Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/9/22: Ukraine War, Roe v Wade Politics, Elon's Twitter Plans, Psaki Departure, Free Speech, Biden Betrayal, & More!

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about the US and Russian escalation in Ukraine, the politics around abortion, Elon Musk's plans for Twitter, Jen Psaki's next move, Rand Paul on free speech, Biden's betrayal of workers, NYT's Musk smears, and deeper data on abortion opinions with Mohamed Younis!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/Mohamed Younis: https://www.gallup.com/people/116263/mohamed-younis.aspx  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of big stories breaking this Monday morning. Some very troubling new reporting and developments out of Ukraine that we have to update you on. You know, this is starting to fall off of the media's radar a little bit. Just at the moment when it almost is at its most dangerous.

So we will bring you all of those updates. We also have some new indications of how the politics might play out in terms of the imminent overturning of Roe versus Wade. Republicans doing themselves no favors. Also some polling indicating that, you know, the picture might be a little bit complicated in terms of the midterms. We'll tell you about that. Also, a pitch deck revealed from Elon Musk giving us some insights into what his plans

for Twitter might be. Also some revelations about some less than savory sources of funding. Yes, not great. That he has relied on, including the country of Qatar. Yes. Not known for their free speech commitment. But we'll tell you about that.

We also have news about a new press secretary coming into the White House, and Jen Psaki pressed on her negotiations behind the scenes while she's still doing the current job and taking a new job with a media organization. Also, a pretty stunning moment from Senator Rand Paul that we wanted to share with you, talking about this new, like, Ministry of Truth situation. Pretty good comments from him. It was great. I thought he did a great job. I like seeing it. We also have Muhammad Yunus in. He is the head of polling at Gallup. He's going to talk to us more about abortion polling and what that looks like going forward.

But we wanted to start with some very troubling developments this morning in terms of reporting of the U.S. involvement in Ukraine's prosecution of the war with Russia. Let's go ahead and throw these dueling tear sheets up on the screen here from The New York Times. They were the ones who were sort of at the forefront of this reporting. So two pieces here. Number one, U.S. intelligence is helping Ukraine kill Russian generals, officials say. And also, U.S. intelligence helped Ukraine strike Russian flagship, officials say. So much more hands-on involvement in this war than had previously been reported. And Sagar, there had been some indications before we'd gotten these little indications that maybe we were helping them with targeting, helping provide intelligence.

You and I had talked about it. It honestly sort of flew under the radar of most of the media. Well, now we have specific details about just how instrumental the U.S.'s backing of Ukraine has been in some of these major significant events in terms of this war. Let me read you a little bit from the reporting on our assistance in helping to target and ultimately kill these Russian generals. They say the U.S. has provided intelligence about Russian units that has allowed Ukrainians to target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war. Ukrainian officials say they have killed approximately 12 generals on the front lines, a number that has astonished military analysts.

The targeting help is part of a classified effort by the Biden administration to provide real-time battlefield intelligence to Ukraine. That intelligence also includes anticipated Russian troop movements gleaned from recent American assessments of Moscow's secret battle plans. And in addition, the U.S. provided intelligence that helped. This is from that second terror sheet. Ukrainian forces locate and strike the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet last month, another sign that the administration is easing its self-imposed limitations on how far it will go in helping Ukraine fight Russia. We covered when that flagship went down.

It's a big deal. And this was a huge deal. It has been covered extensively in Russian media. They engaged in an elaborate cover-up to try to deny that it was actually, you know, Ukrainian forces that struck and ultimately brought down this ship. They also tried to cover up the deaths that were involved. They tried to claim, oh, there was a fire on board and everybody is fine, and we towed it to safety, no big deal.

But this was a huge blow to Russia. And so, again, without the U.S. public's involvement in any sort of debate, we are getting ourselves more and more and deeper and deeper into this conflict and providing direct assistance in some of the most significant Ukrainian hits on Russia that we have seen so far. This is extraordinarily significant when you consider how the Russians are going to view this involvement. I mean, are they really going to distinguish between us, you know, not being directly boots on the ground considering how far in we are at this point? You know, actually, what troubles me the most about this is it's very clear. You and I know how this town works. This was a strategic leak by the U.S. intelligence community because they're bragging about it.

They're like, yeah, we're helping kill these generals. We're helping. And I'm like, hey, why don't you shut up? Because, look, I don't think that Russia assumed that this wasn't going on. They probably already knew based upon this. But it's within the realm of the proxy war. I'm not condoning it. I still think that we should try our best in order to not get involved in these types of things. But there was reporting that Russia had put bounties on American soldiers and was helping the Taliban kill them. At that time, several members of the U.S. Senate called for immediately retaliating against Russians. And Ben Sasse specifically said that we should personally assassinate, we should assassinate GRU agents on the ground in Afghanistan. Well, this opens up the exact same response from Russia, assuming that they

think in the same way in Moscow that they do in Washington, D.C. Is there any real reason to distinguish the two? I mean, look, when you're openly bragging about killing your enemy's generals, these are very significant events, okay? Generals don't just die in combat all that much. I actually went back and I was looking back. You know, U.S. generals, it's incredibly rare in order to die in warfare in the post-World War II era. The Russian army is organized a little bit differently, but still, you know, you're losing up to 10 generals. I mean, these are long, experienced, revered members within both Russian society and the Russian military. Killing those people is going to engender a significant response. And then on top of that, you know, you kill the warship.

Now, obviously, Ukraine is at war with that nation. So that's within the bounds of conflict. But us opening and saying, oh, well, we're helping a lot of this facilitate. I also, if you look at the headlines of these, U.S. intelligence is helping Ukraine kill Russian generals and warships. It's clear the intel community wants to get the credit for this in the press and boast with the population, but they are just overreading the fact that there could still be yet a response from Moscow. I mean, look, within the realm of the Gray War, if we are helping facilitate this, we still have soldiers who are in Syria. If those guys start getting blown up by sophisticated IEDs, well, like, that's a possible response. Iran did that to our troops when we were in Iraq, and there's not a lot that we can do about that. We have troops all over the globe where Russia is also forward deployed.

So we just have to consider that this could have a significant blowback, and are we ready in order to suffer that consequence? That is exactly right, and there's a few things going on here. I mean, to me, the most important part of this story is the macro trend of how we just keep going further and further and further and further and with no public debate whatsoever. And if there's one thing the American public has been clear about, it's the fact that they do not want to be

in a war with Russia. You know, they definitely, definitely have tons of compassion, sympathy for the Ukrainian cause. They want to help Ukraine. They want to stand with Ukraine. But every single poll, no matter how you ask it, people are very clear. They do not want to be at war with Russia. And yet, while, you know, while we weren't really paying attention, while the media was focused on other things, you now have a member of Congress, Seth Moulton, a Democrat, outright admitting that, yeah, at this point, we basically are at war with Russia. Let's take a listen to that. I only have 10 seconds left for each of you, if you could.

But if they wrap this in the Senate with a Ukraine funding and a COVID funding, you guys OK with that? Congressman Molden? Look, I'm going to support it because it's the right thing to do for Ukraine. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of politics involved and there will be domestic debates here at home about other policies and whatnot. But at the end of the day, we've got to realize we're at war and we're not just at war to support the Ukrainians. We're fundamentally at war, although somewhat through a proxy, with Russia. And it's important that we win. Fundamentally at war with Russia. Did you vote on that? Did we have a public debate on that? Is that what you want? Because that's what we're being dragged into. And I know we've said it a

million times. I'm not trying to be alarmist, but just remember what the stakes are. You're talking about a conflict between two nuclear-armed superpowers. This is extraordinarily dangerous. It's not anything that the American people want. And yet, bit by bit by bit, this is where we've ended up. Trita Parsi had a great thread and a great article about all of this. Of course, we have a lot of respect for his foreign policy analysis here. And he said, Biden's dance with the media publicly declaring a more ambitious U.S. objective in Ukraine, only to have it clarified by the White House hours later, has imperceptibly expanded America's goals in Ukraine with potentially disastrous consequences. The riskiest step has been to put the weakening of Russia

ahead of the defense of Ukraine. This type of mission creep led to the U.S. staying in Afghanistan for two decades and turned an achievable counterterrorism operation into a doomed nation-building project. And he lays out the parallels here of how, listen, when we went into Afghanistan, it was, we're going to get the bad guys, we're going to get Osama bin Laden, and we're going to get out. And when we failed to do that, then suddenly

you had all the people here who had a lot of money at stake in being engaged in Afghanistan and occupying in Afghanistan for literally forever is what they wanted. Then they started to get their hooks into it. They started to lay the groundwork for, oh, no, it's not just Osama bin Laden. We want to do nation building. What about the women and the girls? What about spreading democracy and freedom around the globe? Next thing you know, it's 20 years later, and we're still in Afghanistan. So, Trita, Dr. Parsi is pointing here to a very similar mission creep, which is happening with no debate.

We're bit by bit by bit. We're getting even further in. And the other piece of this, there was a report coming from, it's actually Ukrainian Pravda, so a Ukrainian outlet here, that when Boris Johnson visited Kyiv, the key message that he was carrying was, we don't want you to negotiate a peace. We want to continue to have war with, we want this war against Russia to continue because ultimately the goal is to weaken Russia, not to secure peace. That is not anything that the American people or, you know, people throughout the West ultimately wanted. And yet that appears to be exactly what our leaders are pushing. I couldn't agree with

you more, Crystal. And, you know, just to put a cap on this, this was leaked to Ukrainian Pravda. Put this up there on the screen. So a Ukrainian-aligned media outlet says that sources close to Zelensky said that Boris Johnson, when he appeared in the Capitol, brought a simple message. Even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, the West is not. And this is exactly what I feared from the beginning, that for all of the talk in Washington of we support Ukraine, we support Ukraine, we support Ukraine, if we don't support them when they want to sign a separate peace with Russia, then you're full of it. Then you're actually fulfilling Congressman Moulton's declaration that you are at war with Russia.

If our job is to support Ukraine, then we should try to save as many Ukrainian lives as possible within the dignity of what they want to undergo as a nation. If they want to fight on, so be it. If they don't want to fight on and they want to go towards peace, I think that we should personally support such an action if that's what they want to do. But for us to rule out a peace on our terms is insane, and you're actually just validating the Russian declaration that Ukraine is part of some great power proxy conflict instead of between these two nations. So I found that incredibly troubling. And I think the fact that it was leaked to a Ukrainian media outlet shows that inside Ukraine, there's complicated feelings.

