Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/16/22: GOP Primaries, Fed Rate Hike, Ukraine Aid, Media Polls, Sanctions Fail, Biden Inaction, ESG Investing Scam, & More!

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about the GOP primaries, midterm polls, Federal Reserve interest rate raise, Ukraine war strategy, journalist polling, media elitism, Breaking Points profile, war sanction failure, Biden's lack of imagination, and the scam of ESG investing!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/New Yorker Feature: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-rise-of-the-internets-creative-middle-class Ron Ivey: https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/people/ron-ivey https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/02/society-inc/#.YhOVt-RWSQ8.twitter Wall St: https://tyt.com/stories/4vZLCHuQrYE4uKagy0oyMA/e1018f2cc10fa8316  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of interesting stories breaking this morning. First of all, we have primary election results from Tuesday. We also have some new polling out of that Pennsylvania Senate race, which frankly is a little bit different than what I expected, both at the governor level, also at the Senate level, as I just mentioned. The Fed has made their move.

They are lifting rates by 75 basis points, three quarters of a percent. Markets are responding. And, you know, the writing is increasingly on the wall as to where our economy is heading. So we will break all of that down for you. We also have new admissions from the Biden administration about how things are going in Ukraine. And also new plans to send another billion dollars in weapons to Ukraine. So, you know, sort of no end in sight. I really genuinely do not know what they expect the end game to be here. So talk about that as well. Some new data about the way that journalists feel about journalism and the way they feel about

themselves, the news media, how that compares to how the public feels about them, which is also pretty interesting to get into. And some new comment from Simone Sanders about January 6th that I think you are going to find interesting. But Sagar, we wanted to start with those primary election results. That's right. Listen, we love elections. We are breaking points. They always tell us so much about the country. Let's put this on the screen. So there were big primary elections, and we're going to get to the South Texas one and do an entire segment on it. But the first and foremost in terms of Trump and his power over the GOP, a little bit of mixed results. So you guys will remember GOP Representative Nancy Mace.

She had been a critic of Donald Trump and of January 6th. However, she did survive her primary challenge against Katie Arrington. At the same time, though, Representative Tom Rice actually did get primaried to a Trump endorsed challenger. So I think people are trying to juxtapose those two things and say, hmm, how did this all work out? And I think that looking at it, in terms of the number of candidates, you can see that in across the board, Crystal, it really is kind of a mixed bag because some of the people that Trump endorsed, like Henry McMaster or Tim Scott, they were middling-ish type Trump critics. Joe Wilson, Jeff Duncan, many of the people in South Carolina and elsewhere.

But I think that the biggest one to me really stood out as the Tom Rice actually getting primaried and figuring out why this person who voted for impeachment and then other people like Brian Kemp and Nancy Mace did not actually or did not fall in their primary challenge and did not get primaried. The reason why really was crystallized in a great tweet, let's put this on the screen, which is that you can ignore Trump's pleas to overturn the election like Brian Kemp. You can even criticize his behavior like Nancy Mace. But you cannot appear to be a hostile opponent or appear to be one to Donald Trump. That is why Tom Rice ultimately was bested in the election. about that point because with context to our Ron DeSantis segment previously on our last show, which was, there was a lot of discussion like, oh, maybe Ron DeSantis can primary Donald Trump and win in a head-to-head election. I think both of us really fell on the other side of that case, even though I do see there is quite a bit of grassroots support for Ron DeSantis and more. But people need to consider the mechanics of an actual primary election. For DeSantis to beat Donald Trump, he would have to go on the offensive against him. And empirically,

he would have to be oppositional and critical of Trump in order to beat him in a primary, especially if Trump is going to be bashing him constantly. So in a primary election, he can't just rise above the fray or distance himself away when Trump's name is actually on the ballot and he's trying to make a case away from him. The best he could do is say, look, Donald, you did great, but it's time to move on. And that's just not going to work. It's just not going to work. You can't be like, I love you. You are amazing, but you should pick me instead. How does that work? Yeah. I mean, the honest case for DeSantis that his backers make is basically like he's Trump without the Twitter account.

But the reality is a lot of people like the Twitter account. And so, I mean, if you are really like that's not a great case ultimately to make in a Republican primary. Like, I support all his policies and I think he was a wonderful president, but I'm going to be nicer to the media on Twitter? Like, I just don't see that as a real selling point. As to these particular races, why does Nancy May survive and Tom Rice falls? And by the way, Rice got smacked. I mean, it was not close. He got like 24% of the vote as an incumbent.

That's pretty remarkable here. Part of it, I think, does have to do with the way that they position themselves and the way that they postured. Part of it also just has to do with the specifics of their districts, though. I was looking at this. Nancy Mace's district covers Charleston, where you have a lot more sort of moderate Republicans voting in a primary. Rice's district covers a more rural area of South Carolina, including actually a couple of majority black counties. But in terms of who's voting in a Republican primary in those areas, much more conservative areas, ultimately. And that's a trend that we've seen across a number of these primaries, including in Ohio.

You know, the more, quote unquote, moderate, we can get into, you know, whether they're real moderates or not, but quote unquote, moderate candidates do better in the urban and suburban areas. And the more sort of like overt, populist, Trumpy candidates do well in the urban and suburban areas and the more sort of like overt, populist, Trumpy candidates do well in more rural areas. So I think that trend has continued here as well. You know, the bigger picture here, too, is that you have a lot of candidates who are winning primaries, oftentimes in seats that are basically red seats, who are out and out in election deniers. I mean, and it matters somewhat at the congressional level. It matters even more at the governor level and at the secretary of state level and at the attorney

general level. And we've seen a number of those get through now that in key swing states, including Pennsylvania, we'll come back to that one in a minute where, you know, we've tried not to be hair on fire here about like the threat of people actually overturning a rightful, you know, a rightful political victory. But when you talk about candidates who are dyed in the wool, election stop the steal deniers in those positions at the state level, executive level, then you get into actually pretty scary territory. Yeah, let's put that on the screen then about the specifics of these secretaries of state. So in total, Republicans have nominated for secretaries of state five people who acknowledge the Biden win. So California, Georgia, Idaho, Nebraska and Ohio. But three people who deny Biden's win. Now

tell me, are these states important? Michigan, Nevada, and New Mexico. Three people whose position is unknown, Arkansas, Iowa, and North Dakota. So Michigan and Nevada, yeah, those are actually straight up swing states, especially if you look at some of the polling right now out on the Democratic senator and congressional representatives in Nevada are dismal for Democrats. Remember, you know, Republicans have won there many times in the past, even in the actual Tea Party wave back in 2010. Harry Reid, you know, barely survived some of these primary challenges even when he was in office. So now in a big red wave territory, it's very, very simply you could see somebody like Nevada Secretary of State,

these positions, you know, people rarely even get jazzed about them. So you could even think then that the enthusiasm gap in terms of not only a generic Republican voter who's just voting GOP straight ticket, but also people who straight up think that the election was stolen coming out in droves in order to make sure these people get elected. And Michigan, I mean, their attorney general out there making some interesting comments on the culture war. And then you have Gretchen Whitmer, who is actually now quite unpopular. You have a recipe for a straight up catastrophe for the Democrats in these elections from a actual just election denying perspective. And I just want to reiterate again, which is that under the current Supreme Court, they get states get extraordinary deference in how they appoint their electors. You kind of take it for granted, but states basically get to decide how to run almost all their elections, you know, within existing federal law and especially how they appoint their electors that are going to vote in a different way from the vote, that could

legitimately trigger a constitutional crisis or at the very least major legal battles on the state level and at the U.S. Supreme Court, which are not at all determined in the favor of the popular vote. So I just want people to really understand what the legal infrastructure means and why these secretaries of state positions are so important. You know, we learn it every like 25 years in politics, like Florida's secretary of state and Bush 2000. Now we're learning it all over again in 2022. Very true. Yeah, I mean, it's a much better, healthier state of democracy when you really aren't hearing much about the secretary of state ultimately. It's supposed to be a boring position. Yeah, I mean, it is a—just to give you one situation that is unfolding, election to come.

In Arizona, the race for Secretary of State is between a woman named Pam Anderson, different Pam Anderson, and Tina Peters, who is the Mesa County clerk. She's currently under indictment related to allegations that she actively tampered with elections equipment after the 2020 election. Apparently, she's become like a hero on the far right. She walked the red carpet of Mar-a-Lago at the stupid 2000 mules documentary premiere thing. So in Arizona, again, kind of an important state here. Those are the type of battles that are playing out right now. And the other piece of this is not in this race specifically, but in some of these districts and in some of these states, like in Pennsylvania, Democrats have been boosting these fringe candidates because they think they'll be easier to beat in the fall. But given what a terrible landscape this is for Democrats this year, they truly are playing with fire. And it also really exposes that they don't even really believe the words that they're

saying. I mean, they're willing to just like play games with this stuff like it's not really serious to them when they're trying to tell you that it actually is really serious. So, you know, like I said, I think we've tried to be very even about what the actual risk calculus is and what the likelihood of these various strategies and, you know, insanity that unfolded post 2020, like the likelihood of any of it ultimately working. This is another level. This is another level entirely. And I just want to give people I'm not exaggerating here. The new guy, the secretary of state nominee, Jim Marchant in Nevada says, quote, I would not have certified the 2020 election in Nevada. And it really wasn't that close in Nevada. So it was actually close in

Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. Those places, these things really matter. And those Midwestern states are going to be the crux of some major legal battles if things are even close, if it's a Biden and a Trump 2024 race. I think it just demonstrates for us that the real threat to a lot of our elections and to really some civil strife and all of that is going to come on the state level of which the Republicans are making it clear where they stand. And it is going to be very ugly because I don't think a lot of voters are necessarily going to weigh this whenever it comes election time in 2020, given inflation. And like I've said, given that it is a hypothetical, you know, it could be

that the GOP just wins in a massive landslide, so then it doesn't really matter. But if they don't, you know, then this is something that is on the table. And let's say it doesn't matter in 2024, could matter in 2026, could matter in 2028. A lot of these positions, you know, stay for four years. A lot of incumbents often stay in for a long time. So this is just the direction where things are trending. Okay, let's move on here to the Texas bit. Very interested, as always, in what's going on in South Texas and the Latino realignment that's happening there. And some major indications of just how much things are swinging.

