I have to say about this, I know you and Ryan covered that attack within Russia that happened on Monday. I became a little bit obsessed with this because the leader, okay, so the guy, guys, all Ukrainians are not Nazis. I'm not saying that, but there is a contingent that it's like, how, this is like dangerous that we're allying with these people. This group, it's actually white nationalist Russians who are further right than Putin, who have allied themselves with Ukraine, even though they're Russian white nationalists, because they don't agree with the imperialist expansion project of

Russia. They want Russia to focus on just being a like smaller white nationalist state. And they're interested in toppling Putin to put a more right wing, more fascistic authoritarian leader in Russia. So these are like out and out neo-Nazis. This particular group, again, I'm not saying this about all Ukrainians, this particular group. And you know, we've been to this rodeo before in terms of us arming and supplying less than savory characters and it coming back to bite all of us in the ass. So I think it's important to keep that in mind as well. It's almost like conflict ignites, invites chaos, nuance, and is not as clear cut as everybody wants people to think. I think that's shocker. It's almost like any reading of history would tell you that. Bristol, what are you taking a look at? Well,

if you live in America, it will be no surprise to you that we are reckoning with a legitimate nationwide housing crisis. Since the 1990s, housing prices have skyrocketed, far outpacing that of overall inflation, making home ownership more and more out of reach for young Americans, unless, of course, mom and dad can foot the bill. But it's not just home prices. It's also rents, which have gone up insane amounts, pushing the working class to the edge and the poor over the brink. Today, according to the Census Bureau, the median renter spends 30% of their income on shelter. That means that your typical renter in America is now cost burdened,

meaning that they are spending what's considered to be an unsustainable percentage of their income on rent, leaving very little for everything else. Just take a look at this map. So the darker the blue here, the more cost burdened the renters are. You can see the whole map is pretty much awash in blue, and some locales are in truly dire shape. In New York City, the rent-to-income ratio is 68.5%. In Miami, it's 41.6%. How are you going to eat and drive and live when your whole paycheck is going to pay your rent?

Since the 70s, rents have gone up faster than wages, and that trend shows no sign of slowing down. Well, what if I told you there are places that have actually solved this problem, that have had the political will and imagination to escape our brutal urban housing hellscape? Turns out the solution is really kind of simple. If your citizens need more quality, affordable housing, then you should build it. This is the lesson drawn from an in-depth profile by the New York Times of the city of Vienna's approach to housing. Here's that piece. You can take a look. It's titled, Imagine a Renter's Utopia. It Might Look Like Vienna. Prior to World War I, Vienna suffered with horrible housing conditions.

Renters would sublet their beds out to day and night workers to try to cobble together enough money to make the rent. Conditions were absolutely atrocious. But in the 20s, during a time known as Red Vienna, when socialists led the city council, Vienna embarked on a grand program of public housing construction. Now, these new apartments were modest by present standards, but they did include basic luxuries, things like indoor plumbing and private bathrooms. And while socialists don't run the joint anymore, the city has maintained its commitment to high-quality social housing that is available for poor, working-class, and middle-class Viennese alike. Far from the rundown image of American housing projects,

these apartments actually look really nice. Modern construction, beautiful amenities like rooftop pools, idyllic courtyards, interiors bathed in natural light, balconies with lush greenery. They're available to most city residents, and plenty actually avail themselves of this option. The median income in Vienna is 57,000 euros, roughly, and anyone making less than 70,000 euros can actually qualify for one of these apartments. And once you're in, they can't kick you out, even if your income goes up and is above that limit. About two-thirds of the rental market in Vienna is actually rent-controlled, and about three-fifths of city residents live in social housing.

