Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/2/22: Uvalde Coverup, Ukraine Strategy, NFT Fraud, Clinton Lawyer, Depp-Heard Trial, Recession Looms, Dem Disarray, & More!

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

Krystal and Saagar cover the Uvalde police coverup, Biden's Ukraine shift, NFT insider trading, Clinton lawyer trial, Depp-Heard trial results, working class recession, Biden's inaction, electric vehicle markets, & more!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/Kristin Eberhard: https://www.niskanencenter.org/policy/climate/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. is irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week

early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process.

Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Cable news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, making it impossible to function as a society

and to know what is true and what is false. The good news is that they're failing and they know it. That is why we're building something new. Be part of creating a new, better, healthier, and more trustworthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points premium member today at breakingpoints.com. Your hard-earned money is gonna help us build

for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do.

A little bit of court TV here today. Court TV. Fun stuff. So we have two verdicts and two significant trials that we want to bring to you. Number one, Johnny Depp, Amber Heard. That's right. Listen, we got to give the people what they want. I mean, so I have been, as a matter of principle,

opposed to following in depth what is going on here. So basically, Sagar's going to lay this out. I'm going to ask him some questions. We'll explain to you what the verdict was and what it all means, if it means anything at all. So we'll talk to you about that. There was also another verdict in the trial of lawyer Sussman. This is part of the Durham inquiry. And so we've got those details for you as well. He was Hillary Clinton's lawyer. You guys probably remember some of the details of that. We also have the Department of Justice,

the very first charges of someone involved with NFTs of insider trading. This is a wild story. It is actually a really wild story and might be indicative of a larger problem, not only within NFTs, but also within the largely unregulated world of crypto. So we will bring you those details. President Biden out with a big op-ed

explaining what he will and won't do in Ukraine, but then sort of immediately going beyond what he says he won't do. Very odd. Yeah, it is odd. So break all of that down for you. But we wanted to start with more stunning revelations in terms of this horrific shooting in Texas, in Uvalde, Texas. The very latest is that law enforcement seems to be turning on each other.

Go ahead and put this piece up on the screen. So the breaking news here from ABC News is the Uvalde PD and Uvalde Independent School District Police Force are no longer cooperating with the Texas Department of Public Safety's investigation into Robb Elementary School shooting. Multiple law enforcement sources tell ABC News. I'll read to you a little bit of this ABC News article. They say, according to sources, the decision to stop cooperating occurred soon after the director of that Department of Public Safety, Colonel Stephen McCraw, held a news conference Friday during which he said the delayed police entry into the classroom was, quote, the wrong decision and contrary to protocol. Their response from the Uvalde Police Department and the school

district is that they have been cooperating with investigators. The chief of the Uvalde CISD police provided an initial interview but has not responded to a request for a follow-up interview with the Texas Rangers that was made two days ago. Here's another piece. We had mentioned this before. So the guy who was in charge of the response here, his name is Pete Arradondo. He was the head of the school district police department, which was separate and apart from the local PD. He is the one who was saying, no, this is no longer an active shoot. This is a hostage situation. So we are going to stand outside of the hallway and hang out here for more than an hour. He is the one who also kept even the border patrol who wanted to go in from actually breaching the doors. He's the one who made the

call not even to try to go into that classroom as kids are being shot and dying and bleeding out on the floor. Well, it happened that prior to all of this, he'd actually won election to the local Uvalde city council. And so he was just sworn in to the city council a week after this mass shooting. They understandably and wisely decided not to have a public ceremony to celebrate his being sworn in. I have a feeling that the people of Uvalde might have a different feeling about whether or not they want him to represent them on the city council at this point. And then the last piece of this part of the story, go ahead and put this last tweet up. There are some questions whether it's the entire Uvalde PD and Uvalde CISD police not cooperating.

The other indication is that it's actually just this guy who is not Pete Arradondo, who is not cooperating and is not responding to requests for interviews following that press conference where the head of Texas Public Safety admitted what was blatantly obvious to anyone with a brain and a heart that their response here was the wrong decision and ultimately absolutely atrocious. Yeah, I don't think that there is any just there. Look, here's what's happened, which is that this guy, Pete Arredondo, is 100 percent in hiding. In fact, you know, a CNN reporter was trying to get on the grounds of Uvalde CISD and they called the cops on the reporter saying that you're going to get arrested for criminal trespassing if you continue to try and stake out an interview. They sure are happy to use the cops for everything and anything except like actually saving children's lives when you have the chance. I mean, happy to use the cops to tase parents and handcuff parents. They called in additional law enforcement to provide extra security for these guys and to remove reporters who are trying to ask questions. But when it came down

to them actually serving the function that I know people thought they were paying their salaries to do, can't do that. It's mystifying. I mean, what you're seeing is a complete cover up by this guy, Pete Arredondo. And look, he's in serious trouble. I mean, it's no, there's no question here that he obviously does not deserve to be the chief of the police department. I think the people of Uvalde should have something to say. Look, I mean, it's up to them. They can decide whether he wants to be on the city council. But by almost every metric, what's happening in this investigation is just maddening.

And, you know, some of the emotion is still raw. But the more that we learn about the lies and just the fakery and how many times law enforcement has screwed this up. It's just insane. Throw this next part up on the screen because this just goes in tandem, which is that, you know, the law enforcement has been telling us over and over again, well, the reason that the Uvalde shooter was able to get into the building was because some elementary school teacher propped the back door open. They said this three separate times, and they said that camera actually confirmed that. Well, now they're saying a source familiar with the investigation says that surveillance video and audio now verifies that actually the teacher removed the rock which was holding the door open and closed it. Quote,

she slammed it shut. So now this raises a whole host of questions. Number one, how the hell was that door open? Because the entire thing was that door was supposed to be locked in an auto lock function, according to everybody who was involved. So either the lock was broken, which, you know, if you're into school hardening and all that, that's a big question. How the hell does that happen? Right. But number two, I mean, here's the other thing. I mean, we know that the grandmother of this shooter used to work at the school. So, like, did he have a key or something? He obviously was relatively familiar because he went in through the back door. I mean, did he have perhaps some inside knowledge?

But this was a far too cute explanation as to, you know, everyone was like, oh, what a tragedy. This poor teacher, they must feel as if they have blood on their hands. Well, it seems very clear. I mean, she slammed the door shut. So what happened here? And why are they lying to us? The police threw her under the bus. Yeah, they really did.

That's what happened. And so her lawyer said, no, no, no, this is not what happened. She actually called 911. She saw the wreck. This is according to her lawyer. She ran back inside to get her phone to report the accident. She came back out while on the phone with 911. The men at the funeral home yelled, he has a gun.

She saw him jump the fence and he had a gun. So she ran back inside. She kicked the rock away when she went back in because what had been happening is because this was a special awards day. She had left a rock in the door to go back and forth to her car to bring food into the school. She kicks the rock away when she goes back in. She remembers pulling the door closed while telling 911 that he was shooting.

She thought the door would lock because that door is always supposed to be locked. It's supposed to auto lock. And this is not just the word of her lawyer. As Sagar already said, this is confirmed by audio and video surveillance evidence. This is, in fact, what happened. So one more blatant, glaring lie that was told to the public that is only now being cleared up by, like, anonymous law enforcement sources after the fact.

And it really is astonishing. Listen, it's no surprise to me that cops lie. That happens routinely. But the level of deception here of every single detail from the time this mass murderer wrecks his truck until the end of this whole engagement. You know, another thing that came out, remember Sagar, the very early reports were that he had been taken out by one lone, courageous Border Patrol officer. And by the way, I give all the credit to Border Patrol,

who finally, after 20 minutes of being stymied by local law enforcement. They were like, screw this, we're going in. Forget that. Like, what are you doing? We are going in. But the story that came out was like this one lone, heroic officer goes in by himself and takes him. That wasn't true either. They had a whole phalanx of officers who went in in coordinated fashion, as they should. And at that point, they had 20 plus people down in the hallway. So of course, it makes sense that you wouldn't just be like, all right, you got the

short straw, time for you to go in and take care of business. So it's just another example of how everything about this timeline has been, was wrong. They've had to correct it only upon when, you know, their lies are found out. Do they change the narrative? It is truly astonishing to the point that we have followed the story very closely and it is impossible to keep track of every version of the story and every lie that they have told us from the beginning. Yeah, I can't even tell people what exactly the actual investigation is going to bear out. I mean, at first they said the most egregious lie is the school resource officer engaged the gunman outside of the school. Right. He was not even there. It wasn't even there. And by the way, still nobody knows where he was. So, Mr. Officer, where were

you? What exactly are you getting paid for? Very interesting. Okay, then we know that he was outside for 12 minutes and that five minutes, though, after he arrives on the scene, two cops are already there. And so they kind of chase him into the school. They get wounded in the course of this. So, okay, now we know that.

Then there is a some 40, 50-minute-odd gap where kids inside are bleeding to death and calling 911 and begging the cops to come inside. And during that entire period, there are at least 19 agents outside in the hallway who're like, oh, this teacher, you know, this idiot teacher left the door open. Nope, she actually didn't do that. He jumped. So, I mean, look, from every step beginning to the end, there are lies. There are major questions. And I honestly don't know, Crystal.

