Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/7/22: Elon vs Twitter, Baby Formula, Starbucks Workers, WaPo Drama, Feminism's Decline, Solar Industry Giveaway, & More!

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about the Elon Musk vs Twitter saga, baby formula crisis, trailer park rents, Starbucks escalation against workers, Washington Post scandals and drama, feminism's decline, solar industry giveaway, & more!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/David Dayen: https://prospect.org/topics/david-dayen/ https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/how-to-dismantle-for-profit-colleges-without-congress/ FD Signifier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1FkO7Tr70A  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of interesting stuff happening this morning. So we have some new developments in the Elon versus Twitter saga. Some more indications that this deal may not ultimately work out or may be headed to a

lawsuit. I don't know. We'll talk about all of that. Also, some new revelations about exactly when the administration knew that the baby formula crisis was a thing, how long they waited to act, and some new data about just how devastating it's been for families to have that child tax credit pulled. You guys will remember that was passed as part of the COVID relief plan. But Democrats only put it in place for a year because they didn't want to just sort of play games with the budget. They thought it'd be a good midterm issue. They thought for sure we'd be able to reauthorize that. Well, that didn't happen. And it's been absolutely devastating for families. We also have some new numbers. This relates to everyone who lives in a home or would like to live in a home. Rents at trailer parks are skyrocketing.

That is pushing a lot of people out of some of our most affordable housing stocks. So it just shows you how across the entire spectrum of available housing, people are getting squeezed and ultimately pushed out onto the streets. We also have some new details of retaliation from Starbucks. They are closing a store that just recently unionized. The union itself has something to say about that. And we have to tell you about Wapo in disarray.

We got a couple stories here. Sagar's gonna go into, in his monologue, the whole saga with them suspending Dave Weigel over the retweet of a dumb joke.

He didn't even write the joke himself, right? This is the dumbest thing I've ever had to investigate, go deep on. I did it all for you, for everybody. No, it'll be enjoyable. I'm looking forward to it. It's just, it's complete insanity. But there's another Washington Post story, too,

that we didn't want to let escape your notice or our notice, which is, you know, the whole Amber Heard Johnny Depp trial, this all revolved around this op-ed that the Washington Post ran, which a jury has now found to be defamatory of Johnny Depp, and the Washington Post has nothing to say about it. So talk about that. We also have David Dayen in studio. Very lucky to have him on our side of the country today, breaking down some moves using the Defense Production Act and lifting tariffs on solar panels is actually very controversial and kind of a left-right thing going on there. But we wanted to start with Elon Musk.

Yeah, that's right. Okay, so Elon, it does not look like this may happen at this point, and there's a lot of speculation exactly as to why. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, which is Elon is now asserting his right to not buy Twitter if he would like to. Elon Musk, quote, has a right not to consummate his acquisition of Twitter and a, quote, right to terminate the merger agreement, according to a letter from his lawyers sent to Twitter's general counsel, Vijay Agade, on Monday morning. And this was filed actually within the SEC.

So the core of the allegation is that Musk believes that Twitter misled him, misled its investors, Wall Street, and others, as to whether more than 5% of its accounts were spam or fake or not. While Elon is now contending that it is very likely that it is more than 5%. However, Twitter is saying in its latest filings that they still continue to estimate based on their methodology of a 5% fake bots or account number. Now, here's the thing. It's all complete technicality. We went over in the past Parag Agarwal, and he did that 35 tweet storm about spam. I think what's most likely happening here is that, look, Elon was relying on the vast majority of his net worth, which was tied up in Tesla stock. And the fact of the matter is, is that the Tesla stock is worth a lot less today than it was at the time whenever he went into this deal.

And it's not just Tesla. It's the entire stock market is down some 15-so percent. So as a result, he just simply has a lot less underlying asset to borrow cash on top of. And even though he has gone to different Silicon Valley investors and others who are agreeing to put $100 million here, $400 million here, he still paid almost $44 billion for this thing. So there's two things that could be happening here. Number one, he actually wants out completely because it could be putting his Tesla stock in jeopardy and he just simply doesn't have that much access to capital. Or he worries that given the recession, which he believes is coming because we know that he's cutting 10% of Tesla's

staff based upon what he thinks is a possible turn in the economy, that it's not going to be possible to make up the ambitious revenue targets. But regardless, Crystal, the deal is in trouble right now. Yeah. As currently constituted. Yeah. I mean, there's two possibilities. One, he's using this as negotiating leverage because, I mean, there's just no doubt that he dramatically overpaid for the asset at this point. His offer is $54.20 per share for Twitter. Well, on Monday, Twitter shares were trading down below $39. So one possibility here is he's trying to use this as negotiating leverage to go back to the table and get a better deal. The other possibility which you lay out and which I at this point think is more likely is that he wants out of this thing

entirely because not only is he overpaying on the one side for Twitter, given where their share price is now, but he also has much, much less cash available to him and financing available to him when he originally was contemplating this deal. As you said, I mean, Tesla, so they went on this massive hiring spree, adding 45% to their workforce. Now he's slashing that back a year later, 10%.

So he clearly is not in the financial position he was previously. Not to mention, I mean, Elon has a long track record, which people spend like have entire websites dedicated to tracking of making grandiose promises and then completely failing to deliver. I mean, you know, it's not to take anything away from him. SpaceX, Tesla, these are real things and they're real innovations. But, you know, he's remember when he was going to get those boys that were trapped in the cave? I mean, there's all kinds of things like this where he says something big and wild

that's going to happen. Brain implants was another one. And then ultimately it all sort of falls apart. So I think one thing we can say for sure here is that it is looking much less likely that Elon Musk is going to be the great free speech savior that some people were hoping that he was ultimately going to be.

I think anytime you're relying on a billionaire to be your savior in any way, in any realm, it's probably not a great idea. And the reason why he's trying to make this argument about, oh, you misrepresented, how many bots are on the platform, is because he can't just walk away from this deal at this point. He would face a billion dollar breakup fee and also possible lawsuits if he opts out. And it looks increasingly likely that this thing could ultimately be headed to court. Yeah, I think it's very likely. And the problem for Musk is that the deal that he signed per Matt Levine, who is a really good columnist over at Bloomberg, and what he writes up here is that to a non-lawyer, this may look like a good pretext, but it's not for three reasons. Number one, Musk doesn't actually have concrete evidence that there is any spam bots or that

Twitter is overestimating it, given that at the end of the day, the methodology is anybody's game. There's no way to really argue it. Two, even if Twitter's estimates are wrong, Musk could not get out of the merger agreement unless the error was likely to have a quote, material adverse effect on Twitter's business, which it's very difficult to prove. And three, Musk has been talking about Twitter's bot problem forever. In fact, he originally said he wanted to buy Twitter in order to fix the bot problem. So if no one could possibly believe him when he says he wants to walk away from the deal because he just discovered that Twitter has a bot problem. That's a great point.

The point that he's making is that Musk's lawyers are stemming, the argumentation is all stemming from Musk's attack on the bot thing, which may sound like it makes sense, but in a court of law would be difficult to prove. And even harder for him, what you're talking about with that billion dollar breakup fee, that's only if everybody agrees to walk away from the deal. Twitter could actually sue him and force him to buy it. I mean, it's very within the realm of possibility, especially given that their share price is down. They've at this point been through what, like eight weeks almost of complete turmoil. So at this point, their company is on the rocks. They have people who are departing the company. So they've been through complete chaos. And I'm

sure their own workforce is in a lot of consternation. They quite literally could force him to buy it, or they could at least try. Regardless, it could be headed to the court, and it could be there for a long, long period of time. But I don't see Twitter actually having accepted and signed the deal, just walking away from it with nothing, even just $1 billion. It just seems unlikely. Yeah, because now at this point, this looks like a great deal for them from a financial perspective. Way better than where their share price is at. Yeah, exactly. And so I think when you put that together, also here's another one that Elon has been saying. Let's put this up there on the screen.

This YouTuber, Meet Kevin, he put this out. Some say Elon has to buy Twitter as is with bots because he waived his right to due diligence. He points to Section 1005B, Twitter can be liable for omissions or misleading material facts. Waiving due diligence does not mean you have and to accept a fraudulent disclosure,

which is understated bots. He replied to that and just said, correct. So that's Elon's side of the story. Right, that's Elon, again, the side of the story. Twitter has a reaction to all of this. Let's put this up there, which is that they say Twitter has and will continue to cooperatively share information

with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement. We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms. So really, I think just putting things what I alluded to, which is that given how much Elon agreed to pay for it, they are going to try and get every scrap and every penny that they were promised. And Musk could be in a precarious situation. He did, at the end of the day, sign the deal. Yes, he has good lawyers. But from what I have read, a lot of guys, people who are familiar with mergers and acquisitions law and more, do not see a way, a very easy way out for him on this transaction so far, which is, look,

that would be a serious hit to his net worth. It could be a problem for Tesla because he might be forced to sell a number of stock, which could then tank his own company. SpaceX, he also has private holdings on that, so he might be forced to sell something like, I mean, he'll be fine at the end of the day. He definitely has access to the cash, but it won't necessarily cause problems. It won't necessarily not cause problems if he is forced to do it. And then he has to run it, and then he owns it. So there's that, too. Well, there is that, too.

