Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/28/24: Dave Smith Sounds Off On Trump And RFK Jr Libertarian Convention, Biden Mouthpiece Rage Copes Over Bad Polling, South Park Exposes US Healthcare System

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Biden mouthpiece rage copes over bad polling, South Park exposes US healthcare system, Dave Smith sounds off on Trump and RFK at Libertarian Convention.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Let's go ahead and move to Joe Biden, as we said, his own presidency. What's happening here? There is a growing recognition amongst the Biden campaign. Things are not going very well. Let's put this up there on the screen. Biden needs more empathy on the economy, Democrats say. I can't help but just love these things. Empathy on the economy. It's like, yeah, that's what we need.

We need empathy on the economy, not policy on the economy. They always assume it's a messaging issue, not a reality issue. The president often touts strong job numbers, even as voters care more about inflation. Yeah, those stupid voters. Voter pessimism on the economy and Biden's handling of it appear locked in over five months before election day surveys showing many voters holding a rosier view of the pre-pandemic economy under Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. As he talks about the economy, Biden has often put an emphasis on positive data. At a recent fundraiser in Boston, he actually was touting his numbers on jobs and investments

in manufacturing. We have to do more, but he says, but inflation has dropped from 9% to 3%. Hmm. But what about cumulative inflation, my guy? What's the amount of inflation today versus where it was when you took office? That is more than 20%, especially whenever we look at grocery prices, gas prices, many of the other critical things, home prices as well. They say, and as we pointed to in our previous show, the Cook Political Report already shows Trump leading Biden in six

out of seven swing states. That's just one. We've done myriad polls here. I basically haven't found a single one where Biden is leading in the majority of those states. If we look at the RealClearPolitics polling average, Trump is up in every single one of these except tied, I believe, in the state of Wisconsin. I mean, these are all not just terrible polling numbers, but the fundamental strengths for Trump point to the exact same signs of strength where they were in 2020. So even though 2020 was off in terms of Biden, the one that we would consistently hear from the Trump campaign and others was look at his numbers on the economy. They're strong, strong, strong. And we would

always, I wouldn't say brush it off. We're like, maybe, but COVID is still the number one issue. The economy really came to save Trump whenever it came to making the election as close as it was back in 2020. And it really was the main driver of a lot of his growth, like with Latinos. Increasingly, we watched that young people, black voters, Latino voters, bleeding parts of that coalition to Donald Trump, highly strengthening him in the Sun Belt and possibly, you know, all across the nation. All of that comes back to economic pessimism under Biden and economic, at least, you know, back thinking that Trump can recreate some of the success that he had whenever he was

president. And I think while some Democrats and some people in Biden world are increasingly concerned, they're increasingly sounding the alarm. All indications are that Biden and his core team are like, no, we got it, are totally complacent. They think they're being underestimated. Yet again, they overlearned the lesson of 2020, in which they were sort of like written off, understandably, because they were getting like fourth and fifth place in every primary, and then they were able to come from behind. And so they just have this total arrogance of whatever the polls say, I'm sure we're fine. We understand the American electorate better than you do. And so we're just going to hand wave this away and live in a fantasy world, hashtag unskew the polls. I think that continues to be the operating assumption among the people that actually

matter in the Biden campaign, which is a very small circle of people. At least that's what I have to assume since they're not really changing course on anything. And, you know, it's so true. Like, they really believe that the issue for them on the economy or with regard to, you know, Israel and upset with their foreign policy is like, oh, we just got to find the right slogan. We got to find the right method. We're going to show you in a little bit. They're hiring a meme manager to appeal to the young people. That'll fix it. Maybe it's not a messaging problem. Maybe there's a reality problem here. Maybe people see that their net worth has declined. Maybe people are still feeling the lingering impact of inflation, which continues,

by the way. It's not at the high levels that it was, but it does continue. One of the things that we were looking at previously when we were feeling a little bit more, you know, like Joe Biden could still pull this thing off, was that the consumer sentiment and people's feelings about the economy were getting better. They were sort of like trending in the right direction. Things were of like trending in the right direction. Things were sort of trending in the right direction for him. That has stopped. And so now I think part of what's reflected in this piece from whatever Democrats they

talk to who are actually pulling the fire alarm is this realization that like, OK, there's not going to be some magical rescue of the economy that makes people feel different before election day. So we have to deal with this landscape as it exists. And just gaslighting people and trying to convince them things are better than they actually are is not the ticket. Not the ticket. Yeah, exactly. And well, Crystal, do we want to take people through this quote? There's a, if we want to just give everybody a perfect example of what cope on an industrial scale looks like, let's put this up there on the screen. This is the latest New Yorker interview from Isaac Scheutner with Simon

Rosenberg. He is a Democratic strategist, and he is one of those who firmly believes that President Biden is not getting the credit that he deserves and that he's actually doing much better than he currently is. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, shall we? Now, here it says, Is the Biden campaign running on false hope? They say, as FiveThirtyEight makes clear in their piece, while the polls in a few closely watched races were biased towards Republicans, the polls overall still had a bit of a bias towards Democrats.