Let's put this up there on the screen. So in a special election in the Texas 34th district, Mayra Flores, a Republican, has won in a district which is 84% Hispanic. Now, I want to be clear here, which is that this is a bit of a wonky election because Flores will just serve out the remainder of the term, and it's actually getting redistricted. So the seat which she's currently going to be holding is not going to be an even close contested one in 2022 come actual election time. So it's a bit strange. She probably only will serve in Congress for a few months. But, I mean, the vote tells us more than almost the candidate. And in that vote, I think that people really need to understand here, this is somebody who won in a district that even voted for Biden by a margin of 10 points in 2020. And Hillary won by like 40 points not that long ago. So I want to give people a taste of what that type of politics looks like,

which a lot of people in Washington don't really know how to get their heads around, both from an identity politics perspective. I'd also say from the GOP, they don't really know what to do with someone like her. They're elevating her. They're like, wow, this is amazing. But just take a look at her message. It's all about inflation, about the American dream, and really, obviously, deeply resonated there in the Rio Grande Valley. Let's take a listen. My father taught me in America, if you work hard, anything is possible. I was born in Burgos, Tamaulipas, Mexico, but at six, we immigrated to the RGV. We grew up modest, working in the cotton fields, honest pay for honest work. The Washington liberals are killing the American dream, attacking oil and gas jobs and

causing prices to skyrocket. I'm Ira Flores, and I approve this message because I will protect Texas workers and their wallets. And you know, at the end of her other ad, she says, I will take on the compradismo in Washington, which basically loosely translates to like cronyism, cronyism, corruption, all of that. It's a great ad. It's a great ad. I don't think people, and by the way, that came out in Spanish as well, actually. So it's a Spanish language ad, completely also in Spanish.

She's obviously bilingual. But you can see there, you have somebody here. She's actually going to be the first congresswoman born in Mexico, which is kind of wild because she's going to be a Republican. And I think Sean Trendy really put it well. Let's put this on the screen. When he was looking at the county by county data, if you're looking at some of these counties, which I know some of these Cameron County, DeWitt County, Hidalgo County, Gonzalez County, Goliad County. I mean, Flores won Goliad County by like 75%. Some of these counties where she was even tying them have populations, Hispanic, like 94%, 95%.

Some of these people don't even speak English. And these are just things where America, Washington, is not grappling with how rapid that realignment is actually happening there. It shows you that the one-off in 2020, or that 2020 was not a one-off in Trump's margin of victory. And we had tracked the Brownsville mayor elected to GOP. I believe she will be the first Republican to represent this district in over 100 years. So, you know, this like post-Civil War, almost Reconstruction type era. This is not something which we're really grappling with. And he points this out as some of the shifts that he saw, Sean Trendy, in Appalachia in 2010 to the Republicans or blue

collar areas in 2016. But he didn't think that he would see this type of data for another 20 years or so. So to have it all happen so quickly and accelerate to this point, look, the Democrats are going to have to grapple with it. It points to the fact, Crystal, which Donald Trump won around 30-ish percent of the Latino vote or Hispanic vote in 2020. Now it's very likely that they could crack 40. And among men, you might actually have a 50-50 split of the vote, which is just crazy. Yeah. I mean, as you said, there are a lot of weird factors in this election. It's only her term will be through November. They'll be the district is redrawn. It's going to go from right now the seat that she won under current lines. Biden won it by four points. The new district, it will have won by about 16 points. So the expectation is Democrats maybe will be able to pull that off. Yeah, who knows? At this point, there are no guarantees. Republicans spent big in this race because they wanted to be able to show their growing strength in this part of the country and with this demographic. So the Democrat in the race was outspent like 20 to 1. But I also think that's a little bit of coke. Oh, it's a coke. Because

ultimately, I mean, this is not an outlier. This is not different from the trends that we're seeing among Latinos. And a lot of this does have to do with the fact that the consultant, Democratic consultant class here in D.C. is completely disconnected from working class people. Projected onto the quote unquote Latino community, which is incredibly diverse and has a very, you know, different and wide ranging ideological views, including a lot of cultural conservatism. They projected their own sort of like academic cultural liberalism on this community. They made it very one dimensional, like, oh, the only thing you care about is immigration. And, you know, over like meanwhile, Republicans were very aggressively and very strategically investing in these places. And this is ultimately what happens. Now, you know, the flip side of this is all the Republican like great replacement rhetoric.

Here you have an immigrant who you managed to appeal to and win in a community that has a lot of immigrants. So maybe put aside your like fear mongering about like, oh, they're replacing us and they're going to change our politics and it's Democrats plot to take over the country, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, this is going to be a continuing dynamic and story that is unfolding here for the next couple of years. Now, having done, you know, having roots in Appalachia, having lived in Appalachia, having worked in Appalachia in politics, there is a difference here in that, you know, the shift to the right in West Virginia, that once that happened, it was done. It was over because there was sort of the cultural conservatism is, of course, extremely strong there. And there but there also is an underpinning of some economic conservatism. Now, West Virginia in particular is a fairly sort of like right populist state.

Like a lot of economic programs that are more on the left will be popular there. But the cultural issues are incredibly strong and incredibly important to that electorate. I think Latinos continue to be a swing demographic. I think there is definitely a world where, you know, Democrats are able to, well, I don't really believe that this world will actually happen, but in a theoretical magical world where Democrats are not completely sold out and corrupted by corporate power, I could imagine them making a pitch to this community that does win people back. I don't think that this is like irreversible in the way that once Appalachia was gone, that was it,

that ship had sailed. I don't know. So we'll see. I think the only reason why I'd be very skeptical on that case is that these people are overwhelmingly not college educated. And I have, you know, I think that's fine. But my point is, is that a lot of this has to do with the same reasoning because you're pointing to the Democratic consultant, you know, Latinx, the term and use by Democratic politicians and not even even if the politicians don't use it, the New York Yankees uses it like higher institutions of culture and power. If Democrats continue on the current trajectory of just leaning into cultural liberalism and delivering nothing on economics. Oh, you're 100 percent right. But the reason I think it's a little different is because like look at what her messaging is. It's not on cultural issues predominantly. It's mostly on

economics. That's true. And so, look, Republicans, we both know they have nothing to offer in terms of, you know, they're great critics of what the Biden administration is doing and high inflation and, you know, headed towards recession. But their solution is basically also, hey, go Fed and destroy people's bank accounts. And also, by the way, we want to like raise taxes on the working class and maybe cut Social Security. So it's a different deal once they're actually in power and they're unable to deliver economically here. Because I do think what's driving the shift right now is Democratic failures on the economy. I have no expectation that Republicans, when they get power this fall, are going to do a better job on the economy.

Well, the benefit for them is that Biden will still be president. So they actually could even cripple him and then just continue to claim credit. So until they own the economic catastrophe, which takes a couple of years, you know, even into your presidency, the economy was not great when Biden took over. It took, what, about a year for Americans to be like, OK, this is on you. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's going to take a while. It's definitely an uphill battle. I would not underestimate that, you know, the cultural liberalism because in one of her other ads about the border, for example, I just love Rico like 20 times. And he was like, hey, you know, aid Puerto Rico. That's up.

Nobody covers that in D.C. in terms of how exactly it works. Not all people are the same. There's actually a lot of diversity even within a lot of these communities. So my point is that with her, I think, well, first of all, she probably won't be in Congress, you know, longer than a couple months. So it's more observing the trend, watching exactly how all of this is going. I do think it does spell a broader trend for at least the next couple of years, specifically in the 2024 election, that people are going to have to watch very, very closely for Donald Trump, for others. Because the realignment in Texas has changed really everything because now you have these more rural areas, which are Latino, not voting Democrat anymore. But then Houston, Dallas, and these other suburbs, Austin, all these Californians moving, those people are going to vote Democrat. So it's like a bifurcation of what the old GOP coalition, the way that Rick Perry got elected, is not going to be the way that Greg Abbott gets reelected today, which is crazy to me personally having come from the state.

Actually, W did really well amongst Latinos. It's one of those weird bygone areas. He got like a 40-something percent of the Latino vote. Well, I mean, that was their strategy then was to like, you know, expand the coalition to include Latinos because you do have a lot of cultural conservatism there. And it, you know, it was somewhat successful.

And then Romney was kind of a disaster in that area, shifted things back. So I do think this is still a constituency that is very much up for grabs, but you can't like, you can't make them into a monolith. You can't, you know, just assume that you're like academic language or your, you know, immigration policy is going to be the only thing that they're interested in, or even assume that they're necessarily like a hundred percent on board. I was going to say, not just interested, like actively pissed off at the idea. So, you know, I think this is a lesson for everybody not to take voters for granted. Guess what? And by the way,

you know, wherever you are, if you were going to turn people into a monolith, it'd be pretty safe to bet on the fact that they care a lot about their pocketbook and ultimately whether they're going to be able to put food on the table, have a secure job, good wages, all those sorts of things. I'm reminded, actually, of post-Rio Grande Valley shock in 2020. All the stories. For all the culture stuff, a lot of people down there were like, listen, we drive a lot. Gas is cheap. Donald Trump was president.

Now he didn't have much to do with it. But listen, like that stuff matters. He sent me a check. Stimulus checks, that's right. He sent me a check with his name on it. This seems like I'm good with that. So yeah. You know, the flip, kind of the flip side of this is the type of candidate Democrats could do a lot better with and the type of politics that might be a lot more successful for them is represented in a lot of ways by John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, who, you know, was mayor of a working class former steel town outside of Pittsburgh. He's got this great everyman sort of demeanor and affect to him, wearing the baseball shorts or basketball shorts along around everywhere he goes

and not doing it as like a thing, but just because that's literally who he is. And in fact, new polling has him up on his competitor here, Dr. Oz, pretty significantly. Let's go ahead and put that up on the screen. So this Suffolk University USA Today poll of likely midterm Pennsylvania voters, Fetterman is at 46, Oz is down at 37. So Hollywood, not a big selling point in Pennsylvania, at least at this point. Now, I would take every poll with a million grains of salt, especially because they have tended to overstate Democratic support, understate Republican support. But still, the fact that,

you know, Fetterman is up and outside of margin error here is pretty significant. Fetterman, one analyst, I think this is Amy Walter, who tweeted this, he's consolidated his base. He has much higher favorable, unfavorable ratings than Oz. So he is in better position there. I looked through some of the crosstabs, the places where Fetterman is really doing strong, and this is kind of funny. Yeah, it's hilarious. So he's winning independents, 44-24. He's winning women, 44-24. He's winning women,

52-29. Jeez, Dr. Oz. What's going on? Trump's whole thing of like, oh, he'll do great with the women. Yeah. Which I actually thought, maybe, you know.