You know, Zelensky, he's meeting with George W. Bush, which I don't know who his PR people are, but probably shouldn't do that. But, you know, he's meeting with Bush. He's, you know, on this media tour within Israel and here and everywhere. He's begging for weapons. He's gotten more weapons than, you know, any country. Fourth most amount of military aid of all time since 1946 from the United States. Cumulative, yes. Cumulatively in the last, what, three months that have been shipped over to that country. So he's been enormously successful. But, you know, if he wants an off-ramp,

he also needs the West on board. And so the fact that they're leaking this, I think, is very, very significant, saying that they believe that the West does not believe in a path towards peace and that they may even have their own separate negotiations. I don't think we should have a goddamn thing to say about what happens here other than, what do you guys want? You want

to fight? Okay, we'll help you out. But if you don't, let's go. Let's do everything humanly possible. And for us to have our own red lines in this thing only validates the worst of the Russian concerns and actually makes it so that this thing will not come to an end. And remember, there were, what, dozens of people killed in an airstrike just yesterday. War's not a joke, people. A lot of people die. A lot. We've already had thousands of people on both sides of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict. Millions of displaced citizens. This is not something for us to just play around with. This is a serious thing. That's exactly right. And according to this reporting, they say Johnson's position was that the collective West, which back in February had suggested Zelensky should surrender and flee, now felt that Putin was not really as powerful as they'd previously imagined that there was a chance to, quote, press him. And sure enough, three days after Boris Johnson left for Britain, Putin went public and said talks with Ukraine had turned into a dead end. So there were some developments, publicly reported developments, that followed closely on the heels of Boris Johnson coming in and reportedly delivering this message that would indicate perhaps this is exactly what went down. That he showed up in Kiev basically to say, listen, we want this to keep going. We don't want a negotiated peace with Russia at this

point because we think Putin is weaker than we expected. And we want the opportunity to continue to weaken Russia. Very, very dangerous game because this gets back to that whole idea, gambling for resurrection. Yes, this has not gone well for Russia. There is no doubt about it. Even with their new like limited aims are not particularly going well in terms of this war right now. That doesn't mean that this isn't still a dangerous man with a lot of incredibly dangerous and potentially world destroying weapons at his fingertips. So what happens when he's backed into a corner and when the West is out there, you know, Ron Klain outright saying, we don't want Putin to have an off ramp. Seth Moulton, congressman, outright saying, we are at war with Russia.

What happens next? We do have a little bit of new reporting this morning. I'll go ahead and move on to this next part. So today there was a lot of anticipation for what Putin and the Kremlin would do. It's Victory Day. Traditionally, you know, military marches. It's a big day in Russia. Big day in Russia, celebration of their victory over the Nazis, marches in the street, all that

sort of stuff. And there was a particularly ominous sign that this event could be used to potentially announce a larger escalation or a larger civilian mobilization, so adding more soldiers into the fight. Let's go ahead and put this piece up on the screen from Reuters. The plan was for Putin to send what they describe as a doomsday warning by flying their doomsday plane roaming command center, which is designed to basically be the sort of like, you know, mobile command center in the event of nuclear war. So what they say here is celebrations on Monday marking the 77th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany. They were going to have this flyover, including that doomsday command plane, which would carry Russia's top brass, including Putin, in the event of a nuclear war.

And it is packed with technology, but specific details are Russian state secrets. So there was, let's go ahead and put the New York Times tear sheet as well. They had a long article about the concerns from the West of what these parades and what these celebrations could be used to justify. They say it's a potent political strategy and country that celebrates May 9th, Victory Day, as its most important secular holiday, one that appeals to the shared sacrifice of 27 billion Soviets killed in World War II. What they said is that Mr. Putin is expected to give a major speech at the Grand Military Parade on Red Square on Monday, with some analysts and Western officials anticipating he might officially declare war or call for a mass mobilization

of the Russian public. On Sunday, the Kremlin said that Mr. Putin had sent a congratulatory telegram to the heads of the Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. He declared Russians were, quote, fighting shoulder to shoulder to liberate their homeland from Nazi filth and vowed that victory will be ours like in 1945. However, I talked to our friend Yegor this morning and got the report from the ground. Not only did they not fly the doomsday plane, but in most of the major cities, actually the entire sort of air show was grounded. Yeah. So they grounded the doomsday plane and all the rest of the fighter jets and whatever else they were planning. Yeah.

And in the speech, Yegor described it as sort of like typical propaganda for Putin. I was about to read the translation. Yeah, what you got for us? No declaration of war, victory, or a general mobilization. And so the rough guide per this outline was that there was a degradation of Western morality,

that NATO was going to attack us, but that Kiev was going to get nuclear weapons. We are fighting the Nazis. The Donbass is Russian. It's a continuation of the Great Patriotic War. Here's a military parade, and then that's pretty much it. Yeah. So no grand declaration.

And that language is nothing new from Putin. Not new whatsoever. So I was afraid. I mean, many people were, that this was going to be some sort of escalation. I think it just shows you that Russia is dramatically backed into a corner. They really don't have a lot more resources they can come to bear.

And for all of the talk of the Russian population being on Putin's side, I don't think a lot of them are ready for a full-scale war or for the civilian population to suffer even more so than they already have. So you put that together, and this could be seen as, I would say on balance, a probably best outcome for those who don't want to see an escalation in the East or in the war in general. It means that they'll be committed to the short, you know, mid-grade war happening in eastern Ukraine for a decade now, probably plus. So it's not like people aren't going to die and this still won't be a significant conflict. But the days of wanting to conquer Kyiv are probably over. You know, the days of, now I'm not saying they can't do it. I'm saying within the current political possibility, of course, if they want to mobilize their entire army, they could probably

take it tomorrow. But, you know, it would take a tremendous loss of life. So politically, it seems that they have reached the exhaustive phase. That's probably a good thing, you know, if you don't want to see even more escalation. The fact that they didn't fly the plane either is good. But it should note, they did have the ICBMs in the parade. But they always do that for their thing. Yeah. It is interesting, too, why they grounded not just that plane, but they didn't do the air show altogether.

So, again, according to Yegor, they claimed that it was bad weather, but he said it was sunny. It was a perfect day, so it didn't make any sense. Possibly, you know, there's fears that the Air Force has not been doing their job. Who knows what's going on with them? But very, I mean, that is noteworthy that they just grounded the whole thing. It's also noteworthy, there's reports from the BBC that there have been a number of military registration and enlistment offices that have been set on fire by anti-war activists. There you go. So you have, you know, we've seen certainly some peaceful protests in the street and very hard to tell overall what public sentiment

is in Russia. But you have some significant civil disobedience here and just outright disobedience here in terms of pushing back on the war effort. So seem to be some signs that the politics are tricky and complicated and not straightforward for Putin at this point. I think that's probably the best way to put it. And the culmination of the parade that way the politics are tricky and complicated and not straightforward for Putin at this point. No, I think that's probably the best way to put it. And, you know, the culmination of the parade that way is overall is definitely good on balance. Let's move on then to the final part here. We had to bring you this. Let's put this up there on the screen. The West has sent its best and its brightest to Ukraine on Mother's Day. I shouldn't make too much fun. For Jill Biden, the first lady, I thought it was nice that she went over there. Dr. Jill seems lovely. Yeah, Dr. Jill, that's

right, in order to lift spirits for Mother's Day. But Bono and Trudeau accompanied her, Trudeau, of course, being another leader of a NATO nation, and, you know, pretty significant there. Bono, I think, was representing the United Nations as a goodwill ambassador or something like that. So those three went over there in the context of broader Western declarations of sympathy, of course, from a security situation to have the First Lady visit. Ukraine is incredibly a significant event, but we already sent our Secretary of State, so it was more a matter of goodwill. On the diplomatic front, let's put this up there on the screen because this is very important. G7 nations have now pledged to ban or phase out Russian oil.

Of course, the G7 includes Germany, and that was always the number one concern of, well, what exactly are the Germans going to do here? Because they rely so much on Russian natural gas. So the European Union right now is getting about quarter of its crude oil import from Russia. Now what they are committing to with this declaration is to phase out Russian oil. And right now, they're still in talks to formalize that decision. So it's not 100% declared exactly. The other reason why this matters, though, is that people forget this, is that Japan is also in the G7, and Japan is a major oil-consuming nation. So for Japan to say that they're going to phase out, both actually,

it's an interesting kind of Asia-Pacific declaration of solidarity with the West. They try generally not to align themselves this way, but Japan, of course, also has its own history of war with Russia. And they're really just trying in order to get Western solidarity with them in the event that they end up in a conflict with China. So to see them come along with us in this way is actually pretty significant, because they also import a decent amount of stuff from Russia in terms of production. So anyway, what I would say is that that is probably the most significant diplomatic action in probably the last two months since the declaration of those financial sanctions. Yeah, I mean, again, if you go back to the beginning of this, remember the very early days, the thought was the swift banking sanctions were like, whoa, we're like the end all be all of whether you were serious or not about this whole sanction

situation. And man, we zoomed right past that. I mean, at the beginning, the idea that the G7 would outright ban Russian oil, even, you know, as it's a little bit unclear exactly when it's going to happen, and it'll be over a timeline and phase and all of that. I mean, I think that would have blown all of our minds at the time. But bit by bit by bit. I would have been like, that's unthinkable. Yeah, no way. Like, they can't do that. They're not going to do that. And so we're starting to see what the future looks like, which is, you know, Russia is put in this camp of the official baddie pariah states that the U.S. is going to try to sort of bleed dry and crush economically over a long period of time. And it's hard to know from reporting within the country of just how much these sanctions have hit and how much they've devastated the local population. It's hard to get an accurate picture of that at this point,

but there's no doubt if this continues over the long haul, I mean, this will be devastating for regular Russian civilians and for the country. And obviously part of, you know, the overall strategy here, which is not to secure peace, it's to weaken Russia, which frankly is what, you know, if we'd said that at the beginning, people would have said, oh, those are Putin's talking points, you're a conspiracy theorist, et cetera, et cetera. And yet now here we are with, you know, the administration outright admitting it. Boris Johnson reportedly going to Kiev and saying,

hey, we don't want peace. We want you to keep going. Seth Moulton, Democratic congressman, saying, oh, no, actually we are at war with Russia, so we should be thinking of things in that way. All of this happened so quickly and with so little public understanding or discussion that it really is astonishing. And Ukraine has fallen a little bit out of the news. The wall-to-wall coverage isn't there anymore, especially with the big news about Roe versus Wade, which we're about to talk about as well. And at the same time, these incredibly momentous and potentially like era-defining decisions are being made, and the U.S. public is really not being involved in that. Yeah, actually, it's funny. We can just tell you. I mean, we can see our data. Ukraine does not perform all that well. Now, we still stacked the first half hour of the show with it because we think it's really important.

