Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/6/23: Ukrainian Dam Explodes, Ukraine Backed Saboteurs Inside Russia, NYT Downplays Nazi's, Imminent Trump Indictment, Cornell West 2024, UFO Whistleblower, Tim Scott Vs. The View, SEC Sues Binance, Russiagate Deception, Biden Donors Age Concern

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Krystal and Saggar discuss a key Ukrainian dam exploding, Ukrainians caught aiding sabotage groups in Russia, NYT bothsides Nazi's, Trump's potential imminent indictment, Cornell West announces 2024 run, intel whistleblower says US has alien craft, Ryan Graves pushes for UFO transparency, SEC sues Binance, Tim Scott spars with The View hosts, Russiagate star's deception exposed, and donors worrying about Biden's age. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday.

We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of big news breaking here and internationally. It looks like that Ukrainian counteroffensive has, in fact, begun. So we'll bring you all of those details. Also, some pretty stunning details about the way the media has been covering this conflict that we must get into as well. Some big developments in terms of 2024. We've actually got a new contender, Cornel West. Dr. West is joining the race as a People's Party

candidate. We also have some new tea leaves. Looks like Trump may be indicted again quite imminently. So we'll tell you about that. Big story in the UFO world. A whistleblower has come forward alleging that they have actually recovered craft. We've got a guest on to talk about this. Sagar is chomping at the bit to dig into this one as well. So, yeah, give you all the details there. We've got new charges filed against Binance, largest crypto exchange platform in the world, and some pretty stunning revelations from within there, the discovery process, some texts that are pretty damning in terms of their case, and a quite interesting exchange between Senator Tim Scott, who is running for president, and the ladies of The View that we want to talk about as well. Before we get to any of that, though, there is a reason why we are doing the show remotely instead of in any studio. Cyber, what is that reason? Yeah, the reason is, is that, as we've said last time, you guys have to hear about it. We are building that brand new, beautiful set that's all coming together. It is absolutely stunning for a big debut next week.

As a reminder, premium subscribers will get a very first look at the set. We'll be announcing very soon via email. So if you want to become a premium subscriber, it's breakingpoints.com, not only to get a first look, but also to help us with the expenses. The largest expense in the history of breaking points. It's basically like we bought several cars

and houses over there, Crystal. But the reason why, the reason why is because we believe very much in investing in the show, giving everybody the premium and the best experience possible and making sure that we are absolutely 100% ready and set. We've got some great guests already lined up for the first week that I think everybody's going to be really, really excited about and honestly kind of shocked once they debut. So I'm pumped. I really am. And yeah, we still got a great show, though, for everybody here.

Counterpoints tomorrow and they'll have another show on Thursday remotely. Yeah. And actually, Sagar and I got our first look at the studio yesterday. And it is quite I mean, it is quite stunning. I was blown away. Totally blown away. It is amazing. I can't believe it's our new home.

So can't wait to share it with all of you guys. Before we jump into the show, just apologies for my voice. Struggling with the cold. I actually feel a lot better, but sound a bit worse. You know, that phase of the cold. So bear with me today. My apologies in advance. The brutal summer cold comes for us all.

Okay, let's go ahead. These kids are killing me. Let me tell you, it's been brutal this whole year. I'm sure all parents can probably sympathize. All right, let's go ahead and get to the Ukraine counteroffensive. We'll put this up there on the screen. Indications from the intelligence community leaking to the U.S. media and also from the Russians saying that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun. Kiev is denying that the counteroffensive has begun, but a lot of stuff is being picked up on open source satellites showing some movement across several key areas of the front.

The biggest development, however, happened overnight in U.S. time with the collapse of a major dam in southern Ukraine, which has triggered a major emergency. Both Moscow and Kyiv are actually blaming each other for the collapse of the dam. So I'm going to go ahead and give everybody here the details. The dam is in the part of southern Ukraine, which is actually controlled by Moscow. So the collapse has now triggered floods and is actually now endangering the largest nuclear power plant inside of Ukraine, which is currently under Russian control. Not only that, it's actually currently threatening drinking water supplies for both sides of the war as they're currently trying to evacuate residents and are blaming each other.

So as I said, Ukraine is currently accusing the Russian forces of blowing up the Khakova Dam and the hydroelectric power station. Russian officials are saying that Ukrainian military strikes in the contested area are the ones that are responsible. Of course, nobody can verify what exactly is going on here. But of really immediate concern is, A, all of the people in this area. It's obviously a disaster whenever you're triggering a major flood like this. Two, the downstream and emergency crews who are having evacuations are rushing to get people out of there. But then finally is really that nuclear power plant, which has been at the center of so much consternation just because of scares of an accident. And especially because everyone here knows I'm pro nuclear, but of course, it's like whenever a foreign government is going to invade, take it over and then effectively try to weaponize said

nuclear power plant, that's when things get a little bit tricky, right? And same would be safe for any other type of energy station. And clearly, this is now being contested. It's probably, Crystal, one of those where we will never know who is responsible. But I mean, it's a blow, obviously, to Russia, because this is something now that they have to deal with, because it's in their territory. And also, it was in, oh, yeah, it's in now that they have to deal with because it's in their territory. And also it was in, oh yeah, it's in territory that they controlled and now they have to divert resources. But also, you know, Ukraine, if they do want to recapture their own territory, it's not something that you want it to necessarily be devastated. So I'm not even entirely sure yet about who benefits from this. It's just a humanitarian catastrophe. Yeah. Same. And, um, I mean, anytime you're

talking about targeting civilian infrastructure, this is a disaster. It's honestly a humanitarian catastrophe. Same. And I mean, anytime you're talking about targeting civilian infrastructure, this is a disaster. It's honestly a war crime. And this was a hugely important dam in terms of electricity and energy generation within Ukraine. So not only the flooding, not only the concerns about the nuclear plan, but also some real concerns about power generation, which obviously is critical for people's lives as well. Yeah, it's really sad. And actually, missiles continue to rain down on Kyiv and just absolutely brutal attacks all over civilian infrastructure. Let's go ahead and put this on the screen.

Zelensky saying, quote, we are ready for the counteroffensive. This comes a month after he gave another interview where he said that the counteroffensive was beginning. So, you know, don't necessarily take it all, um, to the bank, but anyway, what I thought was interesting in this interview too, is he really sort of downplayed expectation for what they would be able to achieve in the counteroffensive. Um, he also, you know, sounded some of the notes that he sounded before about on the one hand, he would express a lot of gratitude for the amount of support he's received. On the other hand, he would express a lot of frustration that there

wasn't even more flowing to him and more rapidly, which, you know, I guess understandable. But he says, I would not want such a country with regards to China to stand by and watch people die. So also, still not totally, you know, sort of severing the Chinese relationship, being hopeful in some way, I guess, holding out some sort of possibility that China could be a good actor here in terms of brokering an eventual peace. But those to me were the most noteworthy parts of that interview. Yeah. Let me read here what he said. Quote, we strongly believe we will succeed. However, I don't know how long it will take.

And quote, to be honest, it can go a variety of ways, completely different. But we are going to do it. And we are ready. Not sounding the same triumphant note that they did ahead of the offensive last year. Although, look, I mean, the smart thing to do is always to downplay expectations and then to overperform so that you look good. So we have no idea. The General Milley, actually, the U.S. top general yesterday gave an interview where he said that the Ukrainians were, quote, well prepared, but said he didn't know how he thought it was going to go.

Also, basically sounding the exact same thing. Also, the Russians, even though literally the offensive has just started, now say, actually, we have thwarted it. Don't worry. Let's go ahead and put this up there. The defense ministry put out a statement yesterday saying it has thwarted a major Ukrainian attack in Donetsk region. And they say that they show military vehicles under heavy fire and claim that they have killed 300 troops and destroyed 16 tanks. Something tells me that just repelling a single attack, if that even happened, isn't exactly repelling the entire offensive. So I have no idea how this one is going to go. This is one of those wait and

see moments. And actually, another important thing, too, which is a story we're going to get to later on, given media coverage, this story that we're going to talk about later in the show, just I'll give the tease away. It's basically the Ukrainian government is heavy handed, let's just say, in terms of how it treats American journalists who have depart from the narrative and report what's going on. Everyone needs to be very, very skeptical of every single thing that you see come out of Ukraine from the Russian side, from the Ukrainian side, we are being lied to left, right, and center. And it's basically like you have to try and average the three and see maybe that one is directionally, especially in the middle of this conflict.

So do not believe a word that the Russians say and do not believe a word that the Ukrainians say about what's actually going on in the ground. This is truly like a complete wait and see moment about how exactly the actual battle turns out. So we don't know yet. We don't even really have confirmations in terms of maps. I looked for several from some open source intelligence analysts. The best that I have been able to find is just a general consensus that, yes, it has

begun. We'll see how it works out, Crystal. Yeah, I think that's about all you can say at this point. OK, let's go to the next part here. This one is also a very significant story and also gets to some of the dangers who are involved. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. From CNN, leaked to their intelligence community's favorite journalist, Natasha Bertrand, Ukraine has cultivated sabotage agents inside of Russia and is giving them drones to stage

attacks, sources say. What you can really read here is they say that Ukraine has cultivated a network of sympathizers and agents inside of Russia working to carry out acts of sabotage against Russian targets, providing them with drones to stage attacks. U.S. officials believe these, quote unquote, pro-Ukrainian agents inside Russia, a.k.a. intel operatives, carried out the drone attack that targeted the Kremlin earlier in May. And they say that they are not yet quite ready to ascribe the same level of attribution on these residential neighborhood bombing or drone attack in Moscow and then also on the oil refineries in southern Russia. However, they believe that the development of sabotage cells is made up of, quote, a mix of pro-Ukrainian sympathizers, but also operatives well-trained in this kind of warfare by the intelligence officials. Also, it's kind of interesting that they get to the exact way that they are doing this. A lot of it is not just ideology. A lot of it is just

straight up bribery. It says cash works wonders. One of the European intelligence officials who actually has worked in the area says that it is quote ripe for smuggling, something that Ukrainians have been doing for the better part of a decade. And that the Ukrainian intelligence community and others are very adept at, I guess, let's just say using the illicit networks that they are well familiar with. Now, obviously, these stories only come to light when the CIA and the intelligence community is trying to pull the Ukrainians back. And I think that's why we should always try to remember, all of this is controlled.

