Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/30/22: Jan 6 Hearings, NATO Expansion, Roe Fallout, Uvalde Coverup, Maxwell Sentence, Nicotine War, Biden Scared, Nuclear Power, & More!

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

Krystal and Saagar cover the Jan 6th hearings, NATO expansion, Roe v Wade fallout, Uvalde coverup, Ghislaine Maxwell & R Kelly sentences, Biden's war on nicotine, Biden's re-election campaign, and the case for nuclear power!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/Madison Hilly: https://gndcampaign.org/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. 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 going to 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. But before we get to the topics, we have an announcement. Yes, indeed. As we've been saying, we are very, very excited to be going to Atlanta, Georgia on September 16th. Is that right?

Put the graphic up on the screen. That's right. Put the graphic up on the screen. Make sure my brain is functioning properly. September 16th, 7.30 p.m. 7.30 p.m. Super psyched. As you guys know,

because we told you before, this is kind of a we got to prove ourselves so we can sell some tickets. So if you can help us out with that. And also, it just would be awesome to see you guys in person. It has been way too long since we've been able to take the show on the road, so to speak.

Last time we did a live show, pre-pandemic, Brooklyn, right before everything shut down. So exciting to be able to get back to it. We've had pre-sale for premium subscribers. But anybody out there, general public, can buy tickets starting at noon today. That's right, noon today. So we are going to have the link down in the description of this video. By the time it's live, you'll all be able to buy tickets. We sold a decent chunk of them. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you, Premium Subs. Just to reiterate this, the way it works is you have to show the industry. You're like, yeah, we can sell tickets, so that way you can book venues in other places.

It's complicated, I know, but if you can help us out, if you're in the Atlanta area or otherwise, please, please come. The tickets are cheap. We insisted on that. We'll continue to insist on that on every of the venues that we book out from there on. If you can't make it, don't worry. We are coming all across the country.

As we said, we are booking it out as we speak. So thank you all so much for showing up for us. Atlanta, it's going to be fun. It's going to be a midterm show. We're going to be hitting some very spicy areas all over the country. So I think people are going to enjoy it. It's going to be a salient one-off, so we'll take it with a grain of salt. But there are some indications that the Supreme Court overturning Roe versus Wade may have a little bit more of a political impact than we thought in the midterms. But it's early days, so we'll parse through that. And there are indications in the other direction, so we'll get through all of that. Also, there was some pretty bombshell testimony from an aide to Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchison. A lot of revelations, some pushback on some key parts of it. So we will go through all of that

and also tell you who may be benefiting most from the January 6th hearings. Big moves in terms of Ukraine, Russia, NATO. A key dissenter from the idea of Finland and Sweden joining NATO has backed down. Turkey saying, yes, we are willing to go forward with that. Putin already responding. We have, it never stops with the revelations on Uvalde. Now there are new reports about just the way that journalists are being harassed, stonewalled. There's some like biker gang affiliated with the cops that are going and intimidating them.

Completely insane stuff. We also have an update for you on two pedophiles who are going to prison, Jelaine Maxwell and also R. Kelly. So we've got all those details for you. I know you're also excited to talk to Madison Hilley, our guest today. She is pushing a green nuclear, green new deal. Yes, campaign for the green nuclear deal. Yeah, so we'll get details from her. And the way also she's going to talk some about the way that the war has pushed us backwards in terms of climate goals.

But we do want to start with those hearings on Tuesday, January 6th hearings. Now, let me give you the background here. So originally there weren't actually expected to be hearings on that day. But the committee announced last minute. Shock. Yeah, big, you know, we're going to go, we're having like an emergency hearing. And it turns out that their witness was Cassidy Hutchison. So she's quite young.

She's 26 years old. But as was the case frequently in the Trump White House, she got elevated from like intern into the inner circle very quickly, especially there at the end when people were kind of dropping off like flies. So she ends up as a top aide to Mark Meadows, who of course was chief of staff at the time. So she was privy to a lot of the action and conversations and rumors surrounding exactly what was going down on January 6th and on the days leading up to January 6th. There were a number of things that she revealed and attested to under oath that were, I think, significant details in terms of what happened on that day. We've got a little bit of a mashup here for you of some of the key pieces of her testimony. Let's listen. But when we were in the offstage announced tent,

I was part of a conversation. I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, you know, I don't effing care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Let my people in. They can march the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the effing mags away. I first noticed there was ketchup dripping down the wall and there's a shattered porcelain plate on the floor. The valet had articulated that the president was extremely angry at the attorney general's AP interview and had thrown his lunch against the wall. The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said,

Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We're going back to the West Wing. We're not going to the Capitol. Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel, and when Mr. Renato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles. I saw Mr. Cipollone right before I walked out onto West Exec that morning, and Mr. Cipollone said something to the effect of, please make sure we don't go up to the Capitol, Cassidy. Keep in touch with me. We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen. So a couple of key pieces

here to underscore. First of all, we're going to get to the pushback on the kind of most shocking part of her testimony, which was this story she recounted being told about Trump, you know, lunging for the steering wheel, sort of an assault happening in his vehicle, leaving the January 6th rally when he wants to go to the Capitol and his Secret Service detail is saying abso-frickin-lutely not. So we'll get to that in a moment. I think some of the pieces that were important here in terms of implicating Trump are number one, Trump's lawyer, Pat Cipollone, saying like, you cannot go to the Capitol, telling Cassie, we cannot go to the Capitol or else we're going to be charged with every crime imaginable, which just indicates like he was under the impression that there would be legal liability for this. I think the other piece is Trump himself on the at the rally saying, hey, pull the magnetometers, the mags, he says, because I don't care that people are armed. I just want to fill up the crowd. So that's an indication. OK, he knows that people are armed with various weapons.

And then the fact that in this part is not in dispute, that he didn't just want to tell other people to march to the Capitol and knowing that they were armed, march to the Capitol. He himself wanted to go to the Capitol. Now, again, the details of him trying to grab the wheel and whatever, very much in dispute at this point. And Cassidy was not in the vehicle. She's recounting, she says she's recounting a story that she was told by those who were in the vehicle. However, based on the reporting thus far, the detail of he was furious that he could not go himself to the Capitol also bears out. And then, you know, more details that we had heard before about how as this is all unfolding at the Capitol, he does not want to call them off. He is happy with what's going on and very reluctant to say anything

to get the rioting to stop. So those are kind of the key pieces here. That's right. Let's put this up there on the screen. Major takeaway. Really was, I think, some of the lurid details that she offered. But I do think we just have to say,

as we get to that soon, the Secret Service pushing back strongly against her allegations. She's talking about the ketchup against the wall. That I probably don't doubt that that probably did happen at some point. We actually haven't heard any pushback on that one. I've seen that kitchen and I believe it. I can tell you that.

So I think what's interesting about this is that some of it is just primetime, obviously, like lurid detail. But at the very base, I think a lot of these facts have been known. So as you pointed out, you actually sent this, which is that the fact that Trump was furious and tried to get the secret service agents to go to the Capitol, that's been out there since April. A lot of these guys have testified to that effect. Trump, obviously, the magnetometer one too, hadn't heard that one before. Again, it is a hearsay thing, apparently. I'll tell you why I'm just skeptical that a lot of these details. At this point, there have been six, I'll tell you why I'm just skeptical that a lot of these details at this point, there have been six. I counted six tell all books of Trump aides of various White House reporters, all of who are very well sourced, who have endlessly gone through the exact tick tock, which is the inside baseball term for timeline of January 6th.

At this point, like how did they miss these things that were apparently known by so many different aides in the White House? Like I just don't, that's why I don't think that a lot of these details are true. Because there's a huge price

to be paid for telling the truth about what's going on here. about him off the record I mean this was the other piece that was brought out in the hearing is, first of all,

there's some pretty amazing footage of Michael Flynn pleading the Fifth on the question of whether he supports a peaceful transition of power. Like, come on, bro. This is not a hard question, but apparently that was too tough for him to say he supports a peaceful transition of power. Number two, there were also a sort of introduction of some evidence that there is a lot of pressure and intimidation, like basically mafia tactics being used to try to keep people from cooperating and testifying accurately to what happened on that day. So listen, I mean, we're about to get into the

pushback on the steering wheel piece in particular, but I think there's a big, this is someone who has made her career in Republican politics. You know, she's closing the door to working in Republican politics in the future. So I don't think she has a lot of incentive to lie here. In fact, the incentive would be in the other direction to sort of, you know, do what most people have done and stonewall and not cooperate and not say much when you do. And if even like a fraction of what she says is true, it's pretty damning of Trump. I have to say, like, I do think that this is ultimately is this going to change the majority? No. But do I think that this is overall damaging to Trump? Yes, because the question was how much he was directly involved in the events of the day.

And the more details we get, not just from Cassidy, but also, you know, from these Secret Service dudes who say, yeah, he wanted to go to the Capitol and he was furious that he didn't. These details implicate him more directly in the events of the day and show he wasn't just satisfied with sort of riling people up and seeing what happens. He intentionally wanted to be part of that action and was happy that it unfolded. So I do think that that is significant. Ultimately, in terms of his, there's a lot of discussion of his legal liability. I think they're too chicken shit to ultimately charge him. But I do think it

is overall damaging to him. I think within the Republican Party, the sort of elites of the Republican Party, are they going to say, like, oh, we're turning on Trump? No. But are they going to kind of quietly try to look for an alternative in terms of 2024? Yeah, I think that's what's going to happen. But to the extent that it matters, I'm just skeptical. I mean, like, I've just seen this so many times. Like, oh, Charlottesville. Listen, you know, like every single time there's like a meme out there.

It's like, oh, how's old Donnie going to wriggle his way out of this one? Wriggles his way. It's like, oh, well, what now? I think the public knows who Trump is. I mean, one of my favorite tweets about all of this is, and this is always my general reaction. I'm like, I'm not defending it. Trump is bad. Like, I don't know where else to say it.