That's because generic ballot polls, the most common type of poll last cycle, has a weighted average bias of D plus one nine, and polls of several Leslie coachwatch races like governorships and Ohio and Florida have skewed towards Democrats. Okay, let's go to the next part. And he says at the very end, he literally goes, I am ending this interview because what you're doing is ridiculous. And he says, I have definitive proof what you're saying is not true. I don't care. I know what 538 wrote. I live this every day. So the point is that you are saying is wrong. I am on the record saying that what FiveThirtyEight has written is incorrect,

and I have given you definitive proof otherwise. He literally believes that his own internal, like, skewing the polls crystal is, is, is, is, is, quote, direct proof. He says, the point I am making is the polls couldn't have been correct in 2022 if real clear politics ended up 54 seats in the Senate. I mean, it's just not possible, right? So he keeps using, you know, recency bias throughout the interview. But so much of this is an inability to grapple with the data of today. And I really encourage people to read this.

Read this whole, it was astonishing. It is. Because, okay, so just to give you. Read this whole, it was astonishing. It is. Because, okay, so just to give you a little bit of backstory on this dude. He came to prominence in the midterms because he was one of the few people who listened to his credit. Yes. Was kind of right. He was like, this red wave thing is not happening. I think Democrats are going to do just fine.

And he was right. Ryan, I believe, and Emily had him on counterpoints to make the case in favor of the Democrats before the midterms. And so that gave him a lot of cachet. So people have been really following. I think he has a sub stack. I think it's called like Hopium. Yeah, it is. Something like that.

Yeah. So anyway, he has a sub stack where he does his like, here's why things are actually great for the Democrats. And don't worry, you got nothing to worry about, et cetera. That's like how he makes his living, at least some portion of it at this point. So he's got a lot personally invested in this narrative. That's important to keep in mind. And listen, if someone's got a track record of success, you should take them seriously. So I've been watching what he's been tweeting out and I'm like, okay, well, what's the case for the Democrats? Nothing. And I'm not the only one who said this, but nothing has made me feel more like, oh, they're getting their asses kicked.

Yes. Than seeing how flimsy and how fragile this man was when he was pushed at all. Like, Chotner, if you guys have read any of his interviews, he's famously an excellent interviewer. And even in these phone conversations, like the number of people that he is just embarrassed and humiliated is, you know, miles long.

I don't know why people even agree to the interviews. I don't know why they don't better prepare for the interviews. But anyway, it's always worth reading because he exposes people. He's very good at that. But on this one, he wasn't even going hard. He was just like, hey, but 538 says this other thing. And Rosenberg freaks out, tries to end the interview because this is just insane. And I'm ending this interview. This is ridiculous. Chandra seems genuinely shocked. He's like, wait, why? What's going on? And so it just shows you even their greatest

advocate, when even pushed on his data, the tiniest bit just completely crumbles. So if that's what they're banking on, I don't know. I mean, I also felt like, though, I felt like I could make a better case for Joe Biden's political prospects than this dude, because, you know, one of the things that we always try to bring up in the interest of like humility and uncertainty and a lot of things can happen, blah, blah, blah, is the fact that Democrats haven't outperformed in these special elections. I mean, he really didn't even get into that before he started having total meltdown cities. So if this is the strength of the case being made by the Joe Biden advocates, they're in very rough shape at this point.

All the fundamentals, too, are terrible. Let's put this up here, for example, on the screen. And this is where, you know, even empathy on the economy at a certain point, I don't even care anymore at this point. For the first time in two years, there is no major American metro where home prices are falling. Nationwide, median sale price has risen to a record of $383,000, up from 4.8% year over year. Median monthly housing payment is currently at the record $28.90, up 15% year over year. Median monthly housing payment is currently at the record 2890, up 15% year over year. All of that is because of interest rates. Now, if he had been ahead of the game and he'd been really trying to either pass legislation or talk about this to hit home to Americans that

he understood, that's one thing. You could maybe build an empathetic case. But if you're coming to it five months out of the election, where have you been, man? You've been focused on Ukraine and Israel this entire time when my interest payments are going up to seven, 8%, even, even people who have an 800 credit score, they're paying 7.2% mortgage rate. That's nuts. And yes, I know that it is not historically, you know, it is not historically all that high, but if you look at the sale price, especially what that monthly payment would, would mean compared to your median income, as opposed to when it was high in the 1980 price, especially what that monthly payment would mean compared to your median income as opposed to when it was high in the 1980s, then we definitely have much more of a

housing unaffordability crisis than we did at periods of record high interest rates. And instead, what they are trying to do, this is fantastic, let's put this up there, the Biden campaign is hiring a meme manager. The job will entail recruiting content creators to make pro-Biden memes with a salary of up to $85,000. Wow, you're really going to get a star player for $85,000. They say there are two universal truths about memes. This is from MSNBC, of course, so forgive the cringey language. Even they were a little critical here, by the way. Even they were like, eh.