I genuinely thought that Oz would be a stronger candidate than this and it's very early in the ball game. But, you know, this is a district where given the Republican landslide we're about to witness, this should be kind of in the bag for Republicans in a way, and looks like it's going to be a very tough fight. The only reason I think

things will trend differently is that Oz is coming out of a legitimately bruising primary where he was just brutalized by McCormick and by Kathy Barnett. If you actually look at some of his negatives, a lot of them are coming from Republicans. Yeah, but Fetterman literally just had a stroke. Oh, I don't disagree with you. And also was hit by a bunch of negative ads during his primary saying he's like a socialist and all this stuff. But he was always, right? It was never even tight, right? I mean, it was clear from the primary results that a lot of Republicans did not want Oz to be the nominee. So there's still some bad feelings. Now, my thinking is, is that as I saw with Donald Trump many times, you can have a mega low favorability rating and people will still come out in droves in order to vote for you if they

don't like the other person. So that is, I'm still going to bet on Oz, but it's a lot closer than it should be. And he has a lot of ground in order to make up. If anything, he needs to shore up a lot of his Republican base. He needs to get Trump to probably come to the state and stump around for him and actually go to bat. So bring up his favorables there. And then he, if Trump can consolidate the Republican support for him, he can go out more into the suburbs and try to make his case there. So if Trump is able to bring out that working class vote and if you just turn it into a referendum on Biden and have nothing to do with Fetterman, if I was Oz, that's probably what I would do. I wouldn't even talk about John Fetterman.

I would just be like, Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden. You know, leader of the party, Kamala. Talk about that all day long. Yeah, because Fetterman is liked. I mean, this is the other thing. Oh, he has very high favorability. This is from Josh Kroshauer this morning. Yeah.

Oz's favorability with independents, 17 to 57, minus 40. That's bad. Biden's favorability is better than that with independents. He's at 35 to 60, which is not good, but that's better than Oz. I mean, the problem with Oz, too, is that because he is so known, it's not like, you know, oh, we haven't introduced him to the public and they just haven't gotten to know him. There's a distaste there that's sort of baked in that he's going to have to ultimately overcome. And, you know, I mean, yeah, if it's a comparison between sort of like the Hollywood dude who just moved into the state

to run for this office versus the everyman who was the mayor of the steel town, that's not a great matchup for them ultimately. I mean, at least based on this polling and how it looks here. So we'll see how it goes. Because the other thing that Oz doesn't have going for him that like Trump did is Trump was beloved by the base. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I don't think there's like a hardcore Dr. Oz fan base out there. So, you know, I think Republicans are very motivated to vote against Democrats, but you got to be able to get some independents on board, too. And right now, there appears to

be a lot of distaste for Oz with independents in the state. Right. But it's not all good news for the for the Democrats there. Let's put this up there. They elevated. This is incredible, too, because I would have guessed that this would be more like the polling for Oz Fetterman. But here you have the governor's race, Josh Shapiro, the Democrat at 44. So he is up. But Mastriano, who is a total election denying, stop the steal. He's a lunatic. Let's just say. Lunatic. Yeah. Who is so, was so actually central to this stuff that he's come up in the January 6th committee hearings. He was at the Capitol on January 6th.

He was helping, he was very instrumental in like helping Trump plot in Pennsylvania how to try to overturn the election results. And he would be the one appointing the Secretary of State. So Shapiro is at 44 and Mastriano is only at 40. Oh, and guess what? Democrats propped this guy up in the primary because they thought he'd be easy to beat. Yeah. And now he's like, he's inside the margin of error. Inside the margin of error. And you have a real shot to lose to this lunatic. Congratulations.

Now look, would he have won the primary without Democratic help? I don't know. He did win it pretty easily. But Shapiro spent more on a single ad for Mastriano than he spent on ads his entire campaign. So Democrats asked for this opponent and now are in danger of losing. Yeah, it's not good. It's really not good, Crystal. And look, I don't know a ton about Josh Shapiro, but, you know, in terms of his background and more like it'd be very easy to he falls much more in the category of the elitist, you know, from the city categorization than a John Fetterman who just, look, no matter what you think, like you could say he's a tool of them, but he's not a one of them. You know, he went to Georgetown Law. He's somebody who presents very much as like your typical kind of mainline Philly Democrat.

That's just not really something he worked previously like in the Senate. He's got typical politician vibes. Culturally, he reads more as elite liberal than Fetterman. Just putting his work and his position aside, vibes matter a lot. And Fetterman has better vibes, I think. If anything, that's what Dr. Oz is going to be running against and have the biggest problem in his election. Mastriano is not going to have that. I think Mastriano is going to be the much more indicator of the actual red wave just given the fact that Pennsylvania right now is $5.05 a gallon.

It's not going anywhere. And we know that given gas, the trajectory of it, the continued spike in the price, the basically admission by the Biden administration, which I'll be talking a lot of my monologue, that none of it's ever even working and there's no end in sight. Yesterday, the White House press secretary, this happened after we planned the show, came out and said that gas companies should be patriots to lower the price of gas. Oh, good fucking luck with that. That is how that works. Yeah, Biden's got a strongly worded letter. Oh, I'm sure they're going to really take that to heart. Great job, guys. Congratulations. So pathetic. All you have to do is run that on repeat all day long. I mean, I saw another clip. This new lady is so terrible, where they asked her about the baby formula

crisis, and she flipped through her binder, and then she goes, I have nothing to say on that. So I was like, you would never think of the day that the Biden team would want Jen Psaki back on the podium. But that's where we are. Jen Psaki, we're not big fans, but she knew how to handle herself. She did at least, yeah. I mean, she just had a lot more experience. That guy John Kirby's actually not, I can't stand him. But he is at least a lot better. Yeah, because what did she, she had been, what, she just had a lot more experience. That guy John Kirby's actually not. She did have a lot more experience. I can't stand it, but Leah is at least a lot better.

Yeah, because what did she, she had been, what, Hillary's box at State Department? She was a State Department spokesperson under Obama. And I think she was comms director under Obama as well. She just had a lot, I mean, she's just been in the game for a long time. She did TV. It's not an easy job, like, remembering the talking points. It's very different from, like, actually saying what you think. I don't think I'd be good at it either.

Oh, I'd be terrible. Yeah, that's why I would never, ever, ever want to be in the position of like having to lie for a living to the American people. The Fetterman polling does remind me of one thing, which is candidate quality almost never matters these days until it does matter. And that means that on the margins, you have to be a really, really, really good candidate, top 1% type level in order to break through. And those are basically unicorns. But when they do come out, it's a good thing for the Democrats. Yeah. I mean, this is really kind of a heavyweight matchup. And it matters a lot more. So the higher level you get in politics, the more it's likely to matter. So at a statewide level, much more

likely to have an impact than these congressional races. It's just whatever the mood of the country is, however the lines are drawn. Those sorts of things are ultimately what really matters, especially in general election. The primary, it's a little bit of a different dynamic here. But I just have to say one other thing about Fetterman, which is that, you know, in his primaries up against Conor Lamb, who's a total like, I mean, he's like, he's got the sort of elite liberal affect. He's the type of guy Democrats love to recruit. Yes. And the argument against Fetterman was, oh, he's not electable. And it just shows you how little the Democratic party leadership understands about what people actually respond to.

And so, yeah, Fetterman has, especially on economics, much more left positions than Conor Lamb did. But there is zero doubt that he is a million times better candidate to actually win in the general election, ultimately. I mean, I just don't think that there's any doubt about that because it really matters. And I don't think this is a slam on the voters that people just get a sense from you of you like, oh, you get it. Like you can relate to me. You understand what I'm going through. That kind of gut test ultimately matters a lot. So again, long way to go for this election. Polls should be taken with a lot of grains of salt. Yes. But this is a different landscape in Pennsylvania in this one race than I expected it to be. If you apply the K&S Crystal Saga rule of plus seven, it does put Oz with a margin of error. Yeah, true. But I did not

think you were going to have to apply that. I thought he'd be up from the jump. Okay, big news coming out of the Fed yesterday. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen here. So the Fed approved a 75 basis point increase. Again, 75 basis points. That just means 0.75 of a percent for some reason. They like to say it that way. On Wednesday, that is the largest rate rise since 1994. All officials at that meeting projected rates rising to 3%.

And I do think we should reflect for a moment on how much the Fed has moved in terms of the lengths they are willing to go to tighten the economy. When you say tighten the economy, that means taking money out of your bank account. I mean, that's what they're trying to do here and very, very likely to trigger a recession at this point because what they have done so far hasn't worked. I mean, we just got this extraordinary inflation report last week that led them to move from increasing 50 basis points to 75 basis points. Some analysts were even saying we might get 100 basis points. It looks very likely that we'll be at 0.75 for the next meeting as well.

And that's a very different landscape than we were looking at just very recently with the Fed. Let's go ahead and listen to Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave a little bit of a presser afterwards explaining their thinking. Let's take a listen to that. I will begin with one overarching message. We at the Fed understand the hardship that high inflation is causing. We're strongly committed to bringing inflation back down and we're moving expeditiously to do so. We have both the tools we need and the resolve that it will take to restore price stability on behalf of American families and businesses. The economy and the country have been through a lot over the past two and a half years and have proved resilient. It is essential that we bring

inflation down if we are to have a sustained period of strong labor market conditions that benefit all. They are also projecting unemployment is likely to go up. They are projecting economic growth is set to slow. So the specifics here are officials projected 1.7 percent GDP growth this year and next. That's down from March projections just from March of 2.8 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively. The unemployment rate projected by all but one official to rise over the next two years. And, I mean, ultimately, when you are lifting the rates, that's basically their goal. I mean, that's the goal of this type of action. Yeah, I just wish they would be honest.

Right. That's the only thing that this is going to ultimately lead to is they want to make it so you have less money to spend. And that's their only tool for ultimately getting inflation under control. You're screwed either way. I saw this elitist take on this. Just so you know, when the Fed raises interest rates, they're paying you to save. Oh, yeah. I'm going to take my 0.75% increase. By the way, what are the savings

interest rates right now? Like 0.05 or something like that? Credit card debt is the highest it's ever been in history. I'm going to take the interest on that, and then I'll spend it on my gas, which is up 25%. And we'll see. So I've saved 24.5. Thank you, Fed. Congratulations. This has real implications for the housing market. Let's put this on the screen. We've been tracking this closely. The mortgage rate is now up to 6.3%, up from 5.5 just a week ago. Remember, as we said, forget the exact math, but every increase in a single percentage or so means that your mortgage actual payment is double the next month. So as we continue to see this happen, 6.28% versus the three or so percent, which was just six months ago, versus the one something percent that was a year ago, you are going to have a total freezing of the housing market. Just as this morning,

the market hasn't opened yet. The Dow was down 600 points on the futures. And for the very first time, housing permits have collapsed in the month of May. So that's the latest data that we have. And when I say collapsed, I mean one of the most precipitous drops we have seen in over two and a half years, just looking at that data that just broke this morning. So why do you think that is? Who's going to build a house when the mortgage is at 6.3%? Now, you could say it's too hot. I completely agree. But there needs to be a level of balance. They're going to push us into a recession.