I think people are aware. Ross doubt that tweeted that on January 6th. It's always stuck with me. He's like, the orange man is, in fact, very bad. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, we do have some polling that we're also going to get to of, you know, of Republicans who are considering their 2024 options. Among people who've watched news coverage of January 6th, they favored Ron DeSantis. So to say like, oh, it doesn't matter at all. I don't think that's true at this point. I really don't. Because also, as we've discussed before,

part of why Trump has overall approval rating has risen is because he's been out of the public consciousness. Banned from Twitter. We don't hear his likeass, obnoxious tweets every damn day. And so this is serving as a reminder of just how terrible he is. I mean, the ketchup against the wall, the wanting to go to the Capitol, the not caring that people were armed and just let them in because his quote was, they're not here to hurt me. I think it serves, sure, like, did people know this? Yes. About Trump, that he's a terrible person and understand that he would basically do anything to hold on to power? Yes.

But, you know, memories are short. And this is a pretty visceral reminder of just how power hungry and insane and irresponsible he ultimately was and how he really only cared about himself. And that was that. Yeah. Look, I hope that we live in that really only cared about himself. And that was that. Yeah. Look, I hope that we live in that country. I don't know if that's true. I do want to say one thing about Cassidy Hutchinson. Yeah.

I don't think that the ramifications are as dire as you might be pointing out. I've seen a lot of people in this town become never Trumpers and become very rich. And look, Alyssa Farah, his own comms director, is now a CNN person who's very much a stan of her. She could easily write a book to tell tell-all, all of that, and make good money. And she could probably become one of those talking heads on TV. So I just want to say that there is a lot of incentive to also be the Cassidy Hutchinson of the world. But a lot of her testimony is also backed up by contemporaneous.

Oh, I'm not saying she's lying. But I'm saying the idea that she's just, there's an incentive. Actually, I do think that she may not be telling the truth. You see on balance that, like, what direction have most people gone in? Most people in his inner circle have gone in the direction of, I'm not going to cooperate. I'm going to stay silent. I'm going to bury everything that happened that day. So I think that tells you that, yeah, there is a potential path for, you know, she wants to throw herself into the never Trump category and

go that, of course, there's a path. We've seen that tried before. But there is a tremendous cost here as well. I mean, she's put herself at the center of an absolute firestorm. She is completely hated by the people who were her social circle. And, you know, that's a hard thing to do. I mean, we see that with AOC, how hard it is to sort of buck her social circle within the Democratic Party. Those human like human considerations are very real and very difficult. I mean, I'm sure she's getting all kinds of threat like this is ugly and difficult. So I don't want to downplay that. At the same time, you know, there there are some questions about the kind of most shocking part of her testimony, which was the anecdote she told about Trump lunging for the steering wheel that she says that she was told. She was not in the vehicle, but she says this is what she was told.

Yes, that's right. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Carol Leaning, she wrote a book actually on the Secret Service. Here's what she says. Quote, Secret Service agents dispute that Donald Trump assaulted any agent or tried to grab the steering wheel on January 6th. They agree Trump was furious about not being able to go to the Capitol with his supporters, and they have offered to testify now under oath. So let's go and put the next one up there on the screen. And I do think this has less to do with Cassidy

Hutchinson, and this has a lot more to do with the January 6th committee. The Secret Service is saying that in the 10 days before the hearing, the January 6th committee did not reach out to them for details regarding the Beast incident at all in order to AKA verify, is this true or not? Do you have any comment? And, you know, you and I were texting while this was all happening because while it came out, I was like, wow, this is genuinely shocking. This is crazy. And then, you know, the report started coming out of the Secret Service, and I was like, I knew it.

I knew it was too good to be true. And especially whenever it comes to the Secret Service element on this, I think it's damning. Here's what I think happened. I don't have 100% confirmation on this, but from what I've asked around, this seems to be the general process. Cassidy Hutchinson, they eventually convinced her because she told them, I have this story. They said, great, they're going to keep it completely secret because they don't want it to leak. And whenever they didn't want it to leak, they didn't want to verify it then with the Secret Service because the Secret Service obviously was going to leak the information if

they were given a heads up. So then they put her in front of the cameras on primetime television and make her this massive national star. There's lurid detail, the lunging for the steering wheel. Everybody's saying, oh, that's just a detail. It doesn't matter. No, it matters because it was the headline of every single article that came out of it. If you were on Twitter at the time, every single journalist was like,

oh my God, he lunged for the steering wheel? Oh my gosh. Look, maybe it's true, maybe it's not. But the people who are in the car say it's not true. Or at least they say that they're willing to testify under oath that it is not true. And I think that's, they should have probably asked them. And they should, by the way.

Yeah, please, go in front of the camera. Say it's not true if it's not true. Yeah, it is, I mean, it is relevant to say she testified under oath. They haven't testified. Well, they did testify before. They did, but not on this detail under oath. But I agree with you on the point that what a tremendous screw up by the January 6th committee, because, I mean, here they they put her out there. And, you know, yes, on the on the technicalities of like Trump's sort of legal liability and his actions during the day, it is just a detail because they don't dispute that he was furious that he wasn't going to the Capitol.

But there's no doubt. Of course, this was going to be the shock headline that comes out of this because it is so salacious and it is so visceral, this moment. And so for them to have put her out there without doing the basics of asking these dudes, hey, what are you going to say about this? I think it is, I just think it's a tremendous, tremendous failure and frankly, a tremendous disservice to Cassidy. Because again, she doesn't say she's in the vehicle. She says this is what she was told. And so it's also possible, and these two, the two Secret Service guys in question,

Gordon Carol Lennick, who again is like deeply sourced, knowledgeable in this world. They are very close to Trump. One of them is so close to Trump that he actually was put in charge of his like political operation and he was he was an actual Trump staffer. So these are people who are have loyalty to Trump. So I don't I don't put it past them to try to cover for him as well. And they have an incentive to do that. So just keep that in mind as you're bearing all this out. But that doesn't change the fact that they should have checked and found out what are they going to say.

Because, of course, this is going to be seized upon by the right to undercut every single thing that she says. That's immediately what the president did. You know, Fox News was having a hard time kind of grappling with this testimony right after it happened. Well, now they've got their talking point and they know exactly what to do. So you didn't need this detail in order for some of these other allegations to be relevant and significant to the case you're trying to lay out here. And by not doing the basics of corroborating it in advance, I think it's a tremendous own goal on their part. Second point to that, and let's throw this up there on the screen. She said that she had a handwritten note that she had written. And the White House

lawyer, Eric Hirschman, actually says that's not true, that Cassidy Hutcherson had written the note that she apparently testified that he said. He says it's not true because he was the one who apparently wrote the note. Again, these are details which if she was going to testify that she wrote written a note that was regarding this lawyer, then the lawyer probably should have been asked about it whenever all of that was happening. I just think that it's a tremendous failure. It shows you that they just wanted the headline, all of that. They wanted the shock. Yeah, they wanted the shock value, which they got. And then it fell apart. And they deserve it. We see this all the time in the news business, too, where they're so interested in being first

that they would rather come out with something that is untested and ends up being wrong than wait to get the facts. And there's no doubt about it. Like, they didn't have to do that testimony that day, right? They could have waited till today. They could have checked this. They could have gone back to the Secret Service guys, gotten their testimony, backed it up, just gone with the parts of her story that were, you know, firm and corroborated, backed up by text messages, backed up by contemporaneous notes, which a lot of it was. And by reaching for these, you know, most attention-grabbing details, I think they really have undercut the seriousness of the day.

And like I said, I think it's a tremendous disservice to, I mean, they hung her out to dry now. I mean, she's in a very difficult situation now. We'll see what comes out. Like, I think these guys will probably testify under oath. We'll see what they have to say. Maybe the committee has some other like detail they're not sharing with us. But Jamie Raskin, Congressman Jamie Raskin, got asked by Jake Tapper, who pressed him pretty hard on, do you have anything to corroborate this? And he basically was like, no. Yeah, he said, so you're saying this is hearsay. And he said, oh, yes. He said, yeah, no. Yeah, he said, so you're saying this is hearsay and he said, oh yes. He said, yeah, exactly. Look, I think this as a country,

we should not be subjected to this type of idiocy and the entire point of the committee was, they're like, we're gonna take this seriously, it's not a partisan witch hunt, we're just gonna lay it all out, the facts of the day, all of that, like kind of what a 9-11 commissioner or whatever was supposed to do

and now they've blown it. You know, what they did is they showed us that it is exactly partisan, that it is exactly what some of our biggest critics are going to be. As you said, if you were on Fox and you see this, you're like, well, why should I trust any of the witnesses before? It's a shoddy procedure. It shows that they just wanted the headlines. They did themselves a disservice. They did this woman a disservice. I think they did the agents also a disservice by not actually airing the full picture because they have these guys on video having testified under oath. They should have played it and be like, here's what the guy said before they were even pressed on this detail.

Here is the exact timeline. But we know what they wanted. They wanted the TV slot. They wanted the headline. And, you know, the journalists are all out there now saying, oh, well, even though it's hearsay, it doesn't matter. It matters. It matters.

I'm sorry. That's what you guys went with. I went on the Washington Post front page right after. I saw 10 headlines about this. Ten. Not the front page. Five different op-ed pages and then various explainers about why it was all so important. Don't try and gaslight me and tell me that you guys weren't making this the biggest thing on the planet.

That is – I mean it was the most shocking detail. Of course, people are going to run with what was the most shocking new piece of information. But again, in terms of Trump being damaged and his culpability, the fact that he knew that there were, you know, people had weapons, that he didn't care, he knew they were not there to, quote, hurt him and that he wanted to go to the Capitol. Those are the kind of key pieces of information. And then again, that he did not. He was very reluctant and basically had to be threatened with the 25th Amendment to come out and say, like, OK, everybody go home. You're very special. I love you.