All of this is controlled opposition. Everything about Ukraine, anything even remotely critical about Ukraine is always couched in the nicest possible terms, of which we will show you my personal favorite example in a little bit. that they start attacking Moscow with drones a couple of times, blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline. That's when the CIA and all of them, the Biden administration too, are put in a very, very difficult spot. I also think it is funny because some of the most pro-Ukraine people I see are always defending Ukraine's right to attack Moscow, as if that's the argument. It's never somehow able to have the nuance in their heads where someone can say, it is completely fine for countries at war to attack each other, and if they, of course, quote unquote, have the right to. But the externality effects on said country's allies are something that those allies should calibrate to whether they're good for their interests

or not. I really have no idea how people are incapable of separating those two. Nobody's attacking Ukraine's rights to defend itself. Only the level of US support and then level of US responsibility should such an attack trigger an actual counterattack, which would be devastating, would escalate the war. And I don't think anyone, including, of course, the Biden administration and now the CIA, clearly who are leaking these stories, Crystal, can even dispute that. If they supported it, then they would keep their mouth shut. They're only leaking it because they want the Ukrainians to stop and they want to keep making it known to all of them. They're like, hey, yeah, we may not slap

you on the wrist. In person, we're also going to make it known in the public, we didn't have anything to do with this. This is also probably a signal to Russia just to be like, hey, guys, this one's not on us. So just make sure, this one is not with our support. Yes. I mean, defending yourself, targeting your enemy, that's all fair bounds. Targeting residential apartment buildings is another matter. It's not acceptable when Russia does it. It's not acceptable when Ukraine does it. There was also, of course, in this article, Sager, the typical language about like, well, it was probably Ukrainians in Russia, but Zelensky didn't know anything about it. They say, who exactly is controlling these assets?

It's murky. U.S. officials believe elements within Ukraine's intelligence community are involved. Ukrainian President Zelensky has set general parameters for what his intelligence security services are allowed to do, two of the sources said. But not every operation requires sign-off. So again, trying to give him a little bit of distance from this operation, which is just like every single report without fail includes very similar language to this. But they also have some intel here about the way that the U.S. feels about this, at least the way the U.S. wants to tell CNN they feel about it.

They say publicly senior U.S. officials have condemned the strikes inside Russia, warning of the potential for an escalation of the war. Those are the concerns that we have been sharing and continue to have. And speaking privately to CNN, U.S. and Western officials said they believe the cross-border attacks are a smart military strategy that could divert Russian resources to protecting its own territory as Ukraine gears up for a major counteroffensive. Now, it might be true that this is a smart strategy if you are just looking at it from the Ukrainian perspective of, you know, distracting Russia, forcing them to have to defend their own population and not concentrate all of their resources on the battlefield to thwart this coming counteroffensive that appears to now have begun. But what about our interest in this? What about trying to maintain, you know, trying to mitigate any possibility of escalation. The fact that you have U.S. officials signaling this, I mean, that shows you, and it kind of proves Russia's point, too, that we are tacitly backing and accepting

these type of very dangerous and potentially escalatory operations within Russia's borders certainly gives them fodder to feel like, oh, yeah, the U.S. is cool with this. They've given the Ukrainians tacit approval and, you know, wouldn't be shocked if there's U.S. resources involved here. Yeah. I mean, I always just point back to remember the fake story about Russian bounties back in the Trump era. Completely fake story, by the way. But when that happened, you had U.S. senators and other U.S. officials saying, OK, now we need to kill Russians. I mean, look, Russia's the same. They're not all that different from us.

Why wouldn't they feel the exact same way? And that was with just tacit support. So, you know, listen, what goes around can come around. And none of this is an endorsement. It's just a reality. Other people, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So every action that you take should always be calibrated and done in such a way that we understand exactly what might be coming our way. Let's go to the next part here.

This is, I mean, these next two are something you're not going to hear anywhere else. Fred Ben Smith over at Semaphore doing a deeply reported column revealing some serious problems for free press access inside of Ukraine. Let's put this up there on the screen inside the high stakes clash for control over Ukraine's story. The top line thing that jumps out to me, Crystal, is New York Times reporter Thomas Gibbons Neff, who I've I've actually followed Gibbons Neff for a long time. I knew him before he even joined the New York Times in the days when I were used to cover the Pentagon. He is a former United States Marine who is one of the best reads on combat, the actual reality of combat that I

have ever encountered in almost a decade of reading, you know, about these issues in a contemporary manner. Well, he has been banned from Ukraine because he was embedded with the Ukrainian military and drew anger from the government when he correctly reported that the Ukrainians were using banned cluster munitions. The headline that he published at the time was, quote, to push back Russians, Ukrainians hit a village with clustering munitions. The New York Times verified Ukraine forces appeared to fire at least two of these internationally banned weapons in a neighborhood, putting Ukrainian civilians at extreme risk. This was over a year ago, April 20th of 2022. Well, guess what, everyone? He had his credentials revoked as a result of that,

and his renewal to go back to Ukraine to tell us all the truth has been denied in multiple separate instances, ultimately only being reissued after they protested significantly. The other was a NBC News broadcast, Crystal, which is totally nuts where during this broadcast, a pro Russian resident of Sevastopol inside of Crimea said, and an anchor inside of it said that her words echoed those of most people that NBC news spoke to in Crimea, AKA indicating that people who NBC spoke to inside of Crimea while they were embedded there supported Russia. We have a little bit of a taste of this just to show you how they handled it fairly. And then we'll tell you what the reaction from the Ukrainians was. Let's take a listen.

Ukraine's President Zelensky told the West, give us more weapons and we'll get back what's ours. But Crimea, where we saw new signs for air raid shelters, has many pro-Russian residents who say it's theirs. Is Crimea Russian or Ukrainian? Crimea is Russian. Of course Russian, 73-year-old Praxovia tells me. Well, that did not sit well with the Ukrainian government. Listen to this.

The Ukrainians revoked NBC's credentials and then basically confined them to their local Kiev hotel and would not allow them to leave. Not only that, they still defend it. They say that NBC's travel to Crimea was quote, a violation of Ukrainian legislation, and we don't want other Western media companies doing the same. If they wanna go to Crimea to report, they can go to Crimea through Ukraine saying currently it is impossible. So they're trying to tell our journalists how to do their jobs. I didn't even point this out. Whenever you go to Ukraine as a journalist,

you have to sign a document saying that you will comply at all times with the Ukrainian government policies, which was the grounds in which they confined these people to their hotels. I mean, look, everyone, I've seen this. They're like, oh, well, Britain did this during World War II against the Nazis. I'm like, well, okay. I mean, also that doesn't make it right. It's like it's not a justification to say that an authoritarian approach to free press access is bad.

It obviously is terrible. In fact, in the middle of conflict is when we need correct information at any time, more so even than in normal times. And then second, we are the ones who are bankrolling this entire conflict. We are the ones who underwrite their entire ability to exist as a nation. They would collapse literally without us. So maybe our people have the right to know exactly what the hell is going on inside of Ukraine. And this is exactly why I said it earlier.

I was like, hey, guys, don't trust anything that's coming out of there. You know, I recently saw Max Boot from the Washington Post. He's like, I returned from Kiev. Here's what I saw. This is all propaganda. It's like going to North Korea or something like that and saying, oh, everybody in North Korea I spoke to is happy. It's like, okay, so?