Recessions mean that people die. There's no way to just, it's not just people lose their jobs. A lot of people kill themselves during depressions or recessions. A lot. A lot of people do not pursue health care that they actually need, life-changing surgery. A lot of people continue to work, which leads to stress, which leads to death. I mean, the after effects and follow-on that we saw, I mean, I personally think that one of the reasons we even had the opioid crisis is because of the Great Recession. There's a decent amount of data in order to link those two things.

Yeah, no, that's right. That is very, very true. Now, just to give a little bit of math behind what you were saying, from that article, they say on a $400,000 home, which is now crazy to me, like actually less than the median house price, $400,000, with a 20% down payment, the monthly mortgage payment went from $1,400 at the start of January to basically $2,000 now. Wow. So effectively a $600 increase on your mortgage payment over the course of just a few months. That doesn't include homeowners insurance nor property taxes. Megan McArdle made an interesting point as well, which is that people are going to be very reluctant also to sell their homes because they don't want to jump from, let's say say a 1.75% mortgage to a 6% one.

Go ahead and put this tweet up on the screen. She writes, if mortgage rates stay high, one thing I expect we'll see is a collapse in willingness to sell homes. It would take a lot to get me to trade my 1.75% mortgage for a 6%-er because, yeah, it makes a massive, massive difference over the long haul. And, you know, I feel like we've been beating a dead horse with this, but it is so important and so central to people's lives because you have a president and a Congress and, you know, two parties that are unable, unwilling to act. The Fed is the only

game. And part of how we ended up in this situation with high inflation to start with was because the Fed was the only game. I mean, their action during the coronavirus crash, pumping trillions of dollars into these markets, backstopping, inflating all of these bubbles. I mean, that was the start of how we ended up with inflation across the board. So they are, in fact, partly culpable for where we end up today. And certainly they're culpable both from their actions there and also during the 2008 recession for massively inflating inequality as well. And, you know, we've got a lot of problems that are causing inflation. I think we should all be troubled by the fact, too, that what the Fed has already done hasn't worked because there's also no guarantee that these increases in rates are going to fully address the inflation issues that we even have. Because they're not, I mean, look, part of it was demand.

But honestly, a lot of the demand part has already burned off. It has burned off. Credit card debt, sky high. Savings, way down. So a lot of that has already burned off. And yet that's the only lever that they're willing to pull. And that lever is the one that destroys you and your finances rather than dealing with, oh, hey, it's their supply chain issue. Oh, hey, we have a war in Ukraine that's causing massive price spikes as well.

Not to say that's the only thing going on, but the Fed has nothing to do with the Ukraine war. The Fed has nothing to do with supply chain issues. Those all continue to go undealt with and unresolved. And you are unlikely to get inflation under control anytime soon. I mean, look, even if you crash demand, okay, let's say we crash demand, we induce a recession. I mean, people still need to drive. Yes, some extra driving might come down, but the gas price is still probably going to remain above $4 a gallon. That's not a victory, in my opinion, right? If you look at the housing market, the same

thing. Okay, you've slowed it down. You've basically frozen up the elite housing market. Well, number one, a lot of people who are very wealthy are still going to buy houses. Permanent capital, they don't care about a 6% mortgage rate if they can earn a 25% profit. So that only even continues to keep you frozen out of the game. Food. I mean, look, we've talked here endlessly. I've got a piece in my monologue about how natural gas markets in Europe are seizing up because the Russians are cutting off natural gas to both Germany and to Italy. That is going to drive fertilizer prices sky high. We are already watching a massive fertilizer crunch here in the U.S. That's going to continue to increase the amount of food China is opening up to a big degree, transitioning away from COVID zero. Guess what? That means the demand for gas is going to go up. And China currently, it seems all indications, President

Biden is actually going to lift tariffs on U.S. goods. That actually could conversely spike Chinese imports from the United States, which would only continue to drive up inflation. Everybody says you could save money. They don't consider that the demand of these products could increase. Soybean markets, agricultural markets, it's very likely actually that lifting Chinese tariffs will almost certainly increase the price of food here in the United States. So from the supply side problem, we have major issues which are not even being addressed. The White House press secretary asked the gas companies to be patriots and to lower the price of gas because that's how capital markets

work. Congratulations. I just can't even, like with them, they're so incompetent, foolish, impotent, just the picturesque of the worst possible people that you would want. Well, I mean, here's here's the reality. Neither of these parties under a sort of like Wall Street centric market obsessed economic approach have any answers to this outside of the Fed taking a sledgehammer to your bank account. And so I think that's really where the handcuffs come in, is Biden's whole sort of economic orthodoxy. He's positioning himself in the center. This is what my monologue is on. And never wanting to stray outside, like color outside of the lines and get creative here. So yeah, if you're stuck in this like, oh, we just got to let the markets work themselves out mindset, then you believe, oh, what can we do? We can't really do anything. We can do these little things around the margin. Maybe we'll deal with the tariffs. Maybe we'll take the tariffs off, which I don't,

even the, even the people who are pushing that don't expect it to have much of a positive impact. So even in the best case scenario, let's say you're wrong about it fueling inflation, even the best case scenario, no one is saying this is going to have like a significant impact. Biden himself, they did this whole, let's go to Iowa, let's boost ethanol production, let's make the case that that's going to lower gas prices. Biden himself went back to the White House and was chewing out Ron Klain like, this is basically bullshit. I don't believe that this is going to have any impact whatsoever. So they know that the things that they're doing are impotent. The best they can do is send a strongly worded letter to the oil and gas companies.

Give me a break and say to the Fed, we're not going to interfere, but go do your thing and basically crush working class people and trigger a recession. That's all these parties really have to offer. Listen, that ethanol thing especially pisses me off because part of the reason that we have lower refining capacity is because of conversion over to biofuel. So it's like these people really, at a very basic level, they don't understand what is going on. And it's bad for the climate too, by the way. It's like incredibly. It's horrific. Beyond that, it doesn't work.

And actually, in terms of emissions and in terms of what it even means in order to farm all this stuff. Biden is correct that it's a bullshit policy. It's not even correct. It's a terrible policy and has been pushed for a long time by big interests, ag interests, far more than anything else. Well, it's the fact that Iowa comes first in the presidential primaries. I mean, that's the whole reason we have that gigantic corn subsidy. Cool. Yeah.

I'm really glad that we have it so that we can all pay more for gas. Okay. Yeah, we've got some big news from Ukraine. I mean, it's increasingly clear that the direction our policy has been pushing is, it's basically a disaster. Let's go ahead and put this first part up on the screen. President Biden now on Wednesday saying the U.S. will deliver another billion dollars worth of military equipment to Ukraine, including weapons to defend the country's coast, additional artillery and more ammunition for the rocket systems to defend against Russian aggression in the eastern part of the country. Of course, this comes on top of many other dollars in weapons and Ukrainians are not telling us what they're doing with the weapons, what their plans are. They are not being candid with us or even about how things are ultimately going there. So the Biden administration's policy of we want to keep this war going.

We don't want to negotiate it and we want to keep it going because we want to bleed Russia and we want to punish Putin and maybe push him out of power. Remember Biden saying he cannot remain in power, quote unquote. That has led us to a situation where it's just like, OK, so what are we what are we doing here? Are we just going to continue week after week, billions and billions more as, you know, the situation for Ukraine on the ground is based on on the reports we're seeing, is starting to worsen. Well, it's not good in Ukraine. So, I mean, look, I really feel for the Ukrainians here because they're in the fight of their lives and they are losing some 200 guys a day. That level of attrition is just brutal. And the Ukrainians say that they have another million guys that they can call up, 2 million in reserve.

But you got to remember, some of the reports I'm reading, these guys have like six weeks of basic weapons training before they're even sent to the frontline. And that's just, it's a mower, like a lawnmower on both sides, really, because you have Russian conscripts who are also dying. We have tens of thousands of deaths now on both sides of this conflict. And I can never say the city, Severodonetsk, has been completely encircled. The Ukrainians there are continuing to fight, but it's a brutal and a bloody mess. All current indications at the current level of weapons assistance show us that Ukraine can probably keep this going with Western allied weapons, but perhaps not for long. The terrain actually lends itself to the Russian tactics. And also, Russia has moved its logistics supply from diesel-backed trucks to traditional rail, almost like a Soviet-era tactic, which apparently has been working pretty well for them.

And also, the weather has changed. People forget that. It's not as muddy over there anymore. All of this kind of moves in the Russian higher power direction. I do just want to say here, on the European side, we continue to be the people bearing the brunt of all the military aid. Germany, France, all of the NATO allies are not sending even one-tenth the amount of weapons assistance that we are. And in fact, those countries, once again, remember this, the reason that we're supposedly doing this is in defense of our NATO allies where we don't live are not even close to showing and sharing the burden of the weapons that we're sending over

there. In fact, they don't want to keep sending weapons. We're the ones who are telling them to do so. Germany and France are actually pushing for more peace talks in the region. So let's go and put this up there because the diplomatic part of all of this also is very important. Chancellor Schultz is actually visiting Kiev with both Macron and Mario Draghi because they want to meet with Zelensky before the G7 summit. Remember, too, that Russia had long, you know, kicked out of the G8, has long problems with that. But both Schultz and Macron have continued to maintain talks with Putin. And this is starting to see, I think, a break in the Anglosphere and the Western alliance because the Anglosphere, the UK and the US by far both have the most hawkish positions.

Yeah. And frankly, the most hawkish electorate. Like the UK citizens are much more on board with supporting the war. I would just say here, I don't know if it's all of our citizens, but the most active liberal ones with the Ukraine flags and all those in their front yard, those people are never going to accept the US pushing any sort of peace deal. So this break in the alliance, it matters because we are still the ones who are basically saying that we need to continue to ship as many weapons over there as possible. And I'm torn here. I don't know. I mean, at the same time, the Ukrainians do want to fight.

They want to continue fighting. I really think as long as we continue to adhere to our red lines on we're not going to provide you with X type of weapons, I'm generally fine with it. The problem though is that Zelensky and the Ukrainian military are actually asking us for even more offensive weapons. And I think that this is exactly the environment which I have worried a lot about the president

having the discretionary authority to give whatever type of weapon systems that he wants. Because now is actually probably the best case, right? For political pressure to build to provide the Ukrainians with the most offensive type of weapons when they're actually losing. Because in the previous, they were winning. But now that they're having to fall back and they're seeing significant military, possible military defeat on the battlefield, the pressure in Washington is going to mount the other way.