Whatever he said. So, I mean, but but yeah, no doubt about it. They completely they very much undercut what could have been a much more impactful day by not doing the basics and taking their time to make sure they had the sort of key details of the story locked down. No doubt about it. All right. At the same time, I mean, there are it is interesting who might benefit from this, because as I was saying, there's not going to be the walls aren't closing in on Trump. You know, the there's not going to be this huge like the base opens their eyes. Oh, my God. I had no idea this guy was terrible. But are you going to see a kind of like a little bit of a walking away, a little bit of a maybe we should look at other alternatives in 2024? Maybe this isn't our best bet for the future. Yeah, I think you could potentially see that. And so probably the primary beneficiary of the January 6th hearings may end up being Florida Governor

Ron DeSantis. Yeah. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. It's a very interesting poll that you found, Crystal, that they went ahead and wrote up from Yahoo News and YouGov. And here's what they asked. Would you rather see as the Republican nominee for president in 2024 among registered voters? Again, this is registered. They had 45% prefer Trump while 36% DeSantis. But for Trump in a primary poll, it is the closest anyone has gotten yet. And DeSantis actually came within a point of Trump in a poll commissioned recently by a new super PAC, which showed him exactly one point behind Donald Trump. Obviously, you pair that with the New Hampshire poll that we brought you all a little while ago, which actually showed DeSantis either tied or beating Trump in that primary

state, which is dramatically important. And it does raise a lot of questions. It also points back to what you said, which is that the people who watched the Jan 6th committee coverage said that they would prefer DeSantis. Now, it's time for all the caveats. How many Republicans are really watching the January 6th committee hearing? Also, as we've all learned, registered voters are not always the likely voters. And Trump's superpower, for good or for ill, while he's been in politics, has been to draw in millions of people who do not, are not engaged in the normal political system. They're not normal Republicans. They call themselves Trump Republicans. Some of them are registered Democrats. Some of them have not voted in 25 years. That's always

been his major draw in politics, drawing people out of the woodwork that had never really been inside of traditional polling. Part of the reason actually why I don't really trust a lot of polls that include Trump in them just because every poll we've ever seen on him has always not just been wrong, but dramatically wrong. True. From state by state

to the national poll, they've always underestimated his appeal and his ability to draw votes out. So that's why I never count the guy out. And to the Jan 6th stuff, I always,

this is what I would say. I wish we lived in a country where a lot of this stuff mattered. But we found out all the hard way, I think for some, and for some the good way, that a lot of it doesn't when it comes to electoral politics. A lot of people will forgive a hell of a lot or what you and I would consider insane behavior on the part of the president if they prefer the policy, the culture, you know, so much more. And so I'm just I've resigned myself, especially with the GOP base. I'm like, they're just going to do what they're going to do. I hope that they go in this direction. I think it'd be better off for the whole country if they did.

But I am yet to see any real evidence to that regard in an actual. And I guess we won't find out till the primary. Yeah, there's there's no way to know until the votes actually start yeah i mean this could end up being like remember when back in the day when rudy giuliani was that's what i mean like or like remember when they were like oh john huntsman's gonna be the thing and then like no that that definitely wasn't the copium is straight into some of these people's veins i did think that the thing that was most interesting to me was that, and I think we have the graphic, was that breakdown in the poll of how people who were watching January 6th coverage versus those who weren't, versus those who were watching actually the live hearings, how that actually impacted whether they were for Trump or DeSantis. Go ahead and put this up on the screen.

So they say that among people who have watched news coverage of the hearings, so not the hearings themselves, but news coverage of the hearings. Do we have this graphic, guys? I don't think we do. Oh, we don't? I thought we saw it. It's weird. Oh, okay. Anyway, I'll just read it to you. My bad. So DeSantis leads Trump by four points among those who watched news coverage of the hearings. But he actually trails among those who watched it live,

and he trails even more by those who did not watch. So if they're watching the sort of analysis of the news media about the January 6th coverage, they actually favored DeSantis by four points. So it's, I mean, it's just an interesting data point. I share your skepticism. I just an, it's an interesting data point. I share your skepticism. I just don't see it with DeSantis. I think, I mean, I keep coming back to what's the case you're going to make against Trump. Yeah. Because you can't just, you know, sort of float in and be like, I think he's great. I think he's wonderful, but you should vote for me instead.

No. As we saw with Bernie and Joe, you got to make a case against this dude. And it's got to be clear. It's got to land with the base. And I am just not sure what that case really is because the case that the sort of like, you know, like the intellectual right elite make about it is, oh, he's like Trump, but he's not, you know, without the Twitter account. But they like the Twitter account. The base likes the Twitter account. They like that. I mean, that was Trump's core appeal was that he drove people that they hated absolutely insane.

That is a satisfying thing to watch. So, and DeSantis, I mean, you know, he definitely has the ability to drive liberals insane too. But Trump is the king of, you're not going to out like own the libs on the Republican side. You will never be better than Trump at that. And Trump is so good in live hand-to-hand combat. We haven't seen DeSantis have to like really sort of grapple in that way. Most of his appearances are very controlled. I don't think he comes anywhere close to the level of like magnetism and charisma, just raw charisma and political talent that Trump has. So I continue to be extremely skeptical.

That being said, there's also reports that Rupert Murdoch and Fox is kind of moving, like they would prefer DeSantis. So they want to try to put their, I mean, look, yeah, but again, we've seen how they ultimately, they said the same thing in the primary and then they went with Trump because their ratings went through out of the room. Because ultimately, once they see like, yeah, we're not winning this fight, they go where, you know, where the base wants them to go so they can keep their ratings intact. Another thing to say on the primary, from what I've heard and what I've read, there are a lot of people who are in the non-Trump lane who want to run. So you've got Mike Pence, you've got Nikki Haley, you've got Tom Cotton, you've got Glenn Youngkin, you've got a bunch of other people. So, you know, even if it were conceivably Trump and DeSantis in a head-to-head matchup, you could conceivably see the same situation of 2016 where you had all these people in the non-Trump category. Trump has such a

solidification of his portion of the base that you could have Youngkin divide up the DeSantis vote, divide up the Nikki Haley vote, divide up the Mike Pence vote, and then you leave yourself with about 35%, 40%, which is exactly how Trump won the nomination. Because when, is this poll, it was actually them head-to-head. Yeah, it's head-to-head,

but that's not how primaries work. And that's very unlikely to be how it works out because, yeah, when you see the polls that have the Republican primary and it has Pence and all those other characters in it, usually the person after DeSantis is Pence, who has his own. He's got the evangelical. Yeah, he's got, you know, a lot of poll with evangelicals. You can see Mike Pence's play in the wake of Roe. He's the first out to be like, I'm going for the national ban, kind of laying his

marker down of how he's going to position himself. So you can actually see more clearly what Mike Pence's case against Trump might be. Not that I think that it's going to work out for him either, but I just, I always come back to, I don't know how DeSantis is going to make the case against Trump without pissing off the entire Republican base. We'll see. We will see. It's going to be fun to watch, at least you could say that. All right, let's talk about NATO.

So some seismic moves being made across the pond. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. So President Erdogan of Turkey has lifted his hold on Finland and Sweden. Joining NATO, he announced that at the recent NATO summit in Spain that happened yesterday. So what he said is that he will be lifting his hold because Sweden and Finland lifted some restrictions on a Turkish group, on a Kurdish group, which he claims is a foreign terrorist organization. That's not for here right now of discussion. But anyway, that's all you need to know. He was the only person who was holding it up.

And now he's allowing them in. And so NATO has formally extended an invitation to both Turkey and to Sweden and to Finland. Now it leaves it up to all of the NATO countries themselves in order to ratify the NATO treaty and allow their ascension of which is very likely to happen without any debate whatsoever. Now, I actually do think the more noteworthy piece to me is not even that. It is the current expansion of the US military footprint in Eastern Europe. People are not discussing this, but this is a seismic change. Put it up there on the screen.S. military footprint in Eastern Europe. People are not discussing this, but this is a seismic change. Put it up there on the screen. So President Biden, in his speech at NATO, here's what he said. We are going to establish a permanent military headquarters for the Fifth

Army Corps in Poland, one of the most forward-deployed permanent army deployments of the United States all the way up near the Russian border. Number two, maintain an additional rotational brigade of 3,000 troops in Romania, even more forward deployed than the troops who are in Poland, and then enhance rotational deployments to the Baltic states, obviously the most cutting edge of the NATO alliance. On top of that, sending more F-35 jet squadrons to the United Kingdom, additional air defense and other capabilities in Germany and in Italy, and then two new destroyers to the naval station in Spain. So a massive buildup of new military equipment and of military deployment, which is permanently deployed, not temporary, towards the Eastern European flank right up against the Russians. Let's also throw

this up there on the screen. Here's what they claim, just so you know. They say, we now have many allies spending above NATO's benchmark of 2%, increasingly seen as a floor, not a ceiling, the White House says. Nine allies will be 2% this year. 19 have clear plans to meet it by 2024. Five more have commitments to meet it later. So another way of reading that is that the vast majority of the people in NATO are not paying their 2% on defense and that five of them think that we are such jokes that they don't even have to fake commit to a 2% defense spending. They're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. We'll eventually – we'll get there. One day.