Is that reality? Yep, that's right. And I think we have, Americans tend to have a good understanding of the way that press freedom is severely curtailed with regards to Russia. And so there's a lot of very justified skepticism of what's put out from Russian journalists,

Russian media outlets, et cetera. That's all filtered through a lens of skepticism, as it should be. Really important people understand very similar limits on press freedom and tightly controlled access, tightly controlled narrative shaping, and also a lot of retribution if you dare step out of bounds of what the Ukrainians want to present in this war. So this is just a reminder. You really need to take everything that is being reported out of this, whether it's from a Russian outlet, a Ukrainian outlet or a Western outlet with a million grains of salt and be incredibly skeptical of the narratives that are being pushed out there. You know, as I was reading this, remember that early report that came out talking about where the weapons that we were shipping

and where the resources we were sending, where that was actually going, raising a lot of concerns about the inability to track exactly what's happening here. Good report, interesting report, something that is a vital interest to the American people who are funding, you know, these shipments of weapons over and over again. And that thing got pulled down. And they put out

this statement saying, oh, you know, things have changed on the ground, and we'll do a different report in the future, maybe. And, you know, that was the last we heard of it. I wonder what the reaction was from the Zelensky government. I wonder what was going on specifically behind the scenes now that we know some of these details. But this is the reason why all of the narratives that come out about this war follow the same very simplistic, very sort of Disney-fied

good versus evil script. It's because if you even dare step out of bounds enough to go to Crimea and talk to a few citizens on the ground and just relay what they say, you get hit, you get smacked, and you will never get that access again. Yeah. And speaking of Thomas Gibbons Knapp, he actually wrote a decent story, but I can clearly see the heavy hand of the editors. Let's go and put it up there on the screen. Headline,

Nazi symbols on Ukraine's front lines highlight authority issues of history. This, guys, we're not joking, is literally both-siding Nazism. They say the decision by some Ukrainian soldiers to wear patches with Nazi icons threatens to reinforce Russian propaganda used to justify the invasion. It could also give symbols mainstream life after the West's decades-long efforts to eliminate them. And effectively what they try and do here, Crystal, is say, yeah, there are battalions inside of Ukraine, which are basically far right Nazis and that venerate Nazi ideology. Now, let's be very clear so that this doesn't get clipped in some ridiculous context. Nobody is saying that Zelensky is a Nazi or that

the Ukrainian government are Nazis or that the vast majority of the Ukrainian military are Nazis. However, it is factually correct that there are some people who are neo-Nazis who are in the Ukrainian military, which is used as a pretext by Russia to invade Ukraine. That does not make it okay to invade Ukraine, but it is just simply a fact that these battalions exist inside of the Ukrainian government. And what they try to do in this story is basically say, yeah, it's true. There are a couple of militias and all of these, but it's complicated. You know, they're not technically real Nazis or, you know, actually it's justifying Russian propaganda. I mean, it's, it truly is stunning that it's stunning that they are trying to both side it and not, you know, it's like, if you're going to report on it, just tell the truth. There are battalions and militia members inside Ukraine attached to

Ukrainian military funded by the U S government who are Nazis. You can be okay with that or not. Many people are okay with that. But the problem is that many people don't even know about it. That's okay. So there's a lot of layers of issues with this article. Number one, the issue they point to with this isn't that U.S. taxpayers are funding some amount of Nazis in Ukraine. That's not their takeaway, which seems like a pretty obvious takeaway and something we should all be thinking about and concerned about, at least weighing into these decisions. Their takeaway is that the presence of these symbols might give Russia

a talking point. That's their concern. Okay, so that's number one. Number two, in terms of the both-sizing Nazism, I love this line here. Questions over how to interpret such symbols are as divisive as they are persistent, not just in Ukraine and the American South. Some have insisted that today the Confederate flag symbolizes pride, not its history of racism and secession. Let me just pause you there. Can you imagine The New York Times saying that about the Confederate flag in any other circumstance? Never. Then they go on to say, I love this, the swastika was an important Hindu symbol before it was co-opted by the Nazis. That's true. Now, do you think the Ukrainians that are wearing this in the Azov battalion are doing it out of respect for Hindu peace traditions?

Like, this is absurd. It's ridiculous. It turns out they love the Vedas. does yeah and by the way the the symbology that i'm no expert in like nazi symbology but what they're using here is like you know some insignia that was associated with like the worst of the nazis that were guarding concentration camps and stuff and they're trying to wave this away it's like well maybe it's about the hindu part of not of the swastika not the nazi parts like okay y'all they also go through a long you know diatribe about the history of the Nazi invasion of Ukraine. And this is factual that initially people viewed them as potential liberators because because they suffered under, you know, some of the totalitarianism in the Soviet Union. union. But then they had to go ahead and throw in a line, which is also true that they then helped the Nazis, some Ukrainians, and, you know, were also complicit in atrocities that were created there. It's like, what part of this justifies and makes it okay for you to be wearing Nazi imagery

at this point? What part of it separates you from that, you know, horrific tradition history? And so it's really quite an astonishing article to read. Like, they have to acknowledge the reality that this is happening in some significant level. But the layers of justification and cope that they go through to make it like yes, it's Nazism, but it's really not that bad. It's okay, is pretty incredible. You know, some Americans just have the most naive view of history. This is my immigrant speaking, because it's just like they really believe

that history began in like 1991 or whatever, whenever Ukraine became a country, as you just pointed to. Yeah, guess what? And look, I mean, you can somewhat understand it. You know why they supported the Nazis when they invaded? Because they hated Stalin and they literally had a famine.

It was terrible. So I'm like, yeah, intellectually, I can get that. Also, it's not like they loved them the entire time. Basically, after the Nazis started hanging them, then they started fighting back against everybody and they wanted independence, which is, you know, okay, a noble, I guess, idea. But also, yeah, look, there's a deep history of anti-Semitism

and of anti-Jewish sentiment in the region, well-predating Nazism. Many American Jews whose families came here came in the early 1900s after horrific pogroms, specifically in Ukraine and in that region. I know many actually families who are descendants of that time.

None of it is to denigrate the Ukrainian regime or say that they currently hold those ideas, only to say history is complicated. These areas of the world are not, you know, it's not America, not the whole world is America. And most people in this country are frankly so terribly traveled, badly read, or just have naive ideas that they have no idea how the they have no idea how the old world really does conduct itself and thinks in terms of generations and not just in terms of whatever, what happened last week. It's a very American idea, to be honest. Well, it's also like, okay, so in the beginning,

when you're starving because of Stalin, you can understand, all can understand greeting the Nazis as liberators, but you are no longer starving under the thumb of Stalin. Now you have the benefit of history to know what a horror and an atrocity this was. So I don't know that that original view of what was going on there really justifies the continued embrace of Nazi symbols and ideology. So yeah, again, I cannot imagine New York Times writing many of these phrases in any other context and trying to both sides Nazism or trying to say, you know, Confederate flag, like it's complicated, we get it. So it was it was pretty wild to see. And then that the takeaway't, hey, guys, maybe we should consider the fact that we are arming some number of Nazis. Again, not everybody, not the Linsky, not even the majority, not the overwhelming, nothing like that.

But some number of Nazis we are arming. That's not the takeaway from the article. Pretty incredible. Absolutely. Well said. So let's get to what is going on with 2024. We'll start with Donald Trump here. So we've got some new revelations from CNN reportedly about what is causing a lot of skepticism and making it more likely that he is going to be indicted with regard to the classified document

situation. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is pretty wild. So apparently, as part of the investigation process, the Department of Justice had originally subpoenaed some surveillance footage, and that was turned over. And then in October, they asked for additional surveillance footage. Well, right at that similar time in October, just so happened, the Mar-a-Lago pool was drained. It caused a flood into the room where the surveillance footage happened to be kept, and they were then unable to turn over that amount of surveillance footage, again, according to the CNN report. Furthermore, the maintenance worker who was charged with draining the pool that ultimately causes the flood is the same person who is seen

in other videos moving some of the boxes around at the time period where they're also being asked to turn over documents, and they see on the surveillance cameras that boxes are sort of suspiciously being moved around. Furthermore, they also have apparently thought or received, heard some testimony that the relevant IT equipment was not even actually damaged in the flood. So they don't come out and say this, but basically the allegation is they use this flood to pretend like they damaged surveillance footage so they wouldn't have to turn it over to the Justice Department. And it's part of an alleged cover up in this case. So the details here are pretty wild. I mean, it's like something out of a movie. Again, this is allegations, it's not confirmed, but gives you some context and some background of why they

might be moving swiftly here towards an indictment. Yeah, I mean, I also know that the special counsel, Jack Smith, actually met yesterday with Trump's attorneys about nearing the decision to possibly go ahead and charge him. So, I mean, I think it's one of those where we genuinely have no idea how this is going to play out just because you have the political aspect of play. You, of course, have President Biden, who literally got caught also with the classified documents at his residence. Then you also have the added wrinkle, I guess, of Trump, the charges they're zeroing in are not possession but of obstruction.

Then they have to prove the obstruction in terms of his legal team violating the confidentiality with his lawyers and now with the surveillance. They say that they have now, I also heard reporting about a tape, you know, in which Trump acknowledged that he had classified documents in his possession while he was doing a book interview sometime in 2021 with Mark Meadows. This is about Iran. So anyway, I am one of those where this smells so much like Mueller to me. But also, look, on the merits, you know, in terms of the leaks that are coming out, oh, they met with this and they oh, the special counsel is zeroing in on this.

But, you know, every lawyer and legal expert that we have spoken to, Crystal, just says, look, on the merits, the obstruction charge, you know, this is a disaster for him just because it's one of those where it's really as long as they have like a decent amount of evidence to bring a charging document against him or charging case against him on this, then on, you know, all they have to prove that all they have to prove to the jury is he took an effort to try and obstruct the government from obtaining these documents of which, you know, if they have a tape and they can prevent circumstantial evidence on this, then, you know, on its merits, this may not be that difficult to prove to the jury. The only thing that really would save him is the political consideration about charging a former president. But also you can see this and say that, well, a former president, you know, he was charged in New York. And it's not like it all changed really things all that much politically.

In fact, it only helped Trump. This one might be different because of the Biden administration. Of course, I'm not downplaying it. It's still extraordinary whenever it does happen. But just that maybe that influenced our calculus, really don't know. Yeah. So if the emerging reports are accurate, you have the tape you're referring to, which would undercut his defense that basically, well, I declassified all these documents when I was president, so I can do whatever I want with them. Allegedly in this tape, he seems to indicate like, hey, I got these classified documents and I didn't declassify them.