They were like, well, you know, Democrats and the likes have made attempts at internet humor that have ended up just being cringe. President Biden's reelection campaign is trying to take that further. They say building a somewhat robust internet presence. The campaign is hiring a partner manager to handle day-to-day operations in engaging the internet's top content and meme pages with a salary of up to $85,000. So if you see pro-Biden memes that proliferate on your Instagram page or on your Twitter or wherever else you spend your time, TikTok, etc., just keep in mind these people might be getting paid. That is something interesting. Actually, I heard Rogan talk about this recently. I've known about this for some time. There are huge amounts of right-wing influencer, this is just on the right, they're the only people that I know, that are basically

for sale. They will DM you and be like, hey, are you open to posting about X, Y, and Z candidate? And they're like, yeah, sure. And they're like, okay, I'll wire you, you know, $13,000 or something to make 15 posts over the course of the election. Now, there's no evidence that this stuff actually makes any difference. If I had to guess, it probably is more about helping the candidate feel good because they see pro stuff on their feed. But also keep in mind, if you do see people posting about that, you should ask them, you know,

are you open for sale? By the way, you know, $0 here. Anything we post is purely at our own, because we want to. But I cannot say the same for a lot of influencer accounts that are out there. Yeah, for sure. And it doesn't work because you can't, like,

young people in particular. They're very worried about the economy. And, you know, many are disgusted with the policy in Israel. And if you're not going to change those things, then they're not going to change how they feel about you. Like the two things, it's funny, the two things they point to in this article that have been like successful meme moments for Biden was back when there were those like dark Brandon memes. Well, that wasn't, that was like- That was organic. It was organic.

And then the other one they pointed to is the Kamala coconut tree one, which was not really favorable towards our stuff. That's not favorable to you. You just look like a crazy one. So they have huge problems. They're living in a delusional fantasy world in which, you know, people are gonna come around and the polls are skewed and whatever cope they're living on at this point.

But the reality is Biden's approval is absolutely trash. People's feelings about the economy and the direction of the country, absolute trash. Regardless of how people feel about Israel and Gaza, there is a real and very justified sense of like, you care more about these foreign conflicts than you do about me and my life. And so those things all connect. And Biden has some, by the way, more foreign travel coming up to continue to broadcast the message to America that I care more about that than I do about you. And you know what? People are getting that sense. They are absolutely 100% correct to have that feeling about Joe Biden at this point. Yeah, I know. I mean, just the campaign right now. Look, even the donors are the ones who are freaking out. There's a piece just came out

this morning. It's just about how Biden donors are officially freaking out. Yeah, full-blown freak out over Biden. One advisor to major Democratic donors is keeping a, quote, running list of reasons that Biden could lose. All of them, and these are very, very high-dollar people, including multimillionaires, who are donating to the campaign, are pressuring them to, quote, turn things around. But, you know, like I said previously, you've got five months to go. That's not a lot of time. You can only build on what you've already established. And I don't think anybody with a straight face can say that Biden has been governing effectively over the last couple of years, and especially not in a way to actually convince people to vote for him again. If anything,

his entire campaign is a reason to vote against the other guy. It has worked for him in the past, but it is not a reliable strategy or one that we can currently say is working. Yeah. And the margins last time were very thin. So, Liz, would you say it's over for him? No. Maybe he can pull together Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. Those seem to be the states where he's hanging in there the best. But it's looking very grim over on the Biden side.

Looking very grim. Absolutely. South Park took on the American health care system and honestly represented it way too accurately. Let's take a look at a little bit of what they did. Sorry, but we don't pay for medicines for obesity because it's not a disease. Who was that? That was the medical director. The medical director decides what claims are valid for us to pay for.

But you didn't say who the patient was or what was wrong with him. Right. The medical director's job is just to say no. Look, my friend's mom has been paying you people for years, and his doctor says his weight is a medical concern and obesity is a disease Oprah Winfrey said so. Okay, okay, calm down. Calm. Down. I didn't realize I was dealing with someone who had so much determination. If you do a little more work, I think we can get your medications paid for.

What? We can? Yeah, you see, the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies all kind of work together. So all you have to do is navigate the American healthcare system. We go back to the doctor. We go back to the specialist. Who talks to the insurance company, the fact that the medical

advisor's on the phone in the morning and we're going in one place and we're coming out the other place and we're back over here now and I was just over there and I'm getting confused and it's getting dark and my mind is all different colors and I think I'm lost. Hey fellas, I think I'm lost in the American health care system. Fellas, fellas, help! I don't think there's anyone in America who has interacted with our health system at all who does not relate to that situation where you just know no matter what it is, no matter whether you have. I mean, this is for people who actually have insurance, right?

This is like the best case scenario. You know it's going to be a nightmare. You know you're going to get some crazy bill. You know things that you thought were going to be paid for are not going to be paid for. You know, there's going to be 18,000 forms for you to fill out, none of which are really comprehensible. Like it's just complete insanity. And it's not like we get good health results on the end of it either. Right. So the key thing to take from all of this nonsense is that they are, what I love this is that it makes it so crystal clear. And it also

demonstrates that it is a cartel, which we often, you know, focus in on one thing, the pharmaceutical company. And sure, they should be demonized. Or we focus in on the insurance companies. It's the doctors too. And that is why it is so perfect. Of course, it's like, well, the doctors work for the hospital system. The hospital system works with the drug company who works with the pharmaceutical company. And the three of them come together. Their job is to say pre-negotiated rates that insurance companies are allowed to pay for drugs, which are much, much higher than they actually cost if you were to pay for it out of pocket. That then gets dinged out of the amount of allowable spend that you actually have in your plan. None of this matters if you're healthy, but if you're old, you can hit that number real quick, and then you end up paying out of pocket, but you're paying out of pocket at the higher rate that was previously negotiated.