Yeah, and of course, a person who is watching this with great interest is former President Trump. Oh, yes. He's been tweeting about it. Yeah, I mean, he's got kind of interest on both sides of this thing. Because on the one hand, if Elon actually takes over Twitter, very likely that Trump is allowed back on the platform. Elon's already said all but as much. allowed back on Twitter that and Elon is the head of Twitter and people who are, you know, in the in the sort of right leaning Trump pro Elon Musk camp are comfortable back on Twitter again. That is a major hit for his financial interests in terms of true social. So he's got sort of a balancing act here on both sides. My personal guess is that he's most interested in his money

in his bank account. Last night he tweeted, quote, Truth is hot. Twitter is not. Hot, capitalized. He also put hot in quotation marks. Did you say he tweeted? He truthed. Or he truthed it. I'm sorry.

Truthed that, which is really hard to say, actually. I do have to say. For someone who's such a good brand, like so good at branding, he really dropped the ball on this one. Garbage name. Yeah. Retruthing.

Retruth. Maybe I'm just, I don't know, but it doesn't seem weird that you can basically copy the entire functionality of another website, rip it almost entirely, and then change the words only slightly. From tweet to truth. From tweet to truth, and then just call it different IP. Look, maybe it should be that way legally, but that just doesn't seem right to me. That you can just straight up copy.

I mean, every single one of these Twitter alternatives, none of them have actually improved functionality on the platform. They just faked it. Right. And put like gabbed it or parlayed it. Which is why they're not – I don't get it. Why they're not successful. Yeah. about Substack as an example, where they created something, you know, brand new in the marketplace that didn't exist, that solved a need outside of just their sort of like ideological positioning

in the free speech space. Right. So in any case, it has major implications. What happens here is why we keep covering it. Not only is it like an interesting drama and saga of one of our world's foremost billionaires, but it also has a lot of implications in terms of our own politics and how the next presidential election is going to play out. For Trump, I continue to maintain overall, I think him being off of Twitter has been probably good for him. I think it has helped to, you know, erase some of the memories of how terrible he was. You were the first person to make that point. However, I do also think that it has lessened his grip on his hardcore fans. Yeah. And I think it's made it easier, like, for example, what played out in Georgia with

Brian Kemp able to not only win, but dominate in the Republican primary in spite of Trump being vehemently on the other side. I think not having him sort of asserting his view and asserting his control within the press and frankly triggering the media was his greatest skill and one of the things people like the most about him. Taking that away from him has been good on one hand for mass appeal and I think bad for him in terms of his like tight hold on his base, which is kind of a source of power ultimately. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's difficult to say. I do think that what it has done is that removing him off of Twitter has made him more palatable to the general public but has left people who loved his tweets and the base and all that a little bit more up to the whims of whoever his successors happened to be.

So that all became very balkanized, whether on Fox or whether following some other weird MAGA idiot on Twitter. That basically follows people down pads and makes it so that he doesn't have the direct kind of command that he used to. And at the end of the day, I mean, a lot of, let's be honest, I mean, most of these people are still not joining Truth. You could have millions of people sign up for Truth Social. It would still not be what the actual Trump base at one point really was. So, look, that's just the power of network effects. Yeah, and some of us just miss the great content. Well, sometimes. Occasionally. Horse face, I will always, I just think, I can't believe this is real. I can't believe you actually said that. Or yeah,

Mika having a, whatever, we don't have to go down that road. Memories. All right. Let's go to this part. This thing really bothered me. Let's put this up there on the screen, which is that Attorney General Ken Paxton is saying, if Twitter has underreported its number of fake bots, these numbers might have negatively impacted Texas consumers and businesses. We need more information. That's why I've launched an investigation to get the answers that we need. All right, look, I got nothing wrong with that necessarily. But here's the thing. Don't we have an entire imbroglio involving Uvalde PD and a major investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety? And I actually went ahead and checked. The Attorney General Ken Paxton has not launched any independent investigation yet of Uvalde PD or of what happened. And I think this is a perfect example of what governing means in the year 2022, which is Ken Paxton is chasing. First of all, Elon is now the most prominent

Texan. I believe he lives down there. He's moved Tesla headquarters to Austin. So they're wooing and courting him. They're always trying to get him to come down there. Fine. Okay. That's great. But look, I mean, taking not command necessarily, but trying to seize on this to curry favor with Elon Musk when, I mean, 19, what, 21 of your constituents were just murdered in cold blood and let down by the very police and law enforcement of which you have actual power over if needed. And this is what you're focused on.

There's no brownie points, right, on Twitter or elsewhere for doing something. Or maybe I'm wrong. Honestly, I think that there would be an organic appreciation for that if it did happen. But he believes that the best way to do it is to chase culture war points on Twitter, which is nuts to me. Yeah, I don't even think this is about courting Elon. That's what it's about. It's about him continuing to be a culture war clown. I mean, that's a lot of his lawsuits and his actions are all about positioning himself as this, you know, true MAGA culture warrior.

And it's had some—by the way, anytime we talk about Ken Paxton, we also have to remind you that he's, like, under investigation for corruption. So keep that in mind in terms of his personal character. Of course, he's innocent until proven guilty. But, you know, this isn't the first time he's tried to do these sort of like social media, let me position myself in this culture warrior way in terms of like taking a stand against censorship, which, look, I'm on the same side of, but a lot of these efforts are not done intelligently. In fact, a Texas law was recently put on hold by a federal appeals court, and it will remain blocked as that case moves through the Fifth U.S. Circuit

Court of Appeals. Ken Paxton himself had the Texas state bar file professional misconduct lawsuit against him for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. That lawsuit says he made dishonest representations that an outcome determinative number of votes were tied to unregistered voters. Voters were switched by a glitch with voting machines. State actors had unconstitutionally revised their election statutes and illegal votes had been cast to affect the outcome of the election. So basically, the Texas State Bar is saying, you completely lied and misrepresented what was going on here in terms of the election, and we think that that merits you being sued for professional misconduct. So this is part and parcel of how he's trying to position himself for his own career, and you're 100% right, because

I do think if he launched an investigation of what happened in Uvalde, I do think he would earn praise across the political spectrum. Well, if it was a real one. Yes, exactly. But there's more of a risk attendant to that because today the right sees, you know, the unconscionable lack of response from Uvalde police is all on board with that. But that can very quickly turn into some sort of like, you know, we're just lockstep with law enforcement. So it's more of a riskier maneuver if you are on the Republican side of the aisle. Yeah. I mean, look, so far from what I found, the only thing that he has said post-Uvalde is pushing for arming teachers. Look, if that's what you find at the end of an actual investigation, great. Here's the thing. Immediately pushing that, and then the very first,

from what I can tell, major investigation that you announce post the Uvalde shooting when you were the Attorney General for the state of Texas is investigating fake Twitter. We don't have better things to do? Yeah. I mean, look, you and I can talk up here about Elon and all that because we understand it has a major impact both upon our audience just because just the way that you guys get information is disproportionately going to be on Twitter. And even if you're not on Twitter, the Twitter discourse affects you in ways that we've described for you many times here on the show.

That's fine. That's kind of what we do. But he doesn't – he's not a poster. He's not somebody who's in the national discourse or anything. He's the attorney general for one of the largest states in the country, which just suffered a horrific shooting. And I just couldn't get over the fact that this is the very first thing that this guy does post-Uvalde, other than put out a statement calling for arming teachers. No scrutiny of law enforcement. I mean, this guy, Pete Arredondo, the chief of police,

he needs to get his ass in front of a grand jury yesterday. I mean, the Texas attorney general has quite a bit of power, and yet none of it's being exerc a ton of favor by becoming a national hero by investigating these Ubaldi cops. But he won't do it. The governor won't do it. And these guys are just getting away with, I mean, getting away with literal murder here. Yeah. And this argument he's making that, oh, maybe the fake bot accounts have impacted Texas consumers and business. I mean, this is really. Look, maybe. I mean, come on. How affected are you in your daily life or in your business life if there are 7 percent bots on Twitter versus 5 percent bots on Twitter or whatever?

It's silly. It's just a way to posture. That's up to the FTC. That's up to the DOJ. And sure, maybe it's even up to the Texas attorney general to launch that investigation. But it should be one of that should be the secondary tertiary investigation relative to this shooting that just happened back in my home state. So anyway, that just shows you how the culture war genuinely rots everything. Indeed. All right, let's move on here. Baby formula. This is a story, obviously,

you've been keeping a lot of eyes on. Praise President Biden for invoking the Defense Production Act. But the timeline that's coming out of the administration right now, I'm not saying they didn't end up doing the right thing, is really shocking. I mean, it just is a complete indictment of the Biden administration. President Biden admitted on camera that he knew about the baby formula crisis back in April and did not really do anything about it until public pressure erupted in the month of May. Here he is talking a couple of days ago. Here's the deal. I became aware of this problem sometime in early April about how intense it was. And so we did everything in our power from that point on. And that's all I can tell you right now.

And we're going to continue to do it till we get the job done. Early April. Early April. I mean, that's a long time. So get the job done. What about that? Early April. Early April. I mean, that's a long time. So why didn't you do anything about it? Did you order anything to do anything about it? And here's, we actually know the answer. The answer is no.

Because the White House has said, well, first the White House, Brian Deese said, we've known about this since February. Okay, well, why didn't you do anything about it? Right. Then Biden says, well, I found out about it in April. Okay, well, why didn't you do anything about it? And they say, well, we did do something about it. We invoked the Defense Production Act. Yeah, in May. So a month later, after I found out about it in April. Okay, well, why didn't you do anything about it? And they say, well, we did do something about it.

