Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/26/22: Uvalde Timeline, Gun Legislation, Online Derangement, Michigan GOP, Guns and Trust, Food Crisis, & More!

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

Krystal and Saagar break down the failures by law enforcement in Uvalde, negotiations on gun legislation, deranged mass shooting takes, Michigan election scandal, Pence 2024, Democrats' despair going forward, underlying problems in America, & commodity prices around the world!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/Rupert Russell: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/622647/price-wars-by-rupert-russell/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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But Crystal, what do we have? Honestly, a completely enraging show. The more that we learn about what unfolded down in Texas. So we will get to that. There's also, though, a lot else to talk about this morning, including what the Democratic response might be, some really unhinged takes as all of this was unfolding. Also, kind of flying a little bit under the radar that we wanted to bring to your attention, a massive signature fraud scandal in Michigan that may well kick some of their top, the Republicans' top gubernatorial candidates

off of the ballot. It is crazy. Five out of 10 of the Republicans' candidates for governors were caught with like thousands of forged signatures. It looks like they all use the same consultant that all, you know, just basically like filled out the sheets themselves. So we'll talk to you about all of that. Also some new signs that Mike Pence may be looking at a run against Trump in 2024. But we have to start with some absolutely, just completely enraging developments that we are learning right now this morning about the law enforcement response or lack thereof as a killer was slaughtering babies inside of that elementary school. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, Crystal, our worst suspicions, which we alluded to on our show

yesterday, that there was a bungled law enforcement response just seems to be almost unambiguously true at this point. So we're going to start first with an interview with Tony Gonzalez. So he is the GOP congressman from Uvalde, Texas. And he's pressed here by CNN's Jake Tapper specifically about the timeline. Because the major question was, all right, this guy gets to the school, Mr. Ramos, Salvador Ramos. He is, quote, encountered by a police officer. Nobody knows what the hell that means. Then an hour later, he is killed. What the hell transpired in that interim hour? Right.

Well, and immediately both of us thought, wait a second. So you engage with him outside and not only is he able to get inside the school. Yes. So law enforcement is on the scene from the beginning, not only is he able to get inside that school, but he's able to be there long enough to murder over 20 people, including 19 children. And immediately, the law enforcement story didn't add up, but we said, we're going to hold judgment. Yeah, give them the benefit of the doubt. Things are going to change. We're going to get a clearer picture of what unfolded, but the clearer the picture becomes, the graver the indictment of law enforcement on the scene actually is.

Yeah, and just to clear something up also before we get even to this clip, which is that law enforcement initially told us that Ramos was wearing a body armor vest. That appears to not be true. He's wearing a tactical vest in which you could insert plates, but he did not have plates inserted. So that again raises the question, why did three uniformed police officers not able to stop an armed gunman who had a single AR-15 and no body armor on him at that time? He was able to barricade, but their words, in a single classroom. You'll recall that all of the children and the teacher were killed inside of that single classroom. Let's hear now from Congressman Gonzalez.

This is kind of the pro-police spin on what happened, and then we're going to get to some more of the facts that unravel. Let's get to it. So I have two questions about this, and maybe you can clear this up. How was the gunman able to get into the school if the resource officer had engaged with him but no gunfire was exchanged? How did he get in? Yeah, so it started at his home. You know, he he tragically shoots his his grandmother and then he gets in a vehicle and he drives to the school. It's it's less than a mile away.

So it's really right around the corner. And as he comes to the school, he wrecks. He kind of goes into this ditch. And it's when he got into that ditch is when law enforcement was called and engaged. You know, so that's part of the initial contact. It was no firing that I understand. He actually enters through the back of one of the buildings, through the teacher parking lot, if you will. He immediately enters one room. And then essentially that's when the police, the law enforcement officer, because it's not just

police officers, it's sheriffs, it's border patrol agents. I mean, everybody came together. People are not even in this county. And they basically cornered him into one room. There are hundreds of children in that school. Part of the story, there's a lieutenant named Javier Martinez engages this assailant. He takes fire. He actually was wounded. You know, it's tragic to see so many children be murdered, but this could have been a whole lot worse. People like Javier Martinez and Chief Arredondo, they saved hundreds of lives. So that's where you see him get pinned in. Well, he was pinned.

But just to be clear, he's pinned down or pinned in in a classroom where he was slaughtering kids, right? I mean, is that what you mean by pinned down? I understand that he went in that classroom and he begins to fire. He begins to murder people, starting with that wonderful teacher that was defending her students. And he doesn't stop. The police officer actually engages him. Javier Martinez engages him. He kind of takes fire through the door, and then it stops, and he barricades himself in. That's where there's kind of a lull in the action. All of it, I understand, lasted about an hour, but this is where there's kind of a 30-minute lull. They feel as if they got

barricaded in. The rest of the students in the school are now leaving. You know, they're trying to get people out to safety. And this assailant is barricaded in. It's moments later or minutes later when they breach it. And then ultimately, a Border Patrol agent is the one that neutralizes this assailant. All right. It still seems like a lot of time that the police were outside the classroom and the shooter was inside the classroom where there were kids. That's the instincts at the very end there by Jake are exactly correct. And unfortunately, this morning, we are learning just exactly how dire the situation is. Let's put this up there on the screen from the Associated Press.

Onlookers urged police to charge into the Texas school. Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas school while a gunman killed 19 children. Witnesses and investigators worked to track the massacre. Go in there. Go in there. People shouted at police officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, who saw the scene from outside of his house. Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter,

Jacqueline, was actually killed in the attack, said that he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting arriving while police are still gathered outside of the building. Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders. Let's rush in there because the cops aren't doing anything like he are supposed to. They were unprepared. So look, I mean, you here have the father of a slain child who was ready

to storm into this school, watching police officers do basically nothing while the gunman was standing in there. And you know, Crystal, the main word that I'm looking at here is they're trying to frame it as some tactical containment. We know every single child was killed in one classroom. So let's also understand that we know as of this morning from Tom Winters over at NBC News that the timeline does not add up again, that whenever they say police encountered him, he did not exchange gunfire at all in the initial whatever encountering that happened. So that means that Mr. Ramos was able to crash this car, encounter a police officer, go into a classroom, barricade himself into the classroom, all without a single shot fired yet

by this police officer. Eventually, only after he starts shooting and killing people inside of this classroom is he engaged. And, you know, the other thing, it takes a long time, and this is macabre, but it takes a long time to kill 22 people. That's not, you know, it's not something that needs to be accomplished in a single second. So during this entire period in which there are supposedly, I mean, officers, three officers there who are on the scene. Some of them were wounded, but many others were outside. I think that we can generally infer what happened here is that you have some local PD cops who were either afraid or wanted to wait until a tactical team arrived, and they frankly got bailed out by Border Patrol tactical agents who happened to live and be in Uvalde,

who ended up showing here. A lot of the kids in this school, because it is pretty close to the border, their parents are CBP. They're Customs and Border Patrol. So can you imagine you're there on this? I can't imagine that. Going back to that congressman. You'd have to kill me. He describes the gunman being in this classroom as there being a lull in the action.

A lull. Can you imagine if you're one of the babies or the teachers that's in that classroom with this monster? Is that a lull in the action to you. And what was making me insane yesterday is news article after news article, official spokesperson of the police department after person, after person, after person, describing him as being contained in this classroom. Like thisacres 19 kids. And the story keeps changing. We still, still, even with what we've learned, do not have a clear picture of what happened. We don't know how many people were on the scene initially. They said he had body armor. Oh, it turns out he didn't because that was the initial excuse for how he's able to get into the school. Well, he's, you know, he's

armored up. So we, yeah, sure. Of course we fired at him, but he was able to get past us. No, that was a lie. Then we find out you didn't even fire your weapon at him. And he's able to just casually go into the school and barricade himself. You didn't contain him in that classroom. He went into that classroom in order to kill those babies and the teachers in that room. And you stood by for an hour while this is unfolding. There's this video, I've already watched it and I will never be able

to unsee what these parents are going through at that time. As Sagar just said, the AP was, I think, the first to report that parents who were outside were begging the police, go in, do something, go in the building, we'll go in ourselves. And what you're about to see in this video is that scene unfolding. And the police officers, if you look closely, some of them have their tasers drawn, ready to shock the parents who are beside themselves saying, please, for the love of God, do something. And these officers are standing there in all their, you know, G.I. Joe military style gear doing nothing but keeping the parents from rushing in to save their own children. Let's take a look. Look at his fucking face.

Oh, my God. He's a pirate. He's a pirate! He's a pirate! Oh, shit, he ain't done yet! He's a pirate! I should have fucking trained that motherfucker! I don't know! I'm fucking going to him!

I don't know! My dad! I got his butt on me! He's shooting! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I cannot stop imagining what I would be going through if it was my baby in that scene. I can't imagine it either.

I mean, you also can, if you watch it further, it goes on for two minutes and 20 seconds. I know it's difficult if you're just listening to this, but they actually do detain somebody and put them in handcuffs for basically trying to storm past all of them, which is just, I mean, I can't imagine, you know, if this is your child. And all of this is just becoming clear as day. You know, unfortunately, there is also another clip here, which just shows you that this was clearly some sort of ragtag panic operation. We have here an interview shortly afterwards with local television where a local reporter asks a police spokesperson and says, we have reports here of police officers going into the school and taking their own kids out while they're waiting for this tactical team to arrive.