It's a scam. It's a total scam. And the doctors are just as complicit as anybody in this, not even in the corrupt way of like them hanging out with pharma companies and all that. But in terms of the way that they work the health system to keep their salaries incredibly high. Yeah, I'm not saying that they don't have, you know, very tough jobs and they shouldn't get paid well. But part of the reason is the American Medical Association, which itself is a cartel. There's all this stuff that's happening. So South Park, as usual, is able to just like pierce, you know, at the very, very heart of

the issue. And this episode is actually the most culturally relevant one that I've seen in a long time. Yeah, it's the first one that's really sort of like... It's been years since I've seen one. Here's through. Well, actually, no. The Harry and Meghan thing was really good, too. Oh, that's good. I forgot we covered that. Harry and Meghan was also incredible. I actually watched that whole episode. Yeah. I mean, look, I love South Park. I've been with them from the beginning, the Trey and Matt. Book of Mormon, basketball, everything they've ever done, I've encouraged it. But this one seems to have broken through both Twitter, Instagram. I've seen it everywhere for the discussion. And it's because it just takes, you know, it just shows you the deep rot of the entire system.

And Ozempic too, a lot of the discussion, it really does seem to show everybody what this whole thing is about. Because you see food companies that are now creating Ozempic-friendly foods. You see Novo Novartis, which is one of the makers of Ozempic. I mean they are making so much money. When they convert dollars into Danish kroner, the Danish central bank has had to adjust its currency rates or whatever because they're inflating the kroner. That's how filthy rich this company is becoming. Now you've got these competitors. I just read about HIMSS or whatever it's called. It's coming out with an Ozympic competitor that only costs $500 a month or something like that. And these people are making so much money off of the backs of this. And it just shows us where preventative care is so much

cheaper to not get obese in the first place. But sick care or the current medical system, even Ozempic, where you treat somebody for obesity after they're already obese, that's where all the real money is. I mean, if you're putting profit at the center of healthcare instead of health at the center of healthcare, you're going to get a disgusting effed up system like what we have that does not give us health or care. Let's put this up on the screen just as a one metric, but a pretty important one. Here is the life expectancy rankings for every country in the G7. And you guessed it, that dark blue line that is falling off a freaking cliff, that would be the US. And we spend more in healthcare than anyone else, okay? We are getting completely ripped off because the beating heart of the whole thing is corruption and corporate greed. So yeah, here's what you

need to understand. Our healthcare system is succeeding wildly because it's set up to turn profits for the people at the very top. And it is doing that phenomenally well. It is not set up to provide good healthcare or good service or any of those things to you. And so it doesn't provide those things. So that's not what it is all about. It's all about making money. And at that, it succeeds phenomenally. And meanwhile, you are getting robbed. And here's the thing that this made me realize is it's almost like we've just we've just like given up. We've just given up on making it better. You know, there was obviously huge energy around Obamacare. Obamacare made some marginal improvements, at least people, you know, pre-existing conditions. Like there were some

things that were better. You wouldn't want to go back to the pre-Obamacare days. They were marginally worse. But it's not like it fixed or changed the fundamental dynamics at all. Not at all. OK, so you had that moment. Then you had the Bernie Sanders moment and you had a bunch of Democrats pretending like they wanted Medicare for all. You had huge public sentiment, especially on the Democratic side, but also among independents and a fair number of Republicans too, who were like, yeah, that sounds better. And Medicare actually, you know, does a better job of controlling costs, et cetera, et cetera. Like, let's move in that direction. Bernie loses. You end up with Joe Biden. Joe Biden on the campaign trail is promising, we're going to do the public option.

That's my thing. You know, we're going to take Obamacare. We're going to make it better public option. There was some discussion about moving down the Social Security age as well and Medicare age as well to help people out. That's like he doesn't even pretend for this reelection. We don't hear about health care at all. It's just fallen off the table as a priority. And yet there's a reason why this strikes a nerve. Because even if you are a person who has health insurance, which is the best possible scenario, the health care system is still a total and complete nightmare, even for you, even if you were in the best possible situation. So God bless them for at

least shining a light on it. And that's what I would say about Obamacare. It's like, yeah, net-wise, it's better that people have insurance than not. But the whole, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, disaster. That didn't work out. Premiums have gone sky high. The insurance companies have been the greatest beneficiaries of Obamacare. So the whole system is such a mess. You know, I mean, for example, our own thing, it's like, yeah, it's cool. If I get hit by a bus, I'll be okay. Otherwise, I'm going to be out like 10 grand. There are so many. I just assume they're not going to pay for anything when I go into the doctor. It costs hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month. And I'm like,

what am I paying for? Exactly. And that's off of the so-called public exchange or whatever. This is the common for, you know, so many people out there. And if you have kids, God bless you. I see families out there who are paying like $700 a month, $800 a month. It's insane. And if your kid has asthma, good luck. Hope they pay for the first three inhalers. You know, after that you're out of your own, you've hit your max. Yeah. And that's what the South Park episode, you know, illustrates, where especially with obesity is probably the number one crisis, I would say, health-wise, because it is the precursor to so many of the ultimate killers, not to mention it just exacerbates and makes everything else much worse. It is so much easier to, you know, do Ozempic or any of this other stuff instead of

actually having some preventative care, our food system. It's funny too, because you pointed to Japan. Japan is one of the great examples of the seed oil paradox. Everyone's like, oh, it's our food system and all of that that's poisoning us. It's processed food.