We invoked the Defense Production Act. Yeah, in May, so a month later after you find out about it. And yeah, let's be honest. It only happened because they passed the Ukraine bill, and people were like, hey, we have $44 billion to send to Ukraine, but we don't have baby formula to send to kids. And then Congress enacted. People like us were talking about it.

It's not just us. I mean, it was a huge thing for the entire country. It was just horrified at the idea of tiny little infants not being able to have their food. But here's the thing. When you continue to look at all of the administration officials, this is a massive failure of government. You have not only the president is at the top, like he's not even supposed to necessarily know about this stuff. His staff is supposed to bring it to his attention. And more importantly, he's supposed to order his staff to do something. Well, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo is on TV over the weekend. She admits the same thing. I've known about since April. But honestly, the response we're about to play for you is worse because I didn't, she says, I didn't just know

about it until April. I'm not involved in anything regarding it right now. Let's take a listen. President Biden this week said he didn't learn about the severity of the infant formula shortage until April, but problems first emerged back at the Abbott plant back in October of 2021. An industry executive said they knew how bad this could get when the plant closed in February. You're the Secretary of Commerce. When did you first learn of this problem? I first learned about it, you know, a couple of months ago. So this is a difficult issue. But yes, probably April. I'm not involved in the administration's response here, I should say. But I think they're doing a very good job. Well, why are you not involved with that? Because actually the commerce committee in Congress and the commerce department has an immense amount of power over the baby formula.

This is just, again, perfect example. You have here the secretary who says, yeah, I found out about it, but you know, whatever. I didn't really have anything to do with it. Well, wait, why don't you have anything to do with it? Because the Commerce Department has a lot of regulatory authority over the actual baby formula. And then also, why are you not involved in a whole of government approach with the FDA and the CDC in order to get this plant spinning again? I mean, this really was just a complete crisis of government because it just showed us that things have to get so bad that little kids are starving and parents are driving eight to nine hours. Yeah. Different stores.

Trying to import European baby formula. Trying to import illegally until the government makes it okay. Also, again, why are you not involved in the administration's response? You know, people don't realize this. The Commerce Department has immense power over international trade. tariffs, all that stuff. That's under congressional jurisdiction of the Commerce Department. So she's telling us she has no authority over importing European baby formula. That's BS. I mean, maybe the military is moving it, but you should be heavily involved. Also in the future, you know, now that American parents are getting European baby formula,

let's make it permanent. Yeah. You know, let the American, look getting European baby formula, let's make it permanent. Yeah. You know? Right. Let the American, look, this is the first time where I'll be like, let Americans compete. Because from what I can tell, European baby formula is way better than ours. Well, and also just to give you a little peek behind the curtain here in Washington, D.C., this is a person who, you know, the powers that be in this town are very hot on. Oh, yeah. They love her. They love her.

They think of her for higher office in the future, even sometimes being floated for like president. It's crazy to me. So the fact that, you know, she's completely absent from duty here that, you know, and not doing a good job at her actual job that has no bearing on whether or not she'll be elevated to the next highest level. She's already in a position of great power here. This also really gets to a core failing of the Biden administration that I'm not particularly surprised by, but I think a lot of people are. One of the promises of his campaign was the grownups will be back in charge, that it won't be the chaos of the Trump years. We'll have people who know what they're doing back in power, we'll run an efficient

administration. And so, listen, you may not want everything that we're going to do. You may not be on board. You may want more. You may want less. But at least it's going to be competently managed. That has turned out to be completely false. And by the way, you know, some of the reporting that now that the wheels have come off this administration so clearly and his approval rating is down, you know, at Trump or below Trump in certain instances, young people are discussing with this administration. There's starting to be all these leaks and all these insider reports about like what's going wrong and what Biden thinks about it. that he hadn't been notified by his staff about the baby formula crisis sooner when it came to their attention in February or, you know, could have even been before that because you did, as Jake Tapper points out there, you did have this whistleblower early on talking about the lack of safety standards and potential problems at this Abbott Laboratories plant. So you have an initial

failure, which still has to be on the president. He's the one that assembled this group of staffers around himself. But so you have this initial failure of staff to notify the president at all or do anything about it. And then even once he is notified in early April, it takes this massive public outcry and, you know, the news, the media finally writing stories about these babies who are in dire trouble and in some terrible instances, even having to be admitted to the hospital to get the nutrition that they need and moms who are desperate and at their wits end doing everything they can, spending all day going from store to store to try to find the formula that's going to work for their babies. It took all of that before they finally said, you know, we could actually do something about this. And it's a bigger problem for the administration because the critique of them before they finally said, you know, we could actually do something about this. And

it's a bigger problem for the administration because the critique of them that they are just purely sort of reactive, that they are always behind the times, that they are catching up a few months later to things that have been hurting the American people for months. I just think that that's completely indisputable. Yes. And I think it goes very much against the core hope that a lot of people had for this administration. Oh, absolutely, Crystal. I mean, look, this was their basic promise is we will get those vaccines out, you know, easily. That's why I thought they, I just did not anticipate how incompetent these idiots are. Yeah. It's mystifying. I mean, even on gas right now,

I mean, look, I've been watching it. We are very, very close to $5 national average. The gas price went up 5% in just the last week. It only needs to go up by 2, and we're at 5 nationally. Nobody apparently in the White House seems to be talking about that. Yeah, oh, cool, you're allowing Venezuela to export to Europe. Big deal. That is not going to replace the lost gas stock, especially given the current demand. Nothing's happening, and there's current demand. Nothing's happening.

And there's real consequences. Let's put this up there on the screen. Abbott, a couple of days ago, Abbott Nutrition just restarted the baby formula production. But everybody knows this. From production to actually going to the shelf, it takes a long time. And it's not a joke. I have been reading some horrific stories. There's one in the New York Times that just came

out yesterday about how many newborns who spend time in the NICU, they need specialized formula because this is the thing. It's not just replacement level. It might be for some, you know, for some babies. Some of these people who have allergies and whose babies are in the, can you imagine having like a six month old premium or premium or preemie baby in the NICU? And they're like, you need this baby formula to keep your baby alive. And you can't get it anymore. Panic. People are freaking out.

It's horrible. They're driving hundreds of miles to go get this stuff. Well, the thing I worry about too is, you know, we're in a new era now. And I wonder if the baby formula crisis is just the beginning of many. Oh, it is. It is. I mean, it's not even the beginning. We've already had crises. They just haven't been in the sole source of nutrition for the most vulnerable population in the entire country. are in a kind of new normal here with the global realignments that are happening, with the way that the climate crisis is making food stocks and farming much more precarious, the sort of follow on effects that we have from that, the follow on effects that we have from this war, which is not

ending anytime soon. And so when you see the government so behind the curve and so unable to respond in anything approaching a timely or urgent fashion and still trying to sort of pass the buck in terms of, you know, their own blame in not getting on top of this. I think this is going to be a cycle that we see replay itself over and over again, not with this, not just with this administration, but with whatever comes next as well. Let's see how they can blame Putin for it. Yeah, exactly. Putin's baby formula.

Putin, the Putin price hike is responsible for the baby formula. The Putin-Ukraine price hike on baby formula. Tell that to people who are parents of preemies. Yeah. And there's another story that I didn't want us to miss that comes amidst the formula crisis that comes amidst rising food prices and overall inflation, which is, you guys will recall that as part of that initial COVID relief plan in the Biden administration, they passed a, it was actually less than one year, they instituted this child tax credit. And it was a dramatically successful program. You saw hunger plummet. You saw families be able to, it actually allowed parents to be able to work more. They were able to feed their children, not just comfortably, but be able to get them nutritious foods.

It gave them a little bit of a cushion here. Now that tax credit has expired, and the impact has been truly dire. Let's go ahead and put the CNBC tarot sheet up on the screen. The latest data says that in the United States of America, extraordinarily wealthy country, nearly half of families with kids can no longer afford enough food. That's five months after the child tax credit ended. And dig into the data here. I mean, they say in this article more than 90 percent of families, 90 percent, say they're finding it harder to make ends meet right now. More than 60 percent struggling to satisfy their family's basic needs beyond cutting back on things. Most families say they have stopped saving for the future. They have tapped into their emergency savings to stay afloat.