And we have a subscriber-based model. But, you know, if you're a cable news programmer, you don't want to be covering all of this stuff because you know that it's not going to rate. Luckily, we don't have necessarily the exact same incentive structure. But that's a peek into how exactly these things get made. Your viewership and people's general interest is what drives a lot of the debate and the meta conversation. Part of the point I made in my monologue about the culture wars on Thursday was, just so you know, while we're all squabbling about abortion, the CIA loves that. Because that is when the gray war actually operates at its highest level, when they have zero public scrutiny. So I did not see nearly enough outcry on the first story that we covered. I didn't see nearly enough analysis on the oil

markets. Also, do we just live in a reality now where gas is $4.50 a gallon? I mean, seriously. I mean, months ago, strategic petroleum reserve. Now what? I mean, by the way, it costs a lot of money to fill up your tank. I have not driven past a gas station in two months that was less than $4 a gallon. And I think the national average is still for something. Just so you know, it was a catastrophe then. It's a catastrophe now. But the conversation on this stuff just continues to fizzle out. G7 is going to ban it. Okay, great. Is anybody going to give us any more gas or something?

Because people are really struggling out there. And, you know, that part of the conversation is missing too. Yeah, that is very well said. All right, so let's talk a little bit about some of the new developments, about how the midterms might shake out as we, you know, now have this leaked draft decision, looks like Supreme Court, set to overturn Roe v. Wade, dramatic reordering of American politics and upending of a precedent that has been in place for nearly 50 years. So part of what will determine how this goes politically is

ultimately how Republicans will respond. And there was a thought that they would just like focus on the leak and kind of try not to talk about any of this stuff. And the Republican, you know, the Republican senatorial committee put out And the Republican, you know, the Republican Senatorial Committee put out talking points saying, you know, we're not extremists, like we're the mainstream ones, the Democrats are the extremists. But we've got already a number of instances where you can see how this decision makes the politics very uncomfortable for Republicans. Now they're going to ask questions about abortion that they really don't want to have to engage with. Which their base wants and which they do not want to have to engage with.

Exactly. So they either have to extremely piss off their base, like extremely piss off their base. Or, you know, like so they're damned if they do, they're damned if they don't. If they try to moderate their positions on abortion to be somewhat in the mainstream of American, yeah, their base is going to freak out. And if they go along with their base, the rest of the country is like, what the hell? What? That's what you support? That's insane. So one of the first pieces here is Mitch McConnell. Go ahead and throw this tear sheet up on the screen. So he is outright saying that a national federal abortion ban is, in fact, possible.

Because some of the talking points we've heard is like, oh, well, why don't you just leave it to the states? And listen, if you don't like the regulations in Mississippi, then you can move somewhere else, putting aside how classist that is and how people don't want to move from their homes, et cetera. That is one argument that's been made. And also, listen, if you're in California and you're in New York, that this decision won't affect you that much.

Well, now you have Mitch McConnell saying, actually, we're kind of serious about this federal ban. And we had reported last week about how anti-abortion groups, along with some of their closest allies, they've been plotting this for a while now, they've been sort of putting the pieces together, and there's going to be a lot of pressure from the base to basically put up or shut up. All right, now you got your way with Roe versus Wade. This is the next step. You guys said that you're with us. Are you actually going to do it?

Let me read to you what McConnell actually said, and then we'll get your reactions, Augur. So he said, if the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies, not only at the state level but at the federal level, certainly could legislate in that area. He goes on to say, And if this were the final decision, talking about the leaked draft, that was the point that it should be resolved one way or another in the legislative process. So, yes, it's possible. Those are his words. He also says with regard to the abortion issue, I think it's pretty clear where Senate Republicans stand basically saying, yes, we're very pro-life. And if and when the court makes a final decision, I expect everybody will be more definitive, but I don't think it's much secret where Senator

Republicans stand on that issue. So obviously when he says worthy of debate, that's a very carefully chosen word because my prediction on this is they're going to hide by the filibuster. Now, because they've already come out and said, we're not going to nuke the filibuster in order to have a national ban on abortion. But they may actually find themselves in a very tough position because per David Shore's analysis, if Trump wins roughly the same amount of vote that he did back in 2020 with maybe plus 0.2 or 0.3 percent, you could have a situation where you have a filibuster-proof majority of Republicans in the Senate and Donald Trump in the White House in 2024. Then I would – I just see it – I honestly think a ban really could happen under that because I don't see how a single one of these people could go back to their base constituents who are overwhelmingly pro-life. I want to emphasize they are out of step with the rest of the American public, but that doesn't necessarily matter on some of these things. So it's a serious problem for the Republicans if they may actually,

what was the expression you used? Dog that caught the car? Dog that caught the car. Yeah. No, it's very true though. I really do think they're in that situation. And now you're seeing this on the state level. And the reason why I found this clip so significant and we both wanted to play it was because this is gonna be the meta-narrative going into the 2022 midterm elections. Now, look, who knows how it plays out?

I still think the Republicans are set to win a majority, but it could affect things on the margins. And our general thesis on culture war issues is that whichever side seems the most extreme on the day of the election, they're the ones who are going to suffer at the ballot box. Personally, I think that's been more extreme side of the issue. And this is a perfect example of a Mississippi governor here being pressed on CNN about an actual abortion ban in that state, which will then come to nationalize politics as many other state bans and state laws have, just like the Florida legislation. So let's take a listen to what that said. The state of Mississippi will force girls and women who are the victims of incest to carry those tryouts to term. Can you explain why that is going to be your law? Well, that's going to be the law because in 2007 the Mississippi legislature passed it.

I will tell you, Jake, and this sort of speaks to how far the, the Democrats in Washington have come on this issue. But in 2007 when the trigger law was put in place, we had a Democrat speaker of the house and we had a Democrat chairman of the public health committee in the Mississippi house of representatives that passed this Mississippi House of Representatives. But why are you going to take their piece of legislation? Why is it acceptable in your state to force girls who are victims of incest to carry those child children to term? Well, as you know, Jake, over 92 percent of all abortions in America are elective procedures. When you look at the number of of those that actually are involved in incest,

it's less than 1%. And if we need to have that conversation in the future about potential exceptions in the trigger law, we can certainly do that. But the reality is that, again, that affects less than 1% of all abortions in America on an annual basis. Okay, but that is going to be the law of Mississippi. Let me ask you, what about a fetus that has serious or fatal abnormalities that will not allow that fetus to live outside the womb? Is the state of Mississippi going to force those girls and women who have this tragedy inside them to carry the child to term? Are you going to force them to do that? Well, Jake, I'll tell you, I think that these questions illustrate exactly what we've been talking about. And that is you're dealing in examples that are rare and are very small

percentage of the overall abortions. And the reason for that is because when you talk to Americans, regardless of what the polling says with respect to overturning Roe v. Wade, the vast majority of Americans recognize that the abortion laws in America right now, that is what are extreme. Yeah, this is what I'm saying. This is going to be dominating the conversation for months and months to come. Two weeks ago, he does an interview with Jake Tapper. This does not come up. Nobody cares. Yeah, we're still talking about Florida. Now you're having to defend a law that requires a teenage girl raped by her stepfather to carry that pregnancy to term. Exactly. And everybody's like, oh, well, that's a fringe exception. It's like, yeah, well, it can still dominate the thing. You

know, I was actually thinking back to when's the last time that the Republican or this type of culture war was on the national stage. So pre-gay marriage, obviously, Obergefell happened. But Terry Schiavo, do you remember that case? That was, what was that, 2005? So I was young when it was happening. I've read a little bit about it. But that dominated the national conversation. It was a single person, I forget even which state that this all actually even, I think it was Florida. I think it was Florida. But anyway, that just shows you that those types of cases can dominate the national conversation. So do not, you know, many people are, Republicans are saying, oh yeah, you know, it might happen in Mississippi, Alabama. It's not going to affect the team nationally. Well, I mean, we all just saw

Republicans are gaining ground on the Florida legislation and that the team nationally. Well, I mean, we all just saw Republicans are gaining ground on the Florida legislation, and that's just Florida. Well, you know, now Mississippi, Alabama, various southern states are all going to have to ask this question. And Mitch McConnell saying, well, we might do it at the federal level. We might have to do it, keeping the door open. So the debate, the meta-narrative is shifting against Republicans on this ground. Like I said, I have no idea how this is going to shake out. But all I know is that the more these types of headlines are out there, let's put this up there on the screen, the worse it is going to be for the GOP. People can try and claim that people don't care.

And look, maybe people don't care about the majority of the American population, which is generally pro-choice and at least up until 15 weeks of debate, just like defund the police was within the realm of debate for the Democrats, is going to dominate the meta conversation around the party and have real tough questions, right? Because, I mean, frankly, I think that the pro-life base of the Republican Party is even stronger than the defund the police base of the Democratic Party. There's zero doubt about that. I mean, it makes it even harder to do to go against it whenever you're a GOP politician. Well, there you go. I mean, Joe Biden is perfectly comfortable. Think about this difference.

Joe Biden is perfectly comfortable in response to a call to defund the police to put out an op ed that's like, screw you. We're going to fund the police. That's a good point, actually. Is Mitch McConnell. There's no realm of possibility. Mitch McConnell is not able to do that whatsoever. Is Trump going to stand? No, of course not.