I don't know if we're ever going to get an answer. Do you think I don't trust the FBI in order to tell us exactly what happened here or the Justice Department? Because we also know that federal marshals were on the scene arresting this mom. That's right. Putting her in handcuffs. You think they're not going to cover up their own complicity if the feds were on the scene? You know, it just made me so angry because I was watching this video this morning of these Uvalde CISD cops throwing these reporters off. Being like, just so you know, Evaldi put EDS on his

way and they're going to issue, you know, this guy's like GI Joe'd out and he's got like a, you know, handgun strapped to his leg and all. And I'm just like, you disgust me. You're sitting here throwing these media guys off a public sidewalk because they want to. Pretending like you're some big tough guy. Yeah, because you and your boss didn't actually go in. And so these are the same people, you know, the same types of, who were probably on the scene at that day. So, I mean, you just compare their response and then the level of lies. And now they're using their own law enforcement resources to try and cover up what was happening here. I mean, somebody's got to stand up for Texas.

I keep saying this. Will Governor Abbott and Ken Paxton—you know, Governor Abbott has only said one thing. Oh, I'm livid. Okay, I don't care if you're livid. Right, what do you do? You and Ken Paxton need to get your asses down there and start investigating this. Fire Steve McCraw, you know, Texas Department of Public Safety. Put him on the camera.

Be like, hey, what happened here? Honestly, I mean, somebody in that state, to this day, you know, Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, these guys haven't done anything. Can somebody stand up for these people? Well, Cornyn did do something. He went and carried water for their lives. Yeah, that's right. I mean, that was, oh, you know, it's a split-second decision. Oh, a split-second decision over an hour and 20 minutes?

That's a split-second? Okay. You know, the sad thing here, too, is in terms of any sort of criminal liability, I don't think there's anything that they could charge them with. No, there is almost nothing that's going to be happening. You know, I mean, the law does not say that they have any sort of duty to do anything to protect these kids in this situation. And so probably the, you know, the most we'll ever get is if there's some sort of investigation, which, you know, we're all pretty doubtful that we'll get really to the bottom of any of this,

and that they lose their jobs. That's the most that might happen out of this. But it just continues to shock me, the level of cowardice, the level of deception, the cover-ups, and now, you know, the main character here, and, you know, I'm sure he's not the only one to blame, but he seems like a pretty key figure

in what went wrong on that day that he now is hiding from the inquiry and refusing interviews and just trying to continue to deceive people. So I'm seeing here he was actually ambushed kind of this morning by CNN cameras. Oh, yeah. I don't see anything that he actually said. He was confronted by CNN, but nobody's pulling out any quotes. Obviously, this is breaking, like, literally right now. Yeah. There doesn't seem to be any noteworthy poll quotes exactly.

He probably said something along the lines of, yeah, he's declining to answer any questions in his first public comments after he was finally confronted out of the back entrance there by a CNN reporter. Props out to that guy. Shimon, I think is— Shimon Peraz. Yeah, Shimon Prokupes. I think that's his name. Oh, okay. He's been—

He's done a very good job. I want to give praise to the industry. He's the one who also pressed them in that press conference where the head of Texas Public Safety admitted that it was the wrong decision. He was also the one that pressed them on what measures were taken to try to get in that door, which forced him to admit nothing. Yeah. We did nothing.

So I will say there's one poll quote. in that door, which forced him to admit nothing. Yeah. We did nothing. So I will say, here's one poll quote. He does say he's actually in touch here with the Texas Department of Public Safety. Well, we seem to have another story about that. What I'm guessing is that when he says that, he probably has a ton of lawyers and that they are speaking on his behalf and declining probably to answer any questions. This guy really should be able to be sued. I don't understand how qualified immunity works for CISD cops, but listen, I mean,

if there was ever a case for criminal negligence or for involuntary manslaughter, at least in the case of like how OJ Simpson got sued, I mean, these parents, they deserve something. They truly do. This is not right. Indeed, indeed. All right, there are also big developments

with regards to Russia's war on Ukraine. President Biden wrote an op-ed in New York Times. He's been writing a lot of op-eds recently. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. And, Sagar, I want to read a little bit of this, and then I want to get your reaction to it. So his whole thing here, the headline is, President Biden, What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine. He says, As the war goes on, I want to be clear about the aims of the U.S. in these efforts. America's goal is straightforward. We want to see a democratic,

independent, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression. Towards those ends, he says, we'll continue cooperating with our allies and partners on Russian sanctions. Toughest ever imposed on a major economy, we will continue providing Ukraine with advanced weaponry. Keep that thought in mind for a moment. We also continue reinforcing NATO's eastern flank with forces and capabilities from the U.S. and other allies. But then he goes, so that's the portion of the like what we will do in Ukraine. This is the what we will not do portion of the op-ed. He says, we do not seek a war between NATO and Russia. As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster

in Moscow. A little bit different than some things we've heard from the administration in the past. So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces. We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia. Again, that goes diametrically against what people like Ron Klain and others in the administration and even President Biden himself have said. He then goes on to say, my principle throughout this crisis has been, quote, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.

OK, I will not pressure the Ukrainian government in private or public to make any territorial concessions. It would be wrong and contrary to well-settled principles to do so. There's another part about nuclear weapons I want to get to in a moment. But first of all, what's your reaction to that portion? Yeah, my reaction is that this is a very nice condensed view, which is just certainly not in line with the rhetoric and many of the actions of the Biden administration. And actually, that is why I find it so confusing, because on the very same day that the op-ed comes out, you're going to be talking about some of this in your monologue. There is a leaked story, both in NBC News first and then in The Washington Post, about Biden's

frustration with his aides for, quote, cleaning up his comments. And actually, one of the things he got most pissed off at his staff about was when they cleaned up his statement saying, by God, this man cannot remain in power. Right. That is directly incongruous with that statement here. We do not seek his ouster in Moscow as much as I may disagree. So he has a direct diametric view in what he said, which we know from the words of the president and now the vetted, edited words of the president here in the op-ed. So which is it? What is the policy of the United States? Now, I defer, as always, both under Trump and Biden, that the words of the president are policy. The president of the United States is a democratically

elected leader of this country. And so, unfortunately, I think in this case, President Biden has made his preference very clear. Also, there's no indication, actually, that he is pressuring Ukraine in any way in order to seek a peace deal. Now, look. Well, and actually, I mean, part of what he says here basically indicates that. I mean, when he says that I will not pressure the Ukrainian government to make any territorial concessions, it would be wrong and contrary to well-settled principles to do so. That sounds like a very nice principle to hold to. But what it actually means is that you are not pushing for peace. That puts you on the opposite side of. and the U.K. – and remember, there was a report from Ukrainian Pravda that when Boris Johnson, prime minister of the U.K., went to Kiev, he went specifically to deliver the message that even if you want to negotiate, we are not ready for this war to end. What we want is for you to continue to bleed Russia, to continue to weaken Putin, and that is ultimately our goal in the conflict.

That is consistent with leaks that came out of the administration of senior level officials who said they basically see that as the only end game in sight that goes directly against. I mean, that's consistent with what Biden himself has said now multiple times about he can't remain in power, consistent with what Ron Klain says. We don't want to give Putin an off ramp. So even in the niceties of this op-ed, it's made very clear that on the one hand, they say, okay, we don't want a war between NATO and Russia. They continue walking up to the edge of actually being in direct conflict with Russia, by the way, and we'll get to that in a minute. But then they also say, we don't actually want to negotiate an end to this. I think there's a way to square it, too, by saying you support Ukraine. By the way, I do think it's up to the Ukrainians. You know, like they get to decide. It's up to them. They can fight if they want to. If not, whatever territorial concessions, it's literally on them.

If they want to fight until the bitter end, you know, that's on you. But what I think what's important that the French and the German are doing, or French and Germany are doing, is they're not pressuring Ukraine, Crystal. They're calling Putin. You know, they're calling Putin and trying to open up the space for Putin actually to come to the table. I think Biden should get on the phone. Even better, honestly, go meet in a neutral country, whatever, Helsinki, Iceland, you know, wherever those places. I think Reykjavik was technically halfway and that's where they met during the Cold War. Get everybody together. I'm sure Putin would go, you know, at this point. And I just, I do not believe for a second that that would not help the situation.

Yeah. Now everyone's saying, oh, you would benefit, you know, Putin and all. What do you mean? His military is on the rocks. His economy is on the brink. Like, obviously, you know, in terms of the reports that we look at, he's not doing so well from a health perspective. That actually possibly could open up the ground. And maybe you can shake something out and be like, okay, listen, if you withdraw all the way back to the Crimea, then X amount of sanctions don't get taken off. And,

you know, X amount of Russian oil can actually continue to be bought. Maybe the German pipeline doesn't go through, you know, things like that. This is reality. This is what things are looking like. So if we pressured and talked to Russia, that's probably the best way in order to get this done. But that hasn't happened. You know, the United States and Russia have not even had that level of high level communication. I think at the highest level, it's only our defense chiefs talking, which I don't support that. I want the diplomats on the phone. I want the presidents on the phone. Yeah, that's right. Even what you said, though, about we should leave it up to the Ukrainians is a little bit complicated because the only reason they're in this fight is

because of our weaponry. So we shouldn't pretend like we don't have direct interest in what happens here and how long this goes on. The administration has calculated and it's clear from their words and also from their actions and the advanced weaponry that they continue to escalate and the support they continue to provide escalating support in terms of intelligence capabilities. It's very clear they have calculated what they think is in the U.S.'s best interest is for this war to continue indefinitely and to sort of bleed Putin dry and hope that he is, you know, somehow loses power, loses his grip on power. Now, first of all, it is not at all a given that whatever would come after Putin would be better than Putin. So keep that in mind. I just fundamentally disagree that that's what is in the U.S.'s best interest. I think what is in the best interest of the U.S. and the world is avoiding the risk of a direct nuclear confrontation. The sooner this war can come to an end, the sooner we take that risk off the table. And that is why I would go further than what you say