We've tracked some of the data regarding that. And in terms of what families are doing specifically to be able to make ends meet and be able just to feed their kids, huge numbers of people are substituting fresh fruits and vegetables for things that are less expensive and, by the way, less nutritious. But you even have some extreme measures being taken here. Fort percent, 45 percent, almost half of families saying that parents had to skip meals in order for their kids to eat. Another 45 percent had to rely on food banks. So they were unable to make it work on their own. And this is, you know, this is certainly in part because food prices have gone up, but it's also in part because, frankly, look, I mean, Republicans, they weren't on board to help extend this tax credit. And so they're certainly in the

bad guy camp here as well. But Democrats put this one year limit on the child tax credit because they wanted to play sort of budget games. And they imagine that the top line number on the COVID relief plan really mattered, you know, in terms of the public perception of it. And furthermore, they thought this would be a great midterm political winner for them that they could bash Republicans over the head with and be able to either get it reauthorized or use it to to regain power or keep power rather in the midterm elections. None of that ended up working out. And so instead, you have the specter of families benefiting from something that genuinely helped them and then having it stripped away. And by the way, Cyrus, we've covered in the past,

there was a new poll that showed the same thing. Families that benefited from this child tax credit were actually on net, planning to vote for Democrats in the midterm. After it goes away, they're now on net, planning to vote for Democrats in the midterm. After it goes away, they're now on net, planning to vote for Republicans. So if all you care about is the political consequences, this has been a disaster too. Yeah, it's been very informative for me to watch this thing all play out. I mean, I thought it would be dramatically popular, but I think that

the truth of the matter is, is that if people don't feel secure and they feel like everything is chaotic, they'll turn against both the program and they'll turn against the people who are in power. And even if the Republicans are against it, they'll accept their arguments and they feel like everything is chaotic, they'll turn against both the program and they'll turn against the people who are in power. And even if the Republicans are against it, they'll accept their arguments and they'll vote for them instead, which, you know, if you care about the political sustainability of these things is actually pretty, pretty upsetting. But look, I think the consequences can't really be denied, which is that most of these people are cutting fewer fruits and vegetables. They are changing the brands. They're using food banks.

They're skipping meals. And in some cases, the entire families skip meals. 10% say the entire family, their kids and them, going without food at meals. That's a lot of people. And, you know, you consider it's just weird because the economy is extraordinarily wonky. You have extremely high gas price. You have extremely high food price. You have less cash coming in the door. You have extremely high gas price. You have extremely high food price. You have less cash coming in the door.

You have less wage increase. But also the labor market is hot if you happen to basically be in the blue-collar workforce. But also the savings rate is at an all-time low. Credit card debt is all-time high. So it's like, well, what is happening here? I think that the savings and all that other stuff is getting burned out.

The wonky demand shocks and supply shocks are basically – the demand shock is gone. Supply shock is here to stay. Yeah. Literally right as you and I are doing this show, Target stock just fell by 10%. Yeah, I saw them announce. Because they have to cut price massively. Yeah. Look, I don't want to understate that.

What happened with them is they bought too many goods trying to overcome the supply issue. And now that demand is dialing back, they have too much. They overestimated how much. And so, yeah, they're hosed. They're screwed. And look, Target, Walmart, those are the stocks which tell us

exactly what's really happening with the normal economy. So you've got major retailers that show us that demand is down, Gap down 20%, Walmart down 25%, Target down 20-something percent. And then you see – that's the leading indicator that I'm looking at most. I'm like, yep, normal people are just not buying stuff. And I bet you're going to see this all across the board in reduction in consumer spending, Starbucks, Dunkin' Donut, any of these things that rely on people having just a tiny little bit more cash.

It's going to go really downhill. And that's really unfortunate because all of our lives, our ability to have a labor market, I mean 70% of the U.S. economy is consumer spending. So you have a reduction in consumer spending. You have a dramatic increase in the basic staples, and it's going to be tough out there. Yeah, it is, and I don't want to let this political point go because I think it's really important for people to understand this. When Democrats lifted the minimum wage back, God, that was a long time ago. 2009, you want to say? I think that's right.

To $7.25. They could have passed an automatic adjustment so that as the cost of living went up, guess what? The minimum wage goes up along with it, which makes all the sense in the world. But then you don't have the minimum wage as an issue that you can use politically. And so they would rather use it as an issue than actually solve the problem and get people the wages that they need. It's the same story here with the child tax credit. They could have passed it for a longer period of time. And you can see that this was massively beneficial.

They did not do a good job selling their role and actually getting this money to families. But you could see once it was taken away, families shifted from Democrats to Republicans. So it obviously had a political impact here as well. But they didn't do that because they thought, you know, this would be a good way to play a political game and to use the issue to their advantage in the midterms. And in the end, that didn't work out for them whatsoever either. So I think that understanding the sort of tricks

that they use here is also a really important part of this story. We have another economic story for you that shows you just how hard people are getting squeezed, especially when it comes to the housing market. Go ahead and put this tweet from Jeff Stein up on the screen. He's linking here to a story about mobile home parks that he says, park rents are doubling or tripling as high demand, low inventory, and a rise in corporate owners take a toll on one of the nation's biggest sources of affordable housing. There's a lot of stats in this article here that are worth going through. First of all, rising demand for affordable housing has,

while it has increased housing prices across the board, mobile home prices have skyrocketed. They rose nearly 50% during the pandemic from $82,000 to $123,000 for a mobile home. Crazy. Land prices are going up, housing costs are going up, and that's spilling into mobile homes. One expert said there's a shortage overall of affordable housing, particularly in cities and the suburbs around them. So what happens is when you have this squeeze that's happening at all levels, people who are in the most vulnerable positions, especially in these mobile home parks, they're getting squeezed to the point that many of them are facing eviction and facing homelessness. Now, one thing to understand about this market soccer is that while the individual resident may own the mobile home itself, they typically don't own the

land under the mobile home. And so they still have a landlord. Those parks are being increasingly bought up by permanent capital. Once they come in, they jack up the land rent prices and make it so that people many times who are on fixed income, who are low income, who are working low wage jobs can't afford the rent. But even though they own their home, they can't afford to move it. It can cost $15,000 just to move this mobile home to potentially another more affordable park where the rent might actually be obtainable. In some instances, if you have an older mobile home, it's not possible to move it at all. So these landlords have them held hostage. Now, there's very little data about how much rents have actually been increased. This is part of the sneering contempt we have for mobile home parks that we don't even bother to track this. It's not regulating these rent increases. There's

no transparency, all of those things. But the Washington Post interviewed a dozen mobile home residents around the country. Everyone said their rents had risen this year. Most reported increases of 10% to 25%, extremely significant. But some said monthly payments had doubled or tripled. Their options were increasingly limited, too. Many said they had bought trailers after they were priced out of apartments. So again, they're pushed down and pushed down and pushed down. That they were now unsure of where to go next. They'd used their savings to take on high-interest loans to buy manufactured homes with little resale value. Some were considering moving into motels, crashing with friends, or living in their cars until they could find a more permanent arrangement.

Private equity firms, including Stockbridge Capital, Carlyle Group, Apollo Global Management, have been rapidly buying up mobile home parks over the last decade, often using funding from the government-sponsored lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So these people are literally held hostage in these homes. It's not like, you know, when you buy a not-manufactured home or I don't want to call it a regular home, but a not-manufactured home, there's this expectation that the price, the value is going to go up, that that's going to contribute to your savings, that's going to contribute to your net worth. Not the case with these mobile homes where the value goes down, where they're subject to these, like, usurious, very high-interest loans,

and then they're held hostage for these rents in these mobile home parks. Yeah, look, people are buying, by the way, there's nothing wrong with living in a mobile home. Of course not. It's only $120,000. That's great. And for a lot of these people, they can own their actual place. And most of them did so,

based upon what I was reading, on having a low cash burn rate, which is that a lot of them are on Social Security, they're on fixed income. They're like, look, I made $860 a month in Social Security. Their burn rate,

they had it all planned out. They're like $350. That gives me $300 to rent, $600 to rent. I don't know how you live on $600, but that's extraordinarily difficult, I think, for a lot of people. But they were making it work. And now, their overall rent is $1,000. So on that fixed income, she literally goes, I can't make the math work. I don't know what to do. I either have to sell it, but I have no cash because I use it all to buy this. I think the private equity point is very important, which is that there's two options for them. They can both jack up the rent so they'll squeeze more money out of the existing plot, or they can just force everybody out and they want to develop all this stuff into timeshare, into amusement park is what they were saying

within here. But it just goes, you're up against really titanic, massive forces, which are able to pay very, very low amounts and get low interest rates from the government that they can buy your land and then squeeze you on the promise of, quote unquote, developing. And I think that this is why you have a lot of skepticism across the country of outside capital coming in to try and develop any land. And actually, if you care about housing, if you really do care about housing, you don't want that to become a political trope, which I think it is. This is something that the UMB people are always, they're like, oh, people are always against developing. I'm like, listen, you need to understand that there's a lot of sharks out there in the real estate market.

And when you hear that somebody's coming in, this is exactly the type of stuff that a lot of people do. It really is terrible because you can just see like a lot of these people are seniors. They were kind of in the twilight years and they really thought they had it made. And I mean, do. It really is terrible because you can just see a lot of these people are seniors. They're kind of in the twilight years. They really thought they had it made. And I mean, could anybody really survive a 50% to 100% increase in their living situation in a single year? That's nuts. Most people cannot do that. And I don't think they should have to. And they're in this position where they've either taken on these high interest loans to buy the mobile home or they put like all their life savings into buying the thinking like I'm going to own my home. Well, now they're stuck.

Like they can't do anything because they can't. They don't have the money to move it. In some instances, they can't move it. And so all they could do if they get priced out because of the land rent is walk away. And again, I think that because we are such a classist society, there is so little interest in regulating this market, making sure it's fair for these homeowners and that they're able to stay where they are. They're trying in Vermont. They've tried. They passed a couple of things, like if someone, private equity or whatever, is going to come in

from the outside and buy the community, that you have the ability to buy your lot first, which at least is an improvement. But that still seems to me like a really inadequate solution here, ultimately. And look, it's part of a broader trend. It's not just mobile homes. We've tracked here how permanent capital is coming into the single family market in a big way. I mean, some markets, they make up like a quarter to a third of the new purchasers. In some instances, they bought entire communities. Oftentimes, it's not to flip those houses. It's to turn them into rentals so that increasingly that American dream, the path to middle class prosperity and stability of owning your own home and seeing the value of that increase and provide you some level of net wealth, that's being taken off the table by permanent capital.