Of course not. He owes his entire political campaign to this very well-organized part of the base. And by the way, we're going to speak to some of the polling in just a minute. You know, I looked it up. Defund the police, whatever you think about it, is definitely not popular as a slogan. Requiring a woman who's been raped to carry her baby to term is less popular than defund the police. So those are the types of, I mean, that's how far out you are

in terms of extremist position. And I also think it's really important to understand that when you're talking about the overturn of Roe, you are inherently talking about these early pregnancy bans because already under Roe, states can ban third trimester abortions. They can do whatever they want after the point of viability. So you're only talking about these early stage pregnancies where, you know, yes, if you have an outright ban after six weeks, if you have these fetal heartbeat bans, if you have,

you know, bans without any sort of exceptions for rape and incest or life and health of the mother or life and health of the baby itself, you are talking about positions that are very much out of step with the mainstream of America. So, you know, listen, again, I always want to restate, I still think overall the midterm landscape is much more favorable to Republicans. There is no question the number one issue on people's minds when they vote, as it typically is, is going to be the economy. There is no doubt that even though we actually just got a very strong jobs report, inflation is killing people. Gas prices are killing people. Wages are not outpacing inflation. It's a simple story. People are getting a pay cut every single week, every single month, every single year

because of inflation outpacing any sort of wage gains. That will be the primary issue that defines this election, not to mention the historic trends of party in power typically does poorly because their base is kind of apathetic. The opposition is much more motivated. I don't think any of this changes that overall picture. But does it make things a lot more difficult for Republicans on the margins? Yes. Are you going to have specific examples where some Republican candidate goes out and pulls like a Todd Akin, you know, opining about legitimate rape or whatever it is that falls out of the way. Yeah, you could have those sorts of situations too that puts seats out of play for Republicans that otherwise would have been in.

Well, that's just like Democrat. You know, you'll find some fringe Democrat politician who's like, we're going to defund the police. Like, we're going to, you know, whatever. Remake society, you know, whatever. Cultural Marxism. That always gets a huge amount of play in the right and, you know, on social media. Well, now you have a flip of the dynamic. So I would just, you know, look, we see how it works against the left.

Now you can also see how it works against the right. And it is a much more organized and more established strain in the Republican base. Because as Mitch McConnell said, like every single senator is pro-life. Yeah, on the record pro-life. Now, do they, well, I should actually, let me take that back. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski claim to be pro-choice. They're pro-Roe, right? I never know how to parse these politics. Yes, exactly. I mean, they're, they, you know, they try to kind of play both sides, but they, you know, would certainly, would they go along with complete bans and no exceptions for rape and incest and those sorts of things? I don't think they would be on board with that.

But the overwhelming majority of the Republican caucus is on board with things like this, would support a federal ban on abortion. So defund, again, whatever you think about it. And I personally do think that police departments, you know, clearly we've been funding them and militarizing them and it has not helped in terms of crime. But whatever you think of the policy, there are very few representatives in Congress and none in the Senate who have embraced this rhetoric. It is coming, you know, directly from the activist base. So this is a much more widespread sentiment that is very much out of step with where the American people broadly are on the issues. I think that's right. Okay, so let's actually parse some of that politics. Let's put this up there on the screen.

CNN did an immediate reaction poll to all of this. And I think, you know, it's important to state that whenever it's not actually the law of the land and you try and explain this to somebody who doesn't even know that much, like, well, what's a leak? What do you mean? What is a leak decision? Is it the law or not? It does get complicated. But, you know, to show you the other side, the Supreme Court decision has not really shaken up the midterm landscape. Sixty-six percent said Roe v. Wade should not be struck down. Fifty-nine percent said they would support Congress passing legislation to establish a nationwide right to abortion, including 81% of Democrats, 65% of Independents, and 30% of Republicans. But comparing the results of a new poll to one conducted immediately before the revelation, the impact appears fairly muted. So the share of registered voters who say they

are extremely or enthusiastic about voting this fall rose six points between the first survey and the second, but that increase is even across party lines. Even amongst Democrats, who they say are extremely or very enthusiastic, is up seven points. But among Republicans, it's 56 percent, up nine points. Voters who say that overturning Roe would make them happy are nearly twice as enthusiastic about voting this fall as those who say such a ruling would leave them angry. Only 38% extremely enthusiastic about those happy, 20% amongst those who are angry. And the share of Americans who would be angry in the wake of such a ruling is 36%, which of course outweighs the 17% who would be happy. But again, when you have basically a double-digit enthusiasm gap, that is going to be the biggest thing.

And the final thing I will say before I get a reaction, Crystal, is that abortion is just not the only factor for most voters. Republicans hold a narrow edge on the generic ballot, 49 to 42, which is immense, seven points, which remember the Crystal Saga rule, add like three points, 10 points is more likely to see what it is whenever it's the GOP. And whenever you look at it, inflation is the number one concern amongst voters. Another Gallup thing came out. We'll be talking to Muhammad Yunus from Gallup. I'm sure we'll talk about this with him. Gallup, which came out this morning,

they're like, hey, for the last year, single theme, we're getting hammered. Grocery store, gas, it's killing us at home. So look, this could be the one area where a material politics can trump everything. Be just because inflation is so out of hand for most people's pocketbook. I think that the big question and why it makes it complicated to understand how this may all play out politically is because midterm elections are so much about base turnout. So you already had Republicans, like the people who are going to be super psyched that Roe was overturned, those people were already psyched up to vote for Republicans this fall. So the difference is, you know,

is this for young voters who were disgusted with the Biden administration, you know, his approval rating has fallen off a cliff with them. Are they going to now be motivated to vote, come out and vote for Democrats because of this decision? I don't know the answer to that. I think that's really an open question. us and we promise this time will be different. We'll actually do something about it. However, you know, when you've got Mitch McConnell out there basically saying, yeah, we might do the federal ban. Well, then the Democrats don't actually have to do anything because you can just say, well, you don't want, listen, we may not be ready to codify Roe into law and provide you with the protection you actually want, but what they're doing is way worse. So once again, it gives the Democrats the ability to do nothing and just say, but we're a little better than the Republicans. And, you know, it's existential.

So you have to come out and vote for us. Will it work? I don't know. difficult for Republicans and have the biggest impact is like in some of the suburban areas where they were hoping with Trump not on the ballot and where, you know, parents have been frustrated with Democratic policies on schools, but also on, you know, inflation and gas pumps and all that stuff. Maybe this helps to allow Democrats to shore up some of the voters that they had won in previous elections. Maybe that's the place where there's the biggest impact. It's really hard to say. You know, it was really interesting. There was a comprehensive study of all of the abortion polling since Roe versus Wade was ultimately in power. Let's go ahead and throw this tear sheet up on the screen. This is from AEI. And

it was pretty interesting digging into this saga. They say attitudes about abortion, a comprehensive review of polls from the 1970s to today. One of the things that stands out the most is that people's sentiment hasn't changed much. Like it's remarkably steady on this issue. There was like one weird pro-life increase in 2008. And since then it's basically the exact same thing. I mean, overall, attitudes have basically existed within the same band, within the same margin for almost 50 years. There has been a little bit of an increase in the number of people who say that abortion should be legal in all circumstances and a little bit of a decrease in the number of people who say it should be illegal in all circumstances. But overall, you continue to have a dynamic where, you know, those two positions, the sort of, you know,

the most extreme positions are supported by the fewest numbers and the bulk of people either say it should be legal in most but not all circumstances or it should be illegal in most but all circumstances. And the other thing that really comes out is that the American people are able to hold two thoughts in their mind about abortion at the same time. Here's what they said in this. They say Americans appear to be simultaneously pro-life and pro-choice. Significant numbers of people say abortion is an act of murder, but they also say that the decision to have an abortion should be a personal choice. These are contradictory sentiments, yet many people hold them at the same time, and many see no reason to resolve the tensions in these positions.

They believe in the sanctity of life, and they also believe in the importance of individual choice. I personally don't think that's crazy. I mean, you have two competing moral claims here. And so most Americans are able to look at that and say, okay, well, you know, there are some circumstances where, you know, I'm really not coming when you talk very late in the pregnancy. Right. That's why when you end up being the party that's on the extreme side of this debate, you are not going to have the American public broadly with you. And even within the Republican Party, there's a significant chunk that is not going to be comfortable with always illegal in all circumstances from the day of conception and from the moment you have a fetal heartbeat. There's a significant chunk of even the Republicans who are not comfortable with that.

Look, social libertarianism is baked into the Americans' blood, live and let live. So many people can say, well, I personally would not go through with that. But, you know, especially in an increasingly secular country, I mean, look, the country was dramatically more Christian in the 1970s whenever this happened. And people still, when they were literally church-going Christians, still said, yeah, I think it should probably be legal up until the first trimester. I mean, compare that to today. I'm not talking about atheism. I'm talking about, like, general secularization, decline in church-going membership, and all across the board in the way that people believe, you know, agnosticism being dramatically increased.

And even among self-identified Christians, the way that they actually believe in God has dramatically dropped over the last 20 to 30 years, especially in the last decade. Well, in that country, and especially amongst the Republicans, I've been beating this probably like a dead horse, but the new culture war is not theocratic, really, in nature at all. And that's part of the problem, which is that this returns us to the 1990s types of debates where actually a lot of the political correctness movement was on the left back in the 90s against the moral majority of the right. So it really is scrambling the way that a lot of things are. It's kind of a return to like almost a South Park era, like during the George W. Bush administration in terms of making fun of and going after theocratic Christians. That really is the change. It's like a flash in the pan moment that reminds us that these wars are not 100% settled. I think it's pretty interesting in terms of that survey of the data that even in a very, very much more Christian nation at the time, the sentiment really has not changed that much.

Yeah. It really is interesting. It's another one where there's a little bit of generational differences, but not much, which is also very unusual in terms of our politics. Most of the issues that we talk about and debate here, younger generations tend to be much more liberal, much more progressive. Here, there isn't quite that divide, which I guess makes sense when you talk about older generations having personal firsthand experience with what this actually looked like and the sort of visceral fights of that time. But, yeah, I know, Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi did in the, you know, that we were just talking about and say, well, yeah, that sounds really terrible, making a woman carry a pregnancy to term who was raped, but it doesn't happen all that often. That's just not a strong leg to stand on.

It's not a strong leg for Democrats to stand on when they say, you know, partial birth abortion, you might not like it, it might feel like really terrible to you, but it doesn't happen that often. If something is, if you believe that something is morally wrong, it's morally wrong whether it happens in one instance or a thousand or a hundred thousand instances. So I don't think that that's a particularly compelling dodge here ultimately that it doesn't happen that often. And your point about all it takes is one horrific, morally outrageous instance where you put a face and a name and you really viscerally understand this to actually completely upend the national debate and have a significant impact on our politics. It's happened before. It can happen again.