He actually confirms that here on camera. Let's take a listen to that. We've heard that some law enforcement officers actually went into school to get their kids out. Can you talk about that? Right, so what we do know, Vanessa, right now, that there was some police officers, families trying to get their children out of the school because it was an active shooter situation right now. It's a terrible situation right now. And, of course, just as we mentioned, the loss of life, it's just terrible. It's a terrible tragedy right now that took place.

But again, we got to keep acknowledging those brave men and women that actually were there on scene that met this suspect. And of course, we know that they were met with gunfire. Some of them were shot. But at the end of this, the suspect was shot, is now deceased. The threat is now neutralized. I think we have a very unfortunately clear picture of the imbroglio that has happened here, which is that Ramos shoots his grandma in the face. She does not die. She calls 911 immediately, almost afterwards after she gets shot. He peels out of his driveway, gets into this car, crashes the car.

He texts a person that he meets on the live streaming app, I'm going to go shoot up an elementary school right now. Arrives there, crashes the car. At that point, a school resource officer sees him. Ramos enters through the back building entrance, the teacher's entrance, down the hallway, goes into the classroom with the 10-year-olds, and barricades himself in there and begins murdering both the teacher and the children. So at some point during this, the school resource officer or two of the other Uvalde PD officers who managed to get on the scene within the first couple of minutes engage Ramos. Then there's like a half hour, 45 minute period. And that is the true scandal to me. I mean, you have here police officers in that interim lull who are waiting outside, you know, waiting and asking for somebody to actually go in there.

You have people who went in there to go and save their own kids. Their own kids. And didn't go in and engage. And look, I know, okay, we're, you know, sideways or sideline quarterbacking. But, I mean, what is the job of law enforcement then? What did you sign up for? I mean, I really don't know what to say. If not for this day, if your oath to protect and serve

isn't about this day and not about making sure your own ass ends up back at home safe and sound at the end of the day or just your, you're there to protect the whole community, to protect these people's babies and they're watching you do nothing.

They're watching you go in and take care of your own and do nothing for them and their children. I mean, I can't, I just cannot imagine what these parents are thinking and feeling and going through. Watching how many of these guys were on the scene. Well, that's a question. One, there was one gunman with no body armor. And this was not some, you know, professionally trained kid.

It's a random loser with a fucking gun. And you useless cowards stood outside for an hour and let him massacre these children. I, the good guys with guns in this one completely failed. And thank God that that tactical border patrol team eventually showed up. I can only imagine what they were thinking once they landed on the scene and saw the total level of cowardice and incompetence that was unfolding. We need to hear some interviews here, I think, with those gentlemen, because I think what happened very likely is that these guys who happen to be off duty and who even live in the area or around the area, they probably

showed up. These are, you know, real professionals probably trained for these types of situations, came up and they were like, what the hell is going on here? And then even then, you know, there's a lot, for example, the border patrol tactical agent who arrived on the scene and was with the team that eventually killed Ramos, when they arrived, they found the door locked and had to go get a key to unlock the door. Now, first of all, I don't understand why, you know, with the weapons and the material they have at their disposal, why you even would take the time to go, you know, find the key.

But here's the other thing. Does that mean that the police officers who were there initially did not think to try and open the door? That's what I'm saying. They did not even try to open the door. I mean, they didn't even try to go and get a key. Paxton, you owe it to the people of Texas, to all of us. We need a full-scale actual investigation of Texas DPS, Uvalde PD, Border Patrol, the initial response. This is Parkland 2.0. I mean, that's exactly what happened with Steve Israel and his crew, the Broward County officer there

in Parkland. He was securing the perimeter while there were kids slaughtered there. You know, Nicholas Cruz, like I said, I mean, it takes a while to kill this many kids. And I know it's macabre, but that's why Nicholas Cruz was able to go and kill so many people was because he was, I think he was in there for 40-some-odd minutes. Officer on the scene, I mean, basically came out and he was basically in hiding. Yeah, he's a coward. He's a coward. He was basically in hiding. And I mean, and this is really thrown the typical talking points about, oh, we just need more officers on the scene. We need more people with guns because how many, quote unquote, good guys with guns were there and allowed this to unfold? away from the broader question of how do we make it so there are fewer incidences where cops are faced with a massacring madman armed with an AR-15. And I do want to say, you know, in terms of the sort of fatalism around this debate, which is always like, oh God, we have the same fucking

debate and nothing ever changes. You know, in Florida, they did actually pass, and Florida's basically a red state at this point, they did pass a red flag law, which, you know, listen, this type of violence is probably the most difficult to curb, where you have an individual who, this is something else we learned more details of, was clearly disturbed. Yeah, why don't we get into that? Yeah. Let's put this up there. Clearly disturbed individual. I mean, every into that? Yeah. Let's put this up there. Clearly disturbed individual. I mean, every interaction that anyone had with him was bizarre. There was one former friend who said he showed up with all these cuts all over his face.

And he had said it was from a cat. And then he admitted that he had taken a knife to his own face. Matt, you know, total blowout fights with his mom where the cops were called repeatedly. Multiple times to his house. Multiple times and also with his grandmother, reports of multiple fistfights. People at Wendy's where he worked saying, you know, this guy, he wouldn't talk to anyone or he'd blow up at people and threaten violence. I mean, this was someone who every single warning sign was there that he was disturbed. But what makes it difficult is, you know, in Texas in particular, if you aren't a

convicted felon or if you haven't been like basically institutionalized for mental health issues, then, you know, you can go free and clear and on his 18th birthday get the background check and get the firearm, no problem. The idea with red flag laws is that there would be a process in place that if you have those really clear signs of trouble, you can go through a court process to put someone's name on a list so that they are barred for a period of time from purchasing a firearm. Now, obviously, you have to write that law very carefully to make sure that people's rights, as recognized by the Supreme Court anyway, are protected. But that is what they did in Florida. There are, I think, 19 states that have those type of red flag laws. That seems to me to be one of the potential ways that you could at least – listen, you're never – without taking every gun out of society, which I think we both agree is just never going to happen, you're not going to end these mass shooting or the amount of violence in our society, period. It's a difficult one, right?

Something like that could potentially curb things on the margins. And one other thing I want to say about this, and we're going to talk about the Democratic response as well, which is typically, you know, pathetic and nonsensical, but a lot of, frequently, and Abbott is certainly doing this in Texas, rather than contemplate any, you know, universal background checks or any of the things that are sort of like broadly accepted and popular and get floated every time we have one of these incidents. They say, well, we need more mental health services. Agreed. Totally agree. But he also is one who won't expand Medicaid in order to make more people, give more people access to mental health services. So even if you accept that solution that like we should focus more on mental health, they're completely,

they're just full of it. They're just completely bankrupt. He was actually asked about that at the press conference. Yeah, he was. He said he would reject the ACA, Obamacare dollars. So I mean, they're just, all they want to do is like deflect, get through this time period when people feel the emotion in a really raw and visceral way and then do nothing and, you know, pretend next time like they're really sad about it again. Yeah, I mean, there's no question that he's absolutely full of it on that one in particular. The red flag law, I think this bears discussion. I mean, this is a really tricky one. So for example, I don't know if I could support a red flag law for freedom of speech. And this is something which is also in our First Amendment, right? And the ability for an adjudicated state

court process without, or sorry, an adjudicated state with no due process in a court of law that can take away your freedom of speech. How they are typically drawn up is that there is a process through a court of law. So it's a relatively onerous process. Now, of course, you can drop these laws any number of ways. But the well-written ones, that effectively the process that is is laid in place so that you do have some protection of your rights i just worry we're walking into a patriot act situation i'm looking here the florida red flag law has been used over 2 200 times since march of 2018 and just july of 2019 i mean i'd have to review some of these cases i just

think that once you give that these people the ability to infringe upon a constitutional right— See, I just—I don't accept that it's a totally, like—I mean, the Constitution says a well-regulated militia. So I don't accept the framing that this is, like, some bedrock constitutional right with no potential boundaries or limits on it whatsoever. Well, that's not up to us. It's up to the court, obviously. And I'm just going to say, I mean, you know, if I look at it basically in the same vein and within that, like, I think we should have an extraordinarily high barrier to entry. It's just difficult. I mean, in the words of these situations, in the context of these situations, I mean, we'll all remember Anwar al-Awlaki, who was the American citizen,

you know, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike ordered by the Obama administration. And that entire process, again, he did not actually have due process, and it was all adjudicated by the executive branch with some sign-off by some court, and there was never a jury of his peers that actually convicted him and sentenced him to death. So I just look at these things as a very slippery process. But like your right to not get murdered by a drone strike and your right to own any weapon that you want, I think are two different things. It's not any weapon that you want. It's the ability to purchase any firearm.