in terms of, ah, we'll just let the Ukrainians decide, because we already are so involved and enmeshed in this thing that it's not like we can, I mean, you could take a hands-off approach and say we're not sending anything, but that effectively is, you know, taking the side of we're going to cause this war to end. So we can't really pretend like we're in a position at this point to not have any influence or sway with what the Ukrainians do and what they're able to do. I'll square it then, and this is why my position was also against some of the aid package. I don't think we should be providing them a lot of offensive weaponry, and that's actually kind of where, you know, I want them to be able to defend themselves. And again, look, I don't think you can say that the Ukrainian cause isn't just, you know, and let's put this, but this is why, where I start to get concerned. Let's put this

up there on the screen, which is that the Ukrainians have been begging us for these HIMAR rocket systems, these high mobility artillery rocket systems. Now there are two types, apparently within the stock of the U.S. military, both the 70-kilometer version and the 300-kilometer version. They were asking us for the 300-kilometer version. Now, we're giving them the 70, given that we have now gotten, according to them, verbal assurances that they will not be used by Ukraine against targets in Russia, which Russian official Dmitry Medvedev had actually spoken apparently to Biden and made some nuclear sable rattling threats. Where I get concerned is when, why are the Ukrainians asking us for these 300 kilometer weapons if their intent is not to strike into Russia? And the fact that we

kind of have to bargain with them and be like, no guys, we're only going to give you this one, which you can use to defend yourself in the Donbass. I think that's great. I think defending yourself in a war for your territory, but enabling them to strike targets inside of Russia, and we talked about this in our last show, which is if you're the Russians, you're not stupid. You're like, hey, they can't strike with US weapons inside Russia, so we'll fire from Russia. We're at war with Ukraine. We can just do that. But the diplomatic fallout and the consequences of such actions, especially if Ukraine uses U.S.-provided weapon systems to do so, not just that. Remember,

we're in the NATO alliance. Germany is actually giving them a longer-range rocket system. The UK also is in possession of this type of technology. So what I'm talking about here is whenever we enable them to offensively strike, and I would define that not only in terms of a Ukrainian offensive, but also to up the ante in terms of the strategic situation, that's where I'm completely against it. And that's also why the Biden administration decision here, maybe it sounds wise, you know, only giving them 70 kilometers. But again, you know, this is where I get very concerned is the Ukrainians are very cavalier and saying, no, we need a no-fly zone.

Remember, they campaigned here in Israel. Zelensky went and pissed off the entire country of Israel by comparing it to the Holocaust. He's been all over the West begging for a no-fly zone. Now he knows he's not going to get that. And it seems that the next phase of the asking us for weapons is give us these fighter planes, which we would be able to possibly in order to strike into Russia. Give it these systems which would be able to strike into Russia. And that's where we need to draw a much clearer red line. I mean we really do need – I think the president should publicly say to Ukraine, we will never give you anything that will be able to strike into Russia.

And unfortunately, we're negotiating this all in some back room because it's appearing as some slight. And you have warmongers here in Washington who think that, you know, the way to bolster Ukrainian defense is to give them stuff which they can use in an offensive way. Right. That is what I'm completely against. Completely. Yeah. Agree. Completely against that.

And we've also, because this $40 billion aid package was passed so casually, so quickly, with so little public debate, and now with no oversight. Right. You're just basically trusting the good judgment of Joe Biden. Yes, that's written into law. I think people should really understand that. Yeah. It's written in the package saying the president has the sole discretionary authority to decide what goes over to Ukraine. So he's, you know, making these tradeoffs like, well, I won't give you the super long range. I'll give you like the medium range ones.

Okay. And just so you know how significant this is, this is from that article about this weapon system. They say that this is an extraordinarily advanced modern weapon system, much more advanced than anything the Ukrainians or the Russians can currently put on the battlefield. They describe it as vehicle-mounted launchers that can fire volleys of six guided rockets at a time that land within several feet of their intended target and accuracy unmatched in the artillery duels taking place across the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. The vehicle carrying the launchers can also travel at more than 50 miles per hour. But wait, there's more. Go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. So it's not just these missiles that are relatively long range, though not the longest range. We also now have confirmation, according to Sky News,

from an interview that they conducted with General Paul Nakasani. He is the head of NSA and also the head of Cyber Command, that U.S. military hackers are conducting offensive operations in support of Ukraine. Now, there's no details here. All we have is this confirmation from the dude who would know, quote, we've conducted a series of operations across the full spectrum, offensive, defensive, and information operations. There need to be a lot more questions asked about this. This is another thing that is going on. No public scrutiny. No one is voting for this. No one is having a debate about it. No one is explaining what the potential consequences are. Nobody is laying out what exactly is being done here. And this is also extremely significant. I mean, if anything, our intelligence and our offensive cyber capabilities that we've apparently provided

to Ukraine, that is as significant in what they're doing on the ground in this war as the, you know, physical hardware that we are sending there as well. Absolutely. And I've talked before. Part of the problem with cyber is that there are no real defined rules of engagement. So whenever we talk about an offensive cyber attack, what does that mean? On what type of hard asset? Are they trying to disrupt something? Are they sharing that with the Ukrainians? Is it a conjunction with the Ukrainian cyber defense, you know, if such a unit even exists? The point that I'm making is that the gray area on this is just extraordinary. And we have no idea because there's a high level of

uncertainty in how the Russians are going to respond. And let's not delude ourselves. Russia could cripple the global financial system tomorrow if they wanted to with their Russian hackers. I mean, we've already seen Russian mob affiliated things take down U.S. health care, go after several different assets here in America. We've seen Facebook memes destroy our entire democracy. That's right. I forgot about that. You're right. But the point is, is that, you know, what people conjured up as something that actually happened in 2016, I mean, that kind of is in their capability, not in terms of affecting the election, but in terms of just screwing with us, screwing with daily life, causing and wreaking havoc in the corporate world. And then even worse so for the Ukrainians, given their military grid system and how much access now that they have even

inside of the country. So we have to be extraordinarily careful. And just to buttress my last point, this is the stuff what we're about to show you, which completely in the shadows, completely up to the administration, nobody in Congress is having a debate about this. Let's put this up there on the screen, broke late last night, which is that the US is planning to sell armed drones to Ukraine in the coming days. So let me read from this. The Biden administration is currently planning to sell Ukraine four MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones that can be armed with Hellfire missiles for battlefield use against Russia. The sale of these made drones could still be blocked by Congress and also said there is a

risk of a last-minute policy reversal which could scuttle the plan, which has now been under review at the Pentagon. Now, why does this matter? Because the current drones that we have been providing to Ukraine are smaller, have a much shorter range, and are unmanned aerial systems against Russian forces. But the Gray Eagle represents a leap in technology because it can fly up to 30 or more hours, depending on its mission, can gather huge amounts of data for intelligence purposes, and because they can carry up to eight powerful Hellfire missiles. The sale is significant because, and I'm putting directly quote here, an advanced, reusable U.S. system capable of deep strikes, multiple deep strikes, on the battlefield against Russia for the first time. So this is what, again, I would have defined in the previous

segment about offensive weapons. This gives you, I mean, look, Ukraine and Russia are right there. And depending on if you're Russian and who you ask, where exactly the border is, is very much up for debate. So a U.S. hellfire missile given to the Ukrainian forces being used possibly against, let's imagine that they use it against a Russian ship again. We already know they use the British weapons against that ship and sank the flagship. This just, again, just enters the realm of upping the ante. And where I really get concerned is there's no debate and it is 100% up to the sole discretion of the president. I mean, I've said this in our last show, Joe Biden is like 80 years old. He could literally drop dead, which means that Kamala tomorrow could decide to send anything up to like nukes over to Ukraine, and we would have nothing

to say about it. Zero. Congress already given them the authority. They can only advise after the fact. I think the only reason they can even advise here is because we're selling the weapons. We're not just giving it to them because it probably falls outside of that aid package. But put it together with that cyber report, this is the gray area stuff where, you know, Biden may do a decent enough job, in my opinion, of pushing back against some of the war establishment. Some of the most maximalist. Some of the most, yeah, exactly, like the people calling for war. But that does not mean he's got the deep state under control whatsoever. No, far, far from it. I mean, it looks like what happened here is, remember, there was that whole idea and discussion of we're going to send fighter jets.