This huge investment in affordable housing has brought down costs for everyone, whether they live in social housing, rent in the private market, or actually own their own place. The Times profiled a couple who have lived in social housing for decades and so have benefited over years from regulations setting the maximum pace at which rent can increase. In reversal from U.S. trends, this couple has had their wages far outpace rent growth over the course of their adult lives. Today, their rent is only 270 euros per month. That makes up less than 4% of their total pre-tax incomes. These aren't wealthy people either. One's a teacher, the other's a city accountant. Yet rent is as insignificant

a cost to them as meals out are to the average American. Can you imagine what trips you might take, investments you might make, interests you might indulge if your shelter cost only 4% of your pre-tax income. Matt Brunick's People's Policy Project has done a lot of research on what exactly this could look like in an American context. They point not only to Vienna, but also Sweden and Finland as models to follow and advocate for a build-out of 10 million new units in 10 years. Now, these units would be owned by the government, available to all, and rent would be based on a sliding income scale. Having multiple classes in one building is really key for avoiding the

segregation and decay that characterizes our existing public housing stock. Now might be a particularly auspicious time to act. Housing affordability, as you all know, is at an all-time low. But also, the abandonment of downtowns by office workers means that there's a lot of vacant space, which will be vacant in the coming years, and those buildings will be turned over. Government could snatch up these locations at fire sale prices to convert into social housing, thereby solving the problems of housing affordability and vacant downtowns in one fell swoop. I am well aware of how fanciful this all sounds.

It blows my mind that we ever had the ambition to build out any public housing and attempt to create quality, affordable housing for everyone. The optimism and confidence of such a project, it seems so far-fetched now. This isn't an accident. The whole job of modern Democratic and Republican politicians is to destroy our political imagination, to convince us that nothing is possible, our problems are intractable, incremental reform is the very best we can hope for. After all, if our political imaginations were not destroyed, we would certainly imagine a better politics for ourselves than these sorry losers and their raft of excuses and failures. We are living now in the wreckage of the neoliberal era, and one thing has become really clear.

Just hoping that markets are going to solve our problems has not and will not work. Developers and other corporations are not interested in solving social problems. They're interested in making money. That's fine, but somebody's got to solve the social problems. That means we're going to have to rebuild the muscles of governance, atrophied by neoliberalism. We're going to have to allow ourselves a little bit of political imagination, even if cynicism feels a lot safer, and actually expect our political system to make our lives better.

And it's kind of mind-blowing for an American country. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, so how are we looking at? Okay, on Sunday, I did a monologue about the skyrocketing price of the average used car in the United States, some $28,000, nearly $50,000 for a new one. In it, I mentioned that the part of the problem that we have right now is inflation and financialization taking their toll on the lower end of the car

market, and then large subsidies that exist for electric vehicles, which still remain prohibitively expensive for most consumers. However, one of the upsides, I suppose, in a big, massive rise in the price of a new car is a new Tesla Model 3, which is priced around $47,000, $48,000, which is pretty average next up to any other car. EV proponents are actually pointing to this as the future, where an entry-level EV is priced right alongside an average new car. Now, this is obviously true, but I think it's true for the wrong reason, that the overall price of cars is still way too high. Furthermore, I want to take a time today to again just warn about where these price drops are coming from, and the overwhelming amount of drop in EV price is coming from economies of scale. That's good if economies of

scale exist in your country, but already you know the answer. We own less of the EV supply chain in the West and in North America than we do of normal cars. I have consistently tried to emphasize a dual narrative. I love electric cars and I believe that they could be the future with the right government policy, but that our current government policy is setting us up for indentured servitude to China for our dominant mode of transportation and without the adequate energy supply to power them. So go ahead and take a look at this graphic. This shows you the percent of minerals that are coming from China. I feel especially vindicated now by the mainstream media because they're beginning to catch up and take notice. Look at this graphic. It shows in stark detail how much an electric

vehicle battery is coming almost entirely from China or Chinese-controlled entities. Cobalt mining, for example, is 41% controlled by China. Refining capacity is 73% directly in China. Anodes of EV batteries are 92%, 70% of cathodes, 60% of battery cells, 54% of all electric cars. China, China, China. You could just say, yeah, but we'll just build our own facilities here.