Not to say, okay, guys, maybe it's time to go and to have a peace deal. It's actually going to mount the opposite and say, why shouldn't we provide them even more offensive weapons? That's what I'm most worried about in this conflict. Right. Well, here's the thing. I don't object to us helping the Ukrainians defend themselves. I truly don't. What I object to is a policy that says, let's keep this war going as long as possible versus let's use our great influence to push these parties to come to the table and negotiate a settlement. Because, you know, I actually don't know what the Ukrainians want, to be perfectly honest with you. I know what our media tells us that they want. But I've also read reports out of especially eastern Ukraine of people saying, I really don't care whether it's Ukraine or Russia. I just want this ultimately to

end. So I do think we should be a little bit humble about thinking we know what the Ukrainians want. That's number one. Number two, they're not the only stakeholders in this conflict. And obviously, they have borne the worst of this. I mean, their country is decimated. The losses have been catastrophic. Now they're losing in the east, and there's fears Russia could go and take back some of those cities they had been pushed out before. So this is a horrific landscape for Ukraine as well. But then you look at the impact around the world. First of all, our economic warfare, and I think you're talking about this in your monologue. Yes, ma'am.

It's not working. It's been a disaster. It's been a disaster. It did exactly what we predicted it would do, which is to punish ordinary Russian citizens. And us, actually. And us. Our citizens. And people around the globe. I mean, you already had a global hunger situation that was really quite dire because of a number of crop failures, in part due to the climate crisis.

Now you add this war on top of it in this absolutely critical breadbasket region of the world, and you now have 50 million people facing famine. So the Ukrainian situation is one thing to consider and incredibly vital. And yes, I'm interested in what they want and how they want things to go, but it is not at all the only interest to consider. I care about what happens for the people of the globe, of the world. I care about what happens for our own citizens. Oh, and also, by the way, let's not forget, I also care about avoiding a nuclear war between two nuclear superpowers, which it's easy to forget that's the threat that hangs over this whole thing. I know it's easy to sort of downplay that threat, especially as we've gotten a few months in now and there haven't been any nukes. So I think you guys were overblowing it. But as

we always say, if there's even a 1% chance of nuclear war, I want nothing to do with risking that 1%. So that's my issue with the U.S. policy. It's not that Ukraine's cause isn't just. It's 100% just. It's not that they don't have a right to defend themselves. They 100% have a right to defend themselves. I'm in support of us supporting them in that endeavor. I am completely opposed to the US and UK posture that says,

let's bleed the Russians indefinitely. Let's keep the war going indefinitely. We don't want to even talk about or contemplate ceding any territory here whatsoever. We're not going to use our leverage to bring parties to the negotiating table. And I also continue to be opposed to the economic warfare that we have waged on the ordinary Russian citizen, which has had massive blowback on our own people, people around the globe and has not hurt Putin at all. Yeah. And let's just emphasize too, I always say this, look, let's, if you truly believe in supporting the Europeans, listen to what they have to say. So let's throw this on the screen. Macron says, yeah,

I want a Ukrainian victory, but ultimately this will only be settled at the negotiating table. So Germany and France, both countries which have had historic conflicts with Russia, tensions with Russia, actually live near Russia, they want in order to push this in a peaceful direction. These are also the two leaders within the European Union. We seem to completely ignore that. I'm also getting very worried about the Chinese and Russian PERMA alliance here. Let's put this up there on the screen, which is Xi Jinping actually just called Vladimir Putin, where they put out a joint statement where he said he offered to deepen cooperation with his Russian counterpart. Now, look, Chinese weapons have not yet flowed into

Russia. But I just want to continue to emphasize, we're still in a very, look, Chinese weapons have not yet flowed into Russia. But I just want to continue to emphasize, we're still in a very, very, very early part of this conflict. It's only been four months since it broke out. That's why whenever we were triumphalizing and saying, I'm not saying this is a bad thing. It was great when the Ukrainians pushed the Russians out of Kiev and they stopped a collapse of the entire country. But the Ukrainians themselves are telling you that if they lose the east, they actually could provide the Russians a staging ground in order to relaunch an invasion. That's how war works. You don't just have one battle. It grinds on for a really long

time. You have to consider the will of your enemy. We're probably in the best position if the Ukrainians do lose in the east to try to push for peace in that exact time. And if we don't, and current all indications show us that we're not going to. If you also consider Zelensky's interest, the moment Zelensky tries to go to the negotiating table, the spigot of weapons here turns off, right? The realignment of how exactly we're going to approach the conflict stops and our diplomatic push in a different direction is not really going to provide him with the political stability necessarily that he needs because the Ukrainian population wants to still continue fighting, especially those who are in the West. So we just have to know we're in a real mess here. Current indications show us that we're in a complete war of attrition.

The European powers want to try and bring this to a end in some sort of negotiated settlement. By the way, if you think we're suffering, their prices over there are insane on gas and on food, and they are watching their economies erode. You actually could set the stage for major populist backlash in Germany and France in order to try and sue for a type of peace, which, look, you want it now before things get so bad in the West that the West decides we've had enough of this. And I actually really do think that's coming. On the Chinese side as well, reading this, watching a permanent alignment between the two really would be a catastrophe. And I know nobody likes him, but Henry Kissinger actually did say that one of the biggest risks that could come out of this

is actually pushing a permanent alignment between the two countries. I read a really interesting column, which I wanted to float here, called A Reverse Kissinger in India, which is that right now, because the U.S. maintains strong ties with India, and India continues to buy Russian oil and actually has very strong ties with Russia, we should really be leaning and trying to have some creative thinking and trying to have a broker role of India or some other semi-neutral-ish type power begin to try and broker a diplomatic solution. If the U.S. could work its way around that, this is what creative thinking in the global system looks like, which could actually benefit our image and also bring an end to the global catastrophe of not only what's happening in Ukraine, but all of the follow-on effects that so much of us are feeling here at home.

And don't forget that, you know, if you want an indicator of revolution, like bread prices are pretty reliable. Something else that Kissinger pointed to, by the way, that, you know, bread prices definitely link to, you don't have to go back to the French Revolution, you can look at the Arab Spring and how much price increases there fueled a lot of instability and overthrow and revolution and chaos. And so, you know, there's massive consequences here. between China's Xi and Russia's Putin, which they had not talked for quite a while since basically like around the time that we know of since like around the time of the invasion. And now Xi said out the readout of the call, China is willing to promote the steady advancement of practical bilateral cooperation. China is willing to continue maintaining mutual support on major

issues of mutual concern involving sovereignty and security and other core interests, building closer bilateral strategic cooperation. So this is China and Russia saying, we're all in, you know, any sort of reservations that maybe China had at the beginning. There were some reports that kind of caught off guard. They were kind of embarrassed by Russia's immediate like failures in this war while Russia's starting to turn the tide. And China is now saying, don't worry, we're still in with you. We got your back. Yeah, I think that that could be the most significant thing that comes out of this conflict. Okay, let's talk about journalism. Journalism is important, right? Let's put this up there on the screen, or at least the journalists tell us that it is. 65% of journalists surveyed in a new Pew Research survey say that news organizations do a, quote, very or somewhat good job of reporting

the news accurately. Do Americans agree? No. It's actually 35% of Americans who say that they do, while 43%, the majority, say that journalists do a bad job of reporting the news accurately. I also just love the serving as watchdog over elected leaders. If you look at the split, a majority of Democrats, or sorry, a majority of journalists, I guess somewhat interchangeable, of journalists say that they do a very or somewhat good job of serving as a watchdog over elected leaders. Only 29% of Americans agree. In fact, 44% the majority say that they don't. Same thing on giving a voice to the underrepresented. 46% of journalists say they do a good job. Only 24% say that they do.

Americans overwhelmingly agree at 45% that they don't do a good job, a very or somewhat bad job of doing so. Same thing on managing or correcting misinformation. 43% of journalists say they do a good job. 25% of Americans say they do a good job. 51% say they do a somewhat or a very bad job of doing so. So what is the overwhelming trend that emerges from this? Journalists think very highly of themselves. Americans, not so much. They pretty much are reverse on the question of every single issue. Let's put this up there on the screen, too. 55% of journalists say that every side does not always deserve equal coverage, greater than their share, who say that journalists should always strive to give every side equal coverage. So I really think that that is also revealing, which is that journalists say you should always strive to give every side equal coverage, but every side does not always deserve equal coverage. That's according to Americans.

I'm somewhat torn on that because I can understand what the American people mean whenever they say every side does not deserve equal coverage. But when it gets put into practice, that's when it becomes a problem. Okay, that's a complicated one because it's like, what do you mean by that? Because, like, if you're talking about facts or the classic example is climate, okay, you should not give equal weight to the three people out there who still deny that the climate crisis is real versus, you know, the 99% of scientists who are on the other side of that. So you shouldn't give equal weight to a side or like election denial, right? You shouldn't give equal side to like Dinesh D'Souza's 2,000 mules to the actual facts and reality. So when it comes to a factual issue, and I know that this is fraught because sometimes even the facts are very much in dispute. But when there's a clear factual issue, no, I don't think that Dinesh D'Souza deserves like equal coverage or an equal hearing to the reality of the election was not stolen. When it comes to things that are a matter of values and opinion, that's a different deal. And I think that's, you know, and I also, you know, I also don't have an

issue with, I really actually don't have an issue with partisan coverage. What I have an issue with is when people pretend like they're neutral and they're actual partisans and they hide the ball. That's my issue. So to me, that one is a little more complicated. And the question, it's hard in a poll question to get at some of the complexities of how you think about that news coverage. I actually thought one of the more notable numbers here that you pointed to is the lowest marks given by the public were for giving voice to underrepresented groups of people. And I think that that stem, that failure clearly manifested and understood by the American people. And also journalists didn't even give themselves great marks on this one either. I mean, this comes directly out of the fact that they hire from this elite monoclass. Oh, yeah, it's a complete class bias.

Yeah, so if you want to give voice to other people and viewpoints that aren't typically reflected in elite media, hire from different parts of the country, hire from different education backgrounds, hire from different class statuses, and you'll have a much better shot at having a much broader and more representative view of what actually is going on in the country and how people feel about it. This was also interesting to me. Among the journalists, more say that misinformation is a problem than that press freedom is a problem. So 71% say misinformation is a problem, and only 57% say press freedom is a problem. The other thing that was interesting to me is that many more of the journos said that basically fake news and misinformation is an issue than U.S. adults.

So 71% say misinformation is a problem for the journos, only 50% of adults. There's still a lot of people, but only considerably fewer adults feel like misinformation is the big problem. So you also see a disconnect in terms of even their assessment of what are the problems and the threats to good journalism. The journalists see that threat very differently than the American people do. Yeah, the Americans are like, you're the fake news. You're the misinformation. Like, that's the problem. I don't know.

I mean, look, this is just data, which is just so transparently obvious. If anything, I think it probably overstates the support for a lot of these things. Yeah, true. I mean, if you really looked at it also in partisan breakdown, I think the most telling is whenever you look at it in terms of the number of primary Democrats who trust the news media versus Republicans. Because, you know, Republicans don't even trust Fox News. But let's just be honest. A lot of older Democrats in this country love and deeply trust the New York Times and MSNBC and CNN, which is part of the problem. You have a deep institutional capture of what exactly they are, the lens in which they're going to coverage. And no wonder they're not going to have class coverage. And then that bleeds into everything.