So we're not even talking about putting a restriction on AR-15. We're talking about right in order to purchase any firearm, which is pretty well established in U.S. case law that you do have the ability in order to purchase it. This isn't just an AR-15. This is anything that he's able to buy. Well, I mean, red flag laws are in place in something like 19 states, I believe. Yeah, I'm reading about it in front of us. I mean, thus far, they've survived court challenges. So clearly these can be written in a way that based on our current, you know, I think wrong body of work on judicial rulings on guns. But even within that framework, which is very pro-2A,

they have allowed these red flag laws to stand. So listen, what I want to say here is that I don't think that there is any solution barring buying back all the guns and basically getting rid of any guns, which is not going to happen, that is going to completely eliminate these types of horrific tragedies? Are there things we could do on the margins that would make it less likely? That would make it, you know, not just looking at mass shootings, which comparatively are actually a small number of the amount of gun violence and deaths that we have in this country. Are there things we could do that could reduce the number of suicides, that could reduce the number of people who are murdered in, you know, attacks by their spouse? Yeah, there are things that we could do. And so I just, you know, I don't

want to give up on the idea that there are some efforts that a lot of people agree with in this country that could be undertaken on a potentially bipartisan basis that at least would make it so there are fewer parents, family members, individuals who are devastated and grief-stricken because their loved one has been taken from them too. I think the latter part is very important for everybody to understand. Some 70% odd percentage of the gun deaths in this country are suicide. And actually a leading cause of death of a lot of adolescent children is actually now guns. And part of the reason for that,

domestic disturbance. I mean, a lot of this is, you know, this is a mass shooting happening, you know, on a broad scale nearly every day. Yeah, that's right. Whenever you consider it in, you know, it's not as horrific. It's not somebody stopping in. It's, you know, a child gets killed in the middle of a domestic altercation between a drunk husband and, you know, his estranged wife or, you know, a girlfriend or somebody gets killed, you know, despite having been beaten up like three or four times. This is actually far more common, you know, even in terms of street homicide. You know, again, you're looking at something where vast majority of these guns are illegally obtained, even by the people who are using them. So it really comes down to

address, and I know it's almost a meme, it's like addressing the root cause. But I think the mental health, you know, Governor Abbott had the audacity, really, in order to be like, well, there's not a single mental health hospital, you know, 40 miles, whatever, within Uvalde. It's like, okay, we'll build one then. The government is literally giving you money in order to use it and you won't use it. Right. You're like, this is one of those things

where like, if only someone in power cared about, you're the governor. You're literally the governor. And that is where I would like a lot of focus on this debate.

Well, here, and here, I do want to say because I was thinking about this a lot, people get, I think, justifiably very upset

by those dodges from people like Abbott who are like, let's just focus on the mental health and not talk about the guns. And we're going to talk later on, too, about some of the most deranged responses left and right. And a lot of the right ones are all about like, let's not talk about guns whatsoever. Let's just focus on these other issues. The big thing now is like, there should have only Ted Cruz last night. We need to mandate there's only one door in schools. And anyway. That doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Well, but then there's only one way to get out too. And he only needed one door when you've got, you know, 85 police officers standing around doing nothing. Anyway, I digress. I understand why people get upset when commentators and politicians want to say, let's just focus, let's just talk about the mental health or we just need better Judeo-Christian values was another thing I heard yesterday. We've got to talk about these root causes, which it is true. I mean, there is a cultural issue here that is fueled by those root causes, but you just make yourself into like a liar and a fraud when you float something like mental health. But then even on that, you're not willing to actually do anything. So I do think the mental health issue is important. I don't think we should ignore it. I don't think we should only

talk about the exclusion of everything else, including just these, you know, basic things that you could do to try to curb gun violence on the margins. But the reality is, like, they're not even serious about that either. So the whole conversation just ends up being completely fraudulent. And I guess this is a good transition into what the Democrats are actually going to try to do. And to be honest with you, I am totally confused about what their plan is. And I, you know, I read everything I could about what Chuck Schumer has said about what they're going to do in the Senate. First, he said, we're not going to just vote right away on something that we know is going to fail. Then he said, we are going to vote right away.

We are going to have some votes on amendments. And then we're also going to try to work with Republicans to craft some kind of a bipartisan solution that can get through the filibuster. Here was Schumer on the floor yesterday to give you a sense of a little bit of what he has said on this. I repeat, though, we are going to vote on gun legislation. The American people are tired of moments of silence, tired of the kind words offering thoughts and prayers. We can use the domestic terrorism bill tomorrow to begin, I repeat, to begin considering gun safety amendments. And we can consider the proposal he brings to the floor today. So we won't just have this amendment.

We'll have a lot of amendments. So I guess the as best I can figure, Sager, they're going to vote on some amendments that have something to do with guns. But the bigger strategy is let's take a look at this Politico tear sheet. The headline here, oh, this is, so Kyrsten Sinema is engaged in trying to find some Republicans who are going to maybe engage in some sort of bipartisan solution. Of course, she's still not willing to do anything different with the filibuster. But go ahead and put the Politico tear sheet up. They say the Senate begins search for a bipartisan gun deal after Schumer's green light. He's giving long shot gun safety negotiations a chance.

Kyrsten Sinema, the aforementioned, is reaching out to Republicans on a path forward. GOP senators are answering Chris Murphy's call for new bipartisan talks, betting on a 50-50 Senate to cut a deal responding to the massacre of 19 children, two teachers at a Texas elementary school just five months before the midterm. Still a long shot, but there's enough will among Senate Democrats to at least give it a go rather than force sure-to-fail votes intended to put Republicans on defense. Of course, both Manchin and Sinema saying they're not moving on their opposition to the filibuster. We've got Manchin's comments as well on getting rid of the filibuster, I should say. Senator Manchin, I think we have a tweet there we can put up on the screen. Senator Manchin says he would do, quote, anything I can to move common sense gun legislation forward, but still refuse to eliminate the filibuster to, you know, actually govern and really get anything ultimately done here. Do I have any hope that

these negotiations are going to go differently than negotiations in the past that happened after, say, Sandy Hook and the way that that shocked the conscience of the nation? No, I do not. I think they'll just run out the clock once again. Republicans will stonewall, you know. And I, listen, I understand why there's this instinct to say, why put votes on the floor that are sure to fail? But on certain things that are really popular, background checks, 90 percent support. It's like 70 percent support among Republicans. You could at least put people on the spot and force them to actually vote against something that is supported by 90% of the country. I think you can do that and you can, you know, try, I guess, to come up with your bipartisan negotiation. You can also do some

things through reconciliation. I mean, ultimately, they should get rid of the filibuster and actually govern so they don't have these excuses. The broader context of this, too, Sagar, is their hypocrisy here, because go ahead and put AOC's tweet up on the screen. Because on the very day that this mass shooting is unfolding, Pelosi, Clyburn, Hoyer, all lining up, doing robocalls, going to the district fundraising for Henry Cuellar, who has an A rating from the NRA. What AOC says here is on the day of mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic Party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under investigation in close primary. Roe book calls fundraisers all of it. Accountability is not partisan. This was an utter failure of leadership. And however you feel about the issue of guns, I think this just exposes. Cuellar looks

like he's going to win this thing by like less than 200 votes, although it is probably going to a recount. They dragged him over the finish line totally like he stands against two of the big things that they're talking about, that they're saying, hey, you got to vote for us. So we take action on guns and abortion, let alone, you know, the one that I really care about, which is he's a lone Democratic vote against the PRO Act. So bottom line, they have no principles. They're full of it. And AOC went on to say that this is just basically an incumbent protection racket. And it's hard to see that it's anything else. On Cuellar, that's certainly true. On the Democratic legislation, I mean, I just don't know. I just would submit. I mean, look, I just fundamentally don't agree with most of the things that they would do even if they did nuke the filibuster. So even if Joe Manchin were to do so, I mean, the only thing that he would appear to support on the bipartisan thing is the Manchin-Toomey universal background check. I have no problem with that, you know, whatsoever.

But I also, I wonder, and I'll just ask you, do you really think that that enough Democratic senators would be okay with doing something like that? I think there's a fundamental part of the Democratic coalition that just wants to seize guns. And like, that's just not going to happen in this country under the current even makeup of the Senate. There like, that's just not going to happen in this country under the current even makeup of the Senate. There is, I would say, a pretty small proportion of the Senate Democratic caucus that wants to do much more than what's in the Manchin-Toomey bill. I think it is very likely what they would put forward would basically be, you know, the Manchin-Toomey, which came out of bipartisan negotiations following Sandy Hook, which is this very sort of like middle of the road,

moderate reform bill. You probably would end up with something like that. I mean, the idea that Democrats are really going to radically do anything, it's not going to happen. I mean, we see the way that these people operate. Everything they do is a negotiation within a negotiation. They start from the center position and they like work backward and, you know, fall off of the principles that they start with. So, no, they're going to say this is what Joe Manchin in West Virginia can support. This is what we're going with and we're not going any further than that. But it's a moot point anyway, because they're not going to do anything to change the filibuster, which gives them an excuse not to have to actually govern

so that they can just use this issue once again in the next campaign and say, you know, Republicans are bad, even though we literally just wentgun position relative to the – what I'm talking about in terms of banning AR-15. There's never been record low support for a ban on handguns even though current Supreme Court ruling would make that even unconstitutional. Same on an AR-15 ban. So, I mean, I look at it as, yeah, I mean, I think that whatever happens, if anything happens, is also a result of – and this is really what I'm talking about is a trust deficit. There is just simply no trust amongst a huge portion of the Republican base and a significant amount of independents, including myself. And I mean you can see even my skepticism on a red flag law. I'm like I know how that's going to get used against other people. Now that doesn't – you can say that it's worth it.