So you can see the way that this squeeze happens at every end of the spectrum. And people who were in, you know, the most affordable housing solutions who had already been pushed out of every other option, well, now they're just being pushed out into the street. Yeah, it really is. It's a tough situation, and it just shows you how the housing market

is squeezing people at all levels. And just because, you know, you have housing prices that can, you know, this is something that we should talk about more, something I've heard more about, which is that the higher that mortgage rates go up, that's maybe a good thing in terms of cooling down the price of an actual home. Right. But what it's doing is juicing the existing rental market because you're making it so that people cannot afford to buy. So you're actually increasing rent prices across the board. This explains why in New York City and in many other urban areas, you're seeing high rent inflation. But the higher rent inflation that you push, obviously, that's going to have a disproportionate impact actually on poor people. So, you know,

you can cool the housing market, but you may actually juice the rental market because of existing housing stock. I think this is probably another situation that might be happening. Yes, we need to dramatically expand our stock of affordable housing, number one. And we need to massively regulate, if not ban, permanent capital from getting into this game. I mean, maybe you have a law, I've seen this explored before, where if there isn't an individual buyer for the home, then you allow the vultures in. But they're pushed down the list. Because then if you have, you know, that also lessens demand. If you take those players off the table, they're contributing like 20, 30 percent of the market right now. And that also helps to cool the market

without jacking up rates and making prices so much more expensive and out of reach for so many more families and putting pressure on affordable housing and rent. So there are things we could do that don't involve just like screwing over regular people, but we seem to have no political imagination about any of those things. Speaking of screwing over workers and regular people, Starbucks, a little update for you. Of course, the Starbucks Union Workers United, they have been romping in union elections across the country. I mean, well over 100 stores have unionized now. It is extraordinary.

And Starbucks, we've been reporting, has been completely freaking out about this. They brought Howard Schultz back in. They fired a number of people, including some of the people leading their union-busting response. This has clearly not gone well for them. What did Howard Schultz say? It was like an invasion or an assault. That was the word he used, this union assault on Starbucks. Well, they now have escalated to a new tactic, effectively declaring all-out war on the union. Put this up on the screen. By closing one of the cafes that unionized, this according to a Bloomberg report, the union says that this is obvious retaliation.

And they didn't just say this. They actually filed that allegation with the National Labor Relations Board. This is a store that unionized in April. It's located in Ithaca, New York. They're asking the NLRB to seek a federal court injunction to quickly prevent or reverse the store closure. So we've had over around 100 Starbucks cafes have voted to unionize. Actually, more than that now. Only 14 have voted against unionizing. So Starbucks desperate to do something here to stop this trend and this landslide in favor of

unionization within their stores. And part of why we know this is retaliation and not just, you know, normal, like obviously sometimes Starbucks stores close is because, put this up on the screen from More Perfect Union, they obtained the email that was sent to unionized Starbucks workers in Ithaca that announced the closure of their store. And guess who it was sent from? It was not actually sent from Starbucks.

It was sent from their union-busting lawyer who handles union negotiations. So they're using the union busters to close the store. That tells you everything you need to know about what this is actually all about. And we've seen this be successful in the past, Sagar, where at other companies, I think it was Dollar General who did this in Missouri. Yes, they did that. You know, they want to put the fear of God into

these workers that, hey, if you vote to unionize, your store could be next. You could be out on the street and without a job like that because we still hold all the cards and have all the power. The fact that it was Ithaca and that it was at one of the original places with unionization, I think is a major show of force against the workers by the company. And my great fear, as I was talking about earlier, is yes, the labor market is hot. Yes, it was a great time really in order to go and to try and form a union. But the more into recession that you go, the more excuse that they have to just crack down as much as possible. All you need is a single down quarter and down in the stock for the company to just go full-fledged.

And I'm not saying they haven't necessarily even already done that, but that just makes it so that it will get lost in the noise, I think. And that is a fear. Workers will be more vulnerable to these types of threats. Yes, way more. Because right now you have issues with inflation and wages not keeping up. So people are getting a pay cut every month. So there aren't enough good jobs.

But there are a lot of jobs. So when you, you know, are threatening. They also, they fired workers. Actually, Layla, who we had on this show, she faces, she's got her court hearing this week to see if she gets reinstated to her job because she alleges and the union alleges that she was illegally fired. There are a number of other – there's the Memphis Seven that also they allege were illegally fired. They have their court hearings, I think, coming up this week as well. Maybe even today, actually, for those hearings as well. But they've already – they've fired workers to try to make an example of them and

scare people and freak them out. Remember, he tried this ploy too, which I assume they're still going through with, of we're going to give all the other workers a benefits increase and we've got new goodies for them. But if you're a union, sorry, you're left out of that. Also probably illegal, but yet another union busting tactic because what they try to say is, oh, if you unionize, you may lose some of the good things that you already have. That is almost never the case. But they're trying to make that reality, even though they're probably doing that illegally. And so this is the next step in the escalatory chain. None of those things have worked. None of them have slowed the momentum whatsoever. I saw yesterday, I think four, five, six, something like that.

New Starbucks unions formed just yesterday, voted to unionize just yesterday. So this is the next step. All right. You didn't take it. You didn't do any, you know, it didn't stop when we fired workers, didn't stop when we said union workers, you're not getting these benefits that other Starbucks workers are. What if we actually just close the store, just shutter the whole thing, just to send a message

and send a shockwave through the movement? So I still don't think it will work because of where the labor market is right now, but you're 100% correct. As the economy turns, these sort of threats, this sort of bullying, these sort of illegal union-busting tactics,

they grow more and more potent the more desperate the workforce ultimately is. I mean, Starbucks really wants to make the case that closing a Starbucks on Cornell University campus makes business sense. Right. Come on. Right. I've seen Starbucks in strip malls, which nobody goes to, and that place is somehow

still in business. But not on a university? That seems like the best possible place to have a Starbucks. Okay. Let's go ahead to the Washington Post. Lots of Washington Post in the show today. Unfortunately for them, I guess fortunately for us, we wanted to follow up here on that Amber Heard op-ed in the Washington Post, which really does matter from a media perspective. If we consider the circumstances,

Amber Heard promised a $3.5 million donation, and I say promised because she never actually ended up paying up, to the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union. Now, the ACLU then ghostwrote an op-ed for her and placed it in the Washington Post using their connections in which they portrayed Amber Heard as a victim of domestic abuse. That was eventually found to be the defamatory claim by the jury in the Depp versus Heard trial where they found that Amber Heard, and really by proxy, the ACLU, did defame Johnny Depp in that op-ed. And really, it's clear that Amber Heard was doing all of this for Social Cloud to try and paint herself as a victim. Now, a lot has been made here of Depp and Heard and the circumstances, but not a lot has been made here about the Washington Post, which eventually found itself as a patsy by being played by the ACLU and printing what a jury in Virginia has now found to be a defamatory claim.

So let's put this up there on the screen. Their own media critic, Eric Wemple, actually criticized the paper for publishing that op-ed by the ACLU. And he asked his bosses for comment since, you know, a jury in a court of law found it defamatory. Here was their response. We do not take stands on the opinions shared in our op-ed page. Hmm. Okay. Here was their response. Hmm. Okay. So the opinion page, which curates opinion and makes an actual decision every time they solicit an op-ed or accept an op-ed or publish an op-ed, they take a stand by elevating that opinion, says we don't take stands on opinions that are shared in our op-ed. They take a stand by elevating that opinion. Says, we don't take stands on opinions that are shared in our op-ed. I mean, you would think, no, that at the very least, an editor's note

should be added to the op-ed that maybe a retraction or some sort of explanation should be given. How about this one? They just suspended without paying Dave Weigel for some dumb retweet? Yeah, exactly. Who's the person who greenlit this? How about the editor who was involved?