I wish it was that easy. It takes years to build the refining and processing facilities required to produce an EV battery. And even if we did that, we still don't have the staff or the technical know-how on how to run them. Then if we did it, you may not like how much energy and how much filthy refining

and processing abilities look like. This is the dirty secret of almost all life in the West. All of these processes, refining minerals, building solar panels, they are done in China to shield our population from reality of how filthy the byproduct is. Then we install it here and we pretend we're green because we ignore the labor and environmental impact of what it really looks like. China has a nearly two-decade head start in setting up these processes and has achieved massive economy of scale, supply, and of course has ensnared our largest companies to just simply leave battery production up to them. We are rapidly approaching a moment where if you buy an electric vehicle

anywhere outside of the United States, it is almost certainly just straight up made in China. In fact, just yesterday, Tesla confirmed its very first Shanghai-made Teslas are now being imported even to North America and will be sold in Canada. Both of those models for sale in Canada qualify for a government tax credit. Already, Tesla Shanghai makes up 50% of global production for the entire company. In fact, Chinese records tell us that Tesla has imported some 133,000 cars just this year out of Shanghai. The only thing keeping Elon and Tesla from making all cars there are provisions in U.S. law that require our EVs to be U.S.-made or at least somewhat U.S.-made. Of course, there is a tradeoff. It makes ours more expensive. And it shows the obvious cave of all time that we know is coming

a decade from now from a Democratic or Republican president who will just say, cost is too high for our EVs. We should drop made in America provisions at the behest of the car companies. I can assure you that is probably what's going to happen because it's exactly what happened to US automakers in the 1970s when Asian competition came in. Cost is always king in America, and it should be, especially though for them, profits for big corporations are in play for the politicians. The only way to solve any of this is to turn the clock back and start building factories. The other way is to try our best to stave off corporate pressure in the next 20 years while we catch up to where

China is right now. Unfortunately, things are not looking good for that. The Biden administration has taken baby steps at best when it comes to EV supply efforts. They recently signed an effort with the G7 in Australia, where they acknowledge it is a problem that China controls the entire mineral supply chain. But they have not done anything else about it. They have signed agreements to come to a future agreement. It's just not going to cut it. I've said it before. You need a Manhattan Project level of scale and effort to catch up to China just on EV minerals and supply chains. Then we need a separate Manhattan Project to develop cheap and abundant renewable power to send cars once they are on the road. If you do not do both simultaneously,

we will give the U.S. consumer the worst deal in the long run. You will have high prices, or you will leave yourselves incredibly vulnerable. So, I mean, I think we keep taking our eye off the ball. This is literally... And if you want to hear my reaction to Cyber's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now, we have the Executive Director of Employee America, Skanda Amarnath. Great to have you, Skanda. Welcome. Good to see you, man. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, our pleasure. So you took a look at the debt ceiling debacle from a different lens than what I had seen anyone else take. Talking about the role that Treasury could and should be playing here, just talk to us a little bit about why you chose to focus on them.

Right. So it seems as if Treasury has a pretty central role in shaping the negotiations for the White House. It seems like Secretary Yellen plays a pretty big role in this, but not just her. There are other people within Treasury. There are a couple of other people outside of Treasury, too. But I would say because ultimately it's about paying U.S. debts, Treasury is inherently going to be central to all of this. And the Treasury itself seems to be thinking that by writing off all alternatives, they are somehow strengthening their negotiating position, which is to the, I don't know, antithesis of any kind of logic or rationality about negotiation. You try to keep your options open to the best of your ability. And we've just seen the complete opposite from Treasury so far, which is just baffling to me.

