Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/1/21: Bill Cosby Injustice, Nina Turner Campaign, Trump Organization Indictments, NSA Spying, Media Bloodbath, Billionaire Armies, NYC Mayoral Election, and More!

Episode Date: July 1, 2021

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become a premium member today, which is available in the show notes. Enjoy the show, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Well, first of all, we got the perfect guest to break down whatever the hell is going on in the New York City mayor's race. The Board of Elections, of course, total catastrophe. Looks like Catherine Garcia may have a chance to overtake

Eric Adams. We're going to talk to Ross Barkan about all of that. Jim Clyburn jumping into Nina Turner's primary race, doing what he can to try to stop her incredible momentum. Not an accident that he takes tons of money from Big Pharma. And Nina has just released a new ad talking about Medicare for all. Not an accident there. The CFO of a Trump organization has turned himself in today. It looks like he's going to be indicted on charges of its tax evasion on fringe benefits. We're going to talk about all of that. Tucker Carlson says the NSA is spying on him. What do we know? What's the fact? What's the fiction? Is the NSA also spying on you? Very

possibly the answer is yes. That's the big question. Yeah, exactly. If they are spying on him, he's not special. Let's just put it that way. But we wanted to start with what is a total outrage, which is that yesterday Bill Cosby walked free. It's pretty amazing, Crystal, how these rich, famous guys who are rapists, alleged rapists for Mr. Cosby's lawyers, continue to walk. And let's put this up there on the screen, which is that Bill Cosby's conviction yesterday went ahead and was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court by a vote of six to one. I've got some mixed feelings on this because to be honest, on the legal grounds, it sounds like it was correctly decided. But let's just explain

what exactly was happening here. So back in 2005, Bill Cosby was given an assurance by Bruce Castor. You might remember him as that really weird lawyer who was doing a lot of stuff after the January 6th impeachment inquiry against Trump in the Senate. That was him, that guy, the clownish, buffoonish figure. Well, Castor gave him an assurance at the time that if Mr. Cosby were to testify in a subsequent civil case, who was brought by Andrea Constance, she's one of the main Cosby accusers, in a civil suit that she filed against him in 2006 for $3.38 million that he would not be prosecuted explicitly under the case of this crime. So it seems that Castor, by giving him that assurance and testifying to that effect to the court, basically made it a slam dunk in terms of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court being able to overturn this. Now, prosecutors at the time of going after Bill Cosby had thought

they might be able to go over this because it didn't fall within the purview of the agreement, but a six to one court decided against it. And Crystal, you and I feel very mixed about this because on the legal grounds, it seems correctly decided. It seems correctly decided. But it's pretty amazing. Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby and these prolific rapists somehow all get these little sweet, also all near to 2005. Weird. All get these really weird, like perfect sweetheart deals. Oh, you're not going to be prosecuted. The man admitted to drugging her with Quaaludes and raping her. And she is one of dozens of Cosby victims. I recommend this podcast to you. I'll recommend it to all of you. Chasing Cosby, the LA Times did it. I listened to it like two years ago. I've never been more horrified at a story of sexual assault, possibly the Epstein case,

in terms of how much of a cover-up there was, how disgusting of a predator this man was from the very beginning of his career all the way up into old age. While he was America's dad, he was going and drugging, raping young women, sometimes who were teenagers, buying them off, trying to call their moms, promising them career, college tuition.

Scum, scumbag. And now he gets to walk. It's just, it makes me so, so angry. And you found this clip of Cosby talking a little bit about it. Let's take a listen. I want to show my panel a fascinating interview we found from 1991. Bill Cosby was on CNN promoting a book. He tells an interesting story. Take a look. Spanish fly was the thing that all boys from age 11 on up to death, we will still be searching for Spanish fly. And what was the old story was, if you took a little drop, it was on the head of a pin.

That's right. And you put it in a drink. Coca-Cola. It doesn't matter. It doesn't make any difference. And the girl would drink it and hello, America. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. And so here's, there's a lot to say about all of this.

First of all, from my reading of it, you're right. This was correctly decided. It was six to one in terms of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. So it wasn't a particularly close call in their view. Even a monster, the way our constitutional system works, deserves to have their due process rights protected. However, that is far from saying the legal system worked in this case or that justice in any sense of the word was done here. And one piece that I do take major issue with in this decision is they decided not only to vacate the conviction, they also decided to rule against a retrial. That's right. So that means this is it. That's it. He's free. He walks. But you think about the failures that occurred,

not just with the buffoon Bruce Castor promising him, hey, you know, you testify in the civil case. We promise we're not going to prosecute you. And then that testimony is partly what they used in this trial and secured the conviction. That's why his due process rights were violated here. But the failure goes to decades of this being an open secret. He's talking about it to Larry King, joking about it in 1991. Total societal failure, allowing this monster to go on

and victimize woman after woman after woman. And it wasn't until Hannibal Buress, the comedian, remember how this all came about? I think it was in 2014, made a joke about, we all know Bill Cosby's a rapist, right? And that triggered all of these women to be able to come forward. That finally sparked this legal case against him. But because society had protected this rich and famous man, just like they did Harvey Weinstein, just like they did Jeffrey Epstein over decades.