And then it was like, well, but wait a second. How are we going to get them there? And what pilots? And how is this all going to work? And does that then lead to this offensive capability? Obviously, it does. And so when that was kind of thankfully taken off the table, this is like the substitute. So, okay, well, we're not going to give you fighter jets, but we'll give you something

that can do a lot of the same things and just doesn't have the messiness of having a human being, an actual pilot involved. Again, it's not a done deal. Congress could still say no. They probably won't. They almost certainly won't. But this is yet another escalation. And to go back to where we started all of this discussion, that Biden op-ed, he does talk in there about the threat of nuclear weapons. And to my mind, the language he uses is very cavalier. Oh, it's scary stuff. What he says is, I know many people around the world are concerned about the use of nuclear weapons. Oh, really? You think so? We currently see no indication that Russia has intent to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, though Russia's occasional rhetoric to rattle the nuclear saber is itself dangerous and extremely

irresponsible. Let me be clear, any use of nuclear weapons in this conflict on any scale would be completely unacceptable to us as well as the rest of the world and would entail severe consequences. So number one, I mean, making it very clear that if there is any sort of use of a nuclear weapon by Russia, that means it's on. It's on. That's effectively what he's saying. Nuclear war. But also, like I said, the downplaying of the risk, the cavalier language here about, oh, they're just rattling the nuclear saber, I also don't think is reflective of the true, I mean, the true cataclysm it would be if we ended up in that type of conflict. And as we've said many, many times, even if that risk is very, very low, it justifies going to extraordinary lengths to make sure that we do not end up in that situation. Yeah. Look, it's just all about

balancing and making sure that we are extraordinarily careful and considered in what we have and in considering what we do, what we say, and the boxes that it can catch you into. Because now once you say that, you can't take it back. There's a reason that we actually have ambiguity around basically our decision-making on all things nuclear. And it's in order to keep maximal policy options available to policymakers in the event that we do ever come to such a conflict. And that maximum optionality is what

saved us during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's something very key in order to emphasize, which is that only because we had President Kennedy, who was in charge, and he himself had served in war, was terrified of war, had studied the Munich Crisis, and had studied so much of what happened in World War II, that we are all alive today. That. That's what really scares the hell out of me. Yeah. Is their ability, you know, only because you had a decent statesman who was in charge. And I don't have a lot of confidence looking at where we're at right now, unfortunately, Chris.

Indeed. Let's move on to this next one. Tone shift, because this is just a completely nuts story. And just, I think, an indication of a general vibe shift. I'm going to be talking about the vibe shift a lot in this show. Let's start here. NFTs, Web3, so much of the discourse, YouTube, even our audience we can see in our research. There's a lot of Googling going on for what's happening here.

Well, I can't tell you everything about it. I've done some dabbling. I do not own NFTs. But let's put this up there. Not true. We do own the CNN Plus. Oh, that's right. We still own the CNN NFT.

So we should disclose our conflict of interest here. Breaking Points Incorporated owns an NFT. I personally do not own an NFT. We all collectively own the best NFT in the world. Okay. Go ahead. Let's throw this up there on the screen, which is that now the Department of Justice,

in the first of its kind, has charging a former employee of an NFT marketplace charged in the first ever digital asset insider trading scheme. This is extraordinary. Number one, it's in the Southern District of New York, which is one of the hallmarks of the financial crimes within the Department of Justice. Obviously, they represent Manhattan or they cover the area of Manhattan. Now, the person who was charged here, Nathaniel Chastain, he is not just a former product manager at OpenSea. He is the former head of product. Now, for those who are kind of familiar, OpenSea was the largest NFT marketplace. You can think of it almost like an

eBay or a StockX or something of a collectibles database in order to exchange and to buy NFTs. Now, there was some problems with OpenSea now for a while. There were some NFTs that were stolen, certain other things. But these guys were making absolutely millions of dollars in terms of the Bored Apes and the other NFTs that were exchanging on the platform. Now, Chastain was actually arrested yesterday in New York City and was charged here with insider trading, with wire fraud, and a host of other financial crimes. Let's throw actually this Vice News piece, did a decent job of writing all of this up, which is that Nathan Chastain, who was the former, again, head of

product, used insider knowledge to trade NFTs for a profit. And what they point to is that Chastain used his insider knowledge to purchase NFTs from collections that were about to be featured on the marketplace's homepage for personal financial gain. I mean, that's the easiest thing to consider in the world. You are the head of product. You know which NFTs are about to be on the homepage. You know that you run the largest marketplace. So you buy said NFT or you have a stake in said NFT. And then you put it on the homepage and you watch it skyrocket in value. And because you control when it goes on the marketplace or not,

you have a tremendous advantage over the average person who is participating here. This is like, again, if the idea, look, this is why we have regulated stock exchanges. And look, as many problems as we have on the NASDAQ, on the New York Stock Exchange, you cannot get away with some, this is 1910s era stuff. Well, that's actually a very good point. And what they say here is that his NFTs,

he would sell them then for two to five times his initial investment. So his whole game was, I'm going to put this thing on the homepage tomorrow. I'm going to buy it today. Once I feature it, I know the price is going to go up and then I'm going to sell and I'm going to rake it in. And he sought to hide his activity

with anonymous crypto wallets and accounts, the DOJ also says. So look, we'll wait for all the details to come out, but this is extraordinarily damning. And it also is consistent. There's, I mean, there is just a lot of fraud and, you know, con artists within the NFT world, especially also within the crypto world. Wall Street Journal did analysis that suggested that there was also significant insider trading within the crypto world. They did this report that found over six days last August,

one crypto wallet amassed a stake of $360,000 worth of, how do you say this, Sagar? G-N-O-S-I-S. Gnosis coins? Yeah, that's Gnosis. A token tied to an effort to build blockchain-based prediction markets. On the seventh day, Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, said in a blog post it would list Gnosis, allowing it to be traded among its users. That, of course, adds legitimacy and liquidity to the token and provides

a boost to the trading price. The price rises sharply from around $300 to $410 within an hour. Then whatever, whoever owns this anonymous wallet sells and makes massive profit. And this is just one example. They found that this routinely happened where you had these extremely well-timed acquisitions and sales that, you know, if you were in a position to know what Binance is going to do, you could certainly be in a position to profit off of it ultimately being listed there. So then this, of course, goes along with the pump and dump schemes that we have seen routinely. You see Madison Cawthorne promoting the Let's Go Brandon coin. And then they're able to profit. And then the whole thing falls apart.

They know that it's about to be picked up or listed as a sponsor for this NASCAR driver. So they pump the thing. They get a bunch of people in. And then they're able to sell before the bottom falls out. So this is just, I mean, you know, the thing that makes me really mad about it is because there are a lot of just ordinary people. Yeah, that's why it pisses me off as well. Who believe in the vision, who have been probably screwed in their financial life a million other ways, think maybe this is the thing that's going to get me ahead, that's going to get me in the game, that's going to get me, you know, able to have a little bit of money in my savings account. They get suckered into this

with a bunch of lies and promises, and then they just get screwed over. And it's disgusting. It does very much harken back to the days actually building up to the Great Depression. You had, for the first time, Americans en masse dabbling in the stock market and being sold this bill of goods, very similar. You can't lose. It only goes up. And you can buy with this amazing thing where you can buy on margin. And so you can afford to get in here in a big way. Why wouldn't you do that? You're just leaving free money on the table. That was the rhetoric at the time. And so you had all these retail investors who, you know, prior to that, it had been a very elite game to be involved in the stock market at all. You have them flooding into the zone. And then

that's part of, you know, the sort of irrational exuberance of the stock market that ultimately leads to this is one contributing factor, not the only one, but one contributing factor to this massive crash where people just got absolutely crushed. Yeah, I feel very, very bad for the retail investors. And there are a lot of people, you know, I hear it from normal people all the time. They're like, oh, do you know about SafeMoon? Or like, do you know? And I'm like, yo, listen, like, you should really be careful whenever you try and dabble in this stuff. And I've got, I've been burned many times, just so people know out there as well. I think what has always been, I think for me, for a lot of people who

are on the internet, it's exciting. It feels like you're on the verge of something new. But I've always known, just given my own knowledge of history and more, that there was a tremendous amount of obviously criminal behavior going on. And I actually think that the worst thing that happened to these people is that they started getting filthy rich, because that is when the feds are going to start to get involved. And like when you have anonymous crypto accounts and more that are worth, you know, billions of dollars or hundreds of millions, they're going to come after you. Yeah, but the feds should be involved. Oh, no, I agree with you. No, no, no. I support that because you shouldn't be allowed to get away with this. And the whole point of having a federal

backstop is in guaranteeing integrity of markets. And so that is very lacking, especially in the DeFi, decentralized financial space, and more when you have these stable coins that go to fluctuate down to 50%, even though the whole reason you're supposed to invest them is that they're pegged to the US dollar. And there's some protocol which they tell you works, but apparently it doesn't work. The reason why I think that this matters too is there was a dream, I think, that this represented some sort of new financial frontier. But I think the reality that we're beginning to grapple with now that NFT crash has come and gone, let's all be honest, right? Massive crash within the space. Ethereum, Bitcoin, everything is dramatically down, just like the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones, is that a lot of

these assets, while yes, I believe that they represent a technological change and breakthrough in the ability to have blockchain transactions, which cannot be questioned, which you could zip to each other, especially on lightning networks and other things, that fundamentally, especially just right now in the United States, like we do need to have the ability to have integrity within the market. Otherwise, normal folks get burned. And especially, this is the other thing I always think about with these guys

like Nathan Chastain and others. The amount of documentation that you have to submit to any US financial institution, do you really think you're smart enough to get away with this? They've been burning, what was it, Ross Ulbricht, who did the drug marketplace, I forget what it's called. Silk Road, Silk Road.

Oh, yeah. They busted it back in 2013. They were able to bust a Bitcoin wallet. You think they're not going to get you? If you sign up for Coinbase or any of these other things, you have to submit your license, you have to take a selfie and all this stuff. It's just, you're not smarter than the feds. And once you start making millions of dollars like this, like they're going to come after you.

And they should, honestly. Yeah, I think it's actually encouraging that they're going after this guy. Because there were some questions about like, okay, do we have, do our insider trading laws, are they going to apply to these new financial sectors?