And America's like, oh, cool. All right, we'll continue to blow out our military budget like 4% of GDP and we'll put all these troops in your country and all these nuclear weapons and the umbrella and air defense, and don't worry about it. If you eventually get there, it's all good. Finland and Sweden, Sweden won't even commit actually to 2% in perpetuity. They also promised they'll get there. I'm sure they'll get NATO membership before that they do that. Finland is the same thing. And look, I just think in general, it's a seismic move. It is somewhat predictable given the invasion. I actually said this, I think, you know, the day after I was like, look, you know, I was wrong. Putin would invade. Part of the reason I didn't think he would do it is because he's now united the entire West. And now he's basically

guaranteed American and NATO troops on the Eastern flank of NATO and all the way up to the Russian border, which is what he claimed that he didn't want. He's united and increased military budgets of the entire, he got the French to spend more money on the military. I mean, that's an impossible task. The Germans, you know, also committing now to 2%. They were at 1.4, 1.6 for a long time. The UK spending more than they ever have. At a certain point, politically, this is a fait accompli. I hate to say it. I think we should have a much more robust debate, but I don't see any way that 67 people in the Senate, that there's less than, yeah,

I don't see any way that there are less than 67 votes. Basically, every member of the Senate supports it. I do think we should have a debate and like, hey, you know, is this wise? Like, could this trigger more problems with Russia? I actually think we should take a page out of a debate and like, hey, you know, is this wise? Like, is this, could this trigger more problems with Russia? Is, you know, I actually think we should take a page out of the Turks books. I'm not saying that their, their demands of Finland and Sweden were just, but they were like, hey, we have something that's important to us. So unless you give it to us, we're not going to give you NATO membership. In the West, we're like, oh, we'll just give it to you, whatever you want. It's like, oh, I didn't know that Helsinki and Stockholm have a right to the U.S. nuclear umbrella just whenever they request it and they ask for it. There's no debate in our country.

It is a thorough indictment of our political system and our media class that this is happening with next to no discussion, next to no discussion. And. Next to no discussion. And, you know, it's echoes of the way that NATO expansion has worked over decades where this is done casually. There's next to no debate. The people who are out there warning that this could go badly are treated as cranks and, you know, Kremlin apologists and all this stuff.

I'm sure they'll come at me for this. Oh, of course, of course. But the reality is, this is an extraordinarily significant development, not just the addition of Sweden and Finland, but also as you point to, I mean, Bloomberg phrased this as this addition of troops and bases

and all of this capacity to NATO. They say NATO returns to combat stance to counter a new and hostile world. This is the biggest upgrade of NATO's military presence in Europe since the end of the Cold War. And you just always have to ask yourself, how is Russia going to perceive that? How is Russia going to react to that? The more that we make this war an existential threat to Russia, the more dangerous we make the landscape and the more likely we make it that they use nukes. They, in their nuclear doctrine, say that it is justified to use nuclear weapons in the event of an existential threat to

Russia. Which they define. All of, which they define. Which they define however they want. Exactly. Every move that we are making here makes it more likely that they interpret the stakes of this war as an existential matter for Russia. And that is a potential disaster. And no one is talking about it. I mean, we're just, this was our fear from the beginning,

that we're just sleepwalking through this thing. No one is really dealing with it serious. No one's considering, okay, what might Russia do in response? And, in fact, Russia is already warning, Putin warns, NATO on moving military personnel and infrastructure to Finland and Sweden, saying they will respond in kind to any buildup in the Nordic nations. So I think that this is extraordinarily foolish and haphazard what we're engaging in with next to no debate. And it gets back to this bigger picture question of, you know, the instinct, the sort of neoliberal instinct of, oh, we'll just trust the experts. We're not going to actually delve into the details ourselves. I'm sure they're handling it. We're just going to accept we're being fed. They understand we don't. No, we need

the public to be deeply involved and deeply engaged in this debate because ultimately, you are the ones who are going to be most impacted by these decisions and also by the, you know, endless continuation of this war, which is having its own, you know, impacts on us and on the world in terms of food prices and gas prices and all the rest. So it says everything about our political culture, how we are just sleepwalking into some, whatever you think of them, support or don't support, incredibly significant, momentous decisions. No discussion. I think people may have to make the case who support this, why American troops should die for the integrity of Helsinki and of Stockholm. And if you're Finnish and you're Swedish, listen, I get it. Like I said, it's beautiful, beautiful countries, all of that.

However, we're talking about our resources and our blood. If I were you, I would do the same thing, but I'm not. We have to decide what's good for us. You and their advocates should make the case as to why it's in the strategic interests of the United States. So like I said, I'll present the counter argument, which I do think is a fair one, which is that any world where Russia is going to invade Finland and Sweden is going to involve the United States anyway, as we always get dragged into these European conflicts, like in World War I and in World War II. So we might as well just extend them the protection at the top. My response to that is very simple. I would rather get dragged into that kicking and screaming whenever it actually attacks our fundamental interests rather than actually just go in automatically, which Article 5 would require us to do.

And the other question is whether this action makes that eventuality more likely. Yeah, that's a good point. Because it's a provocation. It is a provocation. So from the beginning, the lack of debate, the lack of seriousness, the lack of discussion is extraordinarily troubling and really undermines our ability to actually function as a democracy when these decisions are just made and never taken to the American people whatsoever. Well, it'll go to the Senate and we'll cover it here. You will cover it. I want to see at least one say something on the floor, like, hey, does anyone want to make the case? Do we want to just sign ourselves up for an automatic trigger in order to go to war

for the integrity of the most eastern part of Europe, of which we've never traditionally defended? Europeans, I know you're all mad at me me and we're airing our segment about this right now. But listen, I have to make this case very, very simply. Europe is one sixth of global GDP. OK, it is declining area of the world. It's mostly old people. Demographics, they have a problem.

Innovation, they have some real issues. It's basically a welfare state whose best days are long behind them. Yes, we have cultural ties with Europe that go back a long time. However, I mean, whenever you're staking the future of your country militarily, the use of nuclear weapons, you should consider what those resources really mean. And if you think that Asia is the future, which I certainly do think it is, overtook Asia, Europe on GDP both in 2019, going forward, it will be our major trading relationship. And I believe our future rests far more there than over there. Well, you know, military resources actually are finite. And now 2019. Going forward, it will be our major trading relationship, and I believe our future rests far

more there than over there. Well, you know, military resources actually are finite, and now we are deploying even more, both of an extension of commitment and of military resources on the European continent, which at the very least could be directed elsewhere, innovation, maybe even to our own domestic populace to shore up our domestic political problems. None of this, again, is of a consideration. None of it is being debated. This is probably the only dissenting view that is even out there, which is even in the same semi-mainstream. And I think that's a major indictment. I think the American people should have a say, as we had a say in World War I, as we had a say after World War I. And we also all had a say on the Marshall Plan. That was a buy-in

by America to say, you know what? We agree with this vision of the world. President Truman, Secretary of State Marshall, this is the world. Our boys fought and died for Europe. And so let's make sure that we rebuild it and reap the benefits going forward and protect democracy against the Iron Curtain. But nobody's making that case out there right now. And I personally think that we deserve much more of a say in this than is being given to all of us. Yeah right now. And I personally think that we deserve much more of a say in this than is being given to all of us. Yeah, indeed. And by the way, guys, Sagar and I did have a big old debate over Europe. So you can catch that over the weekend. So hear the pushback. Let's go ahead and move on. This is important, very important in terms of what

the peace and future of Ukraine has looked like. We've spoken here previously how the United States might should be able to orient itself going forward. But of course, the Ukrainians got to say it's their country. So here's what they think. Let's put this up there on the screen. Eighty nine percent of Ukrainians reject ceding land to reach a peace with Russia. Ukrainians back Zelensky's position overwhelmingly that peace talks can't grant Russia land it has seized. This is a new Wall Street Journal poll that just came out in the country. Only 7% say that Zelensky has handled the war poorly. So look, Ukrainian people, at least the ones who are left in the country, are overwhelmingly behind

President Zelensky, overwhelmingly do not want to see any land being given up to Russia. And look, if I was Ukrainian, I would feel the exact same way if somebody invaded my country. So it's a difficult position that we find ourselves in, Crystal. The most desirable outcome for us, for the West, is actually a negotiated peace

as fast as possible. But both of the principal parties who are involved have no desire in order to push peace at all, which brings tremendous cost to us, to them, to Russia, to basically all parties who are involved.

And unfortunately, the longer that battlefield victory can be claimed really by both sides, which is true. You know, if you look at what's happening, yes, Ukraine is losing in the east, but they push the Russians all the way back. They've only really been fighting for a couple of months. I mean, if you look at history, it takes years and millions of lives in order to get to a point before people are willing to accept a negotiated peace, if at all. So I just think that this is further evidence that this will grind on for many, many years to come,

as long as our policy also remains, whatever Ukraine wants is whatever they get. They basically have a black check. Yeah, that's right. I'm very depressed and gloomy about the prospects of this war ending anytime soon. And I mean, there are a couple of notes to make about this particular poll, which is that it does not actually include any of the Ukrainians who live in Crimea or in Donbass because they don't have Ukrainian mobile phone providers. And these were all you. So it doesn't include those populations, which I think is really important. It also, this survey was conducted before Russia had their success in the east. So the time when this was conducted, June 9th through 13th, was when Ukraine was at its most like, yeah, we pushed them back and we're doing awesome and we're, you know, really on the march and there's a real chance to win this thing. So it is possible that as Russia has scored victories in the east and claimed territory there, that attitudes could have changed. But I kind of doubt it, to be honest with you. They speak in this article about an almost like religious faith in the possibility of victory that, you know, is not really connected to reports from the

front lines and what's happening in battle or how many Ukrainians are being lost. And, you know, I mean, again, I understand that because if you're fighting for your nation and your country, that is a very human way to view the situation ultimately. But I did want to put those caveats in there. But yeah, I mean, and the other thing to say about this is part of why Ukrainians have such an, frankly, at this point, unrealistic expectation of what they can accomplish. The overwhelming majority thinks that they can not only push Russia out of the east, but they can push Russia out of Crimea, which is just, that's not happening. The part of why they have such an unrealistic expectation

of their prospects is because of us, because we have helped to, you know, sow this narrative in our media and our political class that, you know, they're winning and that they can win and that they can have all out victory. And that is in fact what we're backing them and pushing them towards. All of that being said, even without those factors

and our very strong hand in this, because this is effectively a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia at this point, it is very hard to see how either side really sees it in their interest to come to the table. You know, on the Ukrainian side, yeah, they need to be able to claim a victory. The Russian side, they need to be able to claim a victory. And the U.S., you know, which is really sort of pulling a lot of the strings behind the scenes on this, like, we have no interest in giving Russia even the appearance of a victory. So they're going to continue fighting. And actually our own director of national intelligence, this is what they're telling both the public and Congress. Put this up there on the screen. They say that President Putin wants to seize most of Ukraine and that he does not going to give up at all.