This case with Andrea Constand was the only one where the statute of limitations had not expired. And on the day that she filed this case, it was days before the statute of limitations would have expired even in this case. So that's why all of the dozens of women, I think we have a tear sheet of the number of women who have come forward and said, this is exactly, and the story is the same in every case. He drugged me. Like you said, he offered career help. He offered me guidance and then sexually assaulted, raped me in case after case after case. Years, this man was protected. And so it's a societal failure. It is a legal system failure.

And I do think while on the technical term, again, and this is what's uncomfortable and one of the things that we do stand up here for on the show as civil libertarians and people who believe in people having due process rights, it's correctly decided on those merits. He should be retried though. There should be an ability to retry him. Barring the evidence that he gave in the civil case, there may have still been enough there to convict him on these terms. So it is a totally outrageous and unjust state of affairs that this man is going free. And oh, by the way, everybody on the Internet is pointing out, Britney's motion at the same time to get her dad removed from her conservatorship is denied. So we got Bill Cosby free and Britney still effectively jailed.

Cosby's not just free. You know, he put a little thumb, he gave a little V for victory. Let's put this up there. I have a picture of it yesterday from a taken by a chopper. I mean, look at this guy. He's walking free, out of prison. He's got his peace sign. I even saw one of the moms, I think, from the Cosby show, Felicia Rashad, who, by the way, is now a dean at Howard University here in Washington, who actually tweeted on his behalf being like, justice has been done. You know, screw you.

And for all the students at Howard University, I'm sorry. I can't even imagine having a dean who is somebody who expressed solidarity with Bill Cosby. Wow. I'm just going to read a little bit from what some of these women say. He said, let's try a cold read. He pulls out a script. The scene was set in a bar, so someone was inebriated. He poured me a glass of wine.

He said, use this as a prop. I don't remember much after that. Here's another one. He went and had a modeling contract. I took a few sips. I had a horrible taste. I started not few sips. I had a horrible taste. I started not to feel well. He helped me up by my underarms, and he walked me into the next room where there was a mirror on the wall,

and he told me to look at myself, and then he sexually assaulted her. I looked around. He was sitting next to my roommate with this very predatory look on his face. She was completely unconscious. There are 35 of these which are listed there, and that's only about half of them. So like I said, I encourage you, go listen to that Chasing Cosby podcast. I'm going to get so upset if I even have to think about so many of the way that they recount it, but we will leave it with Andrea herself who gave an interview about what he did. So let's take a listen. He said, they'll help you

relax. And I said, like, are they natural? Are they like a herbal remedy? He said, no, they're your friends. Just put them down. They're your friends. They're your friends. Just put them down. Swallow. And he hands me some water. I get some water somehow, and I swallow the three pills down. Why do you do that? I took them because I trusted that they would maybe just help me feel a little more relaxed. You trusted him? Yes, I did. Yes, I did. As Andrea testified in court, within a half hour, she started slurring her words and could no longer walk. Cosby helped her to a couch, she says, and assaulted her. And you know, Andrea, she was a young girl when that happened, and she had her whole life ahead of her. And she was the one whose mom called, he called her mom.

And he was like, oh, pay for her college tuition. And she was a star basketball player and all this. Her life was ruined. She literally had decades of therapy. I think she's in her 50s now or something like that. And she still has to live with it. So, you know, I really don't even know what to say. I can't believe this guy gets to walk.

There's two other things I want to say. Number one, it makes me feel sad about what has happened to the Me Too movement because this cause was just—the cause of taking down Harvey Weinstein was just a lot of the societal correction desperately needed to happen. And for so many years, women like Andrea, they couldn't come forward. No one would believe them. They'd be pushed to the side. They'd be smeared, dismissed, slut shamed, all of that. Okay. So a societal correction desperately needed to happen. Now you've had all these grifters who've tried to like reattain relevancy, people like Alyssa Milano latching onto it. You see people who are just total, potentially frauds, like the woman who took down Scott Stringer in the New York City mayor's race. You see the way this was weaponized for sure, this one we know 100 percent, against Alex Morse in this race.

So it makes me sad to reflect on that. Like, I just can't stop thinking about the way that this man, Bill Cosby, lectured America and especially black America for years about like you got to pull up your pants and respectable respectability politics as if he was in any position to be a moral arbiter or a moral voice in society. It's outrageous. And reflecting on it now, you sort of realize his message was like, well, as long as you present like you're good and above board on the outside, on the inside, it really doesn't matter. Just the exterior is what counts. And we see now what an ugly, ugly man, ugly interior this was and what he did to so many women and not to face justice. It is an absolute outrage. We'll continue to follow it if there's any major developments. Wanted to make sure that you guys knew all of the details that were involved. Both the fact that it was probably legally correctly decided,

but just how much of a miscarriage of actual justice this entire thing is. Indeed. All right, so moving on, we've got, so you guys probably know Nina Turner, who was a campaign co-chair of Bernie Sanders, one of his strongest, most passionate voices, but also an incredible force in her own right in terms of progressive Democrats. She's running in an Ohio special election in a Democratic primary. All indications have been that Nina is way out ahead of the field. Of course, there are a lot of people here in Washington who do not want to see Nina Turner come to Congress. And what's interesting, too, is that so this is a seat

that was vacated because Marsha Fudge ended up getting an administration position because Jim Clyburn pushed her to get an administration position within the Biden administration. So now as they're coming down the pike and Nina is way ahead, guess who's weighed in to try to stop her momentum and guarantee an establishment-friendly voice ultimately gets into that seat? And by the way, it's a heavily Democratic seat, so whoever wins the primary very likely to end up in Congress. The one and only Jim Clyburn decided to jump in and endorse Nina's main opponent, a woman named Chantel Brown, who's also been endorsed by people like Hillary Clinton, the usual cast of characters. And, you know, first of all, let me say that this New York Times piece was really obnoxious.