But my fundamental orientation, especially over the last couple of years, is I don't trust you. I don't trust a single thing that you say. You're going to have to prove to me over a significant period of time that this process will not be misused against political dissidents as it was in the Patriot Act, as it was in the current domestic terrorism law, even currently with the universal background check. Again, I think that's fine. It seems like it would crack down on some on the margins. But at the end of the day, whenever the media and other people say do something, I think they mean take people's guns.

Or at the very least, they want to ban or make it much more difficult, or magazine restrictions, all these types of things. But this is kind of a straw man. There is very little, first of all, there is no legislation that has been proposed at the federal level to, supported by a broad majority of Democrats, to confiscate guns. Because it wouldn't pass. a mixed bag in terms of where the public support is. But I just looked up support for red flag laws allowing the police or a family member to seek a court order to temporarily take away guns if they feel a gun owner may harm themselves or others. That has 70 plus percent support. So let's talk about the actual things that are being proposed and whether on the margins they would make a

difference. And I just don't see this. I don't see the right to have a gun in any and all circumstances in the same way that I see the right to not be killed by a drone, so the right to not be surveilled by the government. I think that the Second Amendment, it is a narrow right for, you know, it talks about a well-regulated militia. And even within the current relatively extreme interpretation of the Second Amendment, which you are correct, is basically what has ruled the day in terms of the Supreme Court. Even within that, things like red flag laws have been upheld. So within the boundaries of where we, the existing jurisprudence, there are things that we could do that could make a difference. I mean, can, do you really not support like universal background checks or, right. I mean, there are things that almost everybody agrees on that it's not going to be

a complete solution. And you are right. This is a bandaid over a lot of societal problems that lead us to be so mistrustful and continue to acquire more and more weapons. That is all certainly the case, but that doesn't mean there's nothing we could do that would make a difference whatsoever. I certainly agree. I think that, you know, some sort of universal background check system is absolutely correct. I just, you know, when I see the, I see there's a level of bloodthirst that I think comes in the media and I think the deranged kind of activist class, and we're about to get to derangement on that, which is frankly, that's really what frightens me. It really just reminds me of the post 9-11 era. I mean, you know, the Patriot Act

was very popular. So whenever I consider it within that context, it's like we have watched how this is used. I mean, you could see certainly, right? Antifa, would not Antifa membership warrant red flag, you red flag law consideration? Come on. They don't need to have guns. I don't have a problem with that. I disagree, Priscilla. I think they have a right to have a gun if they want it.

And by the way, I don't like Antifa. It's mostly, I think, probably a pro-2A. It should be. You're probably on your side on this. But no, I just don't see it in the same way as this fundamental right that you can get any gun at any age, at any time, with no weight limit, with no background check. If you go to a gun show, you can get it with no background check whatsoever. I just don't— I support background checks.

I just don't agree. Age limits at 18 and not even any gun. I mean, there's a tremendous amount of restrictions in this country on magazines, state by state, depending on where you go. It's not that easy to go and to just get one. Yes. In a lot of states, it is pretty easy. I mean, this guy went on his 18th birthday, gets an AR-15,

but Texas is not even the loosest state in the country in terms of gun laws. I mean, you know, in Virginia, it's also very easy. There are a lot of places where it's, you know, it's pretty simple. And another thing I was thinking about is there's also an argument, which I find somewhat compelling, and I think has some truth to it,

that, you know, the really hardened criminals like this dude who's clearly decided and committed to committing this atrocious mass killing, that having more laws in place isn't going to stop them because obviously murder is illegal and they don't care about breaking that law. But it is noteworthy. This guy waited until he could legally purchase his guns. And so he did actually follow the legal process in order to acquire his firearms. So having things like waiting periods, 30-day waiting period, is that really a problem having red flag law, where if you have someone who you have to go through a court process and prove that they are imminent danger to themselves or others, being temporarily

barred, not indefinitely, temporarily barred from having firearm, could that help in the margins? Yes. Has it been upheld in the courts? Yes. Universal background checks, no brainer. I mean, again, I think there are some basic things that could be done which would help on the margins. And do we need to address mental health issues? Yes. Do we need to address the, like, societal decline? Yes. Do we need to address the fact that the media makes us hate each other and fear each other and all of that? Yes. But in the meantime, you could have a principle of harm reduction that at least you could have some fewer number of people not suffering through this atrocious grief and tragedy. I think a lot of that, you know, it's going to be a derivative of trust.

And we'll see how it works also with the legislation, how the administration. We haven't heard yet. It's not going to go anywhere. We already know what's going to happen. Almost certainly. Imagine to me, actually, I do think it's certainly possible that some sort of background check could pass. I mean, they only need nine votes in order to make that happen.

I doubt it. I do. But remember, though, Schumer does control the floor. McConnell does not have as ironclad on the caucus. You have at least, you know, well, Collins, Maine is a tricky one whenever it comes to gun rights. Alaska as well. So you can't necessarily count on them. I think there's only two senators who are in support, two Republican senators who were in support of Manchin Toomey,

who are still in the Senate. Well, Toomey was retiring, so he's got to vote there. I believe Rubio actually was pro-red flag law back in Florida, given that he backs that. So it's possible that he could vote for something. I'm going to have to look again at the overall, you know, what the actual vote count is on there. But if it is truly, as you say, just a universal background check, then yeah, I mean, look, I absolutely would support it. And I do think that it would come from a cynical place. But I do understand also, truly, like where the immense frustration of give an inch seems to come from because there's just such a lack of good faith. And I'm not saying it isn't bidirectional because it certainly is. But there is just such a lack of good faith in the current political system that giving even also to the base.

I mean, the red flag law is a good example. Dan Crenshaw was crucified in Texas for supporting red flag legislation. Absolutely crucified and continues to be to this day for supporting that. He still got a seat, doesn't he? He has a seat. He still has a seat. Marco Rubio supporting red flag legislation. Absolutely crucified and continues to be to this day for supporting that. He's still got his seat, doesn't he? He has his seat. He still has his seat. Marco Rubio supported red flag. He's still got his seat.

Florida's a little bit different because of Parkland. Joe Manchin supported Manchin-Toomey in West Virginia. And, you know, famously in one of his ads had, like, shot the climate legislation. Remember that? Of course. And then he signs on Manchin-Toomey. Still holds his seat in very difficult terrain for Democrats. So, you know, if you go along with things that are well within the mainstream of public opinion, which frankly have been kept off the table primarily because of the power organization money and very dedicated, hardcore supporters of the Second Amendment, those things have been kept off the table. If you stay in the realm of those things, I think politically you're going to be fine because, I mean, the nation looks at this and they're disgusted with the fact that we continue to have these mashups. We just had the

same thing in Buffalo unfold. And that nothing happens. I mean, you could then, at least you could say, okay, we tried to do something to make it that this happens less often that, you know, as a society, just on a basic level, we were able to pass some kind of bill to approach this in some kind of way. But over over decades, I mean, not a single piece of legislation to address this grief and trauma and the fact that we're such a massive outlier in terms of violence. And I do think that there is a broad public frustration and sense of despair that we just seem to, on such a basic level, be unable to do even the obvious, obvious things. On that, I absolutely certainly agree. Let's get to the derangement here. This is just a really disgusting view of people online in the middle of these immense tragedies and crises. You just need to stop.

First and foremost, and this is all sides. We've got it all for everybody here today. Yes, we do. Let's start with the first one. This one pissed me off to no end, which is that whoever this guy is, Lewis, the Eric Lewis, tweets out, the father of one of the victims from the Texas shooting was pro-gun and literally championing Kyle Rittenhouse on Facebook. And look, he was roundly criticized, but he also garnered over 11,000 likes and a lot of people who supported him and said, this is what you actually have to do.

How about we let the man grieve his kids regardless of his politics while his little child is dead? I mean, does it matter what exactly he supported or not? You know, I'd also point out that he's a Latino American or Hispanic American. So, you know, maybe ask yourself why exactly some Latino guy in Uvalde shit posting pro Kyle Rittenhouse memes as to how exactly that happened culturally. That might actually help you out. But what is the sickness? I can't imagine. I can't imagine. You know, even these guys. Heart such a heartless asshole that you basically look at this and are like, I mean, the insinuation here is that you deserve to have your child murdered because you have bad politics. Like, get the fuck out of here. I saw it with Fred.

You know, there's a lot of people out there. Fred Guttenberg, you know, others who become major political activists after their kids get killed. You don't say anything because their kids were killed, okay? They can say whatever they want. It's a free country. I remember also there were people pissed off one time. This was back in the 90s. Whenever somebody was, I think some guy's dad

who was killed in Black Hawk Down didn't want to shake Clinton's hand. And when he was in the Medal of Honor ceremony, yeah, let the man be. You know, his kid was killed in Black Hawk Down. Or, you know, it drives me insane to turn these people into targets. Cindy Sheehan. Yeah, exactly.