So it undercuts that defense of these were all declassified. You also have a complicating factor there, too, which is that the document that he's referring to in that tape, apparently they have been unable to find and it was very sensitive with regard to a potential attack on Iran. So there's that. Then in terms of potential obstruction and a cover up, you've got this wild story about the pool draining situation flooding the room, you know, maybe it really was an accident, maybe it wasn't an accident. But when we add that to the footage they have of guys moving boxes around and potentially even Trump himself attorneys did meet with the special counsel at the Justice Department on Monday. This was seen as very significant because also the grand jury that had been

impaneled, they had not been meeting for a month. Now they are starting to meet again this week. There is some speculation. I have no idea whether this is founded or not, that potentially that means they're wrapping things up. And the fact that Trump's lawyers are meeting with the Department of Justice is another indication that they are coming close to an indictment. You also have Trump. Remember before he was indicted in the other case in New York, he started raging on Truth Social and talking about like, I'm going to be indicted imminently, et cetera.

He sort of started to do that again with regard to this case and saying how unfair it is that he would be indicted and not Biden or not other presidents, et cetera. So I also take that as another potential sign that you could be getting close to an indictment here. Now, in terms of the politics of all of this, with regard to the Republican primary, I hate to say it, I think it's only good for Trump. You've had a little bit of a media moment now with Ron DeSantis launching. You've got a bunch of other presidential contenders launching this week, where there's been some focus that's not just on Donald Trump in terms of the Republican primary. The minute that you get back into another indictment and all the details

and whatever comes down, whatever that process is going to be, then all eyes and all media focus is right back on Donald Trump. And in terms of a Republican primary electorate, that is only to his benefit. Yep. I absolutely agree with you, Crystal. So at the same time, we have a new contender in the 2024 race, not a Democrat or Republican, Dr. Cornel West, progressive activist, someone who was a surrogate for Bernie Sanders, someone who I personally deeply respect and admire, who we've interviewed before, I think, multiple times. He has announced he is running for president as a People's Party candidate. Let's take a listen to a little bit of his announcement video.

In these bleak times, I have decided to run for truth and justice, which takes the form of running for president of the United States as a candidate for the People's Party. I enter in the quest for truth. I enter in the quest for justice. And the presidency is just one vehicle to pursue that truth and justice, what I've been trying to do all of my life. I come from a tradition where I care about you. I care about the quality of your life. I care about whether you have access to a job with a living wage, decent housing, women having control over their bodies, health care for all. De-escalating the destruction of the planet,

the destruction of American democracy. Democracy creates disruption. It creates an eruption. It creates an interruption. Wide from below, the energies of everyday people is manifest. And I know there are precious people in your life who you care for. That's why it's important for you to be involved,

important for you to participate. We're not talking about hating anybody. We're talking about loving. We're talking about affirming. We're talking about empowering those who have been pushed to the margins because neither political party wants to tell the truth about Wall Street, about Ukraine, about the Pentagon, about big tech. Neo-fascists like Brother Trump or milquetoast neoliberals like Brother Biden.

Wow. I'm so happy to make a world-shaking decision. You know what I mean? I know gangsters when I see them. And gangster's not a subjective expression. It's an objective condition. Do we have what it takes?

We shall see. But some of us are going to go down fighting, go down swinging with style and a smile, accenting the

best in you and trying to tease out the best in me. Let's do it together. Wow. I think it's a great video. Yeah. And Dr. West, I mean, he's an incredible force in American public life.

Someone I deeply admire and respect, a brave truth teller. I don't think anyone could take that away from him. And I just love his energy. He is always broad of reaching out to people who may disagree with him, but never, never compromising his running in this way with the People's Party is just confusing to me. You know, if you're going to run third party, the Green Party has ballot access in almost every state. They obviously were able to have an impact and gain more traction in 2016 when Dr. Jill Stein ran. The People's Party, from what is publicly available, only has ballot access in three states. They've been around since roughly 2016-ish. They've never been able to elect a president. So effectively, you're signing up for what is really like a write-in campaign. I also have questions about how much success you're able to garner as a third-party candidate, just given the structure of American politics, the fact we have first-past-the-post voting, the fact we don't have ranked-choice voting.

So I'm sort of confused about what the thinking is tactically here, because if you were going to go the third-party route, there seemed to be other vehicles. And also, frankly, you know, leftists sort of tried the let's-have-an-impact-you're-a-third-party-run thing in 2016. So you kind of know with a third party, like you're not going to win just because of the overall structure of American politics. But if your theory of change is, all right, this is going to put pressure on Biden and the Democrats to move more left and represent more of our values. Well, that was tried in 2016.

And rather than putting pressure on them to move left, what it actually caused them to do was to further smear and dismiss leftists and anyone who ever said even a single kind word about Dr. Jill Stein, to redouble their efforts to crush any sort of leftist insurgencies, to smear everyone as like, you know, Putin's puppets and fascist sympathizers, etc. And just as a tactic, it wasn't successful. So that's sort of my take. I love Dr. West doesn't take anything away from my respect for him. But as a tactic, I'm quite confused by it. It could be just wants media attention. He wants to try and move the race, you know, in that way, in that way. I mean, listen, maybe it's it could also

be a way in order to garner funding for the People's Party in order to get them on more ballot access to try and get the initiatives in order to set them up for future success. That's I think that's one way to look at it. I mean, I think that really, yeah, in fact, that's probably the most likely scenario, which is a given he's such a well-respected figure and is well-known media wise, gaining enough attention both in the media forced to cover his run, but also to gain enough money and volunteers, then they could go out and to try and get more ballot access so that they could become maybe the next green party in the future. You know, overall, I mean, look, I think people often confuse, you know, political reality for,

for like a judgment,. Like I have no issues with third parties. It's always more. I just come down to like, is this a real effort that's actually going to work? And that is why, right. I mean, honestly, that's why I respect what RFK jr and Marianne are doing because they're running as Democrats. And especially with RFK, I mean, RFK jr is basically running, you know, on the same policy platform as people who were green for decades. But he, I think, correctly intuited that if I run as a Democrat, that this forces a genuine contrast with Biden. Marianne doing the exact same thing as well, even though they both easily could be third party candidates. It almost gives them I don't want to say a legitimacy, but it gives them a more contestable ground. Also, um, you know, same, same with, um, many other, even look,

I don't think Liz Cheney could ever win, but there's a reason she's not running third party. She's like, no, I'm a Republican because she wants to try and quote, take back the Republican party. Again, I don't agree with her. I don't think she will be successful. But working within the same construct gives like a gives a ground to contest on which the opponent has to fight. Whereas unfortunately, in our current system, they're able to just write you off, which is what most people are going to do, you know, with this, which I don't think is right. You know, if he had run as a Democrat, but you know, here's the other thing, maybe he just doesn't believe in the Democratic Party. Nothing wrong with that. You's okay for him to not.

Yeah. Absolutely. That's fine. And I do think there are potential 2016 levels of third party support level of interest within the American electorate. You have a huge number of Americans who are disgusted with the idea that they're going to have to pick again between Biden and Trump sentiment that I deeply relate to, right? So there, it's not like there's not an opening for people for a third party candidate to get some chunk of the vote. Is that going to be a winning percentage? No, it's not going to be just simply because of the structure of American politics. And we've seen the way that this is played out. I mean, Bernie Sanders, there were problems with this out. I mean, Bernie Sanders, there were problems with this campaign. He was, you know, it was rigged against him. He wasn't able to get across the finish line. He came out of a lot closer than Jill Stein did, for example.

So, you know, in terms of if you actually want to win the state of American politics, the structure of the system is such that you have to compete in one of the two main parties. If you want to push Biden to the left, if that's your goal, I think we have sort of run the playbook and run the experiment before. And there's been more success, not that this worked out amazingly, but there's been more success pressuring him within the context of a Democratic primary, where, for example, Joe Biden did not want to cancel any student loan debt. Right. Very clear. He would not have taken a position on that. He wouldn't have felt pressure to do any student loan debt, right? Very clear. He would not have taken a position on that.

He wouldn't have felt pressure to do any of it in his administration had he not been on a stage with candidates like Bernie Sanders that were pushing the issue and forced him to have to take that stand. And then, you know, once he's in office, he's sort of shamed into sticking with the very clear commitments that he made. So if your goal is not to win, but to push him left, I think we've also seen more effective tactics. And then I also have to say, like, I'm not trying to be mean here, but the People's Party

has been in shambles. It's been in disarray. It's been rife with controversy. Their board members have been resigning left and right. There's allegations of sexual harassment and self-feeling and all the rest of it. So it's just, again, it's hard for me to understand what the goal is or what the tactics are. And that's, it's disappointing to me because I do have so much respect for Dr. West. I would love for him to have a huge impact on American political discourse and, you know, the direction of the country, because I do think he's such a powerful voice. And it's hard for me to see how this maximizes his chances to have the greatest impact on American political life. Maybe he'll turn it around. Who knows?

You know, it'd be it'd be never know. You never know. Yeah. OK, let's go. I'm cheering for him always. Of course. All right. Let's go to the next part here.

UFOs. I've been dying to get into this one ever since the story came out yesterday. I want to really spend some time and go through this thing to help people understand. So guys, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. I'm going to break down, I think, the most relevant and the most important parts. The headline here is the intelligence officials say that the U.S. has retrieved craft of non-human origin. Now, first of all, that is a massive headline. But I also want to draw everyone's attention to the byline here, Leslie Keen and Ralph Blumenthal.