Even the way they frame Nina as like a Bernie Sanders acolyte, as if she doesn't stand on her own two feet. She had a long political career before Bernie Sanders jumped up and ran for president in Ohio. She secured a lot of local endorsements there because people in, this is a Cleveland area seat, people there have known her, have worked with her outside of her national brand and image. She's long lived in Cleveland. This is her home. This is where her family is, all of that stuff. So Jim Clyburn, just as he jumped into the presidential race to rescue Joe Biden's failing campaign and really was the that was the moment where everything flipped. He's trying to pull off the same magic here in Ohio. And the question is, is it going to work now? I don't. Of course, when he endorsed Biden, it was going into the South Carolina primary.

Jim Clyburn is from, representative from South Carolina, so he has a lot more clout there than you would expect him to have in Ohio. But still, very interesting and troubling development. Nina has made a lot of it. She's raised over $100,000 in one day after Clyburn. I think we have that tweet or tear sheet that we can throw up there on the screen. After Clyburn jumps in, here Dave Weigel saying she raised $100,000 plus in the wake of Hillary's endorsement and then did it again in the wake of the Clyburn endorsement last night. And there's a quote from Nina's campaign. What we saw overnight was people at the grassroots rallying to support Nina Turner against corporate interests. So I guess thank you, Jim Clyburn, for helping with Nina Turner's fundraising totals. Yeah, and we don't know exactly where the polls stand.

So as of a month ago, this is the latest one we have, we can put it up there on the screen from WKYC Studios, which is that Nina Turner actually led the Democratic Party race in Ohio with support from 50% of likely voters. So 50% obviously is a large plurality there, much bigger than her nearest opponent, and makes it so that, look, polling in these types of districts is always hard. It's local. These things can change. Jim Clyburn overnight changed the entire electorate of the state of South Carolina for the Democratic primary. So I don't want to discount it. I have no idea, frankly. The real question is this. How much cachet does Jim Clyburn hold amongst the national black electorate versus the South Carolina black electorate?

Right. Because what was it? One quarter of late break black voters in the South Carolina Democratic primary said that Clyburn's endorsement was a definitive thing that moved them over the edge for Biden. What is it in Ohio? I have no clue. I can't tell you. I mean, I'm going to say it's probably not the same, but it could certainly be still something. Look, he is a pillar of the black community. He's been an activist and worked in it for a very long time. So the real question is how much sway and cachet that he has within that community to move the needle one way or the other. We truly just have no idea. Yeah. And I think his influence, certainly strongest in South Carolina. Yeah, it's huge. And then next I think his influence certainly strongest in South Carolina.

Yeah, it's huge. And then next you would say regionally in the South. Probably in the South, like Alabama. How much sway does he have in Ohio? Hard to say. But like you said, I wouldn't want to discount it. And clearly, I think what this is really a sign of is the fact that the establishment of the Democratic Party is going all in to do whatever they can to block Nina Turner. You almost wonder if Obama might get his hands dirty and get involved in this race. I would not surprise him. He's pretty nearby.

He could do it. That would be one that, you know, that one really would be a major issue if he were to decide to get involved here. And that poll that you cited, which was about a month ago, and by the way, I think was from, it was an internal campaign poll from Nina Turner. So you always have to take those with a little bit of grain of salt. But that being said, it showed Nina at 50 and her next closest competitor, Chantel Brown, who was just endorsed by Clyburn, at 15. So up until recently, Nina Turner was running away with this race. There's just a few weeks left to go before voters actually head to the polls here. The other thing that's worth pointing out is like, why is it that they're so concerned about Senator Turner making it into the U.S. House of Representatives? Well, as David Sertos pointed out,

Clyburn is a top recipient of Big Pharma cash, million dollars of campaign cash from Big Pharma, one of the top recipients in the House in terms of Big Pharma cash. Oh, and oh, by the way, Nina Turner just recently released an ad promoting Medicare for All. So when you want to know why they're so adamant against people like Nina Turner ever getting into the House of Representatives, you got to follow the money, right? The donors who have contributed to him, who have helped to bolster his career, they detest people like Nina Turner. They detest Medicare for All. They will do everything in their power they possibly can to stop any champions and advocates of that program from

ascending to any heights of power. So not a coincidence that one of the largest recipients of Big Pharma cash comes in here close to the last minute to try to stop Nina Turner. I think it's a confluence of both, which is both that he gets a lot of that. I think he's a legitimate believer. I do want to say that. I don't know how much, but I think he really believes in this like moderate, lame, Dem party. Clyburn, from everything I've read in Lucky and More, was like all in on Joe Biden because he thought he was the only one who could win the presidential election. And I think he views the Sanders left as an existential threat to Democratic Party, the ability of the Democratic Party to win votes.