So, yeah, can you explain a little bit about what you laid out there? Our audience, you know, they are going to know what the debt ceiling is, but debt servicing, the level of Treasury, what some of the missed opportunities that, in your opinion, have been. Lay that out for everybody. Sure. So obviously they're trying to, Biden has talked about this, Yellen has talked about this, that it would be great if Congress, we should have. Treasury has methods by which it can actually make sure the debt ceiling isn't an issue for making sure we pay our debts on time and that we don't have a default that's super dislocating. Or this notion of, well, we could pay the bondholders, but then we can just make cuts elsewhere, payment prioritization. All of

these things are deeply complicated, constitutionally very questionable, when in fact they could pursue fully lawful solutions if they actually were willing to say, okay, ideally Congress can raise the debt ceiling, but if they don't do it, we will take matters into our own hands. And there are powers other than invoking the 14th Amendment per se, which I'm still not sure what that means, that would add up to taking control of negotiations and not letting yourself be held hostage in the manner that they basically have. They basically have let Republicans control the show by saying, oh, we're not going to pursue any alternatives to you raising the debt ceiling.

And therefore, the price of raising the debt ceiling keeps going up. You know, I thought, I think it was Matt Brunig who laid all of this out in a way that made sense to me, which is like, OK, let's say that Biden did absolutely nothing. Right. There's no deal. There's no debt ceiling increase. He now has a conflicting set of instructions that he's received for the United States Congress. That would almost inherently have to go through a legal process to resolve. None of the options is particularly palatable. One is the sort of 14th Amendment route where you're like, no, you said we're going to spend this money and the debt shouldn't be called into question. So we're going to take on the debt. We're going to do what we need to do. And that's, you know, what the Constitution

instructs us to do. Another one would be to do what I think Republicans have more floated, which is like, all right, well, you prioritize payments and maybe the bondholders get paid, but the veterans don't or whatever. Like, but then that is, represents the executive taking on effectively the power of the purse, which is another constitutionally bad option. So you're left with all of these, you know, problematic issues if Biden doesn't act whatsoever. And thinking of that in that regard helped me to understand sort of like the the crux of this issue that really you do kind of need some sort of legal judgment about these conflicting sets of instructions and the bizarre setup we have where you got one vote to spend the money and another one to do what it takes to actually make sure you fulfill your

obligations. That's right. And so if you have, I thought Matt Brunig's column was excellent and kind of speaks to the separation of powers problems that emerge. And so there is this sort of legal conflict that has to be resolved. And it'd be one thing if there was no solution to this problem if you're Treasury, like, oh, we have to get the debt ceiling up. But there are solutions available if they are willing to put their minds to it. And what has become very abundantly clear is they're not trying to put their minds to it. And it seems like it's pretty unwise to do that. If you want the debt ceiling to be increased, the worst thing you can say is, well, oh, I have no alternative except to just concede to everything that you possibly would want. And that is exactly the road they've chose to go down.

And I think that is ultimately to the detriment of US default risk, to the detriment of actually paying our debts on time and makes the debt ceiling is not this kind of big sweepstakes issue that it always tends to be. Can you talk about, so we've talked about the 14th Amendment here. We've talked about the, you know, hashtag mint the coin. Yeah. But the other one which we've referenced but haven't really totally laid out, frankly, because I don't 100% understand it, is the idea of Treasury issuing callable perpetual bonds.

You lay out, you know, the technicalities of this in your column. Can you just explain as best you can in layman terms what this looks like and what it means? So if you read the debt ceiling statute, the law itself, it's pretty short. And it's quoted in terms of the face amount of the obligations. The face amount is for a bond for which there is a principal repayment.