And clearly, Southern District of New York is making a very clear stand here that yes, just because it's crypto or NFT is the same laws and rules apply here. And guys, you want them to. Listen, Lord knows we have our problems with the federal government here. But the biggest problem, if you put crypto and NFTs to the side and think about our financial markets, the biggest problems there came from deregulation. When you had, you know, after the Great Depression,

you have this, you know, instituting new rules to make the marketplaces boring, basically to make the banking system really boring and keep the most speculative parts of it sort of sequestered off from just the normal banking. And that actually was pretty successful. I mean, it had its flaws, but it was pretty successful. It's when we start to deregulate and we make it just this wild casino that anyone can do anything, that's when you end up with the massive crash that we see in 2008 and other crashes before that as well. So you want there to be regulation. You want the feds involved in making sure that there isn't just endemic fraud and scams and insider trading. Because if it's a Wild West kind of a situation, if it is like a frontier town Wild West kind of situation, well, guess who's going most ruthless, who have the least scruples, who are the most immoral, and who are the craftiest fraudsters, not the ones who are creating the most, you know, innovative product that is going to transform the finances. Yeah, I got to say, I remember being approached about an NFT before we launched, and I just remember thinking, yeah, you know, that's just not it.

I'm glad I was right. Let's go ahead and move on here. A lot of jury trials to dig into. First and foremost, that of Michael Sussman put on trial by the special counsel, Mr. Durham, of which there has been the first trial in three years. And Durham is lost. Let's put this up there on the screen. The special counsel has lost his first trial of the Trump probe, and Michael Sussman has been completely acquitted by a jury of to the FBI in 2016, denying that he was acting directly on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign when he was pushing a story and a theory that the Trump campaign had a server which was somehow communicating with a Russian bank known as

Alpha Bank. Now, that story ended up in Slate magazine written by Franklin Ford in October of 2016. It was one of the closing arguments by Hillary Clinton. And now we know, I mean, it was obvious at the time that it was a complete BS story, but we know now that it was definitively collected, pushed, authorized by Hillary Clinton herself to take it to the FBI to try and drum up some sort of investigation against Trump in order to smear him as some sort of Russian asset. Go ahead. Well, let me pause you there. We know for sure that it was the Hillary Clinton campaign that pushed this to the New York Times and pushed it to sleep. That is very clear. And frankly, I mean, this is like picking up Albo Research and shopping it around is standard campaign practices.

Dirty and gross, but part of the practice, yes. The question that this case turned on was whether or not it was the Clinton people who were also directly pushing it to the FBI. Durham is saying yes when Sussman goes to the FBI and says, hey, there's this thing going on that I think you all ought to look into. Durham is arguing that he was acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign and at their behest. Sussman denied that. The whole back and forth was, you know, the centered around like one conversation with one dude who didn't take any notes, who kind of had a shoddy memory, didn't remember every single detail of this conversation. And so, you know, I mean, ultimately, regardless of what you think about Russiagate, it was a pretty thin charge to ultimately indict him based on.

Let me explain this. And the reason why it matters is that the person who he allegedly lied to was FBI lawyer James Baker. And Baker himself now works for Twitter and left the FBI through scrupulous problems of his own. Right. So the fact was is that there was no concrete evidence, as in an audio recording, a scribbled down note, in the same way. However, based upon the recollection of James Baker, it seemed relatively certain that Michael Sussman did lie at that time. Now, look, I mean, do I think he lied? Yeah, I think he did. And do I think that they were acting sketchy?

I do. The issue was that the, and we're going to talk about this too in the Amber Heard trial, is exactly about the evidence that you are able to prove and to show in a court of law. Yes. And under that, they did not meet what the jury standards were. And I do also think we should consider this, which is that, look, let's be honest. I mean, this is a very liberal jury. These are a bunch of Washington, D.C. residents. And there was this attorney, Jonathan Turley, who was on Fox earlier, who just, I didn't

even know this, in terms of the makeup of the jury. These are some of the political leanings of the people who decided this case. Let's take a listen. The problem for Durham is the jury and the judge. I mean, he is facing a jury that has three Clinton donors, an AOC donor, and a woman whose daughter is on the same sports team with Sussman's daughter. I mean, the exception of randomly selecting people out of the DNC headquarters, you could not come up with a worse jury. Well, not inconvenient. I do want to say that is a jury of his peers, if you do consider it that way. I mean, I personally think the jury conversation is a little bit of cope. Because, frankly, I mean, it was, first of all, it's fairly unusual to charge just on a relatively minor lie to the FBI.

I mean, there's a lot of conversation of this on the other side with regards to Michael Flynn. That's what he was charged with. And it was BS, in my opinion. Yeah. And oftentimes, I mean, this is typically more of the view of the left that, like, you know, they use this lying to the FBI to go after people in the absence of being able to prove a larger charge of conspiracy or whatever. Certainly seems to be the case here. So you already have the fact that this was charged to begin with is questionable. And then I don't think that, I think it would have been hard to

find a jury based on the evidence presented that wouldn't have said there's some reasonable doubt here. Because on the one hand, it's all just based on the word of James Baker, who you've already pointed out, not really that credible of a witness. Yeah, he was, you know, he had to be, he had to leave the FBI because of his own scrupulous problems regarding also Russiagate. This is the problem. So not a particularly credible witness, doesn't take any notes or have any documentary evidence of what is said. His story changes a couple times. And they did have a text message from Sussman when he's setting up this meeting that says directly, this is, I'm acting on my own behalf here. Now, so look, you can think, look, the Clintons are nefarious people. They're not above, you know, doing all sorts of dirty deeds. But I don't think

anyone should be surprised that ultimately the jury very quickly came back with an acquittal here. It only took six hours. Because, yeah, there just was not sufficient evidence here to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was, in fact, lying and that he was representing the Clintons and not just acting, you know, of his own accord. Yeah, I think the main lesson is what you're saying, which is that, look, I do, and I'm always going to err on the side of, it's going to take an extraordinary burden of proof

on behalf of the feds in order to charge anybody and to bring that to a trial. And it should. No, it should. It should be that way. I do think that the facts of the case point to some extraordinarily sketchy behavior on their part in the way that they were acting.

However, they actually made a point at the end in their closing arguments, Sussman's team, opposition research is not illegal. If it were, the jails of D.C. would be teaming over. True. So I do actually think this case, you know, really on all sides, but if you consider also some of the weird stuff

Paul Manafort and all of them were up to, it's so disgusting, our entire top echelons of political society are. True, true. Paul Manafort, I think the prosecution of him also was over the top, but this guy's so disgusting, our entire top echelons of political society are. True, true. Paul Manafort, I think the prosecution of him also was over the top, but this guy's working for all these oligarchs, he has these weird clothes, and spending millions of dollars.

Weird clothes, I forgot about the weird clothes. Yeah, and all these multi-million dollar wire transfers coming in and out of his bank. And then you've got here Michael Sussman, working for the Clinton campaign, Hillary, putting together what they know to be a basically bullshit story, but they're going and pushing it anyway because they want to win the election. I just think it's a repulsive view kind of into the center of the way that all of this politics works. Yeah, I mean that beyond any criminality, you know, and the burden of proof and all that, that's my main takeaway. Yeah, that's right.

What a waste of time this country was put through by these people. So sleazy. And in the same way that the maximalist claims of the Russiagate people were insane. I mean, including the idea that there was this communication by the server that Putin had the, you know, the P-tape, all that stuff turns out to be ridiculous. There were also maximalist claims of, you know, the deep state conspiracy folks and the origins of this investigation, which are also, you know, preposterous. And I think that is borne out by the fact that this was the big case from Durham. Oh, this was number one? This was the central thing that he came up with. The charge is very thin. He's unable to prove even any sort

of broader, like, deep state conspiracy kind of thing. And so I do think it also disproves, like, the maximalist deep state plot conspiracies on that side as well. Yeah. I mean, I think the only takeaway you can think is that this is just really gross, this entire thing. And, you know, also there was a lot of cope on the MAGA side of, oh, John Durham's going to go and get them. And it's like, guys, it's been several years. It's like if you really think at this point that that's going to happen, I don't really know. Time for us all just to move on. Let's move on.

Yeah, Hillary was gross, sleazy. That's a good thing she lost the election. All right, let's just go with that. Let's move on to, finally, the big, the trial of the century. Crystal, I gotta say, there, I have never seen the amount of public interest in a trial like this. I mean, I guess Rittenhouse, but that was more political. This, this is up there in terms of capturing the entire country's attention. So, we've done our due diligence here as newscasters. I've learned as much as I could. You did your due diligence. I did not. I did my due diligence. We've got some video here from the direct reading of the verdict here at the

trial here, actually, in the DMV, Fairfax, Virginia. Let's take a listen. As against Amber Heard, we, the jury, award compensatory damages in the amount of $10 million. As against Amber Heard, we, the jury, award punitive damages in the amount of $5 million. As against John C. Depp II, we, the jury, award compensatory damages in the amount of $2 million. As against John C. Depp II, we, the jury, award punitive damages in the amount of $0. The court is adjourned. Thank you. So there it is, an apparent victory there for Johnny Depp.