Don't say anything. She can say what she wants. You know, the rest of the people around her, whatever. But, well, I mean, everybody's got a freedom of speech. But Cindy. Well, they were right about the Iraq War, too. Cindy, her son was killed in Iraq. It's like the way that we turn these people

into political targets is just a complete sickness. And then also, what the hell is wrong with this country? Where the immediate thing that happens is we're like, oh, was the shooter a white racist or was he not? Let's find out the race immediately and trying to turn it into a thing. Or here, over on Fox News, you found this one. Let's put it up there. These guys immediately are like, oh, we need bulletproof blankets and booby traps and armed military contractors in school.

Let me read to you a little bit of what they said here because it really is something. On the booby traps, they had some dude on who said, we need to install man traps, a series of interlocking doors at the school entrance that are triggered by tripwire. It traps a shooter like a rat. It's tripwires. It's man traps. It's not labor.

It's not gun control. This other person who wanted the blanket, bulletproof blankets said, and I quote, instead of parents buying their kids all these tools and toys and games, invest in the classroom, make it safer. They have blankets that you can put up on the wall that are colorful and beautiful, but they're ballistic blankets. And, you know, what was going on on Fox is they don't want to talk even about like background checks or anything like that, which again would be broadly popular even with their audience. They don't really want to have that conversation. The normal place they go is like, we need more good guys with guns. Well, that doesn't really work out in this situation either because the quote-unquote good guys with guns were on the scene from the beginning and we already

covered in depth what a complete failure that ultimately was. And they quote unquote contained the killer in a classroom where he massacred an entire class of fourth grade students. So instead they have gone very hard in the direction of basically like making schools hardened military targets. And Ted Cruz was on, you know, talking about how we need to mandate a single door for schools and more, you know, there need to be more police officers on the scene when obviously the number of police officers wasn't ultimately the problem. So, you know, they also, they're playing a game here because they don't want to be honest about some of the basic things that could make a difference. They also, you know, they'll throw out the mental health thing, and it's a very similar dynamic to Governor Abbott. Then if you actually propose something that would, you know, cover people in terms of their mental health, they don't really want to—they're not interested in that either. That one really gets me.

We got to go with—we're going with ballistic blankets. That's the solution they're offering. Yeah, and then Paul Gosar—let's put this up there. I mean, why do these boomers fall for—this is even in the tweets immediately afterwards. We already know fool. We know already fool. It's a transsexual leftist illegal alien named Salvatore Ramos. It's apparently your kind of trash.

Wrong on everything except the name. Number one, he's not trans. Number two, I mean, there's no current indication that he's alive. Don't know his politics. Number three, he was born in North Dakota. He's an American citizen. Well, and he was far from the only one. Yeah, there were people who were spreading.

I even saw it on my timeline. They're like, oh, this is Salvador Ramos with a trans flag. It took one Google search to be like, oh, is this true? But I don't think it matters. But I was like, okay, is it true or not? No, it actually wasn't true. It was some random trans person. So, you know, why is it that people are

just so willing? And I saw this also during, it was the crazy guy who shot all those congressmen or shot at all those congressmen. Look, he was a Bernie bro. I'm like, he's just a nut job. He's a nut job. These people are nuts. Nicholas Cruz, nuts. I mean, take what they say, obviously in terms of their motivation and all that, only, that, only with a grain of salt on anything grand politically, except for anybody who, like the Pulse guy. Yeah, he was part of ISIS. Okay, that one is pretty clear. The rest of them, I mean, even then, even when you're, you know, if whatever propels you to be a maniac who slaughters a bunch of gay people in a nightclub, they're insanity. There just seems to be this deep want to try and connect these people to broader political movements for a political agenda.

Remember, there was some Nation of Islam guy who stabbed a cop here in D.C. on the Capitol after January 6th. The media was like, oh, nobody. Listen, just report the facts. It's fine. You know, everybody, I think, is, well, has it wherewithal to say that putting shooters in and turning these massive crimes immediately into some broader political commentary on a movement that you don't like is sick. Because then eventually it will happen regarding somebody who agrees with yours. And then the other side will do that too. It's a doom spiral.

Yeah, I mean, it's complicated. You're certainly correct. There's this completely grotesque instinct among some figures online and some media figures and apparently some members of Congress as well. Yes, members of Congress. What? To take any situation and facts aside, like the facts don't matter. We're just going to take whatever our current culture war fixation is. And we're going to feed this incident through the lens of whatever our current culture war thing is.

So here it's, you know, with Gosar and I saw Candace Owens tweeting something similar. It's a transsexual leftist alien. Barring—fact's not necessary, right? I don't—I—what I don't like is when people say, don't make this political. Because the reality is the society we exist in, it is political. I mean, these—the broader cultural factors that lead us to a situation where this happens routinely in a way that it does not happen on their place. Yeah, those are political questions. So I don't want to say take the politics out of it altogether because clearly politics is, you know, the way

we try to address and handle these things as a society and the debates that we have. But like, there's such an instinct to want to just ignore whatever the facts are and apply your priors to the situation and feed it through your own sort of cultural trips. The other one I saw from the left, to call out my own people, was a bunch of people. And I saw a bunch of posts like this that were like, oh, so they were able to take the buffalo shooter alive because he's white. And then they killed this one because he's got a little bit of melanin. And it's like, what? Where did you even get that from? You wanted them to keep this murderer alive? What are you talking about?

Like, my issue is they didn't murder this motherfucker sooner. So, again, you're like, you're taking something that, yes, racism is real, there's problems, all of that, but don't apply, that doesn't make sense in this situation. So, save that for when it, you know, make that point when it actually makes some sense. So, that's what I would say about this. There's just such an instinct to immediately, whatever your personal, like, it'd be like if I looked at this situation, I was like, you know what the real problem is? Is that, you know, the parents aren't unionized or something like that. Right, yeah, that's right. You know, like, that doesn't make any sense.

But, you know, that's the thing I'm particularly obsessed with. So if I was applying my frame to this, I'd find some way to make it about like labor unions. And I just see people routinely doing that with these types of circumstances. It's really not helpful. That's completely insane. We should, uh, yeah, I wish we'd pulled one of those. Or if you were like, it's cause of this wokeness. I saw some people trying to make that point too, that there was like, this is because of defund the police and because people don't want to call the cops. They're like, there were like dozens of cops there. So literally what are you talking about?

And that's the part. I appreciate what you're saying, which is that oftentimes people will say don't make this political as a way in order to shield themselves from criticism. And whatever I'm talking about, specifically it's within this context. That example is a perfect one. Why didn't they shoot? They shot this guy because he wasn't white. What? Right.

No, we want them both shot. But no, actually not even that. If we could take them, you know, alive and put them on trial for their crimes, that's actually even better.

So you should want that. Barring that, like, yes, you're correct and I do want to stand corrected on that. But barring that, like, just make sure

he's not in a position to hurt people, whatever it takes to do that. And anyway, don't be an idiot or an asshole. That's the bottom line. Let's talk about Michigan. Let's talk about something else. Okay. In Michigan, this is actually a crazy, crazy story. Republican gubernatorial candidates who were vying in a primary to try to take on Gretchen Whitmer have now been suggested for disqualification because they turned in thousands of fraudulent

signatures in order to get on the ballot. Let's take a look at this tear sheet. It's from local news. They say massive signature fraud scandal upends Michigan GOP gubernatorial race. The state bureau ofions has recommended that five of the 10 Republican candidates hoping to oust Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer should be kicked off the ballot prior to the August 2nd primary due to tens of thousands of forged signatures. The Michigan Board of State Canvassers, which is evenly divided between Dems and Republicans, is set to meet and take up those recommendations. It wasn't just the gubernatorial candidates, though. There were also some down-ballot candidates for circuit judges, district judges, and congressional races

that also had these fraudulent signatures. What appears to have happened, Sagar, is that they all, I think, used the same— Service. That were apparently not just fraudsters but really bad at it. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. I don't know if you can see these signatures. They're on the right. But they're like really obviously forged where the handwriting all looks the same.

The signatures all look the same. There's like spaces of the ink. Right. They sort of like rotate through these ink colors to try to make it look like they're a different signature. It was just very obvious fraud. And, you know, in a way, these candidates, they're trying to say, oh, we're the victims here. But it's your basic job to make sure that you're actually getting the signatures, that the signatures are legit. And this isn't just like the random no-name candidates in this race. This is some of the top contenders in the primary who are now in danger of being

removed. One of them in particular, his last name is Craig. I can't remember his first name. He was widely seen as the odds-on favorite to win the nomination. They found that he had turned in over 11,000 invalid signatures, including nearly 10,000 from fraudulent petition circulators. And less than half of his 21,000 plus signatures were facially valid, leaving him well short of the 15,000 signatures needed to make the ballot. There was another candidate, one candidate just dropped out altogether. Looking at the circumstances, State Police Chief Michael Brown just dropped out of the race, even without having officially been removed. So it's pretty wild. And, of course, you know, I mean, it is a little bit ironic that, of course,

Michigan was one of the states where there was a big fuss raised about the sanctity of elections and these Democrats trying to cheat. Well, they got what they wanted. And all of that. And, you know, the laws are being enforced on their asses this time. They got what they wanted. They have the most stringent. I just looked it up.