Now, look, I think he's incorrect in some respects. He views them as an existential threat to his base of power. Oh, for sure. I mean, that's what that's really about. Well, in a way, it's true, right? Yeah. So I think it is both big pharma and I think he's a true believer. It's one of these things where it all comes intersecting together and then it makes it so that, you know, if you ever do of a lot of the old Democratic brand of the 1990s and just wants to do everything in his power in order to make sure that doesn't happen.

It is pretty amazing, though, to see like him, Hillary come in. And like you said, don't discount it. If Obama gets in, that's bad for Nina Turner. He's probably the most popular Democrat in the entire country, even more so than Joe Biden, which is kind of amazing because he's the sitting president of the United States. But it just goes to show you how much power these people can have if they intercede. Like we said, though, if Nina does still win despite this, and they always risk looking like fools, if they go all in and she wins against those odds, then she's got nothing to lose.

And I think that makes it even harder for them in the House. And that's, in Lucky, that was what he weighed with Biden. He wanted to endorse Biden, and he was not planning on endorsing anything else, according to Amy Parnes and Jonathan Allen, both really good reporters who we interviewed, and that book was quite fascinating. Love that book. And his hesitation was that the Biden campaign was such, like, dog shit. he was like, I don't know if this guy can win. And I don't want to endorse a candidate who's just a total failure.

So at the last minute when it was basically like, all right, I got a choice here or else Bernie Sanders is going to be the nominee. That's when he ultimately decides to jump in. So you're right. He recognizes he's wary of endorsing candidates who can't actually win because, yeah, then it's embarrassing. Then you're sort of showing that you're yeah, that you don't have the power that you're trying to project that cuts down on like the influence and the sway that you're able to hold with other candidates and within the caucus, et cetera. So this is a big risk for him, for Hillary, for all of the Democratic establishment types.

And you can see what a threat they feel that Nina Turner and this wing of the party is to their power base and, you know, the sort of like establishment of the Democratic Party. So very interesting development there. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was? Well, here we are again to remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen to our constant pleas for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to breakingpoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. You want to break down the Trump org latest development? You seem really into this story, but I'll set it up for you. Okay, let's put it up there.

Am I into this story? We have hot legal takes for everybody this morning. Yeah. So, Trump's organization, CFO Allen Weisselberg, who's expected to be charged Thursday, he surrendered this morning to Manhattan authorities. And so, what he did is he surrendered there to the DA's office as he's prepared to face charges in connection with the tax investigation. Exact charges are yet known. But here's a little bit about what we do know, which is that they say the Trump organization and them was whatever, they were praised for doing whatever was necessary to

protect the bottom line. As part of that inquiry, they looked on whether Weisselberg failed to pay taxes on valuable benefits that he and his family received from Trump, including private school tuition for at least one of his grandchildren, free apartments and leased cars. The prosecutors who are also working there with the people from the New York State Attorney General's office investigated whether the Trump organization failed to pay payroll taxes on what should have been taxable income. So all of this being said, look, after what has it been, like five years of fever dreams of resistance, hopes and dreams poured into this, all they got them for was some unpaid payroll taxes on in-kind, or no, sorry, unpaid payroll taxes and no taxes paid on in-kind benefits from

the job. I'm not saying that that shouldn't be paid. But look, this seems like a bit of a stretch to throw the full weight of the Manhattan DA and the New York State Attorney General and more. And frankly, given everything we know about the Trump organization, I'm shocked that after all this, this is the best thing to come up with. If they did, maybe Trump is a better bookkeeper than I thought. I mean, I thought he was guilty of sin from actual tax fraud. I also think that all the people who voted for him wouldn't care. And that's why I've always thought

that this entire investigation in creating and keeping the veneer of legitimacy around the justice system on this is actually pretty important. Because if you make it seem like a political witch hunt and more, it will be very bad. And frankly, I think that this case is somewhere in the gray

area on that one. Yeah, I have to kind of agree. I was equally surprised that like, wait, this is it. And that's all they got him for. Even Trump's lawyer was surprised. We have a quote from Trump's lawyer being like, wait, that's right on these charges. So just to break down what the allegations are here, as far as we know, the full charges are being unsealed today. So we'll have more details for you next time we do a show. But what we know is basically that Weisselberg and other Trump org executives, but in particular the CFO Weisselberg, who's been the focus of a lot of the inquiry because as a CFO, presumably he has insight into all of the financial machinations of Donald Trump and the Trump Organization. So was given benefits things like car service, paying for apartments, paying for kids' school tuition, that all of that stuff, which is not okay.