That's how they use the word Latinx in their coverage, and yet actual Latinos are like, hey, we don't say that, and we don't like it. So this bleeds into everything. It has major partisan ramifications. Obviously, I mean, this is why I think our show is even successful, is because these idiots have been doing the game this way for so long. And I honestly don't think

it's going to change. I think it's just so captured by this insanity that it can't reverse. Look at the Washington Post. We covered it. That woman, Felicia Samnez, had outwardly, you know, flamed her colleagues, outwardly defied her bosses, and it took a week for her to be fired. Taylor Lorenz is a liar, has materially lied in the pages of their paper, and they even basically admit to it, and she's not fired. So that's where the industry is trending. They have these people completely at hostage, and even the ones who don't agree are held silent because they're too afraid in order to fall under the gun and be harassed publicly on social media. So I just think it's going to get worse. And I have no problem with that.

There was something else interesting in this data, which was an age divide between how journalists themselves feel about their jobs. So three quarters of journalists, 65 and older, feel that their job has a very or somewhat positive impact on their own emotional well-being, only 29% of journalists under 30 feel the same. So older journalists feel like they feel good about what they're doing. They feel like this job is positive and the atmosphere is generally good. Young journalists do not feel that way at all. And I do think part of that is these like, you know, culture war battles that are overwhelmingly coming from younger demographics. And you also have a split on like older journalists are much more worried about press freedom versus the younger journalists, which are much more

worried about like the misinformation thing. So you do have a transition happening within news organizations, too, about the way that these people are approaching their jobs. Absolutely. Speaking of that, we have a new clip. Simone Sanders, new MSNBC hire. I know nobody's ever heard of her show, but that's how it goes over there. She did an interview, which I think just really encompasses how these people think about January 6th, talk about January 6th. She might have even been talking about me. I don't actually know if they asked her. But she specifically addresses the idea here about whether one should care about gas prices or January 6th

and why she thinks January 6th is so much more important. Let's take a listen. For people that said they didn't watch the first hearings, I got into a very spirited debate with some of my young people friends, and I'm like, do y'all not care? And they're like, oh, but gas. I'm like, mm-mm. The gas won't matter if an insurrection is successful and y'all living under martial law. So I really think that people have to...

I think last night was great, but I do think that everyone just needs to take a breather. And if you think that January 6th doesn't matter, if you think this is something that just happened, you know, well over a year and a half ago at this point and we need to move on, you are sorely mistaken. That's all they got, Crystal. I mean, they just keep going. Their gas won't matter if an insurrection is successful. First of all, as we pointed out, if you really care, then why are you funding all of these Republicans who are genuine, you know, election stop the steal believers in Nevada and in Pennsylvania? So if you really do believe that, which is the actual threat, why are you funding them? Number two, okay, then do something about the gas to get

people to care. That's, it's very basic. Americans will care about high-minded ideals and are generally good people. I mean, even look at the amount of support that Americans in the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict, they said, yeah, you know, I'll pay a little bit more for gas if it means we could support this. They're very, very good in their heart, to a degree, as to when their material well-being begins to really suffer. And then you're asking people to ignore that completely in favor of high-minded ideals. And that is the major issue that I have with all of this. You know, the other issue too is that the hypocrisy. So I think that the most notable thing that's come out of the January 6th committee hearing so far is the expose of the Trump grift

with the Save America pact. Yeah. Guess what doesn't matter and why people don't believe you whenever they hear about that, who are Republicans, because they can point to Hunter, Nancy Pelosi, corruption on their end, and then it just becomes choose your own corrupt player. At least that player is on my side. So you cannot actually get people

to care about these things if you are not gonna number one, address the material consideration, and number two, not deal with the hypocrisy. It's just one of those things where they want to smack people over the head, just like impeachment. Remember that? Oh, when the American people hear, after the Mueller report, they were like, oh, we're going to have a full presentation so Americans understand them. No, they got it. Like, they got it. Didn't they publish like a Washington Post, like a graphic

novel or whatever? A graphic novel. I forgot about that. Yeah. This is the thing is if you feel that the stakes of this midterm election are existential, then do some things to win. Yeah. How about that? And I think your point is actually really important, which is, look, this is, you know, zoom out for the American context is truth around history. If people feel more comfortable and safe in terms of their own life and livelihood, then they will have more space to care about these bigger picture, more, you put a more high minded concern, I call them more sort of like long term or medium term concerns, you know, then they'll have more space to be able to engage with that in a real way. But when you're just like, I got to pay rent, like right now, I have to be able to feed my kids like lunch today.

Yeah, you're not going to have a lot of time or mental space and energy to care about these, you know, higher level concerns, which is not that they're not important. But when you're struggling for survival today, you just don't have the luxury to engage with that. So again, it's not that I'm not alarmed by the state of the country. It's that I actually am alarmed. And I think that the way that they're going about addressing it is a disaster, has been a disaster, will be a disaster in November. And the only thing that they know how to do is like lecture the American people that they're not concerned about the right

thing. Yeah. It's's like you're too stupid. You care about the wrong stuff. Don't let people tell you what to care about. You're an individual citizen. You can care about whatever you want. And people tell them every single day, this is what I care about. This is what I care about. This is what I care about.

And they say, well, then you're an insurrectionist supporter. Or, oh, well, you're a bad citizen for not being engaged. You know, these people are always trying to tell others how to live their lives. It's just, that's not how power works. That's not how it should work in a democracy. And I think it's very telling that this mindset is what prevails amongst all of these media elites.

And also it's very telling that it's a failure. You know, for all of the talk of the Jan 6, 20 million, fewer than 10 million tuned into the next one. Yeah. And then they had to postpone because I love this. They said, our staff of video editors, they're really tired. They're so tired. It's existential, but yeah.

It's existential, but our staff is really tired. Hire some more staff. Yeah, hire more staff. I mean, or if you care so much. If the staffers thought it was important, guarantee you they would stay up. Our people work harder than them, just so you know. They've had a long time, too. Yeah, I know they had a long time.

Okay, all right, whatever. We produce a show in 45 minutes. You can ask our people back there. That's actually a great segue to some little announcements that we're excited about here at Breaking Point. So, first of all, I don't know if you guys saw this, but we actually got some favorable press coverage here at Breaking Point. So first of all, I don't know if you guys saw this, but we actually got some favorable press coverage here at Breaking Point. Very nice write-up at The New Yorker.

Go ahead and throw this up on the screen. This is from Cal Newport, and he uses this kind of a case study for what he describes as the rise of the internet's creative middle class. And he's talking about there was this sort of theory of a thousand true fans, right? Yeah, Kevin Kelly. Being able, this came from Kevin Kelly, being able to, you know, support this

sort of like middle tier of creators. And so he actually came into the studio and saw our operation and he does a good job in this piece of capturing the day-to-day vibe of the show and the overall ethos. So it's always a little nerve wracking when you engage with journalists and engage with the mainstream press, but this actually came out really, really well and we're ethos. So it's always a little nerve-wracking when you engage with journalists and engage with the mainstream press, but this actually came out really, really well, and we're very pleased with it. When I first saw the email and it said New Yorker profile breaking points, I was like, hell.

But then I was like, oh, it's Cal. So I know Cal Newport a little bit. I read his books actually for years. Actually, right before I started rising with you, I was on vacation and I read Cal Newport's book, Deep Work, which is one of the best books I've ever read.

He wrote another book called, what is it, The War on Email or Why We Shouldn't Be Using Email. He famously is completely I don't know what his argument was, but I already am on board with it. Actually, we had him on the show.

I think you were not here for that segment. I think Marshall was in at that time, but we interviewed him. He was here on Breaking Point. He was vaguely familiar with the concept. And so anyway, so he's the one who emailed and I knew Cal was a good guy. I'd read some of his previous work. I trusted some of his stuff.

So we invited him here to the studio and he kind of profiled us in the context of this. And I think what we're proud of, me in particular, is that this just does show you a way of an alternative funding model, which can work, can scale. just does show you a way of an alternative funding model, which can work, can scale. It's funny too, because while he was here, he was like, well, you guys are going to expand. And we were really weighing it. We didn't know at the time. But we really did strike gold with our subscriber partnership model, which is we don't own your content. You do whatever you want. We'll pay you and we support you. We'll put it on our channel. You promote whatever the hell you like. Oh, you have a sub stack? Great. Grow it. It's all win-win. You have a channel like James

Lee? Subscribe, please. I want you to go and watch him. Max Alvarez, Ryan, all of these people, Marshall's interviews, these just enhance the product. Everything kind of grows up together. So really considering and discovering that model even after he was here, which was several months ago, and then watching it in the context of this, I think it just does show you the future. And look, I'm still really excited. And I know I said we were going to have a big announcement, but paperwork got involved. We will have tickets on sale for our road show as soon as the lawyers will allow me to announce it. So there you go. Yeah, there was a moment when Cal was here when he asked us like,

so what's like your exit strategy? And we both were sort of like, what? Yeah, well, because he was like, oh, why don't you just build it up and take some cash and sell it? And we were like, I don't really have any interest in doing that. That's not why we're here.

That's not at all why we're here. I hope that comes through to you guys, that really genuinely we love doing the show. We love hearing from you. We love trying to come up with new ways to deliver a better product and, you know, a broader product and have on-the-ground. That's what really motivates us here. And so it was cool to see, you know, that captured in this piece a little bit. Yeah, he got it.

Yeah, he did. It came through in the piece that he sort of got what we were doing here. Yeah. The other news is later today I'll be flying to LA for my return to Bill Maher. Oh, I'm so jealous. I'm excited about, yeah.

I mean, it's... I'm jealous of the weather, to be fair. Well, it is... Doing that show, this will be my third time on the show, and it is a very different experience.

The budget of that show is crazy. I don't get it. Honestly, I don't really get it. The production, they have you on an actual Hollywood set, and of course they have the live audience. And the live audience makes the energy a lot different. And I have no idea how many people watch the show. I think my mom watches Bill Maher. But it definitely has a lot of, you know, sort of like, it gets a lot of mainstream

pickup. Yeah. And the Twitter clips, to be fair, do go quite viral. Yeah. On YouTube as well. So last time I was on, it was during the 2020 primary and Bill had floated like, you know, we just need a generic Democrat. And he said this line of like, I'm looking hard at Amy Klobuchar. Right. And totally unintentionally, I made this very bemused smirk face. Yeah. Yeah, and literally the thing

that got the most pickup from my appearance and I think from that entire show was the face that I made, the Amy Klobuchar face. So it should be a fun experience. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, it's gonna be fun. It's been a while since I've been on a plane, to be honest

with you. Oh, wow. Yeah. I don't even remember the last time I got on a plane. Yeah, it's pretty nice. Yeah, I flew to L.A. recently.