They're good. They're good. They completely failed at their job and allowed a defamatory illegal op-ed to be posted in the pages of the Washington Post. But they're good to go. God forbid you do a wrong retweet. Then there must be hell to pay. I mean, if you read in this too, Eric Wemple, to his own credit, is scathing. He goes in here. Yeah, he just points out, he's like,

this was a terrible op-ed. It embraces all the cliches of op-ed design. He said it was an assault on journalism. Deploying public figures to braid their personal experiences with policy prescriptions reads the pieces opening. I was exposed to abuse at a very young age. I knew certain things early on without ever having to be told. At a certain point in her adult life, the op-ed states, Heard's familiarity with these things deepened. Not once did the op-ed mention Depp's name and the Post was not a defendant in Depp's libel suit. But what they point to here is that through the author's strategy and through this promised donation, and which, by the way, the ACLU didn't just say that they were going to place this

op-ed for her. They made her a, quote, ambassador for women's rights with a focus on gender-based violence. This is reputational laundering. It's money laundering, almost, in a way. They want to bolster Amber Heard's career in Hollywood and her image as a victim. And by branding her an ACLU ambassador, all you have to do is not even pay. You have to promise to pay $3.5 million, of which your rich boyfriends and ex-husbands are the ones who eventually end up making whole, which I actually think is pretty sexist and validating in terms of the critiques against her. Now, when we exactly see the ACLU, whenever they're pressed, says this in response, as with many advocacy organizations, the ACLU often submits pieces written by a range of external advocates and leaders in support of

urgent policy priorities. It's routine for them to submit written pieces in our collaboration with, quote, artist ambassadors and other high-profile individuals who support our work. But again, we continue to point to this fact, which is that a jury in Northern Virginia, Fairfax, Virginia, where the Post servers are located, found this to be a defamatory op-ed. There has not been any statement yet by the Washington Post about how it will continue to solicit op-eds, about whether they find it troubling that the defamatory claim was published within their newspaper. And I honestly think worse for them is that they don't even feel the need or public pressure by the media to say, hey, what's going on here? What are your internal processes to make sure that this stuff,

do you vet things that people say in your paper? Because if not, that's a problem. That's a serious problem. I thought Wemple made a really good point here, which is, he writes, they were taking a shortcut to this controversy, foregoing the journalistic effort required to piece together a bona fide hashtag B2 story. I mean, that's kind of the crux of this thing is it's really hard and it takes a lot of journalistic legwork and time. And sometimes the stories, you know, you can't get enough sources and you can't ultimately put it out to actually publish something like what Ronan Farrow did with Harvey Weinstein. Yeah, it takes months. It takes a lot of work. Months of work and digging and piecing it together and getting the sources and making sure it's vetted, making sure it's backed up and that it's going to stand up to scrutiny. And you go through that whole process knowing the whole time that you may not get there. You may spend months on this thing that you think you've got, but you don't quite have enough to rise to the level of publishing in, say, the Washington Post.

Instead, they wanted to take a sort of cheap shortcut and go with this op-ed that was completely unvetted that was really written by the ACLU, but they stuck Amber Heard's name on it because if the ACLU just wrote some generic thing about Me Too, of course they're not going to publish that. So they use Amber Heard's celebrity to get this ultimately published without ultimately vetting the claims. And now that it has been found to be defamatory by a jury in Virginia, they have nothing to say about it. And there's no consequences whatsoever. There's very little curiosity in what happened here or what the relevance might be or how they might handle this going forward from any other corners of the media. So it's one more sign of WAPO and disarray, which I know you're going to get to. Yeah, I'll get into more of that in my monologue.

But I do think it is really worth just rehashing this because obviously this captured the nation's attention. Some people may be never familiar with how an op-ed and all that other stuff works. The true view into the nonprofit industrial complex, reputational laundering by celebrities, the way that narcissists can use that in order to wash their own image and bolster it, and frankly, for her own career. We all know this was great for her career until it wasn't, until a lot of the truth all came out. And how the mainstream media, the Washington Post, the New York – if you think this doesn't happen over the New York Times op-ed page? I don't even know if I should say this, but whenever the whole Joe Rogan thing was going on, the Times reached out to me before, and I was like, yeah, whatever. But I was like, hey, okay, I'm here. I actually know him. I was a guest on his show.

I'm like, let me write a piece defending Rogan. They said, we're passing on this one. So I don't have the ACLU behind me. By the way, the ACLU, as people who support free speech, they probably should have gone and pitched something like that. But they're not going to do it. This is the whole other thing that's so sad is the downfall of the ACLU, which is this storied institution which has pissed everybody off at some point. I mean really just principled in support of civil liberties, freedom of speech. And now they literally stand for nothing. And that part is truly sad.

All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? I regret to inform you all, the Washington Post is at it again. Yesterday, we had YouTuber Legal Bytes on our channel to discuss how Taylor Loren smeared her and lied about contacting her for comment. This led to more prolonged lies in their newspaper as they tried to cover up how unprofessional they were until a major editor's note was added at the top, admitting Taylor Lorenz lied, claimed to contact two people for comment despite not doing so. You would think a humiliating incident like that would be enough. But no, the internecine battle has erupted online over a stupid retweet that threatens the integrity of the Post's workplace itself. And while yes, I know this can sound pedantic and dumb,

the implications of this are legitimately as important. This is the second most powerful newspaper in America. It all started with a retweet by Washington Post political reporter Dave Weigel. He retweeted this joke, saying, quote, Every girl is bi. You just have to figure out if it's polar or sexual. I mean, look, it's kind of weird, for sure. It's amusing, I guess, in a boomer way. But it's not that bad, if you ask me. That, however, was a bridge too far for reporter

Felicia Somnes. Now, she screenshotted that tweet saying, quote, fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed. Wow, you're publicly putting your colleague on blast for a bad joke that he didn't even make. That's pretty wild, right? You know, par for the course in these woke workplaces. But from there, things were spiraling. Dave Weigel actually apologized for his quote unquote offensive retweet. But then the Washington Post management got involved. The executive editor, Sally Busby, emailed the entire staff asking them all, please treat each other with dignity and respect. You know, don't call each other publicly out on social media if you have a problem with each other. Handle it like a normal person and talk to them in person or privately.

Oh, but no, it does not end there at all, because one of Weigel's colleagues and another person who works at the Washington Post responded to Felicia, Jose Del Real. He is a reporter who responded to Felicia's call saying, quote, Felicia, we all mess up from time to time. Engaging in repeated and targeted public harassment of a colleague is neither a good look or particularly effective. It turns the language of inclusivity into clout chasing and bullying. I don't think this is appropriate. You see, Jose really screwed up. You should never try to argue rationally with a suicide bomber level crazy person like Felicia.

And from there, she went scorched earth. Felicia responded that by objecting to sexism and standing up against a dumbass retweet is not cloud chasing or harassment, even though that we all know it is, and began taunting Jose Del Real for blocking her on Twitter and noting how he himself got harassed. Remember, these are all colleagues. Then a true woke-off ensued. Del Real noted he is the only Mexican-American reporter at the Washington Post and is openly gay because he needs to establish his own woke credentials. Felicia then began saying that calling out Jose Del Real, she's not inciting harassment against him, but also she set the

standard that by responding to her, he is harassing her. The classic Taylor Loren standard. Since then, she has been spastically retweeting attacks on her own colleagues and retweets about how the Washington Post needs to stand up for her. So where does that leave us? And why does any of this BS matter? Because these are some of the most powerful political reporters in the country. They work at the second most powerful newspaper in America. These people deliver our news, and this shows us how insane they are. Worse, their management is completely unable to rein them in at all.

They have openly allowed Taylor Lorenz to be an unhinged, unprofessional lunatic. They refused to fire Felicia Samnez in the past for leaking her own boss's emails to the New York Times. And she even sued her own paper because she questionably MeToo'd somebody in 2018. And they felt, you know, maybe you're not going to be objective and you shouldn't be allowed to report on these types of stories because she was an advocate. How do we know she was an advocate? Because she was also the person tweeting about how Kobe Bryant was a rapist minutes after he died. And the company told her, hey, you know, you're kind of making us look bad.

Also, true. Here's the thing. They never fired her for any of those transgressions. Each time, they caved to the mob of both Somnes and the employees at the paper who even wrote letters in support of her. So now, I don't feel bad for them at all. In fact, the situation is escalating further. Yesterday, a video technician named Brianna Muir put her colleague Micah Gelman on blast

for mistakenly three months ago calling her Brianna Taylor. That's it. He deleted the tweet. He profoundly apologized. There's no indication at all he did this in malice. And yet she said, these tweets, including Dave Weigel's, not only hurt women in our newsroom, but make it extremely difficult to do our best work. Let me tell you something, Breonna. If you are someone who accidentally misspelling your name, that's the hardest thing that you have to deal with at work and in your life. You have a very blessed life. Try having an Indian name with three A's in it that isn't phonetic. You see, we can all outwoke each other or we can all just calm down. The reason I bored you in excruciating detail with all of this is because as I was wrapping up this entire monologue, guess what breaks across the wire?

The Washington Post suspended Dave Weigel for his quote-unquote sexist joke. He was suspended without pay for a month, meaning he will miss out on a month's entire income. At the same time, Taylor Lorenz can literally print lies. She can violate basic journalistic practices. She's going to keep her job. Felicia Somnes, she can behave like a complete lunatic, harass her colleagues. She's fine. You

know what that really deserves major punishment? It's retweeting a boomer joke. This is a major event in media. I know it might seem trivial, but it is a warning shot to everyone inside the system. You're not safe, even if you're normal. They will come from you, and there is only one solution. You've got to burn this thing to the ground. I mean, listen, you and I were on the phone. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Bristol, what do you take a look at? Well, guys, there's a fascinating new poll out from the Southern Poverty Law Center and Tultran Research, which, among other things, shows that young men are increasingly skeptical of feminism. Kind of ties in with Sager's monologue here. Here is the data.

While an overwhelming majority of Americans believe women in the workplace strengthen our economy, that's 82%, and say they'd be comfortable with a woman as a president. That's 75%. Our survey also found that a majority of men under 50 on the right and a near majority of their Democratic counterparts say feminism has, quote, done more harm than good. So here's the chart. It lays out all of the data. And the trend is actually consistent. And it's really pretty interesting. Americans under 50 of both sexes are much more likely to hold a skeptical view of feminism. So even among female Democrats, younger women are more likely to say feminism has been a net negative than older women. And this is even more true of younger men. 62% of younger Republican men are negative on feminism versus 42% of older Republican men. And 46% of younger Democratic men are negative

on feminism, very high number, versus just 4% of older Democratic men. So that's a huge gulf. That means the younger Democratic men are actually more skeptical of feminism than older Republican men. This is confusing and it's kind of contradictory given that by almost every metric, young Americans are more progressive than previous generations. So why then have they soured so much on feminism? Well, if I had to boil it down to one culprit, I'd say it's Hillary Clinton. And I'm actually only kind of kidding here. I'm talking about both Hillary Clinton herself, but in particular the brand of feminism, the specific type of feminism that she represents.