They said they expect the war will continue for, quote, an extended period of time. In short, the picture remains pretty grim. Russia's attitude towards the West is hardening, is what she said at a recent conference. I don't know if I buy this assessment that Russia wants to seize most of Ukraine. I am skeptical of that. I mean, even in their initial push, which was more, certainly had more maximalist aims than what we're seeing now, they really did not mask the number of troops it would require to claim all of Ukraine, even in the beginning. It seems unlikely that that was truly their goal to claim the entirety of the state. So at this point in the

fighting, I am, again, highly skeptical that that is actually their aim. But in terms of the assessment of, yeah, this is just going to continue on, I think it's hard to see anything other than that happening. And it's really sad. I mean, it's devastating for Ukraine. The amount of losses they have suffered and the devastation of that country is horrific. Like what's been done to their ports, their ability to export. Their economy has been hit way worse than the Russian economy. They're going to contract by 35%. Yeah. And the Russian economy is going to contract by what, 8%? Something like that, which is bad, but it's nowhere near 35%. And long-term massive damage that's going to take hundreds of, I mean, so much money to be able to rebuild that country.

The lives lost, families broken up, totally upended. I mean, it is just absolutely devastating to them. And it's been devastating for the world. And we keep bringing up that there's a real food crisis that is already really hitting poor nations in particular hard, but it's hitting everybody around the world. And not to mention the fuel prices are fueling inflation. We just got new numbers that indicate growth was even more negative. So we are officially in stagflation now. That's not theoretical. That's where we are right now. And a large part of that is the continuation of this war and our response to it. Unfortunately. And, well, too, you know, some good news. Actually, Ukraine this morning

apparently pushed back Russian troops out of that Snake Island, that famous island where there was, you know, the fake standoff or whatever. But anyway, that's a good thing because it means that some stuff might be moving out of the Black Sea, which is part of the reason that food prices are so high. But, you know, probably Russians are probably going to mount an offensive in order to try and take it back. So it just does demonstrate, you know, the yo-yo effect and how long this stuff can grind on, the extent of what the Russians want, what they can realistically accomplish. You know, unfortunately, also, Crystal, it could be that the Ukrainian spheres are correct and that if they do win a military battlefield, they'll just take a pause, then re-up, and then go for Kiev again.

It's possible. Certainly possible. I don't think – I mean, look, who knows, you know, in terms of what Putin and all of their thinking is on that. So, yeah, that's where things stand right now. Moving on to the sort of aftermath of Roe versus Wade being overturned. First of all, people continue to be shocked at just how atrocious and absent the Democrats are. Like, even, we're going to cover this for the weekend, but even Republicans are like, wait, so y'all aren't going to do anything in response to this? Like, literally nothing? Okay. But there were some interesting political

indicators that maybe, I'm not convinced of this at all yet, by the way. But we wanted to bring this to you. Maybe there's more of a political impact, immediate midterm political impact on the overturning of Roe than we initially thought. Again, I'm not persuaded, but we wanted to make sure to bring you sort of all the data points across the board so you can be well informed. So new generic ballot polling. So this is when you ask voters, OK, generic Democrat versus generic Republican. Who are you going to pick? Go ahead and put this up on the screen. And this is from a credible polling source.

This is YouGov. This is in Yahoo. This is in some like no-name brand. This generic ballot polling has Dems at 45 and Republicans at 38. Seven-point advantage for Democrats, which would be in the range of being able to hold basically where they are. So it wouldn't be because of the structural advantages for the Republicans in the House. It wouldn't be like a Dem landslide. But this would probably be in the range of them more or less holding their positions.

And if you dig into this, put this next piece up on the screen, it shows not only that 45% of registered voters say they would vote for a Democrat for Congress if it was held today versus 38% who say they would vote for a Republican, a seven-point gap. Not only that, but that gap has nearly doubled since last month. So we've seen significant new movement. And when voters are asked specifically to choose between a pro-choice Democrat and a pro-life Republican, that same gap doubles to 15 points. So when the election is framed around the question of choice, Democrats are firmly in control. I mean, 15 points would be actually a Democratic landslide.

Now, do I think we're headed there? No. But it was a very eyebrow-raising poll for me looking at that of like, oh, maybe this is going to be more salient to voters than I thought. Second data point actually they found out late last night was this election in Nebraska's first district. So actually there was a general election that happened there. It was an R plus 17 district, meaning Republican with a 17 point advantage. But apparently what happened there is that this was, of course, right after the Dobbs ruling. While they did not win the Democrats in the Nebraska 1st District, they overperformed by 15 points and end up with an R plus 2 victory in what should be an R plus 17 district. Now, is that indicative of the whole country? No. I saw lots of people like, oh, but there's special conditions, et cetera, et cetera.

There's always special conditions, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, there's always special conditions. House races usually are pretty good barometers of the national mood unless you have something totally crazy happening. That's right. Yeah, it's usually a pretty good—look, we always do a decent amount of coverage of special elections because it can tell you something. Ed Gillespie's defeat in 2017 was a harbinger of the Democratic wave of 2018. Glenn Youngkin's victory, obviously, in 2021 is probably a harbinger of whatever is going to happen in 2022, at least in some form, the type of campaign that he ran. That's why we look at off-year elections. And in this one, if you have a R- 17 district go R plus two, that's a problem. Yeah. Because it could show you that there is an increased motivation of a lot of Democrats in

order to turn out. Now, let me pause you on the Glenn Youngkin point, because I think that's an interesting one. Right. Because you have to ask yourself if the big cultural issue in the Youngkin campaign was abortion versus school openings and CRT. Also inflation. Yeah. Does that go, does it go a different way? Because, I mean, you had a significant sort of like suburban liberal switch to Youngkin. And some, I still think it was mostly economic issues. And I still think that this midterm election will mostly turn on economic issues, which is very bad for Democrats. since he won. So it could raise the possibility of, you know, a sort of shift back to the Dems

among these suburban liberal voters who had been trending to the right. Again, I'm not persuaded of it. I still think that inflation and 80% of the country saying we're on the wrong track and sort of Joe Biden's apathy and Democratic base apathy, I think those are going to be ultimately the factors that are most significant in the midterms. But I did look at these numbers and it was an eyebrow raiser for me for sure. And that Nebraska race, because in some ways the special elections or the off-year elections, I mean, these are real, it's not just polls, It's actual, like, in real life, what do voters do and what happens. So in some ways, those should be taken even more seriously than the polling.

I agree. Georgia, too, is very significant. Yeah. So we have put the fourth element up here, guys, which is we have a Quinnipiac poll from Georgia. Pretty surprised by this one, too, OK, Georgia, I wouldn't even call Georgia a swing state at this point. I would still call this a lean Republican state at both the federal and certainly at the state level. And here you've got a poll from Quinnipiac that has, you know, incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock up 10 points on the Republican Herschel Walker. 10 points. So well out of the margin of error. And then this one surprised me too, for Governor Kemp tied with Abrams. Now, it's one poll, guys. It's one poll. Could be totally off. And you always have to assume that these polls,

because this has been the trend in recent years, are undercounting Republican support. I think you still have to assume that that is the case. But if Democrats this at least shows Democrats are very much in the fight on the Senate race in Georgia. And if that's the case, we also saw this Pennsylvania polls, Pennsylvania Senate that has Fetterman up about 10 points also on Oz. Surprising. I was looking at Wisconsin. These are Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are the two opportunities Democrats have to actually increase their seats. Ron Johnson, incumbent Republican senator running for reelection there. He is down a little bit to all of his Democratic competitors, save for one, this

Lazzari dude who's like some billionaire, air, terrible, whatever. So they still have their Democratic primary going on. But, you know, I'm looking at these and I'm a little surprised that the polling shows Democrats as strong as they are in some of these places. Yeah, I think the interesting thing about George, well, first of all, grains of salt, right? I mean, I also remember, what was it? Wisconsin, right before the election, ABC said that Trump was losing Wisconsin by 17 points. Right. Also said Pennsylvania, he was down by 12. Didn't work out that way. In Georgia, I believe they said he was within a couple of votes. So listen, you should always take that.

Like I said, the general rule is probably add five to seven for Republicans. But also, you know, Trump is not on the ballot. He's usually the X factor whenever it comes to these things. I have no idea how it's going to play out. I'm just I don't see a world where Brian Kemp is actually tied with Stacey Abrams. It's not 2018. It's a completely different national environment. But Warnock and I mean, Walker is a terrible candidate. There's just no other way to say it. He's awful. He really is disastrous. He's got so many kids, apparently. So look, he also probably suffered some head trauma. His interviews don't appear to go particularly well. His son is a real jackass on TikTok. Apparently the campaign has been seizing on that. Oh, really? Warnock is an appeal. Yeah, he's like a rich boy, whatever, likes to flaunt his wealth.