And before everybody jumps down my throat, let me explain. Here's what the jury found, which is that Johnny Depp, according to the jury, proved that Amber Heard defamed him. Not only did they award Johnny Depp compensatory damages, they also awarded him punitive damages, finding that it was an egregious kind of defamation of his character. They also ruled, and this is what a lot of other people are talking about, that Johnny Depp's team owes $2 million to Amber Heard because his lawyer, not Johnny Depp, according to the jury, did defame her by claiming that she set him up

to look like a victim of abuse in a hotel room situation. However, in that, they only awarded her $2 million. Now, the reason why this isn't the mixed bag that I think some of the people in the media are trying to show it is, is that Johnny had an extraordinary burden of proof to rise to. He had to prove that never, not in one instance, did the jury believe that he was ever abusive in any form towards Amber Heard. The burden of proof, if you think about it,

Amber Heard's case is the easiest case whenever you're in a tumultuous marriage. She only had to prove that in this crazy, coke-fueled, booze-fueled, multi-million dollar marriage, that only at one point could she ever credibly convince the jury that she felt abused in any way. To then represent herself in this op-ed published in the Washington Post in 2018, where she claimed that she was a public face of abuse. Now, even though she did not even claim Crystal in this op-ed, she never named Johnny Depp one time. Right. That he claims that she insinuated and defamed his public character because that people would know that she was

referring to him. So yeah, go ahead before I continue. So one question I have is, so there was a British court case as well. And he lost that case. And in that case, they found that he— Tell me if I'm wrong. They found that he abused her on a dozen different occasions? They found that they were convinced it was possible that he abused her. Again, remember, this is civil court.

This is not criminal. So this is a guess. So what they found is that it was possible that that happened, as in that they did not believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that it never happened. So he had to prove here to this jury that he had never abused her and that he was defamed and his career suffered. Well, that certainly is true in terms of his career suffering. Absolutely true. And we should remember also that a lot of this came at the height of the Me Too movement.

And Depp was essentially moved out of Hollywood based upon complete hearsay by Amber Heard. Let me ask you another question. So there were pictures that she showed of what bruises and hair pulled out. There's a lot to say about these bruises. Right, because so there I know is a lot of attention. And again, guys, I did not follow this at all. I'm like the only person in the country who was like, I'm not, I'm not digging. I'm just not going to dig into this. So I'm truly coming from a place of ignorance here. So her behavior, I know was the subject of a lot of discussion. Like I do know about the pooping on the bed.

That was something. Yeah. So her behavior was the subject of a lot of discussion. But isn't that irrelevant to whether or not he abused her? That's right. It is irrelevant. However, what Johnny Depp's team was able to show is that Amber Heard absolutely, at the very least, overrepresented it and possibly made up a lot of what these so-called bruises in photos were showing. So for example, she said that she had to use a type of makeup

in order to cover up this bruise, and she named a specific brand. They didn't even make that brand of makeup at the time that she was claiming that she was using it for. So there was several other instances in which she was caught in very direct lies around the exact circumstances of her abuse. And, you know, personally, I don't know. It seems clear that this was some crazy stuff that was going on. And Johnny was in a very, very dark place. They both seem like terrible people. These are very, very, I mean, these are deep in Hollywood, celebrity, narcissist. I mean, it's clear too, you know, Depp was basically like, I don't care about the money. I'm going to sue you into oblivion and I want to ruin your public

reputation. And I think the reason that he succeeded, unfortunately, is that Amber Heard is kind of crazy. I mean, what really comes out of this is he had audio recordings of her being very abusive to him, of even admitting that she instigated a physical, she said on tape, that she instigated a physical fight with him. And I think the takeaway for me is that this jury found in no, they found no credibility to a single one of her accusations against her, against him. And I think that the reason that Johnny Depp was able to succeed is that they just poked holes. And again, the makeup lies. To me, actually, the most telling scene from this entire thing, Crystal, is whenever Amber Heard very clearly was trying to use her abuse allegations and more in order to bolster her public image. So, for example, she had said that she was going to take all of the money that she received in this divorce settlement and give it to charity.

And so there's a great clip of a cross-examination where the lawyer is like, you said you were going to donate all this money. Did you do it? And she goes, I pledged to give all the money. She's like, that's not what I asked you. She goes, yeah, I pledged to give the money. When you buy a house, you don't give all the money. You buy a mortgage, you give some of the money. And she goes, I couldn't give it. She goes, I also couldn't do it because Johnny was suing me. And she's like, well, hold on a second. You got the money on this date, and he didn't sue you until 11 months later. So why did you have $7 million just sitting in your bank account and not give it to charity? And that comes actually to the genesis, which is much grosser to me of this entire thing, which is that Amber Heard, this op-ed, was pitched and placed in the Washington Post by the ACLU. This is the one part I do know about, yeah. Because she promised them three and a half

million dollars in a donation, direct pay for play. I'm a victim of domestic abuse and I'm going to give you three and a half million. You guys have to support me. So they wrote this op-ed for her with her. They placed it in the Washington Post on her behalf. Well, she didn't even give them any of that money. She only gave them some $300,000. And in fact, Elon Musk later, because he was dating her, had to pay some of the balance to the ACLU on behalf of Amber Heard. The downfall of the ACLU, it genuinely does make me really sad. I mean, they just are not the organization that they used to be. Period. End of story. They, after, it seems the reporting suggests, after Charlottesville,

when they stood up for the right of those, you know, disgusting, like, white nationalist people to march in Charlottesville, which is very consistent. It's very controversial, obviously. People have a right to march, not to riot. Also, very consistent with, you know, what they have stood for, for the entirety of that organization's existence. There was such a backlash to that. And then you also had such a, you know, an opportunity to grift off of the like anti-Trump resistance movement that they just completely, I don't even know what the ACLU is or stands for at this point. And this is just to me one more example of how far they have fallen.

That they, like, what are you doing? Ghostwriting this op-ed, pay for play in exchange for this pledge of money that then, you know, they don't even get the full amount of. So that part to me is really, it is really sad because we need an organization like the ACLU. And it's one of very few nonprofits that you could have pointed to that says, you know, they have this principle. Sometimes it pisses off the left. Sometimes it pisses off the right. But you always know where they're going to be. And, you know, guarding our civil liberties is extremely important. So, you know, one more sign of their downfall to me is very distressing. I want to, okay, so some of the comments, I want to stand up for the people who have looked at this and said that the verdict is going to,

it's going to send a message to other victims of domestic abuse that you can't speak out because ultimately, you know, you're going to be punished for it. And that's what Amber Heard is claiming. Yeah, so what do you make of that claim? It's complicated. I think it's very hard.

You know, I was telling you before, which is that in a way, you know, I do think that the defamation standard for public figures, especially for Johnny Depp, he's what, one of the most famous people in the world. So for, you know, to be able to prove defamation against somebody like him should be extraordinarily high. Johnny, let's not be honest here, you know, for Johnny Sands, he did not comport himself in a nice way. Yeah, well, I was just looking at his text messages that said, I will fuck her burnt corpse. Let's burn Amber. Let's drown her before we burn her. I think he called her like a filthy whore.

Look, listen, terrible stuff. Yeah. You know, not in a good place. Clearly, I'm not excusing any of this behavior whatsoever. I think that's part of the problem. And this is why I look at it more of a social commentary. On the merits, look, in terms of the expansive view of the word abusive and all that, given the fact that he was writing in blood with his finger and there's some really gross

stuff that was happening here, this seems like a dramatic and tumultuous home place where in that expansive definition, just given the verbal abuse and all that, I'm not saying that she wasn't leveling that against him too, though that probably seems correct. I think this is as a social commentary by the jury was so repulsed by Amber Heard and her clear want to turn herself into a victim and use her victimhood status to bolster her image in Hollywood

and to gain social cachet that they decided to say, screw you, we're going to make you pay. Now look, because the state of Virginia actually has caps on punitive damages, that's going to automatically lower to 350,000. But Johnny never cared about that. It was about reclaiming his name. And I think that what has come through this is the final death of the just on one word alone, he abused me, of the destruction of a person's reputation in public. To me, this very much seems as a mark in the Me Too, kind of away from the Me Too movement towards a real, I think, a fed up feeling amongst a lot of people. And look, this is Fairfax, Virginia. This is a liberal place. This is not Youngkin country. To even have those people

feel repulsed by her. And also, let's go ahead and let's throw up this, there we go. America had more interest in the Depp-Herd trial than abortion. More than Elon Musk. It's one of the most interested in stories in the entire country. Which is how you guys know we don't just do clickbait here. That's right. We haven't covered it until the end. This is our first time covering the story. The reason I think, again, I'm looking at it in the sociopolitical view. The reason why a lot of people were invested, a lot of people were, you know, beyond the lurid details of the shitting in the beds and all of that was this really was kind of a new era of actually litigating this in court. Showing kind of both sides of the story.

And I look at it, I mean, I think anybody can look at this and be like, these people are crazy. I don't know. These people are insane. I mean, I guess that's, my instinct, and my opinion on this, again, guys,

is worthless because I really have a goal in it. But my instinct here is that this doesn't actually have that many broader societal implications because it's not like this story is relatable.

Like, a couple of multimillionaires who are out of their minds, you know, pledging multimillion-dollar donations to the ACLU and having them ghostwrite an op-ed and having your acting career. It's not like a super relatable story. So I'm a little skeptical. Why do you think it captures so much public attention?

That's the thing, I don't know. Because our brains have been rotted by this celebrity gossip bullshit culture. I mean, you know, the details are, it's sex and violence and shitting in the bed for these like incredibly famous people who are supposed to be sort of, you know, our cultural elite and do no wrong.