Let's move on. This is really interesting in terms of a leaked pitch deck from Elon Musk, who's wooing investors in order to join him in his takeover of Twitter. Let's put this up there on the screen. The Daily Mail did the best job, I think, in a headline of kind of aggregating the top line. That's what they're really good at. So they don't break the news, but they always do the best headlines. Here's what it is. Elon Musk plans to fire a thousand Twitter staff, quintuple revenue, get 69 million users to pay $3 a month, and to cut reliance on advertising income in terms of his presentation to investors. So the plan to quintuple Twitter revenue is the main top line here for the investors. They want to increase revenue to $26.4 billion by 2028. Now, keep that in mind. Twitter made $5 billion just last year, and they didn't even make that

much in profit. Some of the things I've been trying to emphasize for a while is Twitter is actually not a very good business from a technology point of view. They do not print money in the way that Google and Facebook have. They're much smaller in terms of their market cap. They're much smaller in terms of their overall revenue. Their overall business model is really not that good. They have a great product, which elites love, but they've never found a way in order to monetize that effectively. What Elon is saying is that for people who have significant platforms, I guess we would qualify for that. I don't know. Let's talk after this. Would we pay, actually, in order to increase that? So what he's saying is that people who have large platforms which rely on Twitter in order to talk to their followers would have to

pay for that privilege. It actually makes quite a bit of sense to me. I mean, if you think about whenever we have major announcements or things that we want to direct elite way, or just in general to have links everywhere, we use Twitter. I use Twitter in order to gauge sometimes in the general discourse of national politics, would I pay $3 a month for that? What do you think, Crystal? Yes. Yeah. I think I probably would too. The problem is, so here's the concern. I mean, there's a couple of things here. First of all, there was some thought going into this of, oh, he doesn't really care about the money.

Yeah. He cares about the values. Well, now he cares about the money because Tesla stock has gone down. Doesn't seem to be the case. I will defend it a little bit. In the decline in the public markets and when you're borrowing billions of dollars based upon the value of your stock, it's like, well, now you need to care about the money because you don't have as much money. But the minute that you, I mean, listen, he's still like the richest man on the planet. So he's doing okay.

But the minute that you move from, all right, we're just going to focus on these values to, all right, we got to like quintuple revenue in a couple years here. You're going to have some moral and ethical dilemmas and issues that you have to deal with. Now, in general, I wish that the entire social media ecosystem had been much more dependent on subscriber fees. I mean, I wish they were public utilities and that they were effectively nationalized, but that's another debate for another day. But I think it would be a much better ecosystem if it was less dependent on advertiser revenue, because that's how you end up with the sort of like hellscape of algorithmic like, you know, agitation and fear mongering and outrage and division. And that's how you end up in that place.

And that's also how you end up with, you know, people who are susceptible to this having this sort of like issues with addictive behavior. Because ultimately, you know, if you are an advertiser, what do you want? You want people to be on there looking at your ads for as much time as you possibly can, whether or not that is a good experience for them. So bottom line is you haven't been the customer for these platforms. The advertisers have been, and that creates a very different dynamic. So I don't have a problem with the idea of moving more towards, all right, if you're like a super user like us and you can afford three bucks a month, no problem that you're going to need to pay for that privilege. I don't have a problem with that.

The issue that I have is that he, and The Verge actually wrote this up, he also in this pitch deck says that he expects Twitter to earn some portion of its revenue through data licensing, a business that involves selling the millions of daily tweets on its platform to companies and developers that then analyze that data for market insights or consumer trends. So right now, under the current terms of service, you own your tweets. This seems to raise the question of whether that might change and whether it might be Twitter that owns your tweets and is then able to do what Facebook and so many of these other companies do, package up your data and sell it off so that you can be pitched to by advertising companies.

So, yeah, so they say last year Twitter earned $572 million in data licensing and, quote, other revenue. Unclear on how or if Musk plans on expanding this business. If they were to resell individual tweets, Elon would, quote, have to radically change the terms of service, not to mention face, quote, huge rev share and fair use issues as the copyright of tweets belong to the users who posted them. So that's one part that is potentially troubling here. I don't have an issue with moving away from the advertiser-backed model to more of a subscription model. I mean, it echoes part of what we do.

I'm a huge believer in subscription. It's what we do here as long as you're making it available and accessible to all people so that it doesn't become a class issue and people can't afford to pay, don't have access to it. I think they should charge people like us. We need it for our jobs. Yeah, so I don't have an issue with that. This is the big question mark of what exactly they're thinking of doing here. And per the presentation they plan currently,

Twitter relies on 90% of its revenue from advertising. He wants to reduce that down to 45%, which actually is perfect, really, in terms of balance. And in terms of the overall cyclical business within the ad model, people should remember advertising peaks during certain seasons. You make the bulk of your revenue at a certain time. It's a totally crazy business for anybody who's involved in this. And the most reliant and best thing in the world is just consistent revenue that comes in on the basis. We can speak from personal experience.

That's how you pay your bills and you make sure that this stuff actually all gets paid on time. I do want to emphasize, though, that some of the partners that he's bringing in here are some unsavory characters and very contradictory to some of the original stuff, which I'll talk more about in my monologue. Let's get this up there on the screen. Take a look here at some of the nearly $7 billion that he's currently filed in terms of commitments that he's gotten. So that includes major billionaires like Larry Ellison, Binance, and Sequoia. I'm generally fine with institutional capital. But one on here bothers me a little bit, Crystal. $375 million from the Qatar Holding LLC, a.k.a. the Qatari royal family and the Saudi – sorry, and the Qatari royal family. As well as, if you guys will remember, the Saudi prince who he was tasseling with originally.

Well, that guy has now agreed to convert his Twitter holding into stock in the company. So he will now be a nearly $2 billion holder of the same Twitter under Elon Musk. So Musk does not have to buy him out. So Elon now faces the same Saudi problem that Twitter had in the first place. Now, I guess, I mean, it's better on balance. You have a guy who called him out in public, but like, is it still good when the guy owns, when the Saudis control $2 billion worth of the company? Now for the inevitable comments, I know that the kingdom holding company is not part of the actual kingdom itself, but given that all the Saudi princes there are under the rule of MBS and that guy literally got his ass thrown in prison by MBS. You tell me who runs a show in Saudi Arabia.

So I would say now we have two Gulf kingdoms, not one, that have their dirty little hands. We diversify. Yeah, he's diversified. He's got their hands in the company. It was no racial comment, by the way. It's about their general way that they approach politics and how they buy lobbying influence here in Washington. I used to live in Qatar. Let's just say it's not a very nice country.

Yeah. And the royal family over there is famous for these types of antics. Well, I did do a little bit of research so that I had some specifics about their free speech position. They have a slew of laws about this. But there's a brand new one that they just passed recently that says biased broadcasting or publishing can be punished by up to five years in prison. Back in 2012, a Qatari poet was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for reciting a poem critical of the emir in his private apartment while living abroad. He served four years in prison before being released on pardon. I also wanted to mention the billionaire on there, Larry Ellison, just in terms of his views.

At one point, at least, he was critical of Edward Snowden, saying that Snowden had yet to identify a single person who had been wrongly injured by the NSA's data collection. Oh, I know, because Oracle does a bunch of business with the NSA. That completely makes sense. Yeah, tracks. To give people some insight, I lived in Qatar. I went to high school there. I graduated from high school there. We were all terrified.

We were made known to us, even as Americans, that if we talked badly about the royal family, and I went to the American school, so they're actually members of the royal family. Oh, wow. I actually will never forget this. Our principal had to clear the graduation date with the guy who was graduating. He's like, hey, are you good with this? He's like, can we graduate on this day so that the princes and all these people could come? That's a whole different deal right there.

Let me tell you something. I've never appreciated the First Amendment and all that more until I set back foot on American soil. And I was like, thank God I'm out of this hellhole because living under an actual Islamic theocracy, I don't think people can really appreciate what it's like to say, hey, like, and you know, you're seeing all these unjust things happening around you.

I was in a unique position because, you know, obviously I'm of Indian origin and there are all these basically Indian slaves who live in Qatar and get their passports confiscated. And Qatar has all these like fake, well, look, this was 2008, so it's been a while. I don't know if it's still on the books. But at the time, they had all these complicated rules to bar basically those people from public spaces.

And they would come up to me and they'd be like, hey, what are you doing here? And I was like, what? And they're like, oh, you're American. They're like, you're good. So they would like let you into a public space. That's so gross. But they would keep the, you know, I mean, people who look just like me but happen to be from India, you know, elsewhere.

And a lot of these guys, part of the reason my parents left is because these guys would, like, come to my parents and beg them for money and ask them for help because they, you know, because my parents at least speak the same language as them. Oh, that's heartbreaking.

And they were like, you know, they're living under legit indentured servitude. Like, they have no freedom whatsoever. And anyway, look, I'm telling you, these are not good people. You don't want any business to do with them whatsoever. No matter how look, I'm telling you, these are not good people. You don't want any business to do with them whatsoever. No matter how fancy the Althani family, who are the ruling family, come to Washington, they wear their Burberry scarves, and we're just like you. It's

like, no, we're not. I know how you make your money, and I know how you treat people, specifically women, back home when nobody is looking. So keep that in mind about how these people really live behind closed doors. They sip martinis in D.C., but not over there. So some trouble in Camelot here, I think, fair to say in terms of, listen, I mean, this guy has his own interests, Elon Musk, and the idea that he's going to be the savior of free speech, I think we should all temper our expectations here, bottom line. Absolutely. Speaking of free speech, we have a new White House press secretary. Let's go ahead and throw the announcement up on the screen. We knew for a while that Jen Psaki was stepping down.

Now we have a date. She is going to depart from the White House on May 13th. President Biden has announced Karine Jean-Pierre as she will be promoted to assistant to the president and White House press secretary. I actually knew her a little bit back at MSNBC. We were there. We overlapped at the same time. She had come from MoveOn, which, you know, previously had been sort of like the left flank of the Democratic Party pre-Bernie and all of that. MoveOn, I mean, they got their start during the Iraq War.

That was actually part of my first political— No, no, no. MoveOn was a Lewinsky scandal. That's what the whole thing was. Then it became more start during the Iraq War. That was actually part of my first political— No, no, no. Move On was a Lewinsky scandal. That's what the whole thing was. Then it became more prominent during the Iraq War. They had their second rebirth during Iraq, and then they had their third rebirth becoming a cringe identity politics organization. Resistance lib. Yeah.

It's actually really sad. That's where they landed. It is sad. I mean, there's a lot you could say about that particular arc. We'll save that for another day. She also, I mean, she's been, they say, a longtime advisor to Biden, served in senior communication political roles in the Biden administration, Biden campaign, and then vice president of Biden in the Obama administration.