Fine, you're right. But the problem that I see is that these, Warnock is a very good candidate. Yeah, he is a good candidate. We did well back in 2020. Yes, he did beat Kelly Loeffler, but he has really staked out a position where he's not in the news as some firebrand lefty, which is, you know,

what people went after him as. You know, that was what Kelly Loeffler kept calling him, radical socialist. Raphael Warnock, he's tried to mostly govern as a centrist, kind of capes his nose. Yeah, you know, him and John Ossoff are doing a pretty good job. They really don't want to get attached too much to Biden. So I do think that he's doing the best he possibly could. I do see a world where Warnock could win and where Brian Kemp could win too, given some of the cross-partisan appeal and just given candidate quality where it does matter. But look, again, an interesting data point. It's certainly also possible that this could lead to suburban metro turnout from Atlanta, the Dobbs decision on abortion in order to back somebody like Raphael Warnock. At the same time, it's also

the same state that passed a six-week abortion ban bill. Yeah. Well, yeah, true. I mean, but then that kind of argues in favor of, well, maybe that's impacting the governor's race. Yeah, it's possible. Because the abortion politics, well, as we've discussed, it matters at the national level because you have some Republicans pushing for a nationwide abortion ban. It's really relevant at the state level. So, you know, it's possible that it is a big factor in keeping Abrams in the race there. I don't know. Again, the flip side of this, put the third element up on the screen, is you had more than a million voters switch to Republicans from the Democratic Party. Now, in every cycle, there are party switchers, but you had more than a million people becoming Republicans versus about 630,000 who became Democrats. And a lot of some significant portion of these million who have switched to the Republican Party are coming from those like suburban enclaves where you had very strong affinity for Joe Biden and very strong sort of like revulsion at Trump.

I should say more than affinity for Biden in 2020. And so this now granted this came out before Roe versus Wade was overturned. Like these numbers reflect that landscape before Roe is overturned. But, you know, this is obviously very dire for Democrats, the number of suburban voters who were saying, I'm with the GOP now. So that's the flip side of this argument. Again, overall, I still would say my analysis is when you have massive inflation, negative growth, when you have 80 percent of the country saying you're on the wrong track, it's going to be bad for the party in power. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that. I think Cook Political just switched and moved eight more races or something like that towards

the GOP. So they are still very much seeing the trend being in the Republican Party's direction. However, a couple of little interesting contrary data points that are worth pointing out here. I think that's exactly the way that I would put it. Yes. Okay. This one, we will not forget about what happened in Uvalde. We're just not going to forget what happened in Uvalde as much as the cops and the government officials want us to ignore all of it and move on. And there's a new piece in The Washington Post about just some of the conduct here in stonewalling journalists who are trying to get to the truth of what actually happened on that day when those kids were massacred. Put this up on the screen. The headline here from the Post is, journalists in Uvalde are stonewalled, hassled, threatened with arrest. And I want to read to you from the very beginning, sort of the lead of this article, just to give you a visceral sense of what is happening to these journalists on the ground who

are just trying to get the actual facts of what happened, which I don't think any of us feels confident we have at this point. They said that journalists had been threatened with arrest for getting too close to the mourners. So Houston Chronicle reporter Julian Gill stayed in the designated media area. So he was doing what they told him he had to do when he was reporting on funerals. Nevertheless, a phalanx of uniformed bikers confronted Gil, the journalist, outside the cemetery gates. They called themselves guardians of the children and claimed to be working with police officers who stood watch. Gil, the journalist, says, I'm not trying to disturb anyone, guys, according to a video that he posted online. I'm not trying

to ask anybody any questions. I just want to watch. That's all we can do, right? The bikers followed and harassed journalists anyway, Gil wrote in the Chronicle. When he accidentally bumped into one of these biker cop-affiliated people who claimed to be a paramedic, the bikers accused him of assault and battery, and they said to him, as a public servant, that's kind of a felony, according again to the video. They go on to say that journalists have been threatened with arrest, officials have routinely turned down interview requests, refused to hold news briefings. The situation is made even more fraught by the spider's web of local and state agencies involved in responding to investigating the shooting, some of which now blame each other for the chaos. So they are being shut down and intimidated, actively intimidated in every possible way. And we know that the cops directly have also intimidated that incredibly courageous mom who was handcuffed. And then when

they had the handcuffs taken off her, she runs in the school and saves her kids. They've been coming and flashing their lights and trying to intimidate her and threatening her with criminal charges just for her willingness to speak out and be honest about what happened on the day. So this is a whole of government cover-up at this point. There's just no other way to spin it when media organizations are being stonewalled, shut out, forced out of public spaces, and being blocked from access to any of the records and data from that day. Yeah, and I want to emphasize, these ain't Jim Acosta or CNN-like crying people. These are people who work for Univision.

Local news agencies. Houston Chronicle. Yeah. San Antonio Express. You know, these are all local reporters, people who are trying to do their jobs for their actual communities. You know, they literally live there,

and they're trying to bring the news to mostly Hispanic. Many of them are even Spanish-language reporters, and they're getting blocked, frozen out, intimidated, going after them. The fact that they have people kind of surround them and block them from public spaces, this is outrageous. You combine it with what's happening with that Uvalde mother who's being harassed, and she's so afraid that she had to separate herself from her kids who, you know, were in a horrific shooting. Traumatic event. It's not like a good thing that happens. And we've pointed before about the cops, you know, trying to arrest journalists for kind of going to the city council. Pete Arradondo is just in hiding, even though he's been placed on quote unquote leave.

This mayor and all these guys are shooting, they're like shooting accusations at each other. They're saying, oh, they're lying. They're like, no, you're lying. Again, I'm just saying the governor, the attorney general, somebody needs to step up, actually take control of the situation. Whoever this police force is,

they need to be completely either disbanded, taken over by the state. Totally disbanded. Somebody needs to move in here and restore order and give people confidence that what's happening is not a horrific and tremendous cover-up. Because that's what everything currently points to. Everybody wants to avoid jail time and public scrutiny. And you know what? You let 18 little kids get murdered while you sat out with your thumb up your ass for an hour. You deserve it.

Whatever comes your way. We're supposed to have real accountability. They could have used somebody who, they could have used the diligence that you're putting and protecting your reputation and your life and all of that while they were in there

and I think that's how most people feel and I really just wish somebody in Texas or the government, FBI, somebody would step up. But they're not. It's a total shit show what's happening down there. It's completely insane. It's disgusting. All right. Let's move on. Some, I guess, good news, mixed bag. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Ghislaine Maxwell has been given 20 years for aiding Jeffrey Epstein in trafficking. This is something we've been covering and looking at for a long time. Yes, we have. The problem, unfortunately, we've covered basically since the day that it all broke back in 2019, is that we really just did not learn a whole lot about Ghislaine Maxwell and about Jeffrey Epstein in this trial.

It's like the FBI went out of its way in order to prosecute crimes that happened decades and decades ago. They focused very specifically on these two or three crimes. They did not focus on many of the famous people that Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were involved in. And with the conclusion of the trial, you actually basically end the ability to gain access to the FBI's evidence that they did seize from Epstein's mansion and from many of the Epstein-affiliated finance networks and more. The indictment and all that gave us a little bit of a preview into how Epstein would move money around and him and Maxwell would work together in order to fund both European prostitutes and all this other disgusting behavior. But a lot of the open inquiries are closed at this point. The Virgin Islands, you know, we still haven't heard a hell of a lot about exactly his estate getting divvied up.

Maybe we'll learn more because many of the victims are actually suing. But the point is, is that this was the last chance in criminal court in order to air this out to the public. And the grand trial that we all deserved where names were named has just not come out. And conveniently, you know, at the same time, let's put this up there, Maxwell has now been placed on suicide watch. You know, they say ahead of her sentencing that they say that, oh, she's exhibited, you know, she's exhibited behavior in which she's depressed. I mean, obviously.

Our lawyer says she's not suicidal, by the way. Right, our lawyer says she's not suicidal. She's been placed on suicide watch anyway. I don't know who you should believe. Maybe that's a way of trying to get around it. They are preparing her for sentencing. Now she's been sentenced to 20 years in prison. But just remember, she has a hell of a lot of information, and she's still not talking.

She is protecting Prince Andrew and continues to. Reports were that a hell of a lot of famous people were very upset and worried whenever she was arrested at that FBI compound in the middle of like New Hampshire or whatever. And they can probably sleep easy. I mean, at this point, what confidence should we have that any information is going to come out of this? Basically, everything we've learned has come out. I'm glad that she's going to spend 20 years in prison, but frankly, she's 60 years old. That means she could actually walk at some point, which I think is disgusting and outrageous. And at the end of the day, all of my hopes for the trial were dashed basically the day that the FBI charged her with those two older crimes.

I'm not saying those crimes aren't just, but we have crimes being committed up until 2013. We have no information about it. And it also was part of, just to remind everybody, the prosecution strategy was what they called thin to win, which means you just focus narrowly on these couple of pieces to try to get the conviction without painting the broader portrait of all of the decades of criminal behavior, the massive pattern of recruiting and grooming these children into this horrific abuse, sexual abuse and rape. They introduced some of that during the sentencing, but in terms of the actual trial and what the convictions were based on, they just tried to focus in on these few narrow charges, again, which were very serious and obviously which ends up with her receiving 20 years in prison. They say that with potential credit for good behavior in the two years she

spent in jail, she could leave prison in her 70s. Wow. Yeah, see, that's outrageous. She may still see the light of day. She was given a sentence which was less than the recommended. You know, the feds asked for 30 and the judge only gave her 20. They asked for 30 to 55, I think. This is the problem. If you go thin to win, then they get sentenced on whatever they're actually convicted of, which, look, that's how it should work

in a court of law. I'm not saying that it should work otherwise, but there's a hell of a lot more that could have come out on this trial that never actually did end up coming out.

And now, you know, there's a lot of guys. Leon Black, Leslie Wexner, Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Aoud Barak, could go on forever.

Billionaires and others that she'd not only been pictured with, but had cavorted with privately. People we don't even know. Kevin Spacey. Who's the guy from Rush Hour? Chris Tucker. Bill Richardson, right? Bill Richardson, yeah.

There's a lot of folks. Alan Dershowitz. There's still a hell of a lot of folks who can probably sleep easier. Another pedophile also being sentenced, ironically, actually, more than Ghislaine Maxwell. Throw this up there on the screen. R. Kelly actually sentenced to 30 years in prison for the scheme to lure children into sex.