Man, I'm looking at the weather right now. You are in for a true blessing. Yeah, it looks really nice. And Kyle's coming with me, so that'll be fun. I think we're going to record some behind-the-scenes stuff.

Oh, cool. Yeah, I love Los Angeles. Shout out to L.A. A lot of breakers out there in L.A., too. Mm-hmm, that's right. So, look, I think you're going to record some behind-the-scenes stuff. Oh, cool. Yeah, I love Los Angeles. Shout out to LA. A lot of breakers out there in LA, too. That's right. So, look, I think you're going to have a great time. I'm excited to watch it. I hope that we can have a couple of clips that really just expose MSM elite thinking

because that is always what shines through the most from Marr. But he does have some boomer resistance tendencies, which I would like to see him press on. Well, he's all over the map. He's a strange character. He's very, I mean— I would like to see him press on. He's all over the map. He's a strange character. I was listening to him on Rogan. He's a strange guy. In Bernie's first he endorsed Bernie. I remember.

Even just that shows the difference. And then in 2020 you're looking hard at Amy Klobuchar. Like, what? How did you get from there to there? I think the first exposure I ever had to mar i was like in high school and i watched religulous which was that documentary yeah that he made he was at that time very much in like the new atheist youtube richard doc yes yes yes he was very into that that was my first exposure to him he was a big inspiration for kyle starting his channel

because he got secular talk he was very into that like new atheist stuff, which he's kind of like, you know, as I think a lot of people did, kind of evolved beyond, not to say that he's like a big like religious believer now, but he's just not as sort of like zealous about that stuff. It is interesting to see the connection. I was very into this stuff too, way back in the day. I went to some of the talks and as well. Actually was too. Yeah. I mean, it kind of was kind of the first burgeoning of the internet movement. Like an alternative scene that really got people jazzed.

And so, anyway, I remember him, I remember Sam Harris, a lot of that. It was a real way to have like a cultural descent because... Yeah, and this was

the height of Bush. Like Bush was president. Right, and the rise of the evangelical right as like a major, major political force within the Republican Party and all of that. And it's very overt within the Bush administration. So, yeah.

Anyway, all of that being said, it should be an interesting experience. I probably am not supposed to say the topics. I already have a little bit of window into what the topics are likely to be. I won't give it away. But I will say that it is, the topics that we have been told about thus far are ones I'm really excited to dig into. Some of them I think I'll agree with Bill on. Some of them I definitely won't agree with Bill on.

So it should be like a nice kind of dynamic. You need to blow the boomers' minds. A little give and take there. Yeah, with some actual facts and logic. All right, so what are we looking at? It's been more than 100 days since Russia invaded Ukraine. It's time to start taking stock of our strategy there. Is it working or not?

When I say our, I don't mean my preferred strategy. I mean Biden's. Biden's chief aim when it came to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine was to support the Ukrainian military to the best of our ability and degrade the Russian state's ability to wage war through unprecedented financial sanctions designed to defang their economy and the war machine. So let's start with that goal. Articulate it again very clearly, punishing Russia's economy, degrading the ability of the Putin machine to wage war against Ukraine. The impetus is what led the United States to pursue those extraordinary

sanctions against Russia, pushing them out of the global financial system, cracking down on their ability to conduct commerce, and most crucially, the West organizing an effort to ban Russian oil. Given the fact that 45% of the entire Russian economy is oil, based upon this, it seemed like an obvious strategy. So how's it going? Well, it turns out that because the West is not the whole world, the opposite of what was intended has happened. Russia just posted an all-time record in oil profits since they invaded Ukraine, earning some 100 billion euros in the last couple months alone. Why? Well, because of the basic laws of economics. By sanctioning and banning Russian oil in the West, we artificially reduce the supply available to the Western market. This

bid up the price of oil globally, pushing gas prices for the West to all-time highs, creating all sorts of screwy problems in our supply chains. At the same time, while the global price of oil skyrocketed, China and India, who do not share the same vision of the Ukraine conflict as the West, are buying Russian oil at an elevated but still discounted rate to the market. So in effect, here is what Western sanctions have done. We push prices for our citizens to all-time highs. We have created a discount market for Asia. And the Putin war machine has been enriched to a historic degree. In fact, Russia's economy appears to be suffering only on the most basic consumer level,

but the promise of financially nuking their ability to wage war is not coming true. Russia currently has a record account surplus in June alone because of skyrocketing oil prices, the highest that they have seen domestically since 1994. You combine that with strict capital controls, they have stabilized the price of the ruble. And while they are projected to contract by nearly 8% this year, that is really not enough to diminish their ability to continue the war. This is particularly infuriating because it was so obvious. We on this show were warning at the beginning. These sanctions policy were uncharted waters. We could dramatically screw up the global

economy and the supply chain. And nobody listened. In fact, called us Russian stooges for warning about the follow-on effects. Guess what? They're starting to realize that in the freaking White House. And the reporting on this is infuriating. Bloomberg News reports that the White House officials now privately admit they underestimated the collateral damage of sanctions on Russia. They underestimated the level of inflation it would cause here at home. And in fact, are alarmed at all of the US companies

pulling out of Russia, despite the fact that they never asked them to. Furthermore, they acknowledge in the report the effect of the sanctions has devastated the average Russian citizen and has not hurt Putin as much as they wanted to, while raising serious problems for our basic ability to provide our citizens with food and gas. Who could have predicted this? This means they were either too dumb in the beginning to anticipate the effect of that strategy, or they lied to all of us. Honestly, I don't know which is worse.

Consider that the pain being caused here at home is a deliberate choice by the Biden administration. We are the ones who encouraged the Europeans and the Germans to ban Russian oil. They did not want to. By pursuing that decision, we skyrocketed the price for all of us. The opposite of the intended effect is now happening. We are sanctioning our own citizens. Further proof of the backfire is more recent news by Russia. They abruptly cut off 40% of the gas flowing to Italy after cutting off 60% to Germany. This move alone sent European gas prices spiking by 17% in one day. And you guessed it, it is going to further squeeze markets

here at home. If they cannot buy it from Russia, they got to buy it from somewhere else. And that means we are all going to pay to cool our homes this summer and generally see even higher inflation. Now tell me, does that move by Russia sound like one of someone who is financially desperate? The truth is, is that Russia would let that gas flow and they would take the money if they actually needed it. They are in a position right now where they are reaping so much financial reward on the Asian markets from oil and making money hand over fist. They are able to actually weaponize Italian and German reliance on Russian gas to punish the Western economies and target consumer prices for everyone. This is the move of a defiant state, not close to capitulation. Perhaps you could say it's all worth it if the war machine was degraded. And while yes, the Russian military has embarrassed

itself in Ukraine, it is not vanquished by any means. In fact, right now, Ukraine is losing about 200 men per day on the front line, warning that they face military defeat in the east without a surge of weapons. By all measures, it seems very unlikely they will be able to prevail beyond a long and a grinding front line, which will substantially diminish Ukraine's ability to wage war from a body count perspective. So not only are we not accomplishing our strategic objective vis-a-vis the Russian economy, but the war machine that we hope to diminish is actually winning on the battlefield right now. I understand it feels nice to say things like, I'm willing to pay more for gas to defeat Russia, or we need, quote unquote, do something. That's not how oil works. It's not how war works. It's not how politics works. By nearly all measures, the Western response to this situation has not worked, even close to as promised. And we have

been lied to. We have been made poorer, and the goals have not been accomplished. So next time that we confront a situation like this, it's imperative that we act through strategy and not emotion. Because while it may feel good, it may not actually work. I'm not saying, Crystal, that the Russians are, like, doing well. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, there are new reports this week that President Biden is increasingly frustrated with rising prices and his seeming complete impotence to stop their climb. This is from The Washington Post, apparently on a recent trip to Iowa to tout ramping up ethanol production in an attempt to ease gas prices.

Biden complained he kind of thought the trip and the policy both complete bullshit. According to the report, quote, Biden dismissed the policy as ineffective and questioned the value of the trip. According to two people familiar with the conversations, after he returned to the White House, he hauled his senior staff, including Chief of Staff Ron Klain, into the Oval Office, badgering them with questions about the purpose of the event. Biden's recent op-ed on how he planned to curb inflation was equally pathetic. Among a grab bag of ideas, his big play was basically, let's just trust the Fed. And in his op-ed, he makes it clear he wants them to crank up interest rates fast and high. He writes, first, the Federal Reserve has a primary responsibility to control inflation. I agree with their assessment that fighting inflation is our top economic challenge

right now. And if that wasn't clear enough messaging for the Fed board, he then hosted Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the White House to convey his position in person. Now, we know what massive Fed tightening of the sort that Biden is pushing looks like, and it is a catastrophe for you. It's a recession that chokes wages, destroys jobs, and makes the daily struggle for millions of Americans a living hell. It's not even clear that this will really effectively curb inflation either, since consumer demand is only one piece of the inflation puzzle, and frankly, it's a quickly diminishing piece at that. If the Fed chokes demand but doesn't actually curb inflation, we could enter a devastating period of stagflation that would

wreak havoc on our already precariously balanced society. Now, we could in theory address inflation without crushing working class lives, but that would require dealing with corporate greed, supply chain fragility, fossil fuel dependence, and rampant Wall Street speculation. Those things are hard, though, and they're at odds with Biden's standard Washington ideology. So better just to let the Fed take a sledgehammer to your bank account and hope that that does the trick. Now, there's actually a weird and revealing obsession in this Biden op-ed with, quote, not meddling with the Fed. Biden repeatedly assures readers that he thinks doing such a thing would be an unacceptable horror, as if the looming threat of a president giving direction

to the Fed is what keeps voters up at night and not, you know, whether or not they can put three meals on the table the next day. In fact, Biden's obsession with process and following the rules of the current market-obsessed economic project for the last 40 years are exactly the reason why he's been unable to muster anything approaching an adequate response to the economic moment. Now, there are a million economists hot takes right now that there isn't really much that Biden could do, but that's only the case if you are wholly unwilling to color outside of the lines of the established order. Now, Biden was elected in part because he represented a safe version of standard neoliberalism. In this case, that standard neoliberalism has been a disaster.