Now, for those who are not as initiated as I am, one of the reasons why these two journalists are absolutely unimpeachable on this topic is that they were the ones who brought the world the 2017 New York Times article that actually revealed the existence of the UFO program inside of the Pentagon. And of course, gave us those videos, which are now, you know, so many Americans have seen the GoFast video, the Tic Tac video and others. And they really opened up the space for respectability and acknowledgement by Pentagon officials and others that this is a real phenomenon. And really, they ignited the congressional interest enough to try and get some information about the program.

Okay, so that's kind of the starting point, the headline, and also who these reporters are. And let's get into the content. So here is what they are saying, is that a former US intelligence official who is now turned whistleblower under the official whistleblower process is giving Congress and the intelligence community, Inspector General, extensive classified information about deeply covert programs that he says possesses retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin. This information, he says, has been illegally withheld from Congress, and he has now filed a complaint through the program alleging that he suffered illegal retaliation for the confidential disclosures reported here in the debrief. This whistleblower, David Grosh, 36 years old, a decorated former combat officer in Afghanistan.

He's a veteran of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office. He apparently was one of the people who would help compile the presidential daily brief. As I understand it, he was given over seven hours of interviews to Newsmax, which are airing recently about the documentary that has been working with some great UFO researchers who have been long in this topic. And I want to- Was it Newsmax or Newsnation? Sorry, Newsnation. I apologize. Newsnation. There's too many startup cable things out there. Here is what is very important. David Grush says that the recoveries of partial fragments of craft

through and up to fully intact vehicles have been made for decades through the present day by the government, its allies, and defense contractors. Furthermore, he has told Congress in sworn testimony of the existence of decades-long, quote, publicly unknown Cold War for recovered and exploited physical material, competition with near-peer adversary over years to identify UFO crashes and landings and retrieve the material for exploitation and reverse engineering to garner asymmetric national defense advantages. Here's the other thing I think everyone needs to understand.

David Grush not only is a patriot, not only is somebody who was tasked actually with assignment to the UFO program to go into discover all of these secret programs, which he then says were illegally withheld from Congress, which is why he's coming out. That's how he got his hands really on some of these files and became known to the existence of these secret compartmentalized,

highly secret black programs as they are known. But Crystal, he is testifying to all of this under oath. He has signed under penalty of perjury that he is telling the truth, not only to Congress, but to all of us through this official whistleblower process. And he has felt so strongly about bringing this information to light that he has actually left the government simply so he can bring all of the US public this information. Not only that, not only that, but what I think people really need to understand is that not only is this being done through the official whistleblower process, but that the actual inspector general, the intelligence inspector general to whom he

submitted his complaint in July of 2022, found his complaint, quote, credible and urgent in an official U.S. government document. So this is not a crank. This is somebody who was attached to the program, had knowledge of the program. He was actually tasked with going and discovering all these secret compartmentalized ones, delivering the reports to his authorities, who would then go and give them to Congress. He's coming forward because he says that they have been illegally withheld, the existence of these programs, actually from Congress. He submitted these documents through the internal process. The inspector general of the US intelligence

community itself finds David Grush both credible and urgent. And I mean, the allegation here is the most stunning allegation of all, the existence of Kraft and the possession of the United States government, of other foreign governments, of Kraft and parts of Kraft, of non-human origin. I listened to a breakdown of seven hours of the interviews that he gave. Apparently, he's also referred to, quote, in the plurality, non-human intelligences, non-human intelligences in terms of the types of craft that are within the possession of the government. And finally, the last thing I'll say before I shut up and get your reaction is this implicates massive crimes across the US government.

First and foremost, the current head of the UFO task force just told Congress there is no existence of craft or program that we know of. This says that he's a liar. He actually perjured himself before Congress. Second, and then the second, which is so important also to understand, is Rush is saying that there has been a decades-long crime and also even collusion between the U.S. government and aerospace defense companies outside of normal processes to cover this up from the U.S. public, from presidents, from Congress, and now basically for years and years. And from what I understand, he's alleging crimes of such tremendous weight that many of the people,

if they're even still alive or if this ever does fully come to light, they would go to jail if the actual accountability happens in this process. So, I mean, look, in some ways, it's the most important story in the world. Like, this guy's one of the most credible people probably in the UFO world to come forward since David Fravor in the 2017 article and is literally saying that the government has the possession of alien or non-human spacecraft.

It's incredible. It's absolutely stunning. And just to underscore what you're saying, keep in mind, this man is risking his freedom and potentially his life in order to come forward and make these claims through official whistleblower processes. So it is a stunning revelation. Let me play the skeptic here for a moment, Sagar. Sure. So what he's alleging is that there was not only a whole of government within the United States cover-up, but there was a global cover-up, that there were multiple countries that were competing to obtain these crafts because of obviously the scientific discovery and military defense advances that you can make from reverse engineering this type of alien technology. Is it far-fetched to believe that everybody over all of these many decades kept their mouth shut and that this information never became public previously? Listen, I mean, that's

what everybody always says, and I think it's a fair point, but then JFK clearly was killed by somebody. We still don't know who it was, or at least officially. It's been decades, right? You would think it's one of the biggest stories in the world, and yet the official narrative is not out there, only questions. Or let's think about some other big ones. I mean, the JFK assassination that we had, even with the UFOs, I mean, Roswell, the government has already admitted that they lied on Roswell, and that was 1947. And yet we still don't know the truth about what happened there. So I think what is, oh, Charlie Manson is another one that we can think of. The Manson murders, if you read the book Chaos by Tom O'Neill, it is very obvious that this

is a CIA, US government operation gone terribly terribly wrong in which they effectively created Manson, may have even been connected to Jack Ruby. Well, Tom O'Neill, decades after the crime, is still unable to get these guys to talk, and he comes as close as he possibly can to proving that the official story was complete BS. So on the one hand, common sense would say, yeah, you're probably right. But we have enough proven examples to show that if you keep the circle small enough and if you really work the system, that you can keep enough questions out of the public consciousness

to make the propaganda flourish. And here's another, such an important part of this story, Crystal. They brought, Leslie Keen and Ralph Blumenthal brought the story to The New York Times, to Politico, to The Hill, to The Washington Post. Every single one of them passed on it. And look, read the story. It's rock solid as a story as it is unimpeachable. The only reason that the mainstream media and others wouldn't do this is because somebody in the Pentagon threatened to retaliate is they threatened

to say, we're going to go either. Like you put, if you run this, we're going to, you're going to burn some of your sources. I mean, they are trying to relegate this to the fringes of the internet, you know, you know, crackpots like me and others, um, to the ones who are talking about it because they don't want it to enter the public consciousness. There is no question that this is a credible allegation. And yet I have not seen a single, single mainstream journalists take this up. And by the way, I've talked to her previously. I was a former Pentagon correspondent. I've sent this to multiple former Pentagon correspondents, current Pentagon correspondents. I said, please, please ask them about this. I'm already looking into ways that maybe I can try and get some answers as well. I'm trying my best, but I'm not within the system as much as I was at some point. Until people start pushing not only the

representatives, but also the press for answers, they're going to try and squash this as much as they can. Because on its face, we have a credible allegation here that the current head of the UFO program lied to Congress. No ifs, ands, or buts. and all of the documenting evidence about how credible this man is, about you have former U.F. Army colonels and others from the intel community coming out openly saying that he is unimpeachable, that you can absolutely take him to bank. You know, everything he's been saying, he's been vetted for over 15 months by these journalists and others who were involved with this. So just wow. I mean, wow. It really, like I said, if it's true, it's the biggest story in the world.

I mean, it just seems so wild that it's hard to wrap your head around. I mean, just to be candid. What do you think happens next, Sagar? Like, what's the next part in the process? And did he decide to come forward now because it seemed like he may have some actual allies in Congress? It's certainly possible. That's something, actually, we can speak with our next guest, Ryan Graves, several other members of Congress who

are, they've had enough. They've had enough of the lies from the intelligence community, and they want to hear the truth. And this could give them the ability to get to it. Now, personally, I do not underestimate the CIA, the US government, or these black programs. They didn't keep stuff secret for 75 years by no accident. And so we're still, this is only the beginning. I think it could be a tipping point. It really could, um, into disclosures and exposure of the future. But I don't think that, uh, I don't think that things are going to necessarily change overnight. There's still a lot of work that has to be done. Not going to be an easy road. No. All right. We've got a great guest standing by Ryan Graves,

as I mentioned, let's get to it. Joining us now is Ryan Graves. He's the executive director and founder of Americans for Safe Aerospace, friend of the show. And he's got a great podcast. He's also a former pilot as well who's given us some interesting revelations around the UFO phenomenon. Ryan, it's great to have you back on the show. Thanks for joining us. I'm happy to be here.

Thank you. Ryan, first and foremost, we just did a whole segment here on the show about the latest revelations about the whistleblower who has come forward and says the U.S. government is in possession of intact craft of non-human origin. I just want to get your reaction to that as somebody who's personally had experiences with the phenomenon. Yeah, I know how hard it is firsthand coming forward and talking about this publicly, both the professional and personal risk that it can entail. So I applaud David for coming forward and the courage that he's demonstrated. These are the exact type of people that Congress was hoping would be able to step forward once they pass their legislation that

would enable the whistleblower protections. Yeah. And Ryan, you're one of those people who was courageous in coming forward. Could you just describe why it is so difficult for people like you, the pushback that you receive internally to coming out and telling Americans the truth? Well, I think we're all familiar with it to some degree, that stigma that comes with this topic. And once you really commit yourself to looking into this and investigating it, of course, there are potential professional or personal ramifications from that. I haven't personally seen those. It's been a positive experience for me, but traditionally that has been the experience. Now that we have protections in Congress, and now that this has been matured as a conversation within media,

I expect to see more and more people step forward in the near future. Yeah. Well, and so Ryan, this kind of fits with what you're here to talk about today, which is very serendipitous. We had booked you long before about the Americans for Safe Aerospace. What are you trying to do through your experience and through this new organization? Exactly. So Americans for Safe Aerospace was founded to help support people just like David and other aerospace workers that are impacted by this. Primarily, we're focusing on building a safe place for pilots and other aerospace workers to be able to share their experiences, to talk about this.