So obviously, you pay back interest and principal most of the time with bonds. But there are bonds that exist where only the interest is guaranteed and there is no guaranteed principal. That would be a perpetuity, effectively. So you would have regular interest payments. And at some point, the government may or may not decide, I have the right to pay back, to buy back this perpetuity from the bondholder. But it's my right-flash option, but I don't have to do it. And we did this for financing something like the Panama Canal. These things existed in the 1900s and 1930s. So there's precedent for this. A perpetual bond is a real thing. You can look it up on Investopedia. These things are not like

just purely for the sake of evading the debt ceiling. They are real instruments. I think that does matter for sort of how people perceive like the viability like that passes the laugh test. I think obviously the coin, I'm by the way, I'm like pro-coin in the sense that I think it's legal. And so if it's legal, go for it. But this is probably going to win over more people, I suspect, within the White House. But it's the kind of thing that they should be exploring in the here and now. They should have been exploring this like five months ago. And they have just written a lot of these ideas off the table. There are some other ideas also that can work in terms of making sure that we don't default

on our debts and we're not using the debt ceiling as this big ransom note of sorts. But the perpetual bond idea is one that has a lot of precedent rooted in it. So the government has done this. And if you guarantee interest without guaranteeing principal, it's quite clear that one, the government has the power to issue these instruments and two, that it doesn't count towards debt ceiling. So that's like two things it has going for it that are kind of unique to the solution. And why do you think that they've taken these options off the table? Is it just Biden and Yellen are real institutionalists? They don't want to engage in these novel arguments. Like what is their thinking behind the scenes?

I think there's a lot of sort of norm abiding by sort of prior norms, not wanting to exert too much creativity. There's a fear of the unknown in terms of it being because it's novel and you're deviating from precedent, then you are therefore doing something that is going to be a political liability. So like, it's like, oh, if we say, for example, the coin example people bring up, it's a, if we say we're going to do the coin, Republicans are going to have a field day with this. They're going to mock us. They're going to say that we, um, we're doing something reckless. And like, obviously like it's not kind of unprovable until you actually go down that road. But I do think like it should be at least clear. There are other options on the table. And I think it's actually to the benefit of some people to say, oh, well, if the only option is the coin, that seems worse.

But then it's like there are other options to like perpetual bonds. There are other things they could be doing in terms of Fed Treasury coordination if they really wanted to put the screws on the negotiation to make sure we are. In some ways, the best way to get to a clean debt ceiling increase, you have to be open to other options. Otherwise, if you are not open to other options, you're not going to get a clean debt ceiling increase. You're going to get something that's pretty dirty. And that's exactly the road we're on right now. I think that's a good point because the thing that Republicans have going for them is they have people in the caucus that you feel like are genuinely crazy enough to push the country over the cliff. And so you have to have people on the other side who seem at least crazy

enough to mint the coin, to have some sort of semblance of leverage in the negotiations. That's right. And I guess the point I'd make is that even if you think the coin is somehow beyond the pale. And again, I said, I'm not going to I don't I have nothing bad to say about the coin idea specifically. But there are other options on the table if you're willing to look for them. What's been obvious the last few weeks is that the Treasury has not done the homework to actually look through all these options. If they did and they're hiding in the background, great. But I don't see that. You don't see any evidence of that. Thank you so much for breaking all of this down for me. I think I understand the bond option a lot better now, so I appreciate that. And it's always great to see you.

Appreciate it. Great. Thanks. Yeah, our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. It's been a fun week. We got to cover a lot of stuff. We had some fun, ambitious crossovers. Seeing the new, all of us here are marveling at the size of this television. No one has ever seen a monitor this big before, all of us behind the scenes.

So thank you for helping us with it. Sign up, breakingpoints.com. You get an exclusive look at the new set whenever we do reveal it. Coming up on our two-year anniversary, which is kind of crazy, and we will be debuting

the set around that time. So anyway, we love you, and we will see you all next week. See you all next week. I also want to address the Tonys. On a recent episode of Checking In with Michelle Williams, I open up about feeling snubbed by the Tony Awards. Do I?

I was never mad. I was disappointed because I had high hopes. To hear this and more on disappointment and protecting your peace, listen to Checking In with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Oddly. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about.

I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-up way, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov.

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