Well, in Japan, they eat a ton of processed food. They eat seed oils. They fry their steaks in seed oils, all kinds of stuff. People who are obsessed with this discourse talk about it. It's just that they have a different culture, both around healthcare and around the way that they eat. And it's a fulsome approach that is deep in like Eastern medicine. Don't they eat more like whole foods than we do though?

No, no, no, certainly. But I'm saying they have highly, highly palatable processed food that's around them, but their culture somehow is able to deal with that. And they don't all become morbidly obese. So it's just an example of you can have access to highly processed food, to seed oils, to drinking, all of this. But if you have a good culture, it's very easy to resist that, or at least they have found it able to. I don't think they're all that different from us, but our culture, our medical system and all of that are basically, you know, one unit, which is designed for consumption to get you fat. And then once the healthcare system does kick in,

it's after a lot of the damage has been wrought as opposed to from the very beginning. Sedentary lifestyle, everything's get in your car and go everywhere. You know, tons of like subsidies for like the worst kind of foods. That's what's cheap and easy. You have people who are super stressed. This is what's, you know, simple for them to get or most least expensive for them to get. Easiest to put on the table. You have no incentives in the healthcare system for preventative medicine. You have a lot of people who've had a lot of terrible interactions with the medical system. So very reluctant to engage with it at all. When there is a problem, you just add all of these things up. And it's clearly a recipe for disaster, which we're experiencing. How many times have we talked

on this show about how like the most basic metric of how you're doing as a society? Are you living or dying? Are you living or dying? Those numbers. I mean, and it's not like you can look at it and say, well, this is happening to the whole rich world. No, it's not. No, it's not. It's happening to us. We are uniquely falling off a cliff in terms of life expectancy and doesn't seem to be a priority for the political class, even as, you know, shipping more bombs to carpet bomb babies in Rafah is a very high priority.

But making sure Americans can actually live, not so much. One of the craziest things that I found, because I was doing some life expectancy, I did a whole monologue about this. So for example, US life expectancy right now is 75 years old. Gone down dramatically 2020 to 2023. It is not just because of COVID. Yes, COVID was certainly an exacerbating factor.

High rates of overdose death. The really gross part is that in the United States, if you're rich, you live a lot longer. If you're in the top 10% in the U.S., you're going to live to like 90 years old. That's your average life expectancy. And what drags everybody down is a lot of poor people, people who are unhealthy, don't have health insurance, and get themselves in a bad situation, wait to go to the doctor. You can't afford a healthy lifestyle. You can't afford a healthy lifestyle. You can't afford a healthy lifestyle. It's like, if you, for example, here, I have it right in

front of you. If you're in the top 1%, men who have much lower income, who have much more life expectancy than women, your life expectancy is 87.3 years. Whereas average male life expectancy in this country is 75. So you live 15 more years if you're in the top 1% of income. Yeah, so think about that. That's what money, money can't buy you happiness. It can buy you a lot of years on this earth.

Extra decade plus. Right. And that, again, is not. That is not common, exactly. That's not everyone. Like we take these things for granted, but that is uniquely American phenomenon that we've just,

we've just accepted, political class has accepted. And as I said, the most depressing thing to me watching this is like, everyone seems to have just like given up that this can even ever be changed. By the way, the same discrepancy with women. If you are in the top 1% and you're a woman,

you'll live till 89 years old. That's your average US life expectancy, which means half of those people are living to like 100 years old. So that's what that number can really show you. Okay, we've got a great guest standing by, Dave Smith. Let's get to it. We're very excited now to be joined by Dave Smith.

He is host of the Part of the Problem podcast. He's a prominent libertarian and, for our purposes, recently appeared at a libertarian convention where former President Donald Trump actually spoke and was booed on the stage. So let's take a listen and then we'll get Dave's reaction. Combined with us in a partnership, we're asking that of the libertarians. We must work together. Combined with us. You have to combine with us. We cannot give crooked Joe Biden four more years. We cannot give crooked Joe Biden four more years. Anyone can talk about defending freedom, but I've actually put everything on the line to resist these despots and these stuff.

And I stand before you tonight as your best hope of defeating the weaponized Biden. Maybe, yeah, you love to see it. You hate to see it. Dave, you spoke a little bit before. Just give us a rundown. What led up to that? What was the reaction? Why were people in the crowd so upset with Trump? Well, I mean, you know, the Libertarian Party is a it's a third party. And I don't know as much about, say, like the Green Party, but I'd imagine it's it's a similar type of dynamic where I mean, these are people.