We're going to leverage those experiences to be able to provide general education to the public, but also to Congress as well. We want to destigmatize this conversation. We want to lead with the credible voices that have come forward. And we've put together a great advisory board that we're going to be able to use to recommend policy, legislation, and advance the growing caucus of UAP support within Congress. See, this is why I think it's very important is you were focusing specifically also what David has been trying to do is get Congress to do its job. Can you explain, this is something I've been trying to do as well, the role that Congress and why it really is one of the only organizations here that can, you know, destigmatize, declassify, and make transparent what has been happening within the

government? Why can't just a normal person or, you know, why can't the press necessarily get its hands on what it needs to here? Well, certainly Congress, you know, has the ability, has the oversight ability on certain branches. And within the Department of Defense, that's no different. They have a mandate not only to represent us as our representatives, but also to perform those oversight roles. And what we're seeing now through the National Defense Authorization Act of 2023, and potentially with future legislation in 2024, we're going to see continued oversight of these programs. And that's really at the core of what is potentially the wrongdoing here is that these programs have been withheld, although they were utilizing public funds in order to execute, they were not being

properly reported to Congress and thus our representatives. And so we were essentially cut out of that conversation. Yeah. And so, Ryan, I mean, here's what I really want you to be able to speak to is through the organization and the general public, what power do we have, the listeners of the show, the general public, what role can we play in helping you and helping David and helping so many others trying to get information out back to all of us? Because really, the government's supposed to belong to us.

One of the best things you can do right now is to join us at safeaerospace.org. The more members we have, we're going to be able to take members we have we're going to be able to take that message and we're going to be able to to speak to that on capitol hill and show that your constituents care about this this is a winner this is an issue that uh people care about and they're going to take that message and they're going to be able to continue to apply that pressure continue to apply that oversight with the support of their voters and that's what we want to

make clear we want to bridge that gap to show that support exists. So by just the general public joining, raising your hand and saying you care about this topic, that's where you can start. Excellent. Well, we'll have a link to that in the description. We appreciate so much the work that you are doing here. It's always an honor to talk to you. You're welcome back on the show anytime to talk about this issue. And if you ever need help in Washington, D.C., I'm here. It's always an honor to talk to you. You're welcome back on the show anytime to talk about this issue. And if you ever need help in Washington, DC, I'm here. I'm ready, willing, and able to appear with you. Let's do it. All right, man. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. My pleasure. So the SEC has filed 13 new charges against Binance, the largest crypto trading exchange platform in the entire world. This comes on top of charges that had been filed against them with the CFTC. So let's go and break

down what we've got here. This is from the SEC announcement. They say they filed 13 charges against Binance entities and the founder here, Shengpeng Zhao, who is known as BZ. Charges include operating unregistered exchanges, broker dealers, and clearing agencies, misrepresenting trading controls and oversight on the Binance.us platform, and the unregistered offer and sale of securities. I'm going to read a little bit more of this, but just as background, recall that Binance has been presenting themselves as they don't have any U.S. customers. They don't appeal to U.S. customers. They did not want to have to deal with the U.S. regulatory regime. They have gone through, and CZ specifically has gone through great lengths to make it so that

the company is really like headquartered nowhere so that they can be subject to the laws of effectively no jurisdiction. And so what the U.S. is saying here in part is we see through your game. Clearly, you are offering securities. You're violating a whole host of our laws. And it's very clear cut that you are doing this and you have knowledge of the way that you are violating our own laws. So let me read you a little bit about some of the charges here, Sagar. They say through 13 charges, we allege that CZ and Binance entities engage in an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure and calculated evasion of the law.

This is per SEC Chair Gary Gensler. As alleged, CZ and Binance misled investors about their risk controls and corrupted trading volumes while actively concealing who was actually operating the platform, the manipulative trading of its affiliated market maker, and even where and with whom investor funds and crypto assets were custody. They attempted to evade U.S. securities laws by announcing sham controls that they disregarded behind the scenes so they could keep high- US customers on their platforms. The public should beware of investing any of their hard-earned assets with or on these unlawful platforms. They go on to say, we allege that CZ and the

Binance entities not only knew the rules of the road, they also consciously chose to evade them and put their customers and investors at risk, all in an effort to maximize their own profit. And just to give you a sense of how brazen this was, some of the messages that were exchanged among Binance executives make it pretty clear that they knew they were violating the law and they brazenly did it anyway. Go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen from Matt Stoller. So Binance's chief compliance officer in 2018 said, and I quote, we are operating as an effing unlicensed securities exchange in the USA, bro. So pretty hard to deny that they knew what they were doing, that they knew it was illegal, and that they, you know, this has been coming for a while. But some of the extent of the charges

here, Sagar, are still stunning because it's not just them operating as an effing unlicensed security exchange in the USA, but also lying to investors, also pretending that they had these controls in place that they didn't really have. And this fits with some of what was revealed in the previous set of charges where they were going so far as to, while they're pretending that they don't have US customers on their exchange, they were coaching US citizens on how they could evade detection as being US citizens so that they could continue doing business on the platform. So I mean, it all appears to be incredibly brazen. That's the real disaster for them, because they specifically say, and this is the US tie-in, that they were working to subvert their own internal controls to allow high net worth Americans and customers to continue to trade

on their unregulated international exchange. Their compliance officer has that famous quote where they're saying they're working the unlicensed securities exchange in the US and that they saw their Binance US as a shield to reveal, retard, and resolve law enforcement targets and to insulate Binance itself. So some of the internal representations of the company are really coming back to bite them. And it really is a real issue because they show that between June of 2018 and July of 2021, they earned $11 billion in revenue, almost all of which came from transaction fees. They say that since its inception, the exchange at first overtly and later furtively worked to entice U.S. customers at the explicit direction of the CEO. And they also say that Zhao himself

is the one who ordered the creation of the program to try and help some of these high net worth investors come onto the platform. Now, the real issue why all of this matters is because it is in conjunction with the CFTC also filing similar charges against Binance, saying that they had failed to prevent US customers from accessing it. And this can cause a whole host of issues for the company through the banking system. Because the thing is, is that, of know, of course, you know, Bitcoin and all of that operates outside of control. But if you want to ever try and convert any of this to cash, you're going to have to touch the banking system. And at least in our current world,

the United States has an immense amount of reach through the Treasury Department and through its sanctions regime and through its ability to go after any banking institution in the world that does business with any U.S. institution can try and ban Binance and its financial assets. So at the very least, they are facing a very serious issue here with the lawsuit. And really, any of their investors and others could create a world where many of them could never touch U.S. jurisdiction again, which is insane, right, to think about. Yeah, oh, absolutely. And Binance is vastly larger than FTX, Sandbagman Breed's outfit ever was.

It's not even close. There are a lot of similarities here in terms of allegations of self-dealing. I mean, most clear cut, the similarity is the fact that you have this one dude who is controlling everything, even as he's pretending pieces of it are independent and has nothing to do with it. in this extraordinarily lawless manner, like overtly and intentionally lawless, trying to make sure that the company is not even headquartered anywhere and that the legal structure is so opaque that they think that will protect them from having to face any sort of accountability or being held liable or having any sort of legal regime apply to them. So you know, lawless, chaotic, one man band kind of a situation. Now, there are some differences with Binance. You don't have the affiliated, you know, fund the way that you did with FTX and Alameda.

But there are some sort of, you know, commonalities here. And it's also interesting. The two, SBF and CZ, were also really rivals. CZ is the one who sort of pushed SPF over the ledge at the very end here. And now his time in the barrel, I guess, has arrived. So in terms of the impact on the crypto world, I mean, I think it's hard to underestimate how massive this is, just given how large this platform was and how integral it was to any sort of crypto transactions here or around the world. Yeah, it's a huge problem. It also has put Coinbase at risk.