We've long been fixated on this sort of like celebrity culture drama. This is why like the Kardashians are some of our foremost figures, right? And why everybody was so fixated on the drama, including myself, I confess, between her and Kanye. You know, this is why the O.J. Simpson murder trial, that truly transformed, I mean, talk about transformed, that transformed the era. Well, that became a racial commentary. It did, but it also, that had a toxic brew of, like, yeah, sex

and violence and all of that as well, which completely transformed an entire era of television. So it's not surprising to me that people are fixated on this because we're conditioned to be distracted and titillated

by this celebrity gossip bullshit culture stuff. Yeah, no, look, maybe you're right. I truly have no idea. I have been stunned by the level of public interest in this, really. I mean, everybody, every newsstand, every top story, New York Times doing push notifications even in terms of you know people i hear out on the street i've literally heard people talking about this like

at the grocery store yeah about the johnny they're like did you see what happened uh and like this lawyer is now for johnny's lawyer is not like the famous and see the people that i know are really into this they're not particularly into it from a like, what does this say about the broader media? Yeah, but nobody ever thinks about that. Right, for domestic violence. It's like very much about the characters and the storyline and the same reason that people are obsessed with these like true crime podcasts and whatever. That's a dark one. You know, we're naturally fascinated by the lurid.

And also, I do think there's something in particular about these people who are supposed to be above it all and you see them, like, you know, looking so glamorous. And then to get that peek behind the curtain of what was really going on in that relationship, yeah, people are going to be titillated by that. I would not wish either of them on my own worst enemy. All right, Sager. All that being said,

what are you looking at? We talked a lot on this show about how corporate price gouging is responsible for a lot of inflation in this country. The idea being that because consumers are accustomed to increasing prices, companies can then increase prices for whatever reason that they want, and you will not be as price sensitive or shocked and try to seek out alternatives. That was something openly bragged about on many earnings calls in 2021. And I want to start by acknowledging and saying it was a very real phenomena. My friend, Talman Joseph Smith over at the New York Times, he notes that many corporations over the last two years actually made higher profits based upon selling a lower number of goods. That's because the price of those less number of goods was so high. In the aggregate,

they actually found over 2,000 publicly traded companies outside the financial sector. Most of them increased sales faster than expenses, despite the many challenges around the supply chain, labor costs, and more, earning an extra $200 billion a year in profit than the year before. So those profit margins, which were fueled by consumer willingness to put up with corporate price increases, increase in demand post-pandemic, and then loose monetary policy, were the three key factors in booming the stock market over the last two years. But, and this is the key part of Talman's piece, the music is beginning to stop, and a new story is starting to be written for the U.S. economy. First and foremost,

as we've already covered here, there are a lot of bad signs for the U.S. economy. First and foremost, as we've already covered here, there are a lot of bad signs in the U.S. economy right now. The savings rate is at a lowest level since 2008. Credit card debt just hit a new record since 2005. The Federal Reserve is jacking up interest rates. Gas is $5 a gallon. Of course, food is experiencing double digit inflation. You combine all of those and you see a major reduction in the coming year or two of the American ability to spend money. What that means, though, is that 70% of our entire economy consists of consumer spending. If it goes down by even a couple of percent, that is catastrophic for millions of people and small businesses. So as before, when the stock market was pricing in high profits from companies,

loose monetary policy, and increasing consumer demand, the stock market was going up. But now, the stock market doesn't really care about yesterday. It's about future value. And companies appear to have squeezed a lot of what they can from price gouging at this point. In fact, on the very same earnings calls where executives used to brag about price increase, they are now complaining that they've gotten all that they can from the price increase and say that the supply chain crisis sees no signs of abating, increasing costs, and is taking away their ability to make further profit. Worse, on top of supply chain lows, which are now increasing prices flat across the board for inputs, we are now seeing a sustained effect of prolonged inflation on the overall economy as a whole. As we commented on before, Walmart, which has even been touted as a so-called recession-proof business, reported a 25% drop in a single quarter as a result of fuel

cost, labor cost, but hidden was the most worrisome stat of all. Walmart said food demand had decreased because of increased cost. Target suffered a similar drop in stock. Their CEO reported a 52% drop in net income from the first quarter of 2022 versus the first quarter of 2021. Target said they were plagued by supply chain problems and said they were going to have to spend an extra $1 billion a year on freight costs than expected. Worse, Target is now stuck holding the bag of items that just a few months ago were flying off the shelves. Home goods, patio furniture, TVs, and kitchen appliances. Another retailer also reporting similar problems. The clothing company Gap having their stock drop 18% last week when its revenue dropped for the first time in the last three years, with the statistic that

same store sales were down 14% year over year and online sales declining by 20%. The same is true of Abercrombie & Fitch and many other mall-based retailers. In other words, contagion is beginning to move through the entire economy. And as I warned before, you may not have made money on the way up, but you sure as hell will lose money on the way down. When companies start to get pressure like this from Wall Street, there is only one way left to try and increase profit. Fire people. Stop hiring people. Stop expansion plans. Cut costs wherever possible, go lean in the bad times. This will obviously have a direct impact on you for your ability to have labor mobility

and to continue bargaining for a wage. Worse, that comes at the exact same time that persistent inflation remains across the board because structurally, we have not dealt with any of the supply chain problems that actually plague us. In fact, as Heather Long is pointing out here at the Washington Post, perhaps the only way we will not go into recession is if richer Americans don't drop their spending level. Wealthier Americans today are the only ones still spending big, and because they have so much cash, those numbers can save the top line figure.

But consider what that means for all of you who are well and truly hosed in this type of a market. You're beholden entirely to the spending whims of the richest people in America, while you struggle to make the basic ends meet. As Heather points out, this was the exact problem with the economy post-Great Recession. Obama and company would tout their economic recovery in terms of top figures. And sure, technically there was some growth. But for most people, it wasn't captured in the overall statistic. It was captured in the basic fact that their lives were worse and harder off than before 2008. We are now entering a similar period where Biden and his administration continue to tout a great economic recovery and a booming labor market. As usual, I can only end on a somber note. I don't think, I really think about so many people who watch this show and others, families and service workers,

who are really struggling. And honestly, it just does not seem like things are going to get better anytime soon. All of the systems at the top are pressuring the Fed to increase interest rates, companies are slowing down, and the only people who are continuing to spend and make money are the rich. It's the same dynamic in America over the last 25 years. And I used to think this thing has got to break sometime. But who knows? It never actually seems to. So I hope that most of you guys hang in there. And I think it's a somber... 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, it's kind of become a meme. President Biden passively watching his own presidency and wishing someone with power would do something. The latest example here with guns is particularly galling. Biden gave a speech about gun violence when he visited and visited Uvalde. He tweeted out some encouraging words about turning pain into action, and then he kind of promptly checked out of the whole debate. The White House would not even put representatives on the Sunday shows to make a case for anything in particular. Vice President Kamala Harris seemed to freelance, calling for an assault weapons ban

while speaking at a funeral for one of those slain by a racist killer in Buffalo. Congressional leaders, though, they seem to be uninterested in following her guidance. The bill being contemplated in the House includes bans on bump stocks, lifting the purchase age, cracking down on straw purchases, among other things, but it doesn't actually contemplate a return to that assault weapons ban. Biden himself uttered something about getting rid of high-caliber hand guns, sending the right wing into total freakout mode, before then promptly leaving that debate and insisting it was not up to him to get involved in any negotiations about guns whatsoever. Among other comments, he said, quote, I can't dictate this stuff. I can do the things I've

done in any executive action I can take. I'll continue to take. But I can't outlaw a weapon. I can't change a background check. I can't do that. He then went on to admit he was not involved at all in negotiations, had not talked to a single Republican about any of it, but that he had blind faith that Mitch McConnell would act in good faith because he was a, quote, rational Republican. Imagine being president of the United States and acting like you have no power to do anything but send a tweet and hope that things work out. This is far from the first time through the entirety of the Build Back Better debacle. We never once learned what the president's actual priorities were or what he might fight for.

Instead, he allowed Manchin to toy with the country for months before shooting that entire project in the head. On union rights, Biden proclaimed he'd be the most pro-union president in history, but has instead mostly sat on the sidelines. The one time he dipped his toe in the water of direct encouragement of Amazon workers, his press secretary immediately jumped in to make it clear that Biden was not actually on the side of workers. What he was not doing is sending a message that he or the U.S. government would be directly involved in any of these efforts or take any direct action. What he was conveying is his longtime support for collective bargaining, for the rights of workers to organize, and their decision to do exactly that in this case, something that he has long supported broadly over the course of his career. It's a passive mode of anti-politics that I frankly associate more with the professorial Obama, watching from above, analyzing like a pundit, never willing to actually get in the mud to try to get things done, to turn hope into an actual course of action.

There's a new report out, though, that Biden is completely mystified by his low poll numbers. He's now lower than Trump, and he's really twisted about it, according to one person close to the White House. That same report claims that Biden was shocked to find he had dropped with one of his support bases, suburban women. The White House, absurdly, has seemed to take these poor poll numbers as a sign that Biden did too much too fast. As David Sirota points out, this is pretty ridiculous. Of the voters that disapprove of Biden, two-thirds say he could do more if he actually wanted to. What's more, his largest drop-off has been among young voters, the cohort that back Bernie, of course, by the largest margins, and is the most progressive and the most interested in large-scale change.