They're a member of a third party in a in a country that is rigged for two parties. And the reason they're there is because they are so disgusted with the establishment of both political parties. And so to have an actual president who's got a four-year track record and many things that us libertarians are very unhappy about, this was just destined to go this way. I'm not sure if he knew what he was walking into. I think he might have been like, oh, libertarians are kind of like Republicans and maybe they'll like some things about me. But, you know, Bobby Kennedy and Vivek Ramaswamy both spoke the previous day and they drew some boos,

but they also got some cheers. But Donald Trump just, I mean, before he said a word, the place had had it with him. So what do you think was his goal in going? And do you think he accomplished whatever that goal was? By the way, I've never loved libertarians more than this moment. And you're right with the Green Party comparison, because if Joe Biden went and spoke at a Green Party convention, I don't think it would go very well at this point. Well, it's also like I think people don't understand the reason why I used the Green Party comparison,

because I think that there might be some people who have the perception that say like, well, the Green Party are a click left of the Democrats. Or, you know, the differences are that, you know, whatever, like the Democrats wanted Obamacare, but they want, you know, nationalized health care. But that's not really the dynamic. That is, but there's much more than that. The people in the Green Party look at Barack Obama as a war criminal who should be put in prison. You know what I mean? Like, it's not just, oh, I'm a click to the left of you or something like that. And that's the same dynamic with libertarians. We look at Donald Trump as the guy who for four straight years backed the Saudis in their genocidal war against the people in Yemen. It's not like, oh, I wish he had lowered taxes a

bit more than he did. There's much more fundamental issues. And to your question, I think you guys have covered it on your show quite a bit. I think they're really concerned about Bobby Kennedy, and they realize that the margins might be much thinner than they think. And the Libertarians are a party who have gotten millions of votes for the last two cycles. I don't think they're going to this cycle, but they have in the last two cycles. And I guess they made the calculation that that was worth making an attempt to get those votes. I think it was actually a smart play. I probably would have actually a smart play. I probably

would have gone about it differently. But, you know, I think it was revealed, you know, exactly this is a game of margins and, you know, it's a mistake to write these things off. Dave, I did want to ask you then about the eventual developments, because there's been a lot of discussion about this. Libertarian nominee ended up being Chase Oliver. I know there's been some, I guess, backlash, I guess you could say, from more of the right-wing culture people who are out there. Probably not we're going to be libertarians themselves. But I wanted your reaction as somebody involved in the party. You were talking to us previously about some of the schisms that have developed. So maybe give us

a taste of what was going into this, what the ideological fractures in the Libertarian Party look like, and then give us where Chase Oliver falls within those ideological fractures. Well, so, okay, so my faction, which is the Mises caucus, is just broadly speaking to, is Ron Paul, okay? Then there's kind of a faction

that might be more Gary Johnson. This is a little bit sloppy. The Ron Paul thing is a better comparison, but then there's kind of people who are just in the middle of the party. And then there is what's more the left portion of the Libertarian Party. Chase was always firmly in the kind of woke Libertarian camp. He moderated that message a lot for this campaign and didn't really talk about a lot of those things that he had previously been talking about a lot. Basically what happened is the Mises guys, my guys, were the biggest demographic in the room,

but not a majority. And so our candidate was winning every single round and ultimately the middle split and went with Chase and that got him over the edge. So that's and that's where we are. Gotcha. One thing that I've been wondering about is to go back a little bit to the Green Party, Democratic Party comparison. It's unimaginable to me that Joe Biden would go and try to court the Green Party demographic. And it's not just in this moment. There has always been this very different orientation ever since 2016,

when like the Jill Stein voters were blamed by the Democrats for electing Donald Trump. And it's this very nasty adversarial shaming position of like, how dare you vote for anyone other than Joe Biden? Whereas you don't hear that same thing from the Republican Party, even though, to your point, Libertarian nominees have gotten millions of votes. They can easily do the same thing and say, hey, it's you guys' fault. You didn't vote for Donald Trump in 2020. What the hell? Where were you? We needed you. Why do you think there's that different approach from Republicans to Libertarians versus from the Democrats towards the left? Well, you know, because I've been a member of the Libertarian Party for years now, I might have a slightly different perspective than you because I have heard that from from like Republican voters saying, oh, you guys are just, you know, you throw the election to Biden. Spoilers, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, you're going to help Democrats win.

You are correct that I have not heard it from, like, the most powerful people in the party. Like, it's not something that I've heard, like, Republican presidential candidates talk about, whereas you have heard, you know, like Hillary Clinton blaming, you know, the Green Party for her defeat. But while she's blaming everything else in between. You know, strangely. Women didn't think she was perfect, David. That was the problem. I don't know who's other women. the Green Party for her to feed while she's blaming everything else in between. Strangely, women didn't think she was perfect, David. That was the problem. But, you know, in a way, from their perspective, they're kind of right.