From what I have read, it was something called a Wells notice from the SEC. They're trying to make sure that they are able to stay away from it. But overall, almost all of the reporting that I've been able to look into and financial analysts as well is that the remedy that they could ever come to in this would be a huge hit to Binance because it would forbid Binance from any offering of trading services, as I said, in the United States. And it would make difficult to do business in the U.S. with really anyone unless it was then registered with the SEC and followed securities rules, which of course would be a huge problem for them. And that's the

reason why they were chasing investors and traders here in the United States because of the size of our market. So overall, it's a major, major problem. And it also reveals the Wild West nature of what was going on behind the scenes in some of these places. And also why post-crash, you know, many of them are not in the same capitalized position to be operating or throwing around the kind of money that they were not just that long ago. And then you're really, you know, you're really, you know, revealing what's going on behind

the curtains in the middle of the downturn right now. The last thing I'll say about this is that there was a lot of debate after the downfall of SBF about whether we needed new laws in place to deal with crypto. And, you know, it's sort of like unique challenges. I think that's still an open question. But cases like this seem to indicate you actually have sufficient laws on the books. You just have to actually do the investigation. You have to enforce them. That's been more or less the position of SEC Chair Gary Gensler. You also recall Sam Beckman Freed was doing a lot of lobbying to make sure that crypto didn't fall under the jurisdiction of the SEC because they felt like there would be stricter scrutiny, that they had more resources to actually go after them for the lawbreaking that they were engaged in. So there was an explicit effort by him and others to make sure it wasn't under the jurisdiction

of the SEC. And Gary Gensler has been pretty forceful in the last year or so in trying to bring the hammer down and trying to take control over this space and make the SEC the preeminent agency in terms of regulating crypto. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. All right. So we also wanted to bring in there's an interesting, I would say, exchange between Senator Tim Scott, who, of course, is a black senator from South Carolina who is now running for president of the United States on the Republican side. And Sonny Hostin and the other ladies of the view, but it was mostly Sonny. It was Sonny. Versus on the issue of structural racism. We're going to play the whole thing so you can get,

you know, the flavor of the entire exchange. Take a listen. You have indicated that you don't believe in systemic racism. What is your definition of systemic racism? Let me answer the question that you've answered. Or does it even exist in your mind? Let me answer the question this way. One of the things I think about, and one of the reasons why I'm on the show is because of the comments that were made, frankly, on this show, that the only way for a young African-American kid to be successful in this country is to be the exception and not the rule. That is a dangerous, offensive, disgusting message to send to our young people

today, that the only way to succeed is by being the exception. I will tell you that if my life is the exception, I can't imagine. But it is. But it's not actually. Here's the thing. It's been 114 years. So the fact of the matter is we've had an African American president, African American vice president. We've had two African Americans to be secretaries of state. In my home city, the police chief is an African American who's now running for mayor. The head of the Highway Patrol for South Carolina is an African-American. In 1975, there was about 15% employment in the African-American community for the first time in the history of the country. It's under 5%.

40% homelessness of African-Americans gets 13% of the population. I have to ask the question. I've watched you on the show that you like people to be deferential and respectful, so I'm going to do the same thing. That is true. So here's what I'm going to suggest. I'm going to suggest the fact of the matter is that progress in America is palpable. It can be measured in generations.

I look back at the fact that my grandfather, born in 1921 in Sallie, South Carolina, when he was on a sidewalk, a white person was coming, he had to step off and not make eye contact. That man believed then, with some doubt now, in the goodness of America because he believed that having faith in God, faith in himself,

and faith in what the future could hold for his kids would unleash opportunities in ways that you cannot imagine. Every kid today can look, just change the stations and see how much progress has been made in this country. ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN, CNN, Fox News all have African American and Hispanic hosts. So what I'm suggesting is that yesterday's exception is today's rule. And for us to suggest- So America has met its promise. No, of course, the concept of America is that we are going to become a more perfect union. But in fact, the challenges that we faced 50 years ago and 60 years ago should not be the same challenges that we face today. And here's the way that you measured that. When my mother

was born, about 10% of African-Americans got a high school degree diploma. Today is over 90%. When you look at the income, when you look at the income success that we've had. That's an HBCU stat. Well, listen, HBCU stat is a good one because one of the reasons why I took the funding for HBCUs to the highest level in the history of the country, and then I helped make it permanent, is because I believe that education is the closest thing to magic in America. So I'm about making sure that our kids have as many opportunities to succeed as possible. It's one of the reasons why. I need an opportunity to succeed because I have to go to, they're begging, they're begging. I'm just getting started. I think all people

can see the success that I've had. We'll be right back. Okay. I'm sorry. Wow. Certainly a fun exchange. Yeah. So there's a lot to say about this. I mean, first of all, I think Senator Scott's point about, you know, to the extent there are people out there that deny that there's been any progress made. Like that's obviously a ridiculous position. But the thing that frustrates me about this conversation between, you know, a black conservative and a sort of classic neoliberal is that their metric of uh that the metric they're using here is like how many diverse spaces make it into the elite class i thought the same thing definitionally i mean he's correct like he's actually completely wrong about obviously he is an exception right obviously sunny is an exception obviously everybody on the view is an exception. Obviously, everybody on The View is an exception. But the problem is that to make it into the elite class, to have a chance at real success in America where you don't feel precarious or you don't feel like you're going to fall over the edge at every second, not only for Black Americans, but disproportionately for Black Americans, for everyone, you have to be an exception at this point.

And that's the real problem that they should be grappling with versus having this debate about like, how many Black people are on CNN? There was a Black president of the United States. Like, how many diverse faces have ascended the elite? Well, what about lifting everybody up? What about making sure

that we have floor underneath everybody? What about making sure that we have actual pathways to success that are not limited to this tiny slice of America and everybody else left behind? So that was the part that I found really frustrating. It's funny. Yeah, I'm the same view. I was like, man, this is such a stupid metric of progress.

It's like, you know, and if anything, it's actually identity politics really on both. And by the way, look, I find the story inspirational. I think it's great. That's the story I believe in as well. Um, however, and what I see, if these ladies were smart and they actually had brains, what they would do is be like, well, why do you vote against policies? Why? Because here's the thing with, with Tim Scott, especially Scott is especially of the Reaganite school of economics, which believes in the power of individualism and also goes very much against social safety net programs and others. Now, listen, I have complicated views on many of those subjects, but I'm not ideologically opposed to trying to help vast swaths of

Americans come and come out of, uh, come out of poverty. Whereas Scott explicitly takes an economic libertarian view of this, which you could then say, well, how are you then trying to realize and help not only black Americans, but all Americans achieve the American dream. So actually the metric he's using is one of which is identity politics, uh, identitarians themselves embrace. They're just arguing over whether it's quote unquote representative enough. The metric of progress cannot be that, you know, there are more black people in the higher elite. The metric of progress has to be what is the distance between the higher elite, the middle class and the poor, and is the floor

high enough for everyone? And also, as I've said so many times here on the show, if you lift the poor, you will do more to help black and Hispanic and white Americans without igniting some horrific, you know, like racial tension and fights against each other. This, you know, by the way, black identitarians hate what I'm really saying here the most because everybody's always trying to play like victimhood, you know, Olympics about who apparently or whatever has been more oppressed. And that's part of why that whole discussion drives me insane, is that it misses the boat almost completely about the best ways to help poor Americans in America.

And look, the thing is too with Scott, he does look like he believes what he believes. And I do genuinely think he seems like a nice guy. But unfortunately, I almost think that they are handing him a layup if they're trying to argue about the ability to achieve, you know, individual opportunity instead of ignoring like this much broader discussion. That that was with a big failure. The huge failure of it to me was Whoopi and Sonny basically saying, no, the the view is

not black enough. And he's like, you know, it's like, it's like what is it what are we talking about here you know when you reduce things to that just stupid it misses the point yeah i get so in the same way that i think it's silly and frustrating to deny that there's been any progress um it also is irritating to me the view that Scott puts forward of like, you can't be honest about the reality of America because you'll discourage kids and make them think that they have no chance to succeed. Now, these things are intention, right? You, of course, want to encourage people. You, of course, want to motivate them to be the best that they can in their lives. But you can't use that to cover for, you know, a system that is wildly unjust, and that is stacked against them. And

that's what I, you know, object to in a lot of the sort of like conservative leaning, like self help narrative, it's fine to have that aspirational, those aspirational goals, to, you know, speak to people about how they can better themselves in their own lives. But what Scott does, and a lot of others in his ideological lane do, is they use that as a way of completely erasing the entire rest of the conversation. And especially when you're a United States Senator, and you're in a position of power to change some of those structures and make it so that it's more possible if you do work on yourself, you might actually have a chance to succeed,

then you're really, you know, failing at the task that should be in front of you. And I've also talked to, you know, in America, we have this kind of uniquely and there's studies that back this up, this isn't just my opinion, but we have this unique ethos because of the mythology of the American dream of this idea. Anybody can make it. You play hard. You work by, you know, you play by the rules. You work hard and anybody can succeed. Then when people are doing all the right things and they're still not making it, rather than having an understanding of, well, here are the structures in place that, you know, were not my fault that kept me from succeeding. They turn it inwards. They feel shame. They feel depression. And, you know, they sort of beat themselves up rather than recognizing those other influences. So it

really is a double-edged sword here. Yes, you want to inspire people. Yes, you want them to have that motivational story. But you don't want to completely erase the reality of corporate power, of union busting, of the fact that wages have been stagnant for decades and decades because of intentional government policy. That is not your fault. You don't want to just pretend like that doesn't exist because you're worried about how it might sound and you just want to focus on the individual responsibility part of it. Well, this is why it's complicated, what I think that they are trying to get at is where I object to, you know, people can go read the record. I've been against CRT since before it was cool. I just want to say I was one of the first people against the 1619

project and trying to come out against it. And it was because I actually think that it leads to a nihilistic message in which you lead yourself to believe it is impossible to enact government programs that can get you out of this because racism, sexism and all this other stuff is so oppressive that it's not possible. And it's like, no, wait, hold on a second. That's actually not true. That is a historical.

So there is actually a way to fuse, I think, the Tim Scott idea that it is possible to work yourself out of this. And also kind of what you and I are talking about, which is the ability of government policy to come together to actually give people the floor, the equality opportunity in order to move forward and to achieve a better life. I actually think there is a better way. And so, look, obviously, it's multifaceted and, you and you can literally debate and sit here forever. But I was very frustrated by the conversation because I just felt like it was all just trading places about, you know, it's like, oh, well, it's like when the NASDAQ says you have to have a black person on their board or whatever to go public. I'm like, who gives a shit? Are they doing business better or not?