Just think about it. If you came of age during the 2016 presidential election and you were not hashtag ready for Hillary from the start, you were given a million reasons to think that if this lady becoming president was what feminism was all about, then maybe feminism was just not really for you. In the primary, young Democrats overwhelmingly supported Bernie Sanders, a man who spent his life championing left causes, fighting for civil rights at a time when Hillary Clinton was still a Goldwater girl. And for that support, you were smeared as a sexist. The message of the 2016 primary and also the general election was that you needed to vote for Hillary. You had no choice. You must be hashtag with her because the fulfillment of Hillary's personal ambitions was somehow good for all women, even though her actual policies and their impact on women was markedly inferior to those on offer from Bernie Sanders. When Hillary ultimately lost to a horrible person, plunging the country into four years of Trumpian chaos, it wasn't her fault.

It was because voters, among other excuses, were too sexist to realize how great she was. Yes, that experience of having feminism embodied by one woman and her vanity, that would pretty well turn you off of feminism and expose how hollow this type of ideology actually is. How much that type of feminism is really just a cover for the corrupt and brutal status quo, now with 50% more vaginas. Personally, I would still consider myself a feminist. I want all women, not just rich ones like Hillary Clinton, to have the full range of life's choices available to them. I want them to be able to choose whether and when to be a mom. I want them to be able to be supported, not guilted for working full-time if that's what they want. I want them to be able to be supported and not

guilted for staying home full-time if that's what they want. I want them to be able to be supported and not guilted for staying home full-time if that's what they want. I want us to have public institutions like universal health care and child care and high wages at union jobs which enable those choices. That is clearly not the feminism of the anointed queen of liberal women, Hillary Clinton. The liberal feminism of a Hillary or a Kamala, or sadly these days of an Elizabeth Warren, is largely symbolic and it's largely for wealthy professional women. Remember Warren's promise to wear a pink Planned Parenthood scarf at inauguration or going back pre-Hillary? The Gamergate cultural moment where feminists passionately dedicated themselves to the vital work of getting big tits out of video games? Convincing some segment of young men that feminism wasn't so much about treating women equally as it was about making sure dudes didn't have too much fun. And in fact, while younger Americans of both sexes are more skeptical of feminism than their

older counterparts, it is actually young, democratic men who have shifted most dramatically from their older peers. It seems likely that this new experience of feminism is largely to blame. For these young men, feminism isn't what I described and what I see it as. You can see that in the huge numbers who say women in the workplace strengthen the economy. So it's not a rejection of that idea of equality for women. Instead, their experience of feminism is being told they're supposed to feel bad for Taylor Lorenz, a wealthy journalist for a powerful news organization, or being told that they're sexist if they aren't into Kamala Harris, and being told that if they are failing in our society but don't our discussions of identity, creating a sort of hierarchy which doesn't consider class at all, let alone the genetic lotteries of looks and ability and just straight up plain old old-fashioned luck. YouTuber FDSignifier just did a viral video

delving into the animating forces of the online manosphere, that ecosystem of anti-SJW warriors and edgelords ranging from the harmless to the humorous to the radicalized. And he delves into the rise of edgelord culture and of nihilism and an epidemic of even those men who are supposedly at the height of privilege, white cis men, falling into depression, addiction, and suicide. Now, given that these online manosphere spaces are decidedly young and they are decidedly anti-feminist, his analysis has a lot of relevance to why young men across the political spectrum have soured on feminism. So today we have men from Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, and soon to be Gen Alpha,

as the oldest of them are entering puberty and are going to start Googling shit on YouTube and TikTok. And they're going to be grappling with the concept of performing masculinity and fearing the possibility of failing at it and suffering numerous consequences, or succeeding and suffering other consequences. And that's one thing I also want to get across here is that much of the manosphere historically and now is built upon a fear response. As boys, we fear that poor performance of masculinity can contribute to bullying and ostracism, which it does. As men, we fear that it will lead to low prospects for intimate partnership and professional success, which it does. Then for a lot of men who ostensibly do perform masculinity effectively, unless they're at the top of the food chain, they will still be susceptible to the harms of late capitalism

in the form of exploitative and dehumanizing work, low wages, poor health practices, etc. And even those at the top of the top still have to contend with the erosion of their soul. This is the infected foundation underneath all of this nonsense that ties it all together and makes the manosphere seem to have such widespread reach as it makes it possible for someone to start out just wanting to build some muscle or learn how to talk to girls or searching for their favorite anime character and end up arguing for things like enforced monogamy, sex redistribution, or that women should be denied the right to vote. The

scary and hard thing to understand is that like most social ills, the worst parts of the manosphere stem from a very valid and very universal sense of anguish in men. And we have to contend with and process this if we are ever going to seriously address how to fix the problems that the manosphere presents to us. So look, it's a long video. It's really thoughtful. I definitely encourage you to check out the whole thing. But what FD is pointing to in this portion is basically that this whole economic and cultural system that we've got here, it's bad for everyone. Even the people who are supposedly privileged find themselves precarious. He talks about performing masculinity, and that means a lot of things. But core to expectations of manhood are being a provider, the good job capable of

providing for a family. Our cultural mythology says that you work hard and you'll get the job and the house and the girl. But the reality of our late-stage capitalist society is that that middle-class stability has been stolen from millions. No wonder that millennials and Gen Z men who have had their futures stolen are increasingly telling pollsters feminism has been harmful because the liberal girl boss feminism offered by Hillary Clinton and co. doesn't offer any explanation for why men may live paycheck to paycheck, struggle with depression, and wrestle with the terror that they will never be able to obtain what society has told them it means to be a man.

Now, if that ideology offers them anything at all, it's contempt and an admonishment to check their privilege. Why should young men embrace an analysis, the most hollow version of which has nothing to say about their own condition? In the absence of a political project to recognize the dignity and humanity of everyone, men are left struggling with the same crises of meaning as everyone else, but frequently without the compassion that society may have for other demographic groups. Now, if these polls indicate that young Americans are seeing through the type of hollow identity politics that Hillary Clinton represents, I see that as progress. If they're rejecting the notion that we should uncritically cheer the latest girl boss, corporate CEO, or CIA chief, or political ghoul, that's fantastic. But now it's up to us to offer an alternative that exposes the true

villains, the corporate profiteers, the corrupt politicians, and a rigged economic system, not their fellow citizens of all races and genders who, like them, are just wrestling with the human condition. Thought a lot about this one. That's interesting. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now, we have the executive editor of The American Prospect, live here in the studio, the one and only David Dayne.

Great to see you, sir. Good to be here. First time actually meeting you in person. Exactly. So this is an exciting moment. And in addition, he's also author of a great book called Monopolized Chain of Title. So we have a great- Those are two books. Oh, two. Well, there you go. Monopolized and Chain of Title. That's right. Okay. So now that we have all that out of the way, we have a really interesting and important story that David has been following closely. Let's go ahead and put this tweet up on the screen. We have a really interesting and important story that David has been following closely. Let's

go ahead and put this tweet up on the screen. So the White House is planning to waive some solar import tariffs to ensure supply while also invoking the Defense Production Act to boost domestic manufacturing. For people who haven't been following this whole debate closely, can you just give us the backstory here that ultimately led to this decision? So pretty much all solar panel components, things like wafers and polysilicon, is made in China. And in 2012, under the Obama administration, there were what they call anti-dumping duties put on those products, basically saying that these Chinese companies working in concert with the Chinese government are throwing these solar panels on the world market at extremely low prices, below cost, in order to dominate the market. And so in 2012, they put these

restrictions on. Almost immediately, the solar imports from China went down almost at the same rate as the solar imports from four Southeast Asian companies went up. Interesting. Yeah. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that these goods were being transhipped from China to these four Southeast Asian countries and then on to all over the world, but including the United States. Right. So about three or four months ago, a small solar company here in the United States, a domestic manufacturer of these panels called Oxen Solar, filed what is known as an anti-circumvention order seeking an investigation. It's a quasi-legal process.

The Commerce Department is obligated to check it out, and they are in the midst of doing so. And basically, they're looking into whether or not these goods are being indeed transhipped from these four Southeast Asian companies to the U.S., therefore circumventing the tariff that was put on the Chinese companies. So they're in the midst of this investigation, and the domestic solar installers are freaking out about it because they like cheap solar panel goods from Asia. Who doesn't? Yeah. And, you know, I mean, there's an argument for it, right? I mean, we need to build out the green transition. And if you can do it more cheaply, then more power to you. There are larger questions of the reliability of centralizing production in essentially one part of the world. It also is the case that these goods happen to be

made using dirty coal in the production. It's very production intensive, very energy intensive. And so it offsets some of the benefit. And it's also made largely in the Xinjiang region, which we know is using largely forced labor from the Uyghurs to do this. In fact, there's a law called the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which is about to go into force that prevents the bringing in of any goods from this region that are made with forced labor. Right. And so just to understand, I think, because Biden is trying to kind of have it both ways here. He's saying, I'm going to use the Defense Production Act to increase U.S. manufacturing, but I'm also in the interim going to waive all these tariffs. Right. So the marketplace, how is it supposed to compete, especially when you have the actual person who sued on this behalf, the California-based Oxen Solar Company, who asked the organization to trigger this?