So kind of a long time in the firmament of D.C. Democratic operative. She was someone who had been floated for this position. No big surprise, ultimately, that she got it. Let's go ahead and throw this next piece up on the screen. This is being celebrated as a huge history-making moment, first black person. So it actually didn't occur to me that there had never been a black person in this role before. So not just first black woman, but first black person and first openly gay woman to become White House press secretary. So, you know, we're not getting student loan debt relief. We're not getting health care. But you are getting a queer black woman to

be paid to lie to you. So I guess that's what we're going to count as progress. And that's not particular to her. That's just literally what the job entails, essentially. Look, this is always the case with these diversity things. It's like when the Nasdaq said that you can't go public, or maybe it was the Dow Jones, like you have to have a black person on your board. It's like, oh, great, now a black person on the board of the company that will pay, screw its workers. Right, or like the CIA diversity. I mean, it's not quite as bad, I think, as the CIA diversity ads.

I think Jimmy Dore once said something. He's like, Gina Haspel broke a glass ceiling so she could use the glass to cut somebody's throat. Slay Queen, I guess? I don't know. I'll never forget what you said. Yeah, I mean, listen, it's perfect neoliberal brain to substitute, you know, sort of representation win as real progress for the masses. But anyway, we'll see.

I have nothing personally against Karine Jean-Pierre in terms of, you know, when I knew her at MSNBC or anything like that. I don't know anything about her. I've never had any personal experience. My general reaction, like, is the cringe identity politics one, which is like, everyone's like, oh, the first one. I'm like, okay, why don't we go through a comprehensive list of lies that she's already told on public and then go through that and match that with her record? That seems like a great act of journalism. I would support that for Sarah Sanders, Kayleigh McEnany, any press secretary who is out there. That is something that actual journalism should do. And also, you know, Howie Kurtz over at Fox News had a sit-down with Jen Psaki and pressed her about the ethics concerns. Not a very good job, but we'll play it for you. Nonetheless, it's important to remember this. No press secretary, to my knowledge in history, has negotiated a contract

with a private news organization while remaining the press secretary. You and I knew, everybody knew this lady was going to MSNBC. Everyone, all of her former colleagues did. Josh Earnest, Ben Rhodes, all those people from the Obama administration. They at least had the dignity to leave first. You can't leave and then go over to 30 Rock and negotiate your contract. You should not be openly negotiating contracts while you're sitting press secretary. And she assures us, I consider myself a very ethical person. Let's take a listen. I know you can't discuss your next job for ethical reasons, but it's been widely reported. You got a lot of criticism over possible conflicts during this period. Did that bother you?

Of course, because I'm a human being. But what I know is what I try to do every day. And I hold myself to a very high ethical standard. I took steps and have taken steps as I've had any discussions with any future employer that go over and above any requirements by government, recusing myself of any discussions as well. And I'm proud of that. And I think and hope, and this is very public in a job like mine, people judge me by how I engage and interact with reporters. And I think it's been clear I've treated everybody the same from the beginning. And that's been a point of pride for me. Okay. One, like what? Like, what does that even, I consider, I don't care

about how you consider yourself. Everybody considers themselves an ethical person. Nixon considered himself an ethical person. Okay? I mean, here's the point. George W. Bush. Yeah, George W. Bush considers himself a devout evangelical Christian who has done no wrong in this world. Okay? I can tell you that based upon people I know who have spoken to him, specifically about the Iraq War.

Does that mean that we don't get to say maybe you consider yourself – there's a reason we don't leave ethical declarations up to the people who are supposed to declare themselves ethical. I think that's really the crux of this whole situation. Especially in government. Yeah. You're just going to be like, I trust. They say they're doing the right thing. That's good enough for me. Okay.

Come on. Also, I mean he asked the wrong question here of did that basically like, how did you feel about it? Yeah, what a chicken shit way to ask. Yeah, it's like, I don't care how she felt about it. I care whether there were ethical violations here. I care what you actually did. How did those conversations unfold? She's allowed to be very vague about, trust me, I did the right thing. And, you know, you can see that I treated all people the same. Also, given that he's at Fox News, I think it'd be perfectly reasonable to say, listen, there was a lot of criticism and justifiably about the revolving door between Fox News and the Trump administration. But, you know, seems to be not the same level of concern

here when it comes to Jen Psaki, although, you know, this was just to give you a sense of how sort of outrageous and egregious this was. Even mainstream reporters, even her future colleagues at NBC, I remember Kristen Welker asking very pointed questions about how this was okay and how this was ethically acceptable, and we still don't have any real

answers for that. I just can't understand. Why don't you just leave and then make the call, you know? Why is it's are you are you so hard up for cash which by the way is not true i know that she's already made well over a million dollars in the private sector well she was working for that union bus that's what i'm saying yeah she's cash consulting firm that was you know working with amazon to help bust the union so i'm like you literally can't go a day without a paycheck? Even though you made millions of dollars. Look, I'm not going to judge your personal financial situation,

but I'm just telling you, as a public official, you have now comported yourself in a very significant problem. So as you said, even the NBC colleagues were like, this is kind of messed up in terms of what you're doing. And I think it's incredibly outrageous. Yeah, because it put them in an awkward position. It should. They didn't like the appearance of that. Right. Okay, let's move on. This is a very important confrontation

that happened on Capitol Hill. Senator Rand Paul pressing DHS Secretary Mayorkas about the disinformation governance board. And I think that Rand Paul said something that we've been trying to emphasize here, which is that the U.S. government cannot and should not be able to sort out what is disinformation because it has been one of the greatest purveyors of disinformation in the history of the world. Let's watch that confrontation. Do we have policies? Do we have guardrails? Do we have standards to ensure? But here's the problem. We can't even agree. We can't even agree what disinformation is. You can't even agree that it was disinformation that the Russians fed information to the Steele dossier.

If you can't agree to that, how are we ever going to come to an agreement on what is disinformation so you can police it on social media? I think you've got no idea what disinformation is, and I don't think the government's capable of it. Do you know who the greatest propagator of disinformation in the history of the world is? The U.S. government. Are you familiar with McNamara, the Pentagon Papers? Are you familiar with George W. Bush and the weapons of mass destruction? Are you familiar with Iran-Contra? I mean, think of all the debates and disputes we've had over the last 50 years in our country. We work them out by debating them. We don't work them out by the government being the arbiter. I don't want you to guard rails.

I want you to have nothing to do with speech. You think we can't determine, you know, speech by traffickers is disinformation? You think the American people are so stupid they need you to tell them what the truth is? You can't even admit what the truth is with a Steele dossier. I don't trust government to figure out what the truth is. You can't even admit what the truth is with a Steele dossier. I don't trust government to figure out what the truth is. Government is largely disseminating disinformation. He's right. Look, no matter who you are, Mayorkas, Trump, Obama, Bill Clinton, all the way back, FDR, even the best presidents, they have sowed disinformation. It is the job of the press and of a free society in order to expose that disinformation. It is the job of the press and of a free society

in order to expose that disinformation and for all of us in order to consider the ups and the downs and the plus and the minus. So we should not have any entity out there, which is government affiliated, issuing guidance on this. I mean, even, I'll even go so far as to say on the Russians, I don't think it is up to America to say that the Russians are sowing, they can say, look, we disagree, you know, with this. I think it should be up to us. They can issue, you know, guidance or whatever, but they should not be out there declaring and classifying things and then feeding that to the tech companies, Crystal. And that is what this new board, by all accounts, appears to be doing. They say we're going to stick only to foreign disinformation. But as Rand Paul, you think we need the DHS to tell us that drug smugglers are feeding Hondurans?

Or lying to people. Oh, no. Oh, you know, I have a healthy bit of skepticism about Rand Paul. So when I saw this going viral, it was not a sure thing for me that I was going to like what he had to say. But there were two things I really appreciated. Number one was that he used examples that were from Republican administrations. I mean, for a Republican to directly call out the George W. Bush administration, weapons of mass destruction, I mean, that's a very that is a

very new phenomenon. And it is not it is not certainly across the board. I mean, we saw in the Katonji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings how they were still using this, like, you know, trying to defend torture and trying to use against her the fact that she had been on the side of standing up for the Constitution against indefinite detention and those things against her. So those politics are not dead. There are still a lot of people in the Republican Party and in the Democratic Party, by the way, who still are totally in like neocon brain land. So I appreciated that pointed to Iran-Contra. Of course, that's under the Reagan administration. So that made the point really honest and salient because he wasn't just cherry picking like the democratic abuses of which there are many, right? Yes. So I appreciated that. The other part I really appreciated was something

that we've talked about on this show here before is he made this comment like, do you really think that the American people are so stupid that they can't figure out, like, regular Americans who don't believe that their fellow citizens are really up to participating as citizens in a democracy, that they can't handle it. That concern has been present since the founding of the republic. Literally. And that, when you have that sentiment of like, I can't trust these people on here to be, you know, in the messy give and take of a democracy and figure things out for themselves with the help of a free press and with all of the, you know, wealth of information that exists

out there in our ecosystem now. When you get to that point, then what does that justify? That justifies the, you can't handle it. First of all, we're going to censor you. We're not going to allow you to see certain things. We're not going to allow you to say certain things. It leads to police state authoritarianism atmosphere. And it also leads to the flip side of that is, so we have to hand total control to the experts. It's just this group of educated credentialed elites. They're the only ones we can really trust with this governance and democracy stuff. Like democracy is not for the people. And so I really appreciate that his point gets at that piece because I really think that's the central,

that's why this debate is so incredibly important. 100%. And let's just be reminded of who the new head of this board is, the so-called disinformation. He's the most cringe person in the entire country. No, literally, yeah. Like I said, look, theater kid who, unlike me, was not mugged by reality.

The worst of all worlds. Here's where she gave a recent interview. Let's take a listen. There's already this idea, this allegation that there is anti-conservative bias on the platforms, even though there has been study after study proving, in fact, that often it's liberal voices that are being silenced, particularly minority voices on social media. Where do these fake studies come from? Do I doubt that there are—actually, liberal is not the right word.

Are there left accounts which are censored? Yes. Yeah, all of the time. And we have pointed to many of those instances, specifically who are anti-imperialist or anti-war activists are the most likely. Some of them may be people of color. Are liberal voices, BLM activists getting salience on Twitter? Get out of here, okay?