You know, I really do think this is so crazy because the first time this came out to light, Crystal, was 22 years ago. Yeah, that's right. R. Kelly has been a known pedophile, and, well, look, he's been known to be committing these horrific sex crimes

for two decades. And the basic response was, yeah, he's weird, but he's super famous. He's famous. And his music is good. People kept collaborating with him. The feds and the cops

totally let him off the hook. Like you said, you know, everybody in the entertainment world was like, yeah, R. People kept collaborating with him. The feds and the cops totally let him off the hook. Like you said, you know, everybody in the entertainment world was like, yeah, R. Kelly's a weird guy. You know, he does this and this. But whatever. You know, he makes great music. And they just moved on. And it's really disgusting. Look, I'm very, very happy that he's been convicted here.

30 years is a just sentence, absolutely. And especially if you guys have watched the documentaries or any of the other others, he is truly a monster. He's a monster. Yeah. There's no other way to describe it. The way he turned these poor teenagers against themselves and the parents and many more. I just do think though, if you compare the trial of R. Kelly to Maxwell, I mean, consider it, the government called 45 witnesses, including 11 victims. You know, the jurors were confronted with the audio and the video and they went back decades. And they really did a better job, frankly, here. Yeah, it was a much more wholesome picture of his crimes. Right. And when you consider that in the same vein, you're like, man, they could have hit Maxwell with the same case and they didn't even try.

Yeah. And so you can't really blame the judges who were sentencing based on what's presented to them. But yeah, the prosecution in Maxwell's case, you know, went for this much more narrow focus versus R. Kelly. They, you know, really tried to put forward a full picture of just how abusive he was over decades to so many women and girls. To your point about, listen, it was back in 1994 that Vibe magazine reported on his illegal marriage to Aaliyah, who was 15. So we have been knowing this about R. Kelly literally for decades. That's actually, that's like, what, 28 years ago? For decades we have been knowing.

At 15 years old, he illegally marries Aaliyah. And according to the documentary, it's because they thought she was pregnant and this would, you know, you would need at that age

parental consent to get an abortion unless you had, unless your husband provided the consent. So that's, according to the documentary, that's why he to the documentary that's

why he married her to try to get her an abortion for i mean it's so dark and sick and then the other piece of this it's not just like the uh i shouldn't just it's not only the uh you know the sex acts and the rape and the all of the the it's so much of him was about the control, too. The way that he would manipulate and exploit his fame to get these young girls to trap them. I mean, that's really what would happen, to trap them and hold out the promise of fame and stardom and I'm going to make you a thing. And then completely manipulate and control and abuse theseom and I'm going to make you a thing and then completely manipulate and control and abuse these girls and women. It is horrific, horrific what he did to them. And so it is good to see a little bit of justice here. But I mean, the connective tissue between both of these cases

is the way that Epstein and R. Kelly used their fame, wealth, power status to enable this criminal predatory behavior for decades. And polite society looked the other way. Everybody in Hollywood who wrecked the sky and made a lot of money is all just, we're looking right over there. All right, Saga, what are you looking at? Well, I know there are a lot of important stories going on right now, but there's one flying under the radar of all major news items that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. The bizarre war by the Biden

administration on nicotine, cigarettes, and by proxy on poorer Americans. Now, of course, I'm going to start with the obvious. Cigarettes are bad. As for vaping products and for other synthetic nicotine delivery systems that are outside of cigarettes but are increasingly popular, the science is really not in on any of them. I cannot personally imagine it's good for you, but is it bad bad for you? Or is it just like diet soda or caffeine or many of the other legal substances that people plow into their bodies every day? We don't know. The answer is still not clear. But the answer seems clear enough for the Biden administration, which has effectively declared a full-scale war not only on cigarette smokers, but on nicotine users of all stripes. Much of the actions of the Biden

administration reek of class disdain, and the fact that there hasn't been any outcry amongst elites reflects a lot of this too. As long as their drugs of choice are safe, namely alcohol and weed, they don't really care. So let's review the Biden war on nicotine. Things started to pop off in April when they came out and they said they were going to ban menthol cigarettes specifically. They noted correctly that black Americans are the most likely to smoke menthols, and in some sort of weird nanny state protection way, said that flavored cigars and menthols thus must be banned outright. But it appears that outside of elites, they didn't actually ask black people what they wanted.

And it turns out a lot of people who actually work at the community activist level are adamantly opposed to this ban. Eric Garner's own mother correctly noted banning menthols would lead to more police interactions between cops and people like her son. And even Al Sharpton correctly noted that with weed legalized and basically unregulated at the state level, it makes no sense that, quote, grandma can't smoke her cools, but Jamal can smoke his weed. I mean, the man has a point. But that nanny state move was just the beginning with some new announcements that came out this week. The Biden FDA is moving to ban literally all nicotine from cigarettes

from now and to try and get millions to quit smoking. The FDA commissioner said that it would be the most targeted action against cigarettes in 25 years. And look, everyone can agree, yeah, less people should smoke. Everybody also knows it's a very difficult thing to quit smoking, meaning that alternatives need to obviously be around in some form. That's why it's especially puzzling that the same day they announced that the FDA would also be banning Juul e-cigarettes across the nation, which is 42% of the e-cigarette market in the United States nuked overnight. So at the same time that they're going after nicotine and cigarettes, they're also setting the ground for a war on nicotine delivery methods themselves, starting with Juul. Reporting from inside the government reveals that there was no real pretext

for banning Juul as opposed to letting others be sold, except for politics. Parents groups just hated Juul because many teenagers began using Juul years ago. Thus, Juul got targeted and made an example of to ensure that anti-smoking and anti-nicotine groups will continue to back Biden and the FDA. That's about as corrupt a deal as exists. To return to the broader point, who is this impacting? The U.S. general population smoking rate is 14%, but amongst poor people, it's actually as high as one-third. Education is the best proxy by class that shows that people with no degree or GED are the most likely in America to smoke. It declined significantly after that. Only 4% of people with a graduate degree even smoke cigarettes. As we all saw in South Park's great episode on smoking, if you're stuffing your face full of disgusting processed food and

you're obese, do you really have any high ground in telling someone who just got off a shift to not smoke a cigarette or someone who vapes to relax or just does it to have a good time? We genuinely do have a massive substance abuse problem in this country, but it is always very telling which ones get dystopian government crackdowns and which ones are just good to go. In fact, I'm going to make a declaration here. If we're going to start regulating substances by those that are almost harmful and already legal, why don't we start with alcohol by volume? Alcohol use has gone up so much during the pandemic, we are still trying to figure out exactly how much. At a minimum, tens of thousands of people, extra people in America, are going to die as a result of alcohol use alone. And

alcoholism is seeing record rates at treatment centers. Nobody does, wants to do anything. Why? Well, most people who are elite drink alcohol, a lot of alcohol, not necessarily the same types that poorer Americans drink, but cocktail culture and functional alcoholism pervades elite spaces. Thus, zero control. Actually, if anything, alcohol taxes are down 40% over the last 30 years. Distilleries and breweries are propping up all over the country. And we appear to just have made our peace with that. Why target poor people then who like to smoke? Or how about this one, and I'll really poke the bear. Legalized weed and the Wild West usage of high-potency THC is causing all sorts of insane psychotic breaks amongst teenagers. It's lowering IQs,

skyrocketing emergency room visits with teenagers experiencing symptoms akin to poisoning. That's from the New York Times, by the way. By harm, it is actually easy to deduce that alcohol and THC are way less regulated, free-flowing, and are bad. And yet, the remnant, they continue to go after the poorer Americans who smoke. The current Biden war on cigarettes and nicotine and the lack of media outrage or even coverage really just reveals so much about us as a country. The stuff they use is fine. They deserve restoration. The stuff they don't, screw them. Unhealthy rubes. The way to promote health is to make it easier to be healthy by default, rather than just forcing people to go in a certain direction. That's always been the case in America, and it should probably remain the case.

So, I mean, I just think it's crazy, Crystal. You know, I was talking with some people. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. What are you taking a look at, Crystal? Well, guys, lost in the news of Roe v. Wade and bombshell January 6th testimony was some major 2024 news. Biden is going to run. How do we know? Because he is already rigging the Democratic primaries to his own benefit. According to Biden aides interviewed by The New York Times, Biden is, quote, laying the groundwork by building resources at the Democratic National Committee, restocking his operation in battleground states and looking to use his influence to, quote, shape the nomination process in his favor.

They go on to spell out exactly what that means. Now, we already knew that he sent a top aide, Cedric Richmond, over to head up the committee, but he is making other moves as well. The president has moved to consolidate his hold on the DNC, not just by sending Mr. Richmond to the committee. Mr. Biden has also shifted both his social media assets and his lucrative fundraising list to the party, which has made the committee largely reliant on those channels for their own contributions. Furthermore, Biden is pushing to order the state primaries in a way that he thinks will be most favorable to his chances. So Iowa caucuses, the aforementioned when we were talking to Sager, that as the jumping off point are actually out. Michigan, a state where Biden likes his chances because of his political allies in the state, is in. Now you'll recall that Biden got clobbered in Iowa. He finished a humiliating fourth place behind Bernie, Pete,

Warren, and narrowly edged out Amy Klobuchar. And although, of course, Bernie staged an incredible poldifying moment in Michigan back in 2016, the Vermont senator has already taken himself out of the hunt for 2024, saying in no uncertain terms he will not run for president again if Biden is in the running. In fact, according to The Times, quote, earlier this month, when Senator Bernie Sanders said he would not challenge President Biden in 2024, Mr. Biden was so relieved he invited his former rival to dinner at the White House the next night. Man, those are a couple of very sad sentences for me to read. as we've been discussing this week, even liberals are frustrated and disgusted with the failed leadership of Biden and co. In fact, those frustrations are so widespread as has gone completely mainstream. Washington Post's Perry Bacon Jr. just penned an op-ed calling for the entirety of Democratic leadership, from Schumer to Pelosi to Biden, Hoyer, all the rest, to step down. In his telling, the total lack of response to Roe is a symptom of a much

bigger problem for a party that has allowed an emboldened right to notch win after win over the past decade. We've lost state houses, squandered chances, and fallen short of their very low bar aspirations at every single turn. Now, the lack of response to Roe is a symptom of the fact that the Democratic Party functions almost exclusively as consultant and leadership protection racket, any political or ideological agenda is wholly secondary at best. As he puts it, quote, we don't know exactly what can save the country from this radicalized GOP, but Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden don't either. And after about 20 years, it is well past time to give others a chance to lead. Now, those of us on the left have some ideas about what might

save the country, but anyway, baby steps here. So with cracks in their standing among normie liberals and absolute apocalypse among young people, you can bet that Dems looking to keep their grip on the party will reach for their standard Trump card, electability. They will tell the base that while they might be disgusted, ready for something different, they have no choice but to stick with Biden. Why? Because he'll win, the left will lose, and Trump is an existential threat, so we cannot risk it. But it's pretty hard to bet the whole farm on electability when your dude literally has lower approval ratings than Trump did. And Save a Miracle is about to get shellacked in the midterms. All those Dems who wanted Medicare for All but settled for Joe on electability, they are definitely looking for some other options. That's exactly why a majority of Democrats say they want someone other than Joe in 2024, a majority.