So here are a few examples of things that he could do if he was willing to color outside of the lines. Congressman Ro Khanna published an op-ed recently taking aim at Biden's inaction, which made the case for two big things. One, grand experimentation of the type pursued by FDR to deal with the Great Depression, and two, direct market intervention. Now, in my opinion, as you likely know, the best policy for dealing with our present gas woes and future gas woes is nationalization. Take the profit mode of oil and gas production, put public interest at the center of decision-making so that we can ramp up production in the short term and wind down production in the medium term. But Ro Khanna, he's more of a moderate, and he proposes a few highly worthwhile direct market interventions. Specifically, he wants the federal

government to ban exports of oil to increase domestic supply. He wants the Congress to impose a windfall tax on the big oil companies which are currently flush with cash and just using it to pay off their wealthy investors. And finally, he wants the federal government to become a market player in gas and food staples, buying the dip and selling it to the market as prices rise to help smooth prices and avoid the huge shocks that we have been seeing. Now, it's keeping Biden from implementing these ideas, which at least have a chance of curbing rising prices without crushing your life. Well, some Republicans somewhere might say it's too socialist-y. In fact, just a suggestion of

these ideas by Congressman Conner was actually met with Fox News diatribes about how such an idea would basically be the end of the country as we know it. Make no mistake, Republicans, they're getting a lot of mileage out of decrying inflation right now, but they have no plans to actually fix it outside of also destroying your life. Now, in addition to these ideas, Khanna and a few other Democrats are also taking a look at whether a loophole allowing rampant Wall Street speculation in the oil markets is also exacerbating inflation at the gas pump. Jonathan Larson over at TYT has been chasing this one down. So listen, no doubt part of the price rise in gas has to do with basic supply and demand issues. But some analysts are now questioning whether that is really the entirety of the story.

So oil production is actually up year over year. U.S. domestic production is significantly up and expected to break records in the coming year. So we don't have this huge problem of oil scarcity. Demand is more or less back to pre-pandemic levels, although no cadre of work-from-home warriors and continued global COVID outbreaks have kept oil consumption from getting all the way back to where it was pre-pandemic. So it's also not like we have this crazy, unheard-of level of demand driving up prices. Look, there are other factors as well, Putin's price hike, I suppose, and lingering supply chain issues, but it sure seems like we have an oil market that has become unglued from the basic fundamentals of supply and demand. And when that happens, you can almost

always look to Wall Street gambling and fakery. In fact, there is a loophole allowing a particularly reckless form of speculating using fake international swaps that experts have recognized in the past as fueling price spikes at the pump. One expert who has been completely dead on with this stuff in the past thinks that just closing that one loophole or even potentially just threatening to close the loophole could drop gas prices as much as 25%, though it is really hard to know precisely. Now, that action obviously could be taken just by Joe Biden alone. So why isn't he at least trying it?

Well, because Wall Street ghouls would inevitably howl about the injustice of it all and the horrors of regulating markets. So as of today, the ability of speculators to gamble with your bank account, that continues unchecked. For those who want to read the specifics, I will link to Jonathan's article in the description. It's a little complex, but it's worth digging into here. Now, finally, let's talk about Putin's price hike. Russia's war on Ukraine is not the sole cause of inflation, of course, but it is decidedly a factor at this point. And while we cannot directly control Vladimir Putin's actions, we do control our response. We did not have to wage financial warfare on Russia. We did not have to ban Russian oil. We did not have to adopt a policy of keeping the war going rather than pressing for a negotiation. But rejecting the economic warfare sanctions regime would also mean rejecting that standard neoliberal mindset that blindly punishes

ordinary citizens for the wrongdoing of their leaders. And pushing for peace would mean rejecting another dominant ideology, that of the neocons and the war profiteers who are getting fat and happy with every new billion-dollar check we stroke to the military-industrial complex. Instead, we have adopted a standard Washington policy with predictably disastrous results for really everyone concerned. Biden's political and ideological positioning at the center of Washington orthodoxy, that was supposed to be what made him electable. But it is exactly his thorough commitment to that Wall Street-centric ideology which has resulted in an economic disaster for the nation and a political disaster for the Democratic Party. People really don't care how you get there or whether some idiot says

your idea is socialist. They care that they can buy gas to get to work, make rent, and put meals on the table. Doing what it takes to make that happen is not radical. It is exactly at the center of what the American people deserve. And Sagar, you know, just this morning we're learning. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now is Ron Ivey. He's a visiting researcher at the Harvard Human Flourishing Program. We're joking that he's got a sinister name, but we promise he's a good guy.

Ron, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you all for having me. Absolutely. So the reason we wanted to talk to you is I've been really fascinated in the last several months and even years about ESG. Thank you all for having me. Actually, the SEC is now even investigating Goldman Sachs over ESG funds. But please, just start at the most basic level. What is ESG, and then why should we care about it? So ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance, and it's a way to frame a certain type of investment or a certain type of investment fund.

And it started as a way to understand how investments or how corporate activities affect society, environment, et cetera. And it was an effort to really design products that would improve performance on environmental and social levels and really answer demand that was out there for investments that were addressing some of these causes that were previously not addressed in previous investment structures. In the basic investment structure, you're thinking about profit, growth, these typical metrics. But there was an effort to try to understand what's the impact of a corporation on the society and the environment, and this was an effort to do that. It's grown in these recent years. It's grown for up to now one third of every investment or

investment fund. It's projected to get to $53 trillion over the next three years. It's exploding. And part of that's because of the demand for investment, but it's also because there is an advantage for fund managers to pitch something like this because it adds to their revenues in terms of management fees. And it also allows them to market to new investors, to younger investors. So we're seeing a real explosion in the last few years. Can you explain that piece? Why do ESG investments lead to these larger management fees? Well, because there's more in-depth management in terms of the accounting of impact, supposedly

the accounting of impact, but that's been part of the problem, that there is a question about whether the metrics used or the measurement approaches used are actually, you know, actually dealing with impact. So the justification is, hey, we have, we're not just dealing with typical investments. We have to look at additional criteria for our investment portfolio, which would require additional investment. But the reality is what we're seeing, it's not necessarily always the case. So you caught my eye when you wrote this piece in American Affairs. Put this up there on the screen. Encourage everybody to go read it, which will have a link in there. Society Inc. You know, something that I have been really interested in here, Ron, is the role in which ESG is actually having counterintuitive impacts on our broader society. I think the peak example

is Chevron increasing its ESG score or reliability by selling off a mine. And actually, the mine becomes much more dirty and the environment gets much worse. The same amount of oil is produced and you actually have counterintuitive effects. But they get to get ranked as a green company in the index and get to continue to have some social cachet. So tell us about what you're seeing in your research about ESG, Ron. So basically three things are happening over the last two years. One is there's basically a revelation in the analysis of the funds themselves. A group of academics and journalists over the last year have been looking at what's actually happening in terms of performance and how performance is

measured. Floyd Berg at MIT analyzed the criteria that are being used across these various credit agencies that are evaluating environmental and social performance. And what he found was that in some agencies, their evaluations are a company can basically perform at a very high level and another agency that perform at a low level. So these distinctions or discrepancies between performance don't give you a lot of confidence that the criteria are actually helpful in evaluating investments. That's led to a retreat in terms of investors. We've seen a big drop over the last six months. In the first quarter, there was a 36% drop in investors that are in these ESG funds.

And then third, it's leading to a reckoning with regulators. So you see both in the United States and Europe, regulators are starting to ask more questions about what these funds are actually doing, critiquing greenwashing and social washing. we see the delivery and development of a new taxonomy of ESG fund nomenclature, basically to explain what the terms mean and give more credibility to those ESG terms. Second thing we've seen is actually crackdowns on companies like Deutsche Bank and their subsidiary DFW. See the same thing on the other side, on the United States, we have crackdowns happening on Goldman Sachs, potentially, and other entities. And then the SEC just releasing new regulations as it relates to naming funds, but also as it relates to the disclosure requirements on climate change,

emissions, and other types of impact. So you see the shift, basically, where regulators were hands-off, and now they've moved into a much more hands-on, heavy-handed approach to the valuations. So tell me if I understand this correctly. So basically, you have people who are sort of well-meaning. They want their money to be invested in things they can feel good about. Wall Street says, no problem. Pay us a little to be invested in things they can feel good about. Wall Street says, no problem. Pay us a little extra money. We can make that happen for you.

Companies say, hey, tell me how I can sort of like navigate the system to trick people into thinking, you know, total like classic greenwashing situation for the companies. And so it's really those ordinary, those investors at the beginning who are kind of getting duped by the system who think that they're putting their money into good things and having social impact but really not. Is there a better way to run this system? So you're talking about regulators sort of cracking down. companies is if they represented something to their investors that ended up being just completely false. Because it's not like there's some overarching sort of like ESG regulatory scheme where regulators can really come in and say, no, you're not meeting the legally set standards that would match up with what investors would ultimately expect. So is there a way to do this that doesn't just result in bullshitting and greenwashing ultimately? Yeah, I think you fundamentally have to go

back and look at how corporations are structured and how our political economy is structured and just be realistic. I mean, the way that we're set up, as you all well know, the last 40 years, we've moved into this shareholder maximization approach started by Friedman in the late 70s, early 80s, to where corporations, their sole goal is to maximize shareholder returns. That's set in the culture of companies. That's set in the structures of organizations. That's set in the law, actually. So it's very difficult for corporations to think outside of that box. And then the second thing, as you've all reported well, our economy is very concentrated because of the lax antitrust law and the growing concentration

of corporations coupled with that mindset of shareholder return maximization. If you try to do ESG metrics, then you have some changing and naming and nomenclature, it's really fundamentally not going to change things. You're going to still have corporations have that fundamental motivation to maximize shareholder returns. And if there's a conflict with social impact or environmental impact, we know what they're going to choose. So how do you solve that? Well, one thing we could do is from the United States government perspective, we could begin to measure and evaluate performance separate from the companies, create a separate entity that created some kind of corporate accountability organization

that could use all of the various tools that are out there in terms of data and analytics and artificial intelligence to understand the corporate performance and how they're impacting the core things that impact our life, air, water, other things like social trust, et cetera. How do we know that they're performing well unless we measure from our perspective? It's never going to work if it comes from the corporate perspective because they're just not designed to operate that way. I think that's really well said. Let's end on that note. Everybody, go ahead and check out Ron's work. We're going to have a link there in the description. And we appreciate you joining

us, man. Thank you. Yeah, great to have you, Ron. Thank you. Our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. Really appreciate it. As I alluded to earlier, for legal reasons and bureaucratic reasons, the announcement on our road tour and the tickets will come next week. I'm hammering as hard as I possibly can, so bear with us. We're sorry. But stay tuned. It will be coming along with another announcement specifically for all of our premium subscribers. So we're going to announce those two in pair. In the meantime, we've got a ton of people coming in the studio in order to record

some great content for all of you, partner content. So thank you for supporting us in that way, premium subscribers. For those who want to support, link is down in the description, and we'll see you all next week. Love you guys. See you next week. Субтитры создавал DimaTorzok Thank you. Terima kasih telah menonton! Thank you. this is an iHeart podcast