I mean, this is gross. And I'm sure your company, if you're, you know, are a worker, I'm sure that are not paying for your apartment and your kids' tuition, right? So the allegation is they received these benefits and that should all be taxable as income effectively and that none of it was recognized as income. So that's what they're going after them for. The case has not closed. So there could be additional charges in addition to this, although apparently, reportedly, according to Trump's lawyer, take it with a grain of salt, Cy Vance in his office told them that the former president's not going to be charged and that this is basically it in terms of it. You can see he says, we asked, is there anything else? And they said,

no, it's crazy that that's all they had. He added, we feel the same way. So, but part of why they are going after Weisselberg here is because they want to put pressure on him to try to flip. And so far, he has resisted all of that pressure and said he's not going to cooperate. He's not going to flip on Trump and tell whatever it is that he knows if he knows anything that's nefarious. So going after him for these fringe benefits is an effort to try to put pressure on him to turn on Trump. At least that's what person and everybody just seems to like look the other way and be cool with it. So maybe this should be gone after more often. But the fact of the matter is to go after a company and an individual just on the basis of fringe benefits is extraordinarily rare, if not unprecedented. So it is an unusual situation. Hit them with an IRS, New York State, you know,

financial office thing like anybody else. I mean, it's clear, right? Get him, find him. Okay, fine. You know, all of that. But this is a real bit of a stretch. As you said, a lot of people in the legal community being like, I don't know if I've ever seen a prosecution, a prosecution. And there's a big difference between prosecution, finding an IRS enforcement or state tax enforcement between what we're seeing here. So look, I mean, pretty naked, clear what they're trying to do here. difference between prosecution, finding, and IRS enforcement or state tax enforcement between what we're seeing here. So look, I mean, pretty naked, clear what they're trying to do here. Will it work? I don't know. Seemed like on Russiagate, you know, Manafort. Who's the other guy? I don't even remember his name. Rick something. Rick Gates, I think. Whatever. It doesn't matter.

Anyway, yeah, see? It didn't end up mattering, did it? These guys, oh, this trial. Oh, Carter Page. Oh, my God. George Papadopoulos. All these people. You know, real cast of characters there. And what did it all amount to? Nothing.

And this seems pretty much the same thing. The thing I'm surprised about is it's pretty well established in the public record at this point, that Trump would aggressively play around with the valuation of his assets, depending on what's due to him. Depreciate them, yeah. So in terms of taxation, he would say that all of his stuff was basically worthless. In terms of getting loans, then suddenly, and using these assets as collateral, then suddenly they were worth insane amounts, and of course to the press, but that doesn't matter from a legal perspective. So that was the part that I thought there would be something there about, I mean, this is illegal to lie about the valuation of assets, both to the IRS and also to banks in terms of securing loans and all of that. So that was the part that I was sort of

expecting to be in all of this, because again, it's more or less established on the public record that those are the types of shenanigans that he would routinely engage in. But so far, and again, this doesn't totally close the door to additional charges, although if, you know, it seems like the indication is this is kind of all they have at this point. They're depending on Allen Weisselberg to flip in order to get anything additional. This is what they have so far. The one other piece that I would throw into this is Cy Vance's term is all but over. There'll be a new Manhattan DA. Just selected. I can't remember his, Randy

Bragg, maybe? I think you're right, actually. I guess there was. And he was seen as sort of the more progressive, but not lefty pick. He was more progressive than there was like a Wall Street tool lady who gave herself $8 million and was the choice of Wall Street. And Hillary Clinton too, by the way. She didn't win.

The Bernie left candidate didn't win. It was this guy who was seen as like progressive but not as far left as, you know, some other choices may have been. So he'll be taking over this prosecution. Different choices could be made. The he'll be taking over this prosecution. Different choices could be made. The investigation could go in a different direction. So that puts a question mark over all of this. Yeah. So there we go. We'll keep you guys updated. I'm sure MSNBC is leading their coverage with this, telling you about how much of a bombshell. I would not believe so much. Yeah. Yeah. Temporary. Your walls are closing in takes, I guess, guys. All right, so now we have this big story.

There's a lot of stuff going on here. I'll set it up a little bit. So Tucker Carlson, he went on the air a couple of days ago. He made a pretty big allegation. So let's put this up there. It's a tweet. Tucker said a whistleblower within the United States government told him he's being spied on by the NSA

and that he had filed a FOIA request for information. He said, quote, the Biden administration is spying on us. We have confirmed that. Okay, so that's a pretty big allegation. And by the way, there's not a lot of evidence, at least at this point, in order to support that, that they have been ordered to offer up. On the other hand, though, the NSA then put out a statement. This is actually pretty rare. So let's put this up there. So they put out this statement. On June 28th, Tucker Carlson alleged the National Security Agency's been monitoring electronic communications, is planning to leak them and attempt to take the show off the air. This allegation is untrue. Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air. This allegation is untrue. Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the agency, and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air. Now, this took a lot of attention because of this reason. They used their language very

specifically. They said, Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the agency, and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take a program off the air. Now, the target there is the very important word, and I can tell you this from one Edward Snowden, who tweeted this yesterday, seemingly in support of what was happening here, which is quoting a Microsoft executive in the Associated Press that said, quote, targeting of Americans' records is routine. Federal law enforcement agencies secretly seek the data of Microsoft customers thousands of times a year, according to 3,500 secrecy orders a year or about 7 to 10 per day. None of this has anything to do with Tucker. We're only saying that in this particular case that Snowden has put here forward that the targeting of Americans' data does happen often. As I said, zero evidence to indicate