You know, like, yeah, it is true that if everybody who voted for the Green Party voted for the Democrats, that would help the Democrats. And if everyone who voted for the Libertarians voted for Republicans, that would help them. But the issue is that from our perspective, on every issue that matters, there's no difference between them. And that, you know, I mean, I'm sure you could find one or two issues that matter where there's some difference, probably not a whole lot. But, you know, to me, what really matters first and foremost is the issue of war and peace. That's always been my biggest issue. I don't understand. I genuinely don't understand from any political ideological perspective how that's not the most important issue. building block of your philosophy is that power dynamics can be abusive and you want to be on the side of the people with less power

over those who wield it over them. Well, there's no better example of that than war. If you're a libertarian and you care about government violating people's rights, well, there's no better example of that than war. And if you're a right-winger who cares about your nation and order and things like this, well, there's nothing more destructive to nations and order than war. So anyway, when it comes to the issue of war, the Democrats and the Republicans are basically identical. And that's also true when it comes to issues of banking and money and corruption and corporate

bailouts and all of these things. So from our perspective, it's like, yeah, we're not voting for you guys because we're against all the things you're for. It's so well said, Dave, and it's so true. It's also the area where the president has the most impact in terms of what they can do and the most amount of leeway from Congress, especially with the bipartisan corruption that we currently have. You made a comment earlier I want to come back to. You said, I don't think we're going to get millions of votes around this time.

So why do you think that is? Is it because of some of the electoral weaknesses of Chase? Is it the RFK Jr. factor? Maybe some of these Mises caucus guys will be going there. How do you see that playing out this time? Well, yeah, all of that. I mean, all of those things that you just said are major factors. So number one, Bobby Kennedy running is just a totally different game now. We really haven't seen anything like this since Ross Perot. And the Libertarian Party benefited from kind of being the third party, the protest vote. And they don't, we don't have that anymore. They, a lot of the people, in fact, I would say an overwhelming majority of the Mises caucus faction, which still was the largest block in the Libertarian Party, are just not going to support Chase.

And while, listen, I do want to give him credit for this because Chase is really good on war. And I'm glad that he is. And I hope that message gets out as much as possible. I do think he has other positions that are going to be complete non-starters with the overwhelming majority of people who might consider voting libertarian.

And things that I personally believe are not the correct libertarian position, but even if you thought they were the correct libertarian position, objectively are non-starters for huge portions of people who vote libertarian. I have things like open borders, being very woke on the trans kids issue.

I think not supporting surgeries, but supporting chemical castration or whatever fancy word they're calling it now. Gender affirming care. But just things that are, I think, really out there. Look, the guy just got the nomination, so I'm not trying to tear him down immediately. And also, I don't want to be a sore loser because my guy lost and he won. But I don't see how it's going to be a year where the Libertarian candidate gets a lot of votes. Okay.

How does the Libertarian Party and people who may vote Libertarian, how do you think they in general feel about Bobby Kennedy and how he's positioned himself? There seems to be affinity in certain places, not affinity in other places. There have been early some talk about maybe he pursued the Libertarian nomination. I know his name was put in. He didn't seem to get a lot of votes. So just talk us through some of those dynamics. Well, you know, Libertarians are individualists. And so it's all, you know, if you ask 100 different Libertarians, you'll probably get 100 different, you know, libertarians are individualists. And so it's all, you know, if you ask 100 different libertarians, you'll probably get 100 different, you know, answers.

I know there were a lot of positions that he was very bad on from the libertarian perspective that he kind of started sounding a little better on. But there was never really an explanation for how he got there, you know, and so to go from, you know, whatever, that the Koch brothers should be arrested for denying climate change to now kind of seeing climate change, the agenda as this trap to usher in totalitarianism is a big leap on guns and a lot of other issues. He doesn't sound the same now as he sounded in the not very distant past. But I'll tell you from my perspective, when I first found out that he was interested in seeking the Libertarian nomination, I thought it was something we really should consider. This was back in the summer of last year. And because we did have huge areas of agreement, particularly, I mean, he was so good on Ukraine and he was so good on the COVID regime.

He was really good on the deep state and three-letter agencies in general. And he was really good on China also, which is like the one that none of us probably cover enough, that there's just been so many moves to push tensions with China, going back to the Obama administration through Trump and continuing with Biden. But for me, as I'm sure kind of for you guys, after October, it was all over. I mean, it was just, and I'm not even, I could maybe get over you not being great on that issue.

But when your foreign policy advisor is Rabbi Shmuley and you're going around the entire country and you're coming, as he said, on your show, I mean, I was just so disgusted. I'd never consider the guy again when he said to you guys that the Palestinians are the most pampered people in the world. It's like, I don't know. I don't even know what to

say to that. You're done. And also, all of us are going into our conspiracy minds right now. Like, who would possibly say that? Who would possibly just go on this public humiliation tour like this? Like, what do they have on you? That's all I keep thinking. And so, but even aside from that, just the policy itself, it's so disgusting. I mean, to talk- I will say, Dave- Sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, no, we spoke to him. I actually think he believes it. Sometimes people are like, oh, it's got to be blackmail or all that. I'm not going to say that it doesn't play a role. That's actually worse. I agree. That's what I'm saying. I want people to know that. That's why it's actually worse. I'm not just talking about Bobby Kennedy. I'm talking about a lot of people out there who are beating the anti-war drum. I'm like, no, ideology is actually much more poisonous because you can fix foreign influence theoretically, but you can't fix necessarily changing someone's belief. And that's what I wanted to get actually with you was, so how, so for the left, Green Party, I think Jill Stein is going to get a lot of votes. And I think Israel is one of the number one