He is saying – he's like, you're interfering in this process, which was quasi-judicial, and you're actually hurting our ability to develop any competitive edge in U.S. manufacturing if you do believe in solar. So, I mean, this does seem like a gift to these domestic installers and, frankly, to these Chinese companies. Yeah, I think that's right. And, you know, the trade organization that represents them are one and the same. The trade organization, the Solar Energy Industries Association, includes a lot of installers, but it also includes manufacturing companies like the Chinese companies who are subjects of this investigation. Yes. Like Jinko Solar and Trina Solar and JA Solar. So, yeah, basically what Biden did is he said, okay, we are for 24 months going to suspend any of these anti-dumping tariffs. They're actually called duties. Yes. Trade lawyers get very mad at me when I call them tariffs. So they're going to suspend them for

24 months, for basically, you know, two years, give them a free pass. And yes, I mean, it's hard to see how using the Defense Production Act to boost domestic solar manufacturing is going to work when you have a much cheaper product over in China. The authority for how Biden is suspending these anti-dumping and countervailing duties is very strange. It's from the Smoot-Hawley tariff. It's from the 1930s Trade Act. And it's supposed, the authority that he's using is supposed to be used in the event of like a natural disaster. It's supposed to be used for earthquakes. It's supposed to suspend tariffs to bring in necessary goods in the event of some sort of physical emergency. So it's very hard for me to see, and it's very hard for a lot of trade lawyers I talked to yesterday to see how this authority is kosher. But there's little

belief that anyone's going to challenge it. Maybe Oxen Solar, maybe one of these domestic solar companies will challenge it in court and we'll get a final ruling. But what the trade lawyers I talked to are worried about is that this doesn't just affect solar. It means that any kind of small company that wants to investigate an anti-dumping case that the government doesn't like, the government has now pulled a rabbit out of its hat and this special exemption that they can put in place to basically facilitate the continued, you know, whatever it is they want out of a trade regime. That's terrible. So it's not just bad for solar domestic manufacturing. It's bad for a number of

points of domestic manufacturing, as long as your lobby is big enough to make it a political problem. What do the political lines look like on this debate? Well, I mean, it's a little, you know, skewed. I mean, you have environmentalists who do say, yes, we need to build out solar and we need to do it as cheaply and quickly as possible. You have folks on the trade side in both parties, economic sort of nationalism types who say that we need to build a domestic solar industry, not just because of where this is coming from, but because it's the law. Like our trade laws are supposed to protect and assist domestic industry and build good jobs in this country. And if we can't do that because they're workarounds

or ways that the government can stop these kinds of investigations, then that could be bad for all of us from an economic standpoint. And the other point to make is that we just lived through a pandemic where we saw the dangers of long intermediated supply chains. We saw the dangers of centralizing production in one part of the world. And when that production goes south, then we have a shortage in this country. And we could certainly see that with solar. This also is sort of a dry run. As I mentioned, this Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is supposed to come in place at the end of the month. And are they going to figure out some other way to exclude that?

And this is something that passed, I believe, 420 to 1. Yeah, it was unanimous through the Senate. And by voice vote in the Senate. Right. And we're just going to overturn this law because it's inconvenient for solar installers who want cheap solar panels? I think this is an excellent point because you have just given, they have just given a gift to National Retail Foundation, to Nike, to all these people. You think their supply chains don't touch – they lobbied heavily against the Uyghur Protection Act specifically because they know their supply chain is riddled with this type of labor. And now you have shown that if you can make a good enough argument, you can get a waiver from the administration.

I mean my question is, David, does David, is the investigation going to continue? Like, are we actually going to find out the results? And I mean, it's probably very demoralizing to the CBP officers who are even leading this investigation because they're like, well, what's the point? What am I doing here? It's the Commerce Department officers. But yes, it is supposed to continue and they're supposed to do it on a parallel track. And I think the end result, if you sort of, let's take what is the best argument the Biden administration can make. We're going to do this on a parallel track. The end result will be if they do find circumvention, then they will put the duty on, which is probably no more than between 12 and 20 percent. And in two years, those companies will have to pay that duty. So

maybe in two years, it becomes a little less cost effective for solar to be imported from these Southeast Asian countries. But, you know, two years is a long time. And certainly if the Chinese government is determined enough to dominate this market, they don't really care about profit. They continue to drop this down such that the duty is irrelevant. So I think that this, you know, your characterization of this as a gift is pretty accurate. What would a sensible industrial policy look like to encourage the domestic manufacturing of solar panels? Well, I mean, I think it starts with, you know, boosting support here in the United States. We've always had support on installation, but we've never had support on production.

So a production tax credit, John Ossoff has that bill. It was at one point part of the artist known formerly as Build Back Better. There's still a chance that in whatever newfangled process that they put together that that would come through. But I think that's the important thing, that we've never actually incentivized solar production in the United States. Now, some solar producers say, you know, well, we just have to do it this way. It's always going to be cheaper in China. And it's a fool's errand to say that we can produce it more cheaply in the United States. You know, and that gets into some real kind of creepy moral arguments that like, yeah, we have to have this slavery out there

because and use this forced labor because it's just cheaper for us, which is the kind of arguments that you heard in the 19th century. Yeah, and let's accept also, let's accept this, which is that you know why it's cheaper there? Because they don't have environmental regulations that we have here. They can take little kids and make them breathe in toxic fumes, use dirty coal, and pollute the environment while they're producing clean energy so you can hit your – if we do it here, we have actual regulations which we have to abide by.

Yes, that might be more expensive, but that's better overall for the environment. And the point is if you want to support all workers. Of course. You would allow this regime that says we're not going to tolerate the widespread mass use of forced labor in this other country. I mean, I've heard yesterday, I heard like solar boosters who I was fighting with online talk about like, well, we use prison labor here in the United States. That's bad, too. The ultimate two wrongs don't make a right.

Right. Yeah. Great point. Lastly, I wanted you to plug your latest reporting, which is on one of the things that you all do so well is pointing out, hey, here are things Biden could actually do. You all had the I think you caught up with the day one agenda. You had a list of executive actions he could take. Doesn't need Joe Manchin, the parliamentarian, the filibuster, all that off the table. You have another of those items that would allow Joe Biden to go after the for profit college industry, which has been just disgustingly exploitative and abusive of students. Take us through that. And has been so for like 80 years. When I did the reporting on this, since the GI Bill came out after World War II, there have been unscrupulous for-profit colleges

that pop up like clockwork every decade to try to grab that federal money. The key point here is that the way in which the for-profit college industry survives is through federal loans, federal financing. Almost 90% of all money that is revenue to the for-profit industry comes from federal student loans. So if you deny those colleges the access to the federal student loan program, they can't survive. And what we saw, there are kind of two ways to handle this. The first way is what we saw last week. So the Biden administration, to their credit, canceled every single loan that was made for Corinthian Colleges, this for-profit network, this very predatory network, for its entire history from 1995 to 2015, canceled all of them

and will refund payments. So you can do that on the back end. You've already financed it. The executives got their money. They went away scot-free. They had no accountability. And we will pay back and give restitution to the victims, the people who went to these colleges who got worthless diplomas. And it's very costly. Or on the front end, you could prevent for-profit colleges in the first place. Do not allow people to get rich off of federal financing and exploiting students and not have that as an option. Now, I assume the for-profit college industry would say, well, what about these poor kids? They have nowhere else to turn. They want to better themselves and make a better education. The for-profit college industry is not a way to do that. I mean, not only do they not help people's career prospects,

in some cases I've heard that they actively hurt it, that they go into job interviews and it says Corinthian College is on it and the job recruiters laugh at them. So this is not a case where we have to be unscrupulous and exploit a little bit because it's necessary. I mean, first of all, that's a bogus case to begin with, but it's really bogus in the extent of the for-profit college industry. So what I reported on today is the fact that the Debt Collective, which is an activist group, sent a letter, a memo to the education department last July outlining the steps that can be taken. And all the steps are in the story of how you can dismantle the for-profit college industry without needing Congress.

You can just deny recertification, access to the student loan program. The education department has the ability to do it. They could do it today. They could just deny access to the for-profit college industry. Wow. Sounds like a very good idea. And, you know, I think it's just important for people to still sort of exercise their political imagination and understand that, yes, the president of the United States does, in fact, still have, he's not a magician, can't do everything, but he does, in fact, have some power in and of himself. David, great to see you. Thank you. Absolutely. Great to see you, man. Always love talking to you. Our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching.

We really appreciate it. It's our actual one-year anniversary since we actually began, which is kind of incredible. So thank you all so much for showing up. We got big plans. Also my son's ninth birthday. Yes. Happy birthday, Lolo. Happy birthday, Lolo.

I remember that from eighth birthday from last year. So it's time truly flies. We've got big announcements on the horizon. We'll have some on Thursday. And that's, I guess, when we'll see you. We've got great partner content in the interim. And yeah, all right, we'll see you then. Love you guys.

See you soon. We'll see you next time. on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, My father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up, they could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast,

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Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.