what Tucker is saying is true. And we have some information that Fox News doesn't necessarily believe what he's saying. But also, the NSA in that tweet of that statement, they turned off replies. There's actually a lot of quasi-legality over whether they're even allowed to do that. And there's deep skepticism online. Why should we believe these people? They've lied to us publicly time after time after again, both in the Russia investigation, but far before that, regarding whether they were spying Americans and more, which was revealed in many of the Snowden documents. Yeah, I mean, look, I don't trust the NSA. I also don't trust Tucker. So you're left with kind of like, I don't know what the hell's

going on here. That's a reason take instead of standing for the NSA, which is happening on cable news right now. Which is always the instinct from liberals and the media is like, of course, the NSA would never do something like that. Reflexively, especially anytime it's Trump or Tucker or someone on the right alleging an abuse of power. We covered it reminds me very much of we covered the allegations that FBI informants were involved in some way on January 6th. That's right. We don't know, right? Have no idea whether that is the case or not. Would it be crazy? No. We know that the FBI has infiltrated some of these groups that were involved in January 6th. So is it crazy to think that there were FBI informants that were involved in the January 6th riots? No, it's not. And the media that treated that as crazy, rather than actually going out and investigating the claims to see whether there was any veracity to it, they're clownish. And it's also clownish here.

I guess what I would say is, like, it's possible that NSA is spying on Tucker Carlson because it's possible that NSA is spying on any and all of us. Like, if he's being spied on, he's really not special because as Edward Snowden is pointing out here from the Microsoft CEO, this type of data collection from U.S. citizens happens all the time. Totally routine. So I have no idea whether there's any veracity to it. The NSA's statement was super like, it just felt very parsed. It was lawyer-y. Yeah. Very lawyer-lyly that's exactly the right term now maybe they're just like awkwardly phrasing this or something but it felt like what can we say that's technically true that gives the the like appearance of that nothing to see

here without you know exposing what what's really going on we We don't know. But I, again, the NSA statement did seem like sort of parsed and weird and lawyerly. Glenn Greenwald, of course, has put out his takes in his own view of this, which is similar to ours, basically like, I don't know what's going on. But it's bizarre that the NSA allowed no replies. Second, the NSA has used the same deceit for years. They could spy on U.S. citizens' communications without, quote, targeting the American. That's a really important point. Third, and say has extremely broad authorities to collect communications without targeting a person. So saying that Tucker is not a target is not the same as saying that he's not being spied on. So on the other hand, you know, this is a bombshell claim. And you may know this,

but Tucker works for an organization that at least purports to be a news organization. So you would think that they would be all over investigating this and looking into it. But we have this is from Eric Wembley at The Washington Post, who's, you know, a mixed bag. Take it for what it's worth. But I think he makes a good point. They're not really repeating the claims. They don't appear to be, like, looking into this as a news network or doing any reporting on it. So, you know, that also raises questions. It seems like his own network doesn't really buy or doesn't really care or something that these allegations are true. So take that for what it's worth as well. Right. So look, like we said, no clue. Snowden did put out a tweet, I believe we have it, if we can put it up there on the screen, which is this, which is submitted

without comment. Executive Order 1233 rules permit bulk indiscriminate collection without a warrant that has long raised privacy and civil liberties concerns about what the government may do with Americans' private messages. All of this is like you said, who knows? Is Tucker being spied on? We literally have no idea. The NSA statement, incredibly lawyerly, using the word targeting when we know that you can be spied on even if though you're not the target of an investigation. We learned a lot of this during Russiagate around FISA, which is that your records as an American citizen can actually be spied upon if you're in communication with a foreign individual. And they can actually just justify it based upon the foreign transcript. Also, they use all sorts of games where they may not have your data, but GCHQ, which is the British intelligence services, not bound by the constitution, they can spy on you

and I, and that can be shared with the NSA through a backdoor agreement, through the Five Eyes agreement that we have with several Western democracies. So all of this is to be said, we don't know, but I don't think that people should be trusting the NSA. And Kevin McCarthy, he put out a statement, the House minority leader saying that Congress should investigate where the NSA is spying on Tucker, blah, blah, blah. General Michael Hayden, the former head of the NSA, quote tweeted him and said, you're an asshole. Okay. I mean, it's funny. And a lot of resistance libs really loved it. Here's the thing. You want to be in a position where you're standing General Michael Hayden, the former head of the NSA, and being like, yeah, go ahead and dunk on it.