That is the most ludicrous accusation. And they always come up with this fake data and these experts in order to just justify a censorious, elite liberal point of view. I wish they would just say that. They're like, listen, we think some voices are abhorrent. We think others aren't. And not rely on all of this fakery. But look, this deserves serious scrutiny. This lady is now the head of a U.S. government agency with possible power over social media companies,

over very least guidance, whatever that means, from the Department of Homeland Security, which is the largest law enforcement agency in the entire United States. A lot of people forget that. They have immense power over our lives. Yeah, I thought about her comment there a lot, actually. First of all, I think it's a little revealing that she just conflates liberals and people of color as if there's no ideological diversity. I'm sure that there are a lot of people of color who are being censored who have dissident views. There's no doubt about that. The reason why you don't see liberal voices being censored like you do voices who are outside of the mainstream is because, I mean, these companies are run by billionaires and they are culturally – they tend to have a very specific sort of ideology that conforms with what the liberal media wants to put out there. So yeah, if you're basically in line with the cultural views of the powers that be, then you're not going to be censored. You're

not ultimately going to have an issue. To me, it doesn't really matter which part of the spectrum is being censored more or less because this is a value. It's about the values. It's about the principles. It's about being committed to living in a democracy and what that ultimately entails. So, yes. Absolutely right. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Quite an epic week just unfolded for workers, capped off by some utter betrayal from the White House. Allow me to explain. So, on Thursday last week, Amazon Labor Union President Christian Smalls testified in front of the Senate Budget Committee on Amazon at Bernie Sanders' request.

It was actually pretty extraordinary. Chris was not having it with Senator Lindsey Graham's anti-union talking points, and he had a message for all politicians. It's not a Democrat or Republican thing. It's a workers' thing. It's a workers' issue. And we're the ones that are suffering in the corporations that you're talking about, in the businesses that you're talking about, in the warehouses that you're talking about. So that's the reason why I think I was invited today to speak on that behalf. And you should listen because we do represent your constituents as well. So just take that into consideration that the people are the ones that

make these corporations go. It's not the other way around. Next, it was off to the White House for a photo op with other workers and organizers from Starbucks and other locations. Here are some of the photos of Chris in his eat the rich jacket meeting with Biden, Kamala and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. Biden apparently told Chris that he had gotten him into trouble. Presumably, Biden was referring to a moment from a few weeks back when he said in a speech, Amazon, here we come. Of course, mere hours later, his press secretary was at the podium to walk those mild comments back. And so it was for the worker photo op. Nice show of support. Genuinely positive, symbolic step forward as compared to the anti-union or union-indifferent presidents we've had my entire life.

But mere hours later, we learned that while Biden might be willing to pose with workers at the White House, he had already sold them out. Our partners at The Lever have that report. Quote, Amazon gets huge contract despite Biden's union pledge, the president promised to halt federal contracts to union busters, but the deal was just re-awarded to Amazon while the company was crushing a union drive. So a massive $10 billion cloud computing contract for the NSA was recently ratified by the Biden administration, a clear violation of Biden's pledge to deny federal contracts to union busters and to be the most pro-union president in history. And there is no denying that Amazon violates labor law to bust unions routinely. Their actions were so egregious and bessemer that the National Labor Relations Board actually forced an election do-over. And Biden's own NLRB prosecutors just found that Amazon broke the law with illegal captive audience union busting

meetings during the Staten Island union drive. The NLRB also found that Amazon illegally fired union supporter Daquan Smith. Smith has been so hard hit by the job loss that he was forced into homelessness and now resides in a Queens shelter. So it's not like ambiguous or a matter of opinion that Amazon routinely violates the law in order to bust unions. They have repeatedly and consistently been found to do so by official government bodies. Nor was Biden's pledge ambiguous at all. In fact, Bernie Sanders just sent him a letter calling on him to uphold this pledge, writing in part, As you will recall, during the presidential campaign, you promised to institute a multi-year federal debarment for all employers who illegally oppose unions and to ensure federal contracts only go to employers who sign neutrality agreements committing not to run anti-union campaigns.

That campaign promise was exactly right. Today, I am asking you to fulfill that promise. Now, Biden doesn't need Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema or the Republicans or the parliamentarian or filibuster reform to fulfill that promise. Now, Biden doesn't need Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema or the Republicans or the parliamentarian or filibuster reform to fulfill this promise. He can do it all on his own. And right now is an absolutely crucial time for Amazon Labor Union because winning the election, that was just the first step.

Now they've got to get a contract and Amazon has already signaled they are going to do everything in their power to keep that from happening. They are bound and determined to snuff this budding union movement out, and the best way for them to do that is to screw over these workers and show to the rest of their workforce and to the nation at large that winning a union did not deliver material benefits. The law requires Amazon to negotiate a contract in good faith,

but corporations use every trick in the book to give some appearance of good faith negotiations when really their only goal is to drive things out and maintain the status quo. That's why one year after union elections, the majority of organized units still have not won a contract. And according to the Economic Policy Institute, two years after union elections, 37% of organized units still have no contract. Now, workers can use militant tools like the threat of strikes to try to force employers to play ball. And Amazon definitely does need this massive Staten Island warehouse in order to service the NYC metro area. But what workers really need is a government that's going to back them up. Instead, they're getting weak shit like this from Biden's labor secretary,

Marty Walsh. The vice president were there, I think, speaking with him at the White House. I think the president popped into, according to Chris Smalls, he tweeted about it. He, of course, as you know, is the guy who kind of led that whole union effort at the Staten Island Amazon warehouse. Secretary Walsh, Amazon has been a recipient of some big federal contracts, as you know, something senators like Bernie Sanders, some labor leaders have said should end. For a White House that says they back unions and are pro unions, should you be awarding federal money to a company that is perceived as anti-union in this moment? I don't think we need to go there right now.

What I think we need to do right now is encourage Amazon and Starbucks and other big companies in America that workers have taken a vote to organize and ask them to come to the table and sit down and work out in agreement with them. These are workers that work in an Amazon warehouse. These are workers that are working in Starbucks and some other industries that were in my office today. Quite honestly, their employees have decided that they want to join a union and they should respect the right of their employees. And what they should do right now, instead of stalemate, instead of trying to break the union, is sit down with these workers and try and come up with an agreement to move forward. And I would encourage all these companies to do that because we're not at the point right now, I don't think,

where we need to take any other action. It's really encouraging both sides to sit down. So they're not going to actually keep their promises or use the power at their disposal. They're just going to do a worker photo op and rhetorically encourage Amazon to sit down. I'm sure that's going to work out. I'm sure the power-hungry, greedy ghouls at Amazon will hear Marty Walsh's encouragement and decide to do the right thing, putting aside their lust for higher profit margins and dictator

level coercion to deliver a fair contract for their new union workers. This is far from over, though, friends. Amazon is bidding on another multi-billion dollar federal government contract, so there is still an opportunity for Biden to actually live up to his words and deliver for the workers that he is happy to pat on the back. Pressure slogan rights itself, no union contract, no government contract. Right now is an absolutely critical time. As the economy heads towards possible recession, we're finding out whether the new union energy is a sustaining trend, a true rebalancing of the scales towards workers, or more of a flash in the pan.

Few things will be as critical to writing that story as what happens with the brave workers who unionized at Amazon. Chris Smalls has said that he's now heard from every Amazon warehouse in the entire country about potential unionizing. A potential revolutionary groundswell is knocking at the door. And if Biden would do just a little more than a photo op, they might actually have a fighting chance. It's almost like Biden is more concerned with offending his corporate buddies like Jay Carney than with the labor rights fight of the century. And it really has become a pattern now, Sagar. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com.

All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, before I begin, I want to say something clearly. I think actual critical and analytical reporting on Elon Musk, his businesses, his ties to different regimes, and generally how he wants to run Twitter when he eventually takes it over are vital and important. But as always, the biggest problem with our censorship and racial-obsessed press is that they literally do the opposite of that. They sling ad hominem and in this case false attacks which invalidate and possibly even discourage real reporting on the subject. The latest example

is truly one of the most disgusting hit pieces that I've seen yet from the New York Times, who wrote, quote, Elon Musk grew up in elite white communities in South Africa, detached from apartheid's atrocities and surrounded by anti-black propaganda. They add, he sees his takeover of Twitter as free speech win, but in his youth did not suffer the effects of misinformation. Hmm. So what's the takeaway from that? Elon grew up in apartheid South Africa in communities of racists, but by growing up there, he did not suffer from the dangers of racist misinformation. I'm skeptical, but I'm open to it. But per the author of the piece, Musk was sheltered from the disgusting

nature of apartheid. And yet, in the very same story, the Times wrote, Musk had non-white friends growing up in South Africa, which is actually pretty courageous considering it was the most racially segregated society on earth at the time. And in fact, per one of his friends growing up, he was actually bullied by his actually racist classmates for having non-white friends. That friend of his later recalled that Musk was one of the very few whites who even attended the funeral of the man in their family's village at the time. Now look, I've seen some deride this as, yeah, but he has black friends defense. I have a question to pose. How many of the woke

people saying that would have had the real courage to have actual non-white friends as a white person in apartheid South Africa, where you have to suffer very real social and economic costs? I think we know the answer, but let's continue on. The second accusation against Elon by the Times is that he grew up in elite white circles protected from the true cost of South Africa, which is interesting because in the exact same piece, they actually quote Musk's own father, who says, quote, as far as being sheltered from it, that's nonsense. They were confronted by it every day, adding they didn't like it. The Times even notes that Musk's father was a member of the anti-apartheid progressive party while he was growing up. And finally,

in one of the most significant and important facts here, Musk actually left apartheid South Africa to make sure he did not have to serve in the military there, specifically because he did not agree with the racial regime. Astro Techery's Ben Thompson notes, quote, being a liberal with forbidden black friends under a censorious apartheid regime that denied its atrocities is a powerful origin story for Musk's focus on free speech. So powerful, in fact, this takeaway shines through a ham-fisted narrative insinuating the opposite. And that's really the repulsive part. If you read this story, you would have the opposite takeaway of the headline. Of a socially awkward person who had non-white friends, saw the crazy censorship of the apartheid

regime, came to the West and to America, and wants to make sure such a system is not in place that resembles anything like that of which he grew up in. Now look, is that the noble intention of Elon Musk? Who knows? That's the real question. That is where the reporting should stay. Insinuating that Musk is some pro-apartheid racist when the facts all literally point to the opposite is repulsive. And we all know why it's being done. It's because of a current censorious nature of Twitter serves elite liberal ends. As Freddie DeBoer so eloquently writes, quote, liberals and leftists are afraid because Twitter is where they perform the personalities that they lack in real life, where they act like the confident and clever people they patently aren't. Brutal and absolutely true. The current version of Twitter is to be protected