They have the most stringent signature laws in the entire country. Oh, that's wonderful. So, okay, all right, you have your secure elections and now you can't run. So this has not happened since 2012, since a Republican from Livonia had to drop out after it was discovered that four members of his staff filed fraudulent signatures, also in Ottawa County, a judicial person. But it looks like it's been a decade since this actually happened in the state of Michigan. And like you said, they were working with a ring of what the press in Michigan is calling unscrupulous signature gatherers. So it's kind of a fascinating part, I think, of the election process. You know, people, I don't know if they know this, but Barack Obama won his, I think it was a state Senate race, or maybe it was his Senate

race. His initial primary, whichever one it actually was, won based upon challenging the signatures actually of his opponent. So this is a longstanding kind of tradition. His consultant at the time was like, there's no way that that person got that amount of signatures in time. Let's go through and look at it. And he was like, I don't want to win this way. And they were like, this is the only way. And he's like, okay, let's win this way, which is classical. Interesting. Well, that's how he writes it in his biography. You can decide exactly which way it goes. But look, I think it's a totally legitimate thing. And really what it shows you is that, you know, this is going to upend the race dramatically. Michigan was a very likely pickup for the Republicans. I mean, Whitmer, you know, she was popular during the pandemic.

But then also, you know, clearly things took a turn. There's some stuff going on with her husband and exactly lockdown procedure. And then, you know, she really dropped in national consciousness. Every swing state Democrat. Right, exactly. Everybody is very – and Michigan. I mean, Trump only lost Michigan, but it wasn't state Democrat. Right, exactly. Everybody is very, and Michigan, I mean, Trump only lost Michigan,

but it wasn't that close. It was close. I mean, he won it very close the first time and then also lost it very close the second time, which was not expected whatsoever ahead in terms of the polling. So given the national environment,

this should have been a relatively easy pickup for the GOP. And I just think, I enjoy the hypocrisy of whenever these things happen, when McCormick is like, no, no, no, no. Now we need to count undated mail-in ballots, which we said were the reason the whole election was stolen. It's like when their asses are on the line, then they don't care. Then they want the loosest election law interpretation possible,

which is just so perfect. Very true. Very true. So it'll be interesting. We'll keep track of that one and see if they're saved by this state board of canvassers if they allow them to stay on the ballot. But, I mean, the rule is the rule, right? I mean, you either have the number of signatures and they're legitimate or you don't. And, yeah, it sucks you got taken in by, like like a shitty fraudster who didn't even do a good job at forging the signatures.

It also does make you wonder like how often this happens and they just got like- Oh, I'm sure it happens all the time. And they just got like- I think it happens constantly. Someone who was incompetent at it. When you ran for office,

how did you do it? Did you have to like hire somebody? We had in Virginia, at least at the time, we didn't hire anybody. It was just, there was a fairly low number that you had to get.

And so, I mean, we and our campaign team went out and gathered them. That's what technically you're really supposed to do. I think it's a very smart part of the process. Like, why can't you just run for office? I don't mind it because it at least shows some level of commitment organization. Is that why they put it in place? Yeah, I think so.

I think that's the idea is, like, show that you're actually going to, you know, puts a little bit of a threshold that's think so. I think that's the idea is like show that you're actually gonna, you know, puts a little bit of a threshold that's achievable. I see. And it shouldn't be some crazy number. Like this is a fairly large number of signatures you have to get. To me, it shouldn't be some crazy number, but to have to go out in the community and actually gather a signature, I don't know. I don't have a big problem with that. I guess if you didn't have these laws, then ballots would just be overwhelmed with like a bunch of randos who just want to run but don't actually. Yeah. All right.

It makes sense now. Yeah. I think I get it. So anyway, we'll see where it goes. Let's go ahead to this is the fun story on this one. We've been saving this for all of you. Mike Pence tiptoeing around. Let's put this on the screen.

Tiptoeing away from Trump, laying the groundwork for a 2024 run, leaking it to The New York Times. By leaking it, I mean calling a reporter for The New York Times. Daymark. And not saying that he's going to run, but just says that he's keeping his options open. And he's looking at all of these things. And it's interesting because Pence is putting his case for the presidency based on what happened in Georgia. But that's incredibly foolish. Just because Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger are able to win in Georgia does not mean you're

going to win a GOP primary. Some 50-something percent of Republicans identify as Trump Republicans. Most registered Republicans, they like Donald Trump Trump some are willing to and say they want to move on from him but given the way that it works if he was the one on the ballot he would clearly have a runaway with it and even then if he were to have and enter a primary he would win almost every single one by over 50 percent I just think this is complete cope on the part of Mike Pence and it just shows you that this is the real delusion and dream of a lot of people who look at the victories of a Brian Kemp and a Brad Raffensperger is, oh, we're just going to go back to the good old days of Reaganism and Mitt Romney. It's like,

no, guys, because like I was telling you yesterday, who also won in that Georgia primary, Crystal? Marjorie Taylor Greene. Okay. This brand of MAGA, it's here forever. Like this is the Republican party at this point. And a lot of these guys are just not able to fathom that things have moved so far past them. It's why Chris Christie failed in 2016. And it's why even his current bid in order to attach himself also to Kemp and all this, this is a fake media creation. So you have to be able to have the analysis in your head at the same time that Trump voters are willing to move past Trump in some certain instances, but that he is the unambiguous leader of the Republican Party and any idea to the contrary is ludicrous.

I think the only person, only person, who would garner more than 15, 25% of the vote, and I think would still lose, is Ron DeSantis. And again, I think he would win maybe 25%, something like that. And I'd be like, oh, that's respectable. But I don't even think Pence could win, I don't know, maybe 10, 5, something like that. I think they're kind of in a bubble. I mean, he's surrounded by people who think like him and, you know, the type of Republicans that'll, like Pence, say sort of nice things about Trump in public but privately have been unhappy with him as the president for a long, you know, and were not into him in the primary and are mostly disturbed that their little faction doesn't have control of the party anymore. That's really what it ultimately is I mean we see these same fights within the Democratic Party where it's not

so much about principles or ideology as it is about I want my band of grifters to be back in charge and to be back in control of of the party because you, you know, I mean, ultimately, Trump and Pence stylistically are very different. But is Trump on a policy level much different than Mike Pence? No, not really. It was interesting. A lot of these differences are stylistic. I think there is definitely a difference between, like, I don't think Pence would have incited, you know, January 6th and wouldn't have, obviously, he stood as a bulwark against the whole idea of the fake slates of electors and all of that stuff. So that is a real difference. And I do think that that matters. I don't want to downplay that. But in terms of policy, they're kind of basically more or less the

same. No question. Nothing's going to change on a policy front, but nobody votes on policy. What did we all learn? You know, it's all about the style. It's all, that's simply, you know, Biden was elected on Vibe. So was Trump. Well, I'm not sure I, when you have candidates

who run campaigns that are devoid of policy, then yes, no one votes on policy. But look at Kemp. I mean, people, I don't like what

Brian Kemp has done as governor of Georgia, but the Republican base did. He was, you know, these draconian voter laws and the CRT and abortion and guns and whatever. Like he did all the things they wanted him to do. And so, you know, it wasn't just sort of signaling. It was based in large part on policy. So I thought

it was interesting in this article, they talk about the speech that Pence gave down when he was in Georgia stumping for Kemp. And he said it was well-received, if not overwhelmingly so. It had all the bearings of a Republican in Iowa leaning toward a presidential bid, knowing references to local polls, Midwest totems like John Deere and attacks on the Democrats in power in Washington. Yet it also had the distinct air of a pre-Trump brand of Republicanism with only the slightest criticism of the news media. And that was even gloved with all due respect references to becoming a grandfather and G-rated jokes that could have just as easily been delivered by Mitt Romney,

involved Washington, D.C. and hot air. So there's sort of this desire to put the, I think you used the term, boorishness of Trump and his acolytes. They don't like that. They don't like the lack of civility, you know, the overturning the apple cart at every turn. They kind of want to put that back in the bag. They want to get their band of consultants and grifters back in power. But ultimately, you know, clearly they don't have the hearts of the Republican base at this point. And so as much as we talked some this week about how Trump doesn't have quite the lock and hold on the Republican base as he used to, there is still no doubt that he is king of

this party. And anyone who is thinking of challenging themselves and thinks they really have a chance are pretty much deluded. I really don't get this. This is a broader commentary on a lot of these never Trump folks. Like, just do what I did. Just be like, you know, the Republican Party is clearly not with me. And that's fine. You know, it actually is fine to just be like, yeah, you know. It's kind of liberating, actually. No, it's very liberating. I feel great. I'm just like, yeah, I do what I do. You know, we do the show together and I say what I say. And, you know, I occasionally praise somebody here, somebody there. I think that's how a lot of people engage with politics.

There seems to be this need to be like, no, no, no, the party has lost what it is. You don't decide. The voters decide. The voters decide that they love Donald Trump. That's genuinely fine. It's just okay. You can move past it.