Are they paying their employees better or not? I care less who the executives on the board of directors are. You know, it's like that. And there is also no evidence, by the way, that diversity of boards has led to better corporate practice. If anything, the diversity movement has been the greatest boon in history to Fortune 500 companies because they use it to cover for stock buybacks or cutting their employees or cutting benefits, outsourcing jobs, destroying

the American dream. Like it's all a smokescreen. People just need to wake up to that. I think representation has value. I genuinely do. Like, I think it mattered from a representation standpoint that we had Barack Obama as president as one example, but it's like so far from the entire picture. And so much of our politics is exactly like that exchange between Tim Scott and Sonny Hostin, where like, you're not even equipped to rebut what Tim Scott is saying, because you're not even looking at these other, you know, real challenges and the whole rest of the picture. And so you end up with this very surface level debate about whether there, you know, are enough press or class, and it doesn't end up really serving our politics

very effectively, I would say. I agree with you. All right, Tiger, what are you looking at? One of my favorite things to do is to revisit some of the main characters from the Russiagate era. We all know who they are. Seth Abramson, others who got filthy rich during and spreading copium to liberals. One of the best is Mueller. She wrote an account on Twitter that probably many of us are sadly familiar with from over the years, who's constantly tweeting about how Trump is just one second away from it finally all closing in on him. Well, a new investigation, actually by an anonymous Twitter account,

Freudian Slip, has revealed the depth of some of the most psychotic behavior on the internet that I have seen in quite a long time. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is the first tweet of the expose of nearly a hundred that he put out there frowdy and slip the mullet. She wrote expose a wild chaotic ride through Alison Gill's narrative world where little is what it seems to be. Stay to the end. If you want your jaw to go and hit the floor. Now he focuses in on, or maybe he, or she focuses in on a couple of claims that Alison Gill, the mullet, she wrote account made, who runs a popular podcast and really monetized her entire brand online as sticking it to Donald Trump.

First and foremost was that she was a, quote, disabled American effing veteran who had served in the United States Navy, who was suffering from PTSD from the first Gulf War. Well, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. While Alison Gill had constantly claimed to be a nuclear engineer from the United States Navy, it turns out she actually studied to be a machinist. Nate completed three months of basic training, but didn't even finish the full study program. Furthermore, it was revealed that she was a veteran of the Gulf War era, not necessarily of the Gulf War. And actually, by her own definition of stolen valor that she's leveled against others, well, she certainly flirted right up to the line of claiming effectively that she had served in combat, when in reality, she was somebody who had served in the military at that time and then didn't actually finish the job that she had claimed repeatedly online that she had engaged in. But second, what I think is also

crazy is the level to which she spun a persecution narrative. Now, according to this reporting, let's put this up there, the next one up there on the screen, she had claimed repeatedly that she had actually been fired from the United States government for her tweets, for her podcasts. And it turns out, though, that an internal U.S. government investigation found that she wasn't actually fired. She was offered relocation, which he had voluntarily rejected, which the form right in front of you actually shows.

She spun this, you know, afterwards as a case of some employee discrimination, fired allegedly for having PTSD, and even filed an equal opportunity complaint. None of these actually came to any fruit or revealed any wrongdoing on the part of the government. And then the most bizarre one to me, let's put this up there on the screen, was putting and tweeting out photos in which she had alleged she had been attacked by her husband, who she accused of an abuser, a manipulator, a drunk.

Well, she tweeted out photos of injuries that happened to her. But what actually was revealed from the Frodian slip account is that at least some very concrete claims within this. She's claiming persecution is the level to which you can just put things out online that both become reality, but can ensnare you in a bunch of different narratives all while you are cultivating this persona, which you are saying is being persecuted for putting out the truth, of which was all fundamentally not true, not only from her personal narrative, but about Russiagate itself. And this person was held up, again, as a Russiagate hero. This is somebody who has gained tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter, who the thread goes into financially profited from the persona

from the brand online, engaged repeatedly with fans and led them to believe all of this and conjured up this story of prior service and of a history of persecution, which also ended up end up being true in terms of their family background. And the bizarre behavior that is exhibited here should be a cautionary tale to people who fall easily prey to, you know, personas that you can see on Twitter and others and to the idea that everything that's happening online either stays there, doesn't have a connection itself

to the real world that can't be revealed. And it's one of those where I just found it to be so revealing about who some of the central characters who found identity in this anti-Trump crusade online were, and how so much of it really does reveal like a pathological sickness at the heart of so much of what happened at that time and still continues to reverberate in our current politics. So that's kind of the expose, Crystal. I'm not so sure if you were able to- And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue,

become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com. Okay, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, the media has finally started to admit that maybe Biden's age, and not even just his age, but his clearly declining abilities are an actual issue for him. And the reason they're doing that, which now, which is going to become quite clear in a moment, is because you have a massive donor, an elite freakout about this state of affairs. So the New York Times wrote quite an extraordinary piece here. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. They talk about the complicated reality of being America's oldest president, President Biden is asking voters in the White House until age 86, renewing attention to an issue that polls show trouble most Americans.

And they've got a bunch of heavy hitters on this article, by the way, keep this up on the screen, because I'm going to read a little bit from this. You know, they mix into this piece a bunch of hero arc narratives about our strong and virile leader alongside these anecdotes about some real struggles in terms of just understanding like the basics of what's going on and recalling certain basic facts. So they say there was the time last winter when President Biden was awakened at 3 a.m. while on a trip to Asia and told that a missile had struck Poland, touching off a panic that Russia might have expanded the war in Ukraine to a NATO ally. Within hours in the middle of the night, Mr. Biden consulted his top advisors, called the president of Poland and the NATO secretary general,

and gathered fellow world leaders to deal with the crisis. And then there was the time, a few weeks ago, when the president was hosting children for Take Your Child to Work Day, it became mixed up as he tried to list his grandchildren. Quote, so let me see. I got one in New York, two in Philadelphia, or is it three? No, three, because I got one granddaughter who is, I don't know. You're confusing me. He also drew a blank when asked the last country he had visited and the name of a favorite movie.

Put the next screen up here, guys, that has some of the details about the way that his staff has limited his appearances, has limited his schedule to accommodate the realities of the president today. They say his staff schedules most of his public appearances between noon and four, noon and four, and leaves him alone on weekends as much as possible. Aides limit exposing the president to news media interviews when he could make a politically damaging mistake. For comparison, he's given just a fourth of the interviews that Trump did in the same period and a fifth of the interviews that Mr. Obama did in the same period. None at all to reporters from a major newspaper. And they say

White House officials have not made Mr. Biden's doctor available for questioning as previous presidents have. Now, keep in mind, these are the limitations that exist today. And he is asking to be reelected and would be 86 years old. So quite a number of years down the road from today. And you can project into the future, nobody knows for sure what type of limitations may be placed on him at that point in time. So this shows you how far they already are down the road to curtailing any of his activities and even his ability and accessibility to the press, which is a vital part of democracy and being able to assess and question the president on key issues of the day. There's an interesting piece of this article where they acknowledge that this has become a major concern among donors and among

Wall Street elites, which is the whole reason that the media is really paying it any attention now whatsoever. One of the reporters was actually on MSNBC where he got asked about this report. Listen to the framing and listen to how he talks about the concerns among those elite circles. Take a listen. Take us behind closed doors. Party leaders, whether Democratic donors, prominent Wall Street Democrats, what are they saying privately? How big of a concern is the president's age and what the alternative could be well it's the concern i hear all the time i don't think i ever speak with any democrat who doesn't raise that issue not that we raise it they raise it you know and i know that there are people in the white house

and around this if i would like to suggest the creation of the media or the republicans it's really not i hear from almost every democrat i talked to we you know there was a dinner recently i was it was told about between uh uh know, former governors and senators, all of whom are roughly in Biden's generation, all of whom thought, no, he shouldn't be running. You know, he's too old at this point. There, you know, is the Wall Street, you know, major figure we talked to who said every single donor for the Democratic Party they speak with, in fact, brings this issue up. The White House gets calls from local officials asking about the president's health. I mean, it's a constant concern among Democrats. So here's a part in the article where they discuss exactly this.

Put the quotes up on the screen here. They say unease about Mr. Biden's age suffuses Democratic circles. One prominent Wall Street Democrat who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity, noted that among party donors, it was all anyone was talking about. At a small dinner earlier this year, former Democratic senators and governors, all of them in Mr. Biden's generation, everyone at the table agreed he was too old to run again. Local leaders often call the White House to inquire about his health. So these are the discussions that are going on in elite circles, in Democratic donor circles behind the scenes. And that's the reason why they are now leaking out into the press. And Sagar, it's also the reason why you see this panic, the last attempt to get Jamie Dimon or

somebody into the race that they feel like could take the reins from Joe Biden. But it's certainly not enough for them to allow an actual democratic process to unfold in which- And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com. Thank you everybody for bearing with us. We really appreciate you. We've got awesome. We're so excited about the new studio. Counterpoints will be here tomorrow. If you can help us out with the new studio and if you want a very first look at it, breakingpoints.com.

You'll get it substantially earlier than everybody else. We're really excited to show it to all of you. Otherwise, we'll see you all on Thursday. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we

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