In fact, my sense of why there have been so many will-he-or-won't-he stories about Joe for 2024 isn't because he or the party is genuinely not sure if he will run, but because other Democratic elites are genuinely not sure if he can win. They are trying to decide whether they need to pull out all the stops and call up Obama and try to force Joe out of the race. But as they ponder the electoral chances of Kamala Harris, eventually, as they did last time, Democratic elites are going to suck it up and they're going to back Joe. Really is a replay of what happened in the Democratic primary in 2020. Obama, Kluiber, and other party leaders, they knew damn well what Joe's flaws were and what his limitations were. They tried in vain to find someone, anyone who might be better. Top Obama

staff flocked to Beto, remember that? They considered Kamala, some flirted a little bit with Pete. Finally, in desperation, they took a hard look at Amy Klobuchar. But in the end, they resigned themselves to the fact that there was no option other than Joe to block Bernie Sanders. This time around, that same pattern will play out. Dem leaders will leak to the press and float alternatives and pretend like they don't know damn well Joe is planning on running. But in the end, they will line up behind Joe Biden.

This time around, though, the base may not be so easy to force into line. And in fact, after I wrote this saga, new report from NBC News. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now, a great guest I've been very excited about for some time is Madison Hilley. She's the founder of the Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal. Madison, welcome to the show. It's great to see you. Thank you so much for having me on. I've been a big fan of the show for a long time, so I was really excited to get the invite.

Absolutely. It's very, very nice to hear mutual admiration. So one of the things that we wanted to speak with you about is about the case for nuclear power in the age of such tumultuous times, especially in this context. Let's put this up there on the screen, which is that Germany right now is looking to potentially ration natural gas after Russia has gone ahead and cut off supply. This comes off of a string of denuclearization movement in Germany and really all across Europe, which is prompting them to actually increase coal-fired power plant usage. What does this really tell you about the state of the case for nuclear power, the politics around nuclear power, and really what things should look like in the future? Right. So right now, Germany is demonstrating the absolute necessity of reliable, always available power. That can come

from fossil fuels or that can come from nuclear. The problem is that Germany attempted to move away from them both simultaneously. What that actually did is it increased their reliance on imported fossil fuels, namely Russian oil and gas. Now Putin's threatening to cut them off and every drop of gas is important to get them through the winter. So they're turning back to coal for their electricity production. Right now, Germany is on track to burn more fossil fuels for its electricity than any year since 2018. And that's despite building 35% more solar and 30% more offshore wind over that time period. So in the face of a generational energy crisis that's actually really dangerous, the government is still seen or they still seem unwilling to keep their remaining

nuclear plants operating. And to give you some perspective, the three remaining nuclear reactors are worth about 33 LNG supertankers. If you count the nuclear plants they closed at the end of last year, that gets you to about 20% of the energy of Nord Stream 1. So every kilowatt hour matters in this crisis, and Germany is not making it any easier on itself or Europe. So I have been persuaded on the case for nuclear, thanks to my great friend and co-host here. However, I do have some concerns. And in particular, did you watch the Three Mile Island documentary? Because part of what that dug into is the way that effectively the profit motive meant that, you know, the corporation that was running these nuclear power plants, they wanted to cover up when everything was going

wrong. They wanted to skimp on safety. They wanted to get the power plants back up and running and, again, take shortcuts that were extremely dangerous and risked the meltdown of the entire East Coast because they were so anxious to get back to making money. And then you had a government that didn't have a sufficient regulatory body that was effectively captured by industry. And so it did create an extremely, extremely dangerous situation and required a whistleblower who basically destroyed his life to get the truth out and try to stop these shortcuts and pause the bringing back online of his nuclear power plant. So all of that is a long way of saying I'm very concerned about the

way that the profit motive interacts with the necessity for rigid, strenuous, meticulous safety standards when it comes to nuclear power plants. So how do we make sure that we do this in a way where profits aren't ultimately driving the show? Right. So first of all, I think it's important to put that risk into context. So over the entire 70 plus year lifespan of the nuclear energy industry, we have had zero deaths from any radiation, zero injuries. Three Mile Island was the only evacuation that wasn't even mandated. So even with those- Yeah, but it only takes one. I mean, this is like what we talk about with Russia and Ukraine. Sure. It might be a remote possibility that we end up having, you know, nuclear exchanges that would be disastrous to the population, but we should go to extraordinary

lengths to make sure that that doesn't happen because the risks are so grave. Absolutely. But the, the issue you run into is if you over-regulate to protect against extremely small tail risks that represent very small physical risks, you get nuclear that's far too expensive to build. And that's an incredible risk to the U.S. today, both in light of the energy crisis that we're facing, but also it results in the continued usage of fossil fuels, which killed millions of people premature prematurely every year just from emitting air pollution. Isn't the answer then to subsidize the industry rather than to skimp on regulations? Because I'm definitely not down for like, let's have a nuclear industry and let's have it completely private run and basically deregulated. I think that's a case for if we need to transition

off of fossil fuels and nuclear is the best way. Isn't that a case for, you know, public funding and support so that we can move in that direction and make it economical? Yeah. And that's exactly what happened after Three Mile Island. You pointed out, I mean, the industry and the government's response was absolutely catastrophic. It was terrible. It's no wonder people are scared and that there are still these misconceptions about nuclear. It was atrocious. But the industry did actually respond. The industry managed to implement a number of safety regulations that not have only have made the operation of nuclear much more safe, but it actually increased plant efficiency from 57% to 93% that we enjoy today. So you're getting

more carbon free energy, and people are more protected. So the industry did respond. Now, a number of advocates, including myself would say the NRC has overcorrected to the point where they haven't issued a single operating license to a nuclear plant in its entire history. protected, workers are protected, the public is protected, but we can actually deploy desperately needed carbon-free electricity at scale today. Right. I think that's why I want to split the difference, which is that, and maybe try and explain what you mean when you're talking about regulation. Can you just go down on that point, which we have not approved a new nuclear power plant in the United States since the 1970s. And so part of the risks and even the antiquated technology that people point to is more of a function of the risks and even the antiquated technology that people point to is more of a function of the fact that we haven't built any new plants in, what, 50 or

40-something years than where the current technology is today. If we were able to issue new licenses, what would those plants of the future actually look like with government support in a technology-neutral tax credit environment? Right. So there are a number of really interesting technological paths we can go down. One of them is the AP1000, which is currently being built in Georgia right now at the Vogel Nuclear Power Plant. And that's a Generation 3 light water reactor. Basically, it's the upgrade of the plants that we see today.

But there are also a number of other nuclear technologies that are in the pipe that could absolutely be deployed to decarbonize our economy. For example, we have high temperature gas cool reactors, which can get up to extremely high temperatures to decarbonize industrial heat, so steel and other capabilities. There are small modular reactors that I'm particularly excited about the possibility of repowering retiring fossil fuel sites. So we have not only grown in our technological capabilities, but the reactors that we did deploy over the past four or five decades are still working in perfectly operable condition and could continue to run 100 years out. So the answer is, make sure that we keep every existing nuclear plant that we have online and also explore these

different paths with a strategic, coordinated, all-of-government response so that we can scale up in the way we need to to protect our energy and deliver cheap, carbon-free power. Well, I think it's really important that people understand that you can't just move away from nuclear and not have another thing in place. So even as, you know, I express like I have some I have some nervousness, I have some reluctance about this. I have some questions about the regime. But the way we've been doing this, I mean, Germany is a perfect example where, okay, our goal is deal with the climate crisis, and yet we're moving in the direction of more coal. We have to all admit this makes no sense and rethink the way that a lot of environmentalists have approached this problem. So, Madison, thank you so much for laying this out for us. We're really grateful. Thanks, Madison. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. We're not going to have a show on July 4th. Everybody go and enjoy the day. As far as the tickets, make sure you go ahead and buy your tickets to the event. We're going to be having that. The link will be down in the description for all the shows and so forth.

Show the industry that Breaking Points can sell tickets. We deeply appreciate it. It means a lot to us. Honestly, they kind of already have. Yeah, that's true. You might want to jump on them. The premium subs have shown very clearly that we can. But, you know, if we sell

it out very quickly, it's a nice little talking point on our end where we're negotiating in the future. Thank you all so much for showing up for that. Have a very merry July 4th weekend. Spend some time with the family. Barbecue. All of that. I'm going to start saying that. Merry July 4th. I drop it in for everything. It's a nice term. Alright, all of that. Yeah. I enjoy dropping that.

Merry July 4th. I drop it in for everything. I like that. It's a nice term. All right, guys. Enjoy. We'll see you back here next week. See you later. This is an iHeart Podcast.