Now, look, I think Kevin McCarthy's a clown, but he's still the House minority leader. And so they're literally cheering on former security state goons who are dunking on elected representatives, whose purview it is, in order to look into NSA. And this is part of the problem. There are no heroes in these stories. Everybody's got cooties. McCarthy's't give a shit. McCarthy's clown too. You know. Right. If it was a Muslim, like, he wouldn't care. If it was you, if it was Rachel Maddow who was being spied on, he wouldn't care whatsoever. That's right. It's all completely partisan. Exactly. So it's all partisan. But look, you take it out to the abstract. Is the government

spying on somebody who works for a news organization? Why are people who are ex-government goon spooks who work in the media being stand by the media for dunking on elected representatives? And things start to look a little dystopian. Yes. I also was just reminded of, we covered the story at Rising, how the Biden administration was considering using private firms. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that. Extremist chatter. And again, it was an attempt to get around these legal constitutional limits. Those pesky constitutional rights. They couldn't do it directly, but they thought maybe they could get away with this loophole

where if we let a private company do it and they just let us know what they find, maybe then we can get away with it. Still sounds incredibly illegal and unconstitutional to me. But that just gives you a sense of the type of legalistic loopholes that they will look for and engage in to avoid having to technically target Americans. So again, no idea whether what Tucker is saying is true. Certainly he already, he goes so far in terms of saying, like, this is definite. We've confirmed that it happens, et cetera, et cetera. You can't say that. All of those claims.

It's not true. Yeah, not true. But if he is being spied on, it's not special. Lots of Americans are spied on. The fact that he is a television sort of journalist does create even more problems. Well, and if he was intentionally collected, that's a big story too. And again, look, you've got to see a lot of evidence before you even more problems. Well, NFB was intentionally collected. That's a big story too. And again, look, you got to see a lot of evidence

before you can make that claim. Yeah. So anyway, that's what we know, which isn't a whole lot. But the one thing we can say is the reflexive protecting of the NSA is incredibly consistent and deeply disturbing. Yeah, that's right. Wow. You guys must really like listening to our voices.

While I know this is annoying, instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial, when you're done, check out the other podcast I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American society. You always need more Crystal and Sagar in your daily lives.

Take care, guys. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, the slow demise of cable news has been a favorite topic of this show. Why wouldn't it be? Both Crystal and I see breaking points as diametrically opposed to that terrible medium, with an explicit goal of counteracting the damage that they have done to this country over the last 30 years.

Now, I'm not going to pretend that we succeeded, but I do like to think the rapid rise of the show in the last month has lessons for the future. But I have even better and possibly even more important news to show all of you. It's not just cable news. All partisan media is doing terribly right now. A new Axios analysis of traffic to partisan media outlets shows, quote, outlets most dependent on controversy to stir up resentments have struggled to find a foothold in the Biden era. Websites like that of Newsmax have seen a 44% drop since February. Lefty news outlets like Mother Jones and Raw Story

have had a 27% drop. And it's not just online blogs like them. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Reuters are all down 18% since February of 2021. Places like FoxNews.com, BuzzFeed News, The Atlantic, and more, 26% to 31% drop in traffic. And traffic isn't everything, as everyone in the social media game knows. It's not just about how many clicks can you get. It's how much engagement and interaction you can get out of the people who do come across your stuff well my friends i have even better news on that front left and right leaning publishers have seen a more than 50 percent drop in social media interactions with mainstream publishers

dropping 42 percent this is an all-out bloodbath happening online, as people abandon the traditional news more than ever. And the cable news situation is even worse. I brought you that recent study, which showed that America has the lowest level of public trust in the media. And after the Trump age, people are checking them out the door like never before. CNN's Jake Tapper, the dean of the American cable news establishment here in Washington, he's regarded as a must watch. And it turns out only by people who actually live in DC. His audience is down a whopping 75% since January. Let that sink in. As friend of the show Glenn Greenwald points out, the number of viewers that MSNBC and CNN are getting is shocking.

We are talking about the highest show on the weekends, clocking in at 60,000 viewers in the key demographic of 18 to 55. At one point, they were getting 33,000 a night. The highest number that MSNBC or CNN can muster on the weekends is a total audience of 865,000 viewers. That is when they don't talk about the news and do a history of late night comedy. Don't worry, Fox isn't doing so hot either. Fox News primetime programming is down one third for Tucker Carlson's show, 37% for Sean Hannity's show, and 42% for Laura Ingraham. I don't think it has sunk into the public consciousness yet that partisan media online and on cable is collapsing in real time. I don't want to paint a false portrait. They're still incredibly powerful. The millions of boomers

who watch them are disproportionately more likely to vote in primaries. And thus, they have way more of a say than the rest of us as to who will eventually rule us come election time. But the fact of the matter is this. This has to break at some point. I have no idea when, probably not within the next decade, but at a certain point, somebody somewhere has to look around and say, wait a second, there is nobody watching anymore. And that's the amazing thing. To this, I say, great. This is an absolute net positive for the country. I'll throw a humble brag in for Crystal and I. In the middle of the largest drop in partisan media in modern US history, our show remains the number one political podcast in the entire country on Apple and Spotify. I think I know why. It's not just about the lack of

partisan cheerleading on this show, but also a range of topics we cover. There is an insane housing market happening right now. You won't find any cable news segments about that. You know why? There's no party to blame. It's both of them complicit in making sure normal middle-class people can't buy a house. Unemployment benefits are being cut off. People are resigning in droves. The only way the media knows how to cover this is either saying GOP or Democrats bad. How about the fact that an entire building just collapsed in Miami, likely killing over 100 people? Same thing. Nothing to say if you can't blame Ron DeSantis or Joe Biden. Over and over and over again, the most important stories in

the country are being ignored because the people who created the problems and the conditions for them to happen are both Democrats and Republicans. If you can take away something from this, take this. Whenever cable news is doing well in this country, that means the country is doing worse. So do your part. Tell people, turn them off, and put literally anything else on. History podcast, history channel, lifestyle, woodworking, car enthusiasts, anything. Every single one of those is better than being gaslit into hating each other. I'm really proud of the work we do here every day. And I've got a twinkle in my eye watching the people I hate most descend into tough times.