at all costs because it fundamentally is about elite comfort. That is how criticizing somebody became, quote unquote, harassment. That's how some stories get allowed and others don't. It's the mindset that leads to these insane feats of so-called journalism when real journalism is sorely needed. And as I pointed out in my own debunking of this article, we should have a lot more of this type of journalism that we saw from the Wall Street Journal in December on Elon Musk's ties to China, his deep reliance on the CCP for the Tesla supply chain, the subsequent reality that Elon could have had a serious problem on his hands if he wants to have Uyghur activists and Hong Kong freedom protesters on that platform. The Chinese have him over the barrel because of choices that he's made with Tesla, which is where the vast majority of his

net worth is derived from. Not only that, but Elon has taken out billions of dollars in loans against his Tesla stock. Meaning, if the Chinese target the stock, they can specifically target his own personal net worth. Or how about this? After Elon tussled with the Saudi royal family on Twitter and stood up to them, why did he then bring in nearly $400 million of Qatari royal family money to help him finance his ownership of Twitter. And in fact, as I said earlier, you remember that Saudi prince that he was jousting with? Well, that prince is going to allow his stock to roll over under Elon and will retain a nearly $2 billion ownership stake in the company. You see, these are the stories that we need. Look, of course, there is some coverage of

this, but it is scant and it doesn't dominate the conversation when really that's the only thing we should be talking about. As always, in the race-obsessed press, its attempt to take out Elon has honestly just made him stronger. If you care about real scrutiny of public officials like him, this is the absolute worst possible outcome that you could have. And that's actually something I want to focus on, which is that... And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Welcome to the show, Mohamed Younis. He's the editor-in-chief of Gallup. It's great to see you in person, man. It's great to be back in person. Absolutely. Okay, so let's put this up there on the screen, how Americans feel about Roe versus Wade. And Mohamed, you are the data master over there at Gallup, and you've got some interesting things to parse with us. So first of all, and I know this is a tough question, how do Americans feel about Roe versus Wade and about abortion?

And are the two different subjects? The second part's hard. The first part's actually really easy. Because in 1989, 58% of Americans opposed overturning Roe v. Wade. In 2021, you guessed it, 58% of Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. So there's been very little change on people's attitude about the decision itself. So that's one thing. The other thing is just how do people feel about abortion

generally as a moral issue? Um, when you ask people the question along the very kind of partisan taglines, pro pro-life pro-choice, as you can imagine, people split right down the middle. But what's really interesting is that the moral acceptability of abortion, just as a concept that we ask in a list of moral issues, has gone up. And there's been a general trend towards people wanting to see less restrictive, not more restrictive abortion laws in America. So what I just mentioned are really a compilation of like six or seven questions we've been asking since really the 80s and more so really in the mid 90s. And a lot of that time period, we haven't seen a lot of change, but there has been this slight shift towards people wanting to see less restrictive laws, particularly as these cases have come up lately

in the last two years. So if there's sort of a leaning in public opinion, it's in that direction. But there are a lot of non-traditional sort of left of the aisle, right of the aisle data points to really think about. First of all, only a quarter of Americans really think of abortion as like a voting issue. And that hasn't changed. Only 19% of people who are pro-choice say so. Obviously, that's going to be really interesting. We're actually in the field right now updating all of these questions. So the one thing I'm really looking forward to educating myself on is, has that changed as the president has now asked people to make it a foremost issue?

Because it really hasn't been for the left in so long. Yeah. So is that the case? I mean, the perception generally is that most of the people who vote on abortion are on the right or on the pro-life side of the debate. Does that is that accurate? Has that consistently been the case? It's accurate. But but you got to keep in mind that there are very few people that really vote on abortion. Only a quarter or less of Americans say that they basically would only vote for somebody who shares their view on abortion. See, that's really interesting. How do we parse then the salience of an issue? Like whenever people say that, how do they exactly rank it?

Because we've seen people say before, I only vote on economic issues. But that's just not true. Like if you go and you look at who they vote for or the general types of things that they prioritize. So how do we parse what people say they want and then how they actually vote come vote time? And that's a really great question. And not only that, it's where are you voting? Because in a lot of places where people are voting, this is not really an issue. It's only in very few districts or states where this issue has really been on

the fence in terms of your vote swinging this way or that way really making a big difference. If you live in California, it's not going to change. But that being said, I think that we really haven't, I mean, in our lifetimes, we haven't lived at a time when the president of the United States has brought this front and center to the voting public as an issue to really think about. The other thing is we don't necessarily – we shouldn't necessarily assume that everybody who's Republican is going to vote a certain way and Democrat a certain way. It's important to keep in mind that 22 percent of Republicans describe themselves as pro-choice. And we've seen a few voices from the right coming up and saying, you know, I'm a conservative, but like when it comes to this issue, I have a different view. So we,

I don't think it's a apples to apples kind of comparison for those two factors. One, Republicans are not as monolithic as people assume on being pro-life. And also the public focus now has really shifted towards this issue just months before everybody goes to vote. The other really big factor that is unique in this time is people's attitude about the Supreme Court itself. The Supreme Court just hit a record low in job approval just a few months before all of this happened. So right now the Supreme Court is at 40 percent approval. It was at 58 percent approval just very recently. So, I mean, from a legal, as somebody with a legal education, it's been really cringeworthy to see those numbers and think about, you know, how the court wants to present itself to the public as above the fray, above political issues, certainly above

political leaks. And now this is really happening at a time of extreme concern for the court's job in general. That being said, though, as an institution, it's hurting. And we've had this conversation before. Institutions in America generally have seen, yeah, have seen a decline in confidence. But the individuals still have a lot of public trust. So Justice Roberts, we asked a question about a series of federal officials. Justice Roberts actually ranked the highest just a few months ago, 60% approval. Justice Ketanji Jackson Brown had the highest in public approval of saying that she should be confirmed just a month ago. So it's not that everybody on the Supreme Court is sort of despised, but the court has really now found itself right in

the middle of this political- Like Congress. Yeah, I was going to say, people tend to have a higher opinion of their member of Congress than they do of the body as a whole. Are there generational differences in this issue? Because it is fascinating to me how stable some of these numbers have been. I mean, you pointed out that, you know, 58% of America in, what was it, 1989? Yeah. You know, we're opposed to Roe being overturned and it's still that exact same number. And there have been these changes on the margin. There seem to be, um, I read a comprehensive study of all the different abortion data over like 50 years. There seems to be a

somewhat larger group that wants it to be legal in all circumstances, a somewhat smaller group that wants it to be illegal in all circumstances. But overall, opinions have kind of stayed within the same band. Is that because there aren't a lot of generational differences? So as older folks, you know, phase out and new folks come in, it hasn't really changed the composition of how people feel about this issue. Yeah, there aren't a lot of generations. There are slight changes, of course. Young people are a little more likely, slightly more likely, a few percentage points. But there isn't this big shift between young and old. For example, like when we see when you ask about

hybrid work, for example, or some of these other social issues that really break along generational lines. So no, we haven't seen that. But we also haven't seen the biggest decision on this policy issue up for grabs in public. So similarly with the Trump election, we're talking about whether Trump will be reelected. There's so many kind of go-to norms that really don't apply this time around. And that's why I think we really needto norms that really don't apply this time around. And that's why I think we really need to keep an open mind with how this issue will play out, not only in the midterms, but also in an environment where inflation is absolutely the number one concern people are thinking. I was about to ask you about it. I just saw a Gallup thing this morning about inflation and about the salience in people's lives. Can you tell us about that in terms of the last year and just how much top of mind this is? Yeah, absolutely. So one of

the questions we ask is, what's the most important problem facing the country? We have not seen inflation or the cost of living mentioned anywhere near this level. Right now, it's about 20% of Americans just volunteer that answer, really since the 80s. It was much higher then, but it's getting there. Where we really see concern is when you ask Americans, do they think inflation will continue for six months or longer? And a vast majority of Americans do. So the outlook is really concerning. Economic confidence index is something that we measure every month. That's now not only gone into the negative, but even further, deeper into the negative. So the economy is very much on people's minds. We saw, obviously, the market last week had a disastrous week. So whenever that happens, you know, there's going

to be a public opinion reaction to them. What will be happening in November, obviously, it's so impossible to predict, especially in this era. But as, you know, the other thing to keep in mind is we don't, we shouldn't necessarily assume that this is sort of the end-all be-all decision of the court. We don't really know where the court stands. It is interesting that several of the justices have canceled all of their public speaking engagements pretty much in the next foreseeable future. So you're dealing with a court that really now is very serious, of course, about their image, but is facing a public opinion crisis that they haven't seen in their generation. And then as we move towards

the midterms, we played on the show today, some of the questions that Republicans are starting to get about specific restrictions. The Missouri governor was being pressed about their specific law, which doesn't provide any exceptions for rape, incest, or other circumstances. You have in Louisiana, they're advancing a bill that could actually criminalize women and put women in jail who seek abortion. So what do we know about how Americans feel about some of these specific restrictions that have been popular in red states? It is a very, very low percentage of Americans that actually support that sort of, I won't call it an extreme, but an absolute position on abortion. So you mentioned earlier, Crystal, you know, it's less than two in ten Americans actually say abortion should be allowed or prevented in all cases.

Most people have a much more nuanced position. It's important, though, to keep in mind that these are national public opinion data. So how voters feel in Louisiana is probably a little bit different than that. But again, it is going to be interesting to see how the court deals with really the Pandora's box now that's been opened. Because on a political level, a lot of these laws are going to be put up there simply to kind of kick it through the field goal

and see if they can score a touchdown to the Supreme Court. And a lot of what we saw with the Supreme Court's approval rating really dipped when they failed to block. I think it was the Texas law was the first law. And that's when we really saw that movement in the court's approval rating. So not that the court obviously is making decisions based on public opinion. We hope that they're not. And I know that some people think that they are. I would suggest that they definitely are, but we won't put that on you. But what is fascinating,

I know my law professors are like, what are you doing? But what is fascinating though, is the decline in approval of the court has been among Democrats, independents, and Republicans. So everybody's mad. They may be mad for different reasons at the court,

but everybody's mad at the court right now. I submit that may be a good thing. Mahmoud, we really appreciate you joining us. Thank you, sir. Great to have you. Thank you. Thanks for having me and congrats on the digs. Thanks, Stu. Appreciate it. We will see you guys later. Thanks for watching. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day,

it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. High Key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key. Yanked my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community.

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