Biden spent his entire life chasing the brass ring of the presidency. And now that he has won it, he seems to have no interest in actually using it and is mystified that anyone would want him to. Now, it would be tempting to blame this devastating failure to act when multiple intersecting crises demand it on the personal characteristics of Biden himself, on, say, his commitment to a bygone era of bipartisanship, on his senior moments, on his committed centrism. But the truth is actually a lot darker. The current Democratic Party is centered on a bedrock opposition to actually governing. Governing means that you have a specific vision and you fight to implement it. It means you have a worldview, an ideology that you believe in and you use every tool at your disposal to actually execute on it. Now, Republican

elites, in my opinion, have a horrendous worldview, but they are not afraid to govern. They will shove their preferred curriculum down your kids' throats. They will give the rich their promised tax cut no matter the obstacle. They will spend 40 years relentlessly vetting Supreme Court justices and federal judges for compliance with their ideology, and they will use every trick and violate every norm to get as many of those vetted ideologues into positions of power. While Democrats run around promising that they don't really want to change anything at all, and worst of all, they actually mean it. This posture goes back at least to Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton did a lot of things when he was president, many of them bad, but it would be a mistake to view his presidency through anything other than the lens

of getting Bill Clinton re-elected. He ran as a populist initially, then he quickly slid into being a sort of standard Koch brothers Republican, passing NAFTA, tax cuts, deregulating banks, ending welfare, obsessing over the budget deficit. And he persuaded everyone else in the Democratic Party that abandoning every principle in the service of getting elected was the thing that serious people did. This approach to politics came at a time when the corporate purse strings were opened wide by a series of Supreme Court decisions. So in the Clinton formulation, you could cash in on that corporate bonanza, and you could delude yourself into thinking that you were somehow still doing right by the people. This directly led to a type of anti-politics. Rather than pushing for anything, you just try to position yourself wherever you imagine the average suburban voter is located, and that suffers from any number of problems. It takes for granted that attitudes are a given and can't and shouldn't be moved,

especially by prominent politicians and by media coverage. It leads to the foolish and racist assumptions undergirding the demographics is destiny analysis. The idea that young voters and voters of color will just naturally vote Democratic meant that Democratic elites didn't have to do anything. They could just keep taking that corporate cash and wait for the rising demographic tide to lift their sold-out boats. It leads to politicians who are terrified of every existing and potential Republican talking point. Just see Joe Biden afraid of even calling for an investigation into the morally atrocious lack of response by police in Uvalde because he was so afraid that Fox News might accuse him of hating cops. And most of all, it leads to facing down multiple devastating threats to the nation and

the world, with the return of the Trump maniacs there on the horizon and twiddling your thumbs because of the filibuster or the parliamentarian or your unwillingness to face a court challenge to an executive order. It leads to having control of the House, the Senate and the White House and still bemoaning your complete impotence. And yes, Mr. President, it leads to some pretty dismal poll numbers as well. I mean, you just can't look at the entire... And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Very interesting trends in the electric vehicle market. So we decided to be joined by an expert, Kristen Eberhardt. She's the Director of Climate Policy at the Niskanen Center. Kristen, thank you very much for joining the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. So we noticed this thread that you put out there. Let's put this up there on the screen. And it's about a new report which shows that EV popularity is exploding and how in just the last three years, the number of EVs on the world's roads has tripled. Now, I think the major question from Crystal and I is that what does this mean both in terms of consumer demand? Because obviously most of these prices or most of these vehicles are for upper middle class individuals. Are they becoming more accessible to the broader consumer market? And then what are the infrastructure holes that we have that are making it so that more people can not have and adopt an EV? Yeah, I think an interesting thing here is the difference between the United States and China.

So China actually has done a lot more to make EVs accessible more broadly. And so you're seeing even bigger growth and bigger uptake there. The United States, on the other hand, we have some subsidies which have helped EVs, but we're mostly getting them into the hands of kind of upper middle class urban dwellers. And really we need to be getting them into the hands of the people who need them the most,

the people who are driving the most, who are most dependent on gas, and would get the most benefit. And so some tweaks to our policy could really accelerate this transition. Interesting. And then as you brought up, oh, I was just gonna say,

charging is, of course, the other big bugaboo. People wanna make sure that they feel very confident that they're gonna be able to get where they wanna go and not run out of gas and run out of juice. And we do have the bipartisan infrastructure bill put $7.5 billion into charging stations. They gave it to states. And now there is some question about how quickly and effectively states are going to roll out that money and get that infrastructure built. So most climate news is very dismal. This actually seems really helpful, what you're pointing to here. In just

three years, number of EVs on the world's roads tripled. How much does that matter in terms of climate? So EVs are one of our, well, I think there's two things, right? So there's climate, and then there's our dependence on fossil fuels, which are very interrelated. And in terms of our dependence on fossil fuels, EVs are one of the biggest tools in our toolbox for reducing our dependence on this very volatile global commodity. And the faster that we can get not just our cars, but also trucks and buses turned electric, the faster that we can reduce our dependence on everything that we're seeing happening right now in Russia and Europe. In terms of climate change, transportation in the United States is the biggest sector,

our biggest source of emissions. So it's a huge deal in the United States to be able to get off that. Globally, it's a little less, but still a very important chunk of the climate pie. So my question, Kristen, is, I've heard this critique before. It's just simply not possible to get most people on the road driving electric vehicles. We don't have the components. We don't have the supply chain. What does the state of the current supply chain mean for the ability, let's say we have sky-high demand right now for EVs, but what does that say for the ability of US automakers, both from a Tesla to a Ford, Chrysler, GM, and others, to be able to put EVs on the road to meet the demand that people have? Yeah, there's definitely the supply chain for batteries right now is very China dependent, about 70% of batteries are coming out of China. So that is definitely a piece that is, I think,

on the radar for automakers, battery manufacturers, and U.S. lawmakers to figure out how we can transfer some of that capacity and supply chain security to the United States to make sure that we're not locking ourselves into dependence on China to make sure that we can ramp this up. Another thing you point to here is that it's not just personal vehicles that China is outperforming us in terms of the transition to EVs, but they're also dominating getting electric buses and trucks on the road. What else are they doing that we should look to emulate? Yeah, so China has been putting a big push into trucks and buses. And in the United States, we do have, so again, the bipartisan infrastructure bill did put a big piece of money into electric buses. And again, that money is going did put a big piece of money into electric buses.

And again, that money is going out to states and states are implementing in different ways to get more, particularly school buses, electrified, which has a big impact both on just increasing the productive capacity and supply chain in the United States, and then also on improving air pollution in our communities where children, you know, are getting on these buses that, you know, my son gets on a bus every day that smells like diesel. And so the more that we can make those electric, the better our health of our children in our communities. And right now, China's out ahead of us. The bipartisan infrastructure bill helps with that. And there's still more to be done to really spur that transition.

Yeah, it really just sounds to me like they've just made a much bigger bet and infrastructure investment in it than we have. So, I mean, if you were to point to maybe a single area where EV, not even EV, but electric adoption would be able to increase that hasn't been done already by the government, what do you think it would be? So just taking the existing subsidies we have and shifting them. So as I mentioned, right now, those subsidies are mostly going to the people who already are interested in buying EVs, which in the United States is about a third of buyers say that they want their next car to be an EV, as opposed to in China, it's more like two thirds. And so part of that is because we're only giving those subsidies to the people who kind of already want it. And then those people all talk to each other and tell each other how great their EV is. And then all of my friends and neighbors want to get one. But if we shifted those subsidies to instead of being based on a

vehicle sale, to be based on the gasoline use displaced, then we would get greater penetration into other neighborhoods, other types of Americans, and then they would start telling their friends how great EVs are, and we would have increased demand. Very interesting. Yeah, really interesting. And like I said, so much of climate news is really just depressing. It's nice to see one trend going in the right direction and some positive forward-thinking ideas about how we can continue to nudge it forward. So thank you so much for joining us. We're really grateful for your insight. Thanks, Kristen. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Absolutely. And thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. One year

anniversary was yesterday. It truly does feel like both, I think we said this both a lifetime ago and also like it was last week. Thinking back to being at the Hill, that just feels like, that really feels like another life, doesn't it? A much worse life. No disrespect. We had a lot of fun there.

No disrespect. We had a lot of fun, but this is a hell of a lot more fun. For what we were able to build there. But yeah, there's nothing like being able to deliver exactly the product as we want it to you guys in the way that we want it. So thank you guys for being part of year one, especially to our premium subscribers,

especially to the lifetime members who helped us get off the ground. But to everybody who has, you know, watched and enjoyed our content throughout the year, we really can't tell you how just tremendously grateful we are to have the opportunity to do this, to have the opportunity to continue thinking forward about how we can improve the product and deliver for you all an even more complete version of the Breaking Points community. You guys are amazing. And I want to give a special shout out to Scarlett Murray. I discovered yesterday she was our very first premium subscriber. Oh, for real? Scarlett somehow was able to sign up an hour before anybody else.

I literally don't know how that happened. Shout out to you, Scarlett. Yeah, I'm like, I don't know how you did that to be honest with you. Well, because we had the existing...

Redirect link. We had a link existing, but we hadn't published it, so she somehow was I don't know how she got there, but she made it happen. She did it literally

an hour before any other person. So shout out to you, Scarlett. Shout out, like we said, to the Lifetime members who helped get this set off the ground. If you guys haven't checked it out, we sent all our premium subs a long video about what we have done and invested in, what we want to continue to invest in. So if you guys can help us out, we really appreciate it. Big news coming on the live tour. The actual official first dates and more we're going to be announcing and tickets are going to be going on sale very quickly.

First to our premium subscribers and then, of course, to everybody else if there are even any left. So if you want to check that out or possibly be part of it, make sure you go ahead and sign up today. And we'll see you all next week. We've got great partner content for you all over the weekend. Yep. Enjoy the weekend, y'all. See you next week. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's You're Not the Father Week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, My father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us.

He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part

series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy. But to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process.

Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.