reasons that is the case. In the Libertarian Party, how many people are like you, like Ron Paul, the original Ron Paul revolution against the war? How much of that holds over to the current block of people who would vote Libertarian and are as animated by the Israel-Palestine issue, but more broadly what it reveals about foreign policy like you? Do you think it's a large constituency or are those largely leftists now? How do you see it? I think it is. There's a large constituency or are those largely leftists now? How do you see it? I think it is, there's a large group there. And I also do think that there's, I mean, I think there's a group within the Republican voters also who are, you know, largely America first and don't want to be funding any of these wars. I think that, by the way, again, just to run the counterfactual here,

not to just pick on Bobby for no reason, but the other thing that's so frustrating about him is like, imagine if he was good on this. Yeah, no, it's true. Like imagine, he would be president of the United States of America. He would win. As a third party, what do you got?

I mean, you look at the polls, 70% of Democrats want to cease fire. 50% of them think this is a genocide. I mean, Bobby Kennedy could pull so many of them over and then he could pull a lot of America first Republicans. He could pull the libertarians. I mean, if he had been good on this issue, I really think he would have broken the two party system and won the presidency as an independent. And I mean, if he was a Democrat, they still would have rigged two-party system and won the presidency as an independent. It's certainly possible. I mean, if he was a Democrat,

they still would have rigged the thing against him, but he still, it would have been, I think, even more powerful than Bernie Sanders. And anyway, but I don't, but I do think this is a large block. It's, you know, we kind of don't get to run the test and find out because the three biggest candidates are all so horrible on this issue

and there's like no space between them. I think Trump's criticism of Biden is that like he talked about giving some food to Gaza once and that's not pro-Israel enough. And so if one of them was at a different view, we would kind of get to find out how many people, but because it's just scattered to all the third party candidates, I don't know if we'll know for sure. Yeah. Dave, what is your, this is my last question for you. What is sort of like your political theory of how this changes, how we get out of this two party duopoly? What's your, your theory? Is it ranked choice voting? Is it having a candidate who's like Bobby Kennedy, but actually good and has the, you know,

star power, whatever, to be able to break through. How do you see this, the best possible path playing out? I don't want to, you know, like be a bummer here, but I don't know that there is a path. I don't know. Look, I mean, the reality of the situation is that even if, you know, this candidate, this great imaginary candidate that he won, we all know the president doesn't really have any power if he's going against the grain. And I mean, like, like, and I'm not contradicting what you said earlier. Like, yes, he's the commander in chief on paper, you know, like he's, but if you really, if you really oppose the agenda of the CIA,

they're going to find a way to compromise you or take you out. And I just think that's, that's the bottom line. So, but the system that we have right now is totally unsustainable. So this can't continue. I mean, it's just, this is just a math equation. I mean, you could just look at the debt and how much law and you look at the, like at, uh, look at entitlements. I mean, these are going to blow up. and how much law and look at entitlements. I mean, these are going to blow up. It's a matter of how long until they do. But the numbers when you project out like 30 years, I think you get to like over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

The debt itself is now we're at a point where the interest payments on the debt are rapidly overtaking everything else in the government. This system is unsustainable. There has been a major global movement away from the dollar as a reserve currency. If that ever finally happens, then this is over. And so my thing is that I think that changing hearts and minds really matters. I think that there's a reason why governments rely on propaganda, because that's very important to them. And I think we have an opportunity now to counter the propaganda in a way that we never really had before. And so that's always kind of been what my focus is. It's all about kind of spreading a message. But, you know, the idea that somebody is going to get in there in D.C. and take the whole thing down, I don't think that's how it's going to work. I think ultimately what I would like to see is a move toward decentralization as much as possible.

And so, you know, like in the same sense that, you know, the Soviet Union wasn't going to collapse because somebody took over and, you know, like ran the thing the right way. It just was that people, you know, balkanized. And that, I think, is perhaps our best hope. Got it. Well, Dave, it's always a pleasure to talk to you, my friend, and you're welcome back here anytime. We'll continue to look to your analysis, man. But thank you for fighting a good fight, and we appreciate you. Great to see you, Dave. Thank you. Thank you guys both. And as I've told you both privately, I'd like to say publicly, I'm a huge fan of the show. I've been watching you guys since before you went independent. And

you guys have built something that is like a thousand times better than anything the corporate media puts out. So I'm very grateful to you guys. It was very cool to be on. You are very, you are too, too kind. We appreciate you, sir. And we will see you later. All right. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate you. As we said, any problem, big or small, premium subscribers, support at locals.com. At this point, go ahead and cc breakingpointspremium at gmail.com. Spotify, it's going to be available. Check the link. It's going to be in your email along with YouTube, along with everything else. So don't worry about it. Otherwise, there'll be a great CounterPoint show for everybody tomorrow.

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