Same with the Democrats. You can just be like, okay, the voters went with this way. That means I identify more with this particular faction. Every once in a while, you have a collaboration on something. That's completely fine. And yet, there just seems this need to be like, I'm going to reclaim the old identity. Like, this is what we really stand for. It's like, no, you don't. You know, this is, ultimately, democracy is democratic. And I think that's just something that a lot of people don't really want to grapple with. Yeah, well, then Never Trump, a lot of them them just to, they found like a new grift.

Yeah. Because they're, yeah, they're Rick Wilson's of the world. Like their particular, their grift in the Republican Party was over. 100%. So they found a new grift as the leaders of the resistance in the Democratic Party. And, you know, weirdly sort of like immediately switched some of their cultural inclinations to fit the new friends and band of people that they're surrounding themselves with. So some of their cultural inclinations to fit the new friends and band of people that they're surrounding themselves with. So some of it is just that

as well. And with Mike Pence too, some of it is just, I think he is the type that really sees himself as like, this is my destiny. God has called me to be president of the United States. And so he's going to keep persisting in that faith that he's like the special chosen one to lead the nation out of whatever crisis we're in. Good point. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? I don't think we've fully processed how extraordinary and how dire the circumstances facing the Democratic Party are right now. A midterm drubbing in which they lose both chambers is all but guaranteed. They hold the White House, and yet almost no one really believes the old man at Pennsylvania Avenue right now is actually going to go for it again, nor does anyone believe that if he does go for it again,

that he is actually well-positioned to win. The hand-picked successor to Biden has proven herself to be completely unelectable and an even worse choice to beat Trump than the flagging Biden. And while slimy Pete plots on the sidelines with big donor backers, Dem insiders cannot figure out how to move the Black female vice president out of the way without facing a revolt and being called both racist and sexist. Not that it is at all clear that Pete would be any better shape electorally than either Biden or Kamala. Have you considered how most black people feel about that man? In other words, demolits have caught themselves in a trap entirely of their own making. After all,

they wanted Biden, they picked Kamala, they leaned into representation-only identity politics, and crucially, they have gone out of their way to crush anything outside of the Mayo-Pete brand of status quo politics. That's the backdrop for a dishy new piece from New York Magazine, which plumbs the depths of Democratic despair and backbiting. Now, the headline here really captures the angst, quote, there has to be a backup plan. There's a backup plan, right? Inside the 2024 soul-searching that is happening in every corner of the Democratic Party. Now, the piece admits that Washington insiders are just as skeptical as the general public about whether Biden will actually attempt a second go-route. And the general public is plenty skeptical. Only 29% of voters are convinced

that Biden is going to run again, in spite of his assurances to the contrary. This skepticism extends from the general population to regular rank-and-file Democrats, in spite of his assurances to the contrary. This skepticism extends from the general population to regular rank-and-file Democrats, a majority of whom remain unconvinced that he will be on the ticket in 2024. That insider skepticism is fueled in part by Biden himself, who famously framed his presidency as a bridge to the future, by which he meant candidates like Pete Buttigieg, who have the same bad old ideas, just in a younger body. Now, the article doesn't mention it, but it's not clear that even if Biden decides he's up for another go-round, the Democratic voters themselves are going to back him. A CNN poll earlier this

year found majority support for a Biden alternative. Only 45% of party backers want to see him re-nominated. Now, it is impossible to overstate just how extraordinary it is for the sitting incumbent president to be so thoroughly rejected by his own party's voters. But the electability standard set up by the Democratic establishment ultimately cuts both ways. Dem voters have been primed to care only about electability to the exclusion of any actual principle or issue. That's how we ended up with Biden in the first place. Now that his political fortunes are on the rocks, those same electability focused voters, well, they can read the polls and they see they might be better off with a different horse. After all, it's not like they've been encouraged to participate in a broader political

project, something worth fighting for outside of which candidates are up or down in the polls. They have been drilled repeatedly on the idea that the only thing that matters to the exclusion of all else is beating Trump. So it makes plenty of sense that they'd have no qualms about abandoning this guy, who's turned out to be a very poor and very unpopular president, for someone they think might better fit their electability-over-everything model. The question, of course, is who? There's one person who is obviously not an improvement on the electability front, and that would be Kamala Harris. So dumb are the party elders that they have handpicked a successor who had already proven to be a total electoral flop. But her trailblazing identity,

the very resume item she was selected for, has proven to be like handcuffs for the party, preventing them from anointing a different successor and risk being branded as racist and sexist by the K-Hive types. Biden himself has clearly soured on his veep. This article reveals that their weekly lunches modeled on the Obama-Biden relationship quickly dropped down to bi-weekly lunches, and so far this year, they have only managed to dine together twice. The concern over Biden's physical and electoral capabilities, combined with the manifest

shortcomings of Kamala Harris have provoked a full-on donor class freakout. Again, according to New York Magazine, quote, several of the party's largest donors have bombarded Obama's old associates with pleas for insight into some sort of top secret real plan that must exist for the next presidential contest. Spoiler alert, there is no top secret real plan. Just hope that things will magically improve or that Biden can pull off what Macron did in France, winning re-election in spite of most of the public hating him, because the alternative is even worse. As one former Biden aide explained, quote, we've done this before. Yeah, everything seems bad. But when it's game time and you've got a fascist up there, everyone will say, let's do this. And that refrain right there is as perfect a summation as you could possibly get of exactly how Democrats found themselves in this disastrous predicament.

Facing down an opposition party elite that does have extreme views and actual conspiracy lunatics and white nationalists and unable to do a damn thing about it because they'd rather keep their little power-hungry grift going and then tell everyone they had no choice but to back them because of the fascists than let in any new blood with any different ideas and not completely beholden to the disgusting, grotesque corporate alliance. You want to know where the future of the Democratic Party is? It is being crushed systematically in primaries across the country under the weight of millions of dollars in races like the one that Jessica Cisneros looks set to narrowly lose. Nina Turner here is a perfect example. Listen, put aside whatever you think of her politics. You will not find a more talented, charismatic orator and inspirational figure in the country. But instead of allowing her primary last cycle to unfold naturally in district voters to make their choice, the establishment pulled out

every trick in the book to bring her down. So now, instead of the talented Nina Turner, they end up with the mediocre, forgettable Chantel Brown, whose only job is to recite the prescribed talking points and fall in line. Cultivating the bland and the milquetoast has literally been the explicit project of the Democratic Party for decades. They tried to force a union-busting nobody Steve Irwin through a primary to defeat the passionate electric Summer Lee. They literally wanted the most underwhelming person in history, Conor Lamb, over the gregarious, prototypical, working-class everyman John Fetterman. Their recruitment focused heavily on the fabulously wealthy and rich lawyers for the sole reason that these are the people who can most easily top personal wealth

and personal network wealth to line the pockets of the consultant class. So why should anyone be surprised that their most inspiring offering is a McKinsey ghoul who has never believed a single thing in his entire life. The Democratic Party is a factory. People like Mayor Pete are the product. Anything that doesn't fit in that model is a threat and must be taken out back and shot. And then they all stand around and fantasize about a candidate with the charisma of, say, a cucumber instead of a jar of mayonnaise, and panic about the utter dearth of talent that would lead you to believe that a declining 82-year-old man is still your best political player. You people made your mediocre, out-of-touch, values-free bed. Unfortunately, it's all the rest of us who are going to have

to lay in it. And Sagar, this piece is extraordinary because it shows... And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, there is a deep, pervading sickness in America today. It manifests itself in all kinds of ways. Today, you see it more than ever. Social isolation, all-time high, bolstered by the COVID lockdowns. Opioid, drug overdose is killing more Americans a year than were lost in the entire Vietnam War. Massive spikes in domestic violence, disputes are all turning deadly, violence is on the street, bolstered by a fundamental

feeling that the world has just gone mad. And the worst and most obvious manifestation of this is what we saw in Uvalde, Texas. 19 innocent little kids and two teachers slain by a madman. There's a lot of questions about law enforcement's handling of this case so far. One is that I think that will be very inconvenient for many sides of this debate when all the facts are actually known. But the basic fact remains this. The gun debate in this country basically remains the same that it has been for the last 30 to 40 years. Should we ban assault weapons or not? Should we fix loopholes in the background check system? If you ask me on the latter, 100% aboard. There remains, though, a fundamental misunderstanding about the genesis of the problem. As I spoke about yesterday in my discussion with Crystal, there is a belief

amongst a segment of the liberal elite that the gun lobby itself is somehow the main obstacle to most gun laws. On the latter side, regarding background checks, it is true on the margins. But on a macro political level, here is the truth. Support for guns is at an all-time high in America for a simple reason, lack of trust in our institutions and among each other. For people in the United States who not only believe in the Second Amendment, but are among the nearly 100 million Americans or so who either own a gun or live in a household with one, there has to be an immense amount of social trust in both each other and our institutions to give any ground whatsoever in good faith, especially on something that is enshrined as a right in the Constitution.

And unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, social trust in our government is literally near the all-time low. Only 2% of Americans today say the government does what is right always. Only 22% say that they do it most of the time. Those numbers in the 1960s were in the high 70s and 80s,

collapsing and dwindling over time ever since. In fact, there is a reason the only time an assault weapons ban even passed in America was 1994. Look at the chart that I showed you previously. There was a temporary spike in government trust after and during winning the Cold War during that economic boon of 1993. Furthermore, it is not like that we trust anyone else, especially each other. The level of Americans who have a high trust in each other is at an all-time low. In fact, out of all the adults surveyed, a full one-third have low trust in each other, and 41% only have medium. Only 22% have high. If you look at socioeconomic status, those who have a high school degree or who make less than $30,000 a year

have a majority of those people who do not trust each other or anybody else. Trust continues to go up and is higher amongst the income scale and if you have a postgraduate degree. In other words, we have no faith in the government. Most people have no faith in the government, most people have no faith in each other, and if you're on the lower end of the educational and income spectrum, you really, really don't have any trust in anyone. Buying a gun in America, especially in the last two years, is not generally an expression about hunting. It is an affirmation you may need to use deadly force to defend yourself because you do not trust that the police will save you if it comes to that, or you don not trust that the police will save you if it comes to that, or you don't trust that the police won't come for you. And honestly, can you really argue with that?

We were forcibly locked down by our government for months, longer than it was needed in large swaths of this country. The sitting president denied the election results and tried to implement a soft coup. And yes, we had riots in the street, which billions of dollars in property was burned. Even today, two years later here in DC, crime is skyrocketing. It is common knowledge. You are on your own when you get into a very bad situation. Five million individuals became new gun owners just in 2020-21. If you consider 2020 and you combine it with 2022, that number is possibly as high as 10 million, according to some estimates. Consider how large that is. When you survey the number one response that the people who bought one is,

I think I might have to defend myself. Even before the insanity of the last three years, Americans were already feeling strained. How else do things become so insane? You elect a dude who was the host of The Apprentice. And when you look at the data, no surprise, there has never been less support than right now for a ban on handguns. Right now, the number sits at 19% of Americans who are okay with a ban. That has dropped from 61 in 1961. The slow fall tracks exactly with the same graph I showed you first, trust in government. When you

have high trust in government, you're willing to compromise and give up some level of control. At record low trust, the answer is, of course, hell no. As David Shore points out, in 2017, when Democrats had a plus eight advantage on the generic ballot, Republicans still had a plus four advantage on their position with guns. And the clear message was that even some Democrats did not agree with their own party on gun policy. And look, sure, I think some small changes to the background system are fine. The main message to all of those who want to do something and who wish it could be just as easy as just passing some law in the Senate. But honestly, it's not.

The issue is we live in an exceptionally free country with a right to firearm in some form. And in that exceptionally free country, we do not trust each other. We do not trust the government. And our population, especially younger ones like the person who shot up the school, are increasingly losing it. Suicide rates amongst young people skyrocketed during the pandemic. So did drug use and depression. Our kids and our people are sick. And the people paying the price are not just the tiny ones murdered in Uvalde, but many, many more across this nation.

And what do we do about it? I honestly don't know. But I do know that the first step is being honest about it. And Crystal, I mean, the trust numbers, that is just deeply, deeply sad. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now is Rupert Russell. He's an expert on commodities. He's the author of Price Wars. Let's put this up there on the screen, How the Commodities Markets Made Our Chaotic World. And Rupert is here to talk with us about how the war in Ukraine is having a major crisis

in terms of the food crisis and in terms of embattled farmers. Rupert, first of all, thank you so much for joining us. Just outline a little bit of how your background is informed, what you see happening right now with the Ukraine situation. Sure. So the past four years I spent writing this book, Price Wars, and also making a documentary film that went along with it. And it was essentially an investigation into the tumultuous 2010s. I covered everything from the global financial crisis to the Arab Spring, the war in Ukraine, the collapse in Venezuela, even the US border crisis. What I was able to do was link

each of these events to spikes in the global commodity markets. And what was even more worrying was that there was in fact a feedback loop whereby a spike in the markets would create war, riot, revolution that would cause markets to spike. And then in turn, we would have a kind of feedback loop and this is precisely what we're seeing right now in 2021 we saw energy prices going up oil and gas this fueled the kremlin's coffers this emboldened putin by the way just as it did in 2008 and 2014 and we saw similar commodity price rises and high prices um this thing created unfortunately the war as we know it fueled the war it enabled the war in february and it has in turn caused a commodity price shock which is now being

felt globally so we're now seeing high oil prices high food prices those prices are also extremely uh volatile and that's also feeding into inflation worldwide, which is essentially causing every single government in the world that's exposed to these markets to become increasingly unpopular and creating domestic political crises. And so is your theory basically you track how these commodity price shocks ultimately leads to destabilization and unrest in countries around the world? Absolutely. So food prices in particular, in many parts of the world, particularly the Middle East,

are part of a kind of social contract. It's called the democracy of bread, whereby regimes derive the legitimacy for making life livable, and that usually means guaranteeing the price of food. But of course, the price of oil is also very, very important. We can see in the United States, there's a similar social contract around gas prices, whereby we see presidential approval ratings ebb and flow with the gas price. And even at the beginning of this year, in January, the Kazakhstan government was overthrown when they cut fuel subsidies, essentially doubling the price of fuel. So prices are an extremely important part of the bedrock of political systems. And of course, this isn't a new phenomenon. This goes all the way back to the

French Revolution and, you know, Marie Antoinette's famous quip, let them eat cake. You know, whenever I'm looking here at what you're talking about, about the loss of major supplies with farmers and more, can you just go into what this means also for Ukraine itself? I mean, it almost feels terrible to say, how is this going to affect our food price? But what about them? Are they going to have the supplies that they need? Because we see Russians also intentionally targeting some of their grain reserves. Absolutely. Of course, this is going to be a gigantic catastrophe for Ukraine, and particularly getting in not just raw commodities such as diesel and food, although they have some in supplies, but also getting in refined products such as diesel,

which is absolutely fundamental for their economy, for their farms, but also for the war effort as well. And so are we seeing any signs of that global political unrest around the world that maybe hasn't really popped up in the American media yet? Absolutely. We're beginning to see the start of it. So we're were in 2010 and 2011 with the Arab Spring. And one of the reasons is that those disturbances never ended. The civil war in Libya is still going on. The same is true for Syria and for Yemen as well. And so, I mean, the final question I really have for you, Rupert, is what can we do about it? Is there anything that the West can realistically do about what has happened here?

Or is this a relative inevitability? The commodity price shock was caused by Putin's invasion of Ukraine. But it's absolutely been amplified by the way in which the West and America in particular has structured the global commodity markets. The rising food prices are in part speculators pricing in perceived risk and perceived shortages globally. But it's worth remembering that even though Russia and Ukraine account for 25 percent of the world's exports, they actually only account for 0.9 percent of global wheat production. That's to say that most production is done domestically by countries. And so what you're seeing is sort of two things happening simultaneously. One is those

countries that Ukraine's wheat was destined to. Unfortunately, some of these countries are very vulnerable, such as Bangladesh, Lebanon, Yemen. Those are going to have to source their wheat from more expensive places because Ukrainian wheat is going to have to source their wheat from more expensive places because Ukrainian wheat is relatively cheap. And that's going to lead to higher prices simply on switching suppliers. And that's really where the US and other players needs to really kind of step in and make sure they can get affordable wheat. The other part of this, remember, is that this isn't just about where is Ukraine's wheat going, it's about the global price of wheat, which everybody has to pay, right? So those commodity prices you see on the exchanges in Chicago and Atlanta

really impact the local prices of food everywhere from Argentina to Sri Lanka to Cairo. And unfortunately, those are being exacerbated by the ways in which the commodity markets have been financialized. We're seeing it amplified by algorithmic traders, trend followers. Also, we're seeing retail investors getting in on this. There are sort of Reddit forums, like with GameStop, where people are investing through ETFs on weak futures. And lastly, which is what worries me the most, is that many institutional investors are using commodities as an inflation hedge. That's to say that to kind of diversify

their portfolios and protect against inflation in the US, they park a bunch of their money in commodity futures. And this has the self-fulfilling effect of actually causing commodity prices to rise and that in turn fuels inflation. So that piece of it is absolutely underneath U.S. regulatory jurisdiction. And it should have been stopped in 2011 when it was identified as a problem. It was legislated in Dodd-Frank, but unfortunately, due to many lawsuits launched by Wall Street, that was not implemented. And now is definitely the time. That's such an important point. I mean, throughout modern human history, price of bread is a very good determinant of whether you're going to have social unrest. And so this is a really important one to keep your eye on. Guys,

the book is Price Wars. We recommend it to all of you. Rupert, thank you so much for being with us today. Thanks, Rupert. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. Premium subscribers, as a reminder, you guys have an email that will be coming your way, kind of state of the breaking points as we approach our one-year anniversary. It's been our great privilege in order to do this show.

If you can support us, of course, we deeply appreciate it, especially times like this, especially the most insane ones, trying to break it all down for people. I always hear, and I'm sure you do, I so appreciate the way you're able to talk to each other and I wish it would all look like this, and so do we. That's why we're working to build a new mainstream.

We're hiring a lot more people. We've got big things in the works, and we'll get into that in the happier times. Thank you all so much for your support, of course, and we will see you all next week. Love you all. See you on Monday. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children.

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