It's about time that they've actually felt some of the pain they have caused so many other people. It's pretty amazing, Crystal. I mean, 75%- One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle and Friends, where we do long form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky,

Cornel West and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or you can subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. Well, this is disturbing. A billionaire GOP donor has decided to fund a South Dakota National Guard deployment to the southern border. Here is the write-up with all the details from military.com. The South Dakota National Guard is deploying on mission to the U.S. southern border, and the operation is being funded by a billionaire, not the government, military.com has learned. Soldiers will serve on state active duty orders, meaning that traditionally the state would cover the cost of the mission. However, in this case, the tab is being picked up by the

private Tennessee-based Willis and Reba Johnson's Foundation. So apparently the deployment is in the early stages of planning. That's about all we really know about it, but we don't really need to know anymore. This is incredibly disturbing. Now look, I understand that immigration is a very emotional issue with a lot of folks who hold extremely passionate views, but please try to put your personal immigration position and emotions aside here. Your feelings about what's happening at the border and the proper government response really should have zero bearing on how you feel about this specific story. There is a principle involved here that no one should be cool with, even if you are in the camp who fully supports the concept

of sending the National Guard to the southern border. And that principle happens to be one of the bedrocks of this show. Government power should not be wielded at the whims of plutocrats. That goes doubly for the type of government power that involves lethal force. Now, whether you are left, right, or center, you should not be comfortable with billionaires paying for

soldiers to do their express bidding. What we're contemplating here is frankly a hellscape situation where billionaires first opt out of the entire system of taxation, as has been documented recently by ProPublica, since we've gotten a little glimpse into the tax avoidance strategies and outright theft of our nation's billionaires. And then, after avoiding taxation, they get to a la carte choose which pet projects they want to fund. They rob government coffers of money for public goods and then only fund those goods which serve their personal interests. Now, maybe this mission would have gone forward with or without the billionaire funding. There's no way to know. But in that case, it would have had to be budgeted for

in a process that the public at least in theory has some Democratic say over. Other priorities would have to be weighed. Instead, South Dakota has effectively opened the gates for the rich to fund whatever projects further their monetary or ideological interests. Let's say you need a new school built. Let's see if we can get a Hollywood mogul to foot the bill.

Need a new prison or maybe police building? Let's see if we can talk to Lockheed Martin's CEO and see if they'll fund it. And that's to say nothing of what happens when it's time to tax or regulate or throw in jail the billionaires we've been accepting bribes to the state treasury from. Are you going to tell little Johnny his school isn't going to be built because we got to lock up Mr. Rich Hollywood mogul for sex crimes? How's that going to go? This opens up a path to whole of government corruption that is far more direct and complete than even our current disgustingly corrupt campaign finance system. Whether it's Bill Gates taking over public health and farming for some reason, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk taking over for

NASA, or this dude jumping in to assert his personal immigration priorities. All of this is a complete disaster, and it is especially disturbing when there's not even a fig leaf of an arm's length distance or democratic process. It's just pure unchecked power and money and government wielding its power on behalf of billionaires, regardless of what the public might think. And again, it's even more disturbing when it comes to plutocrats funding their own military priorities. So look, we've been talking here in the wake of Biden's lawless bombing of Syria about how war making and use of the military is one of the areas of power that the founders were most concerned about, and certainly justifiably so. To state the most

obvious thing ever, those with an ideological, monetary, or power agenda should not be able to use our men and women, or the innocent civilians of the world for that matter, as pawns for their personal ambitions or preferences. For my conservative brothers and sisters, imagine how you'd feel if Jamie Dimon, fresh off kneeling for Black Lives Matter in front of a bank vault, earmarked $100 million for Robin DiAngelo's anti-racist training for all the troops with a free copy of How to Be an Anti-Racist thrown in. Would you feel sanguine about it? Like, it's cool. Billionaires can do what they want. Should we let billionaires decide whether BLM or Stop the Steal should be met with National Guard deployments? Or whether we stay in Afghanistan for another couple decades? I mean, the truth of the matter, of course, is that we're already

kind of uncomfortably close to that reality. The current Secretary of Defense comes directly from the military-industrial complex, where all his previous friends and colleagues stand to benefit from more wars, death, and chaos. The nihilist in me says that billionaires just directly funding deployments is the logical next step in our transition to outright unabashed oligarchy. But none of us should go quietly towards that fate or slip into that nihilism that says there's no chance of fighting back, only an inevitable slide into the abyss. And it seems to me like billionaires funding military deployments, that's a decent place to draw a hard red line. We should raise hell about this and every possible legal avenue

available to stop it should be pursued. This is not a precedent anyone should want set. And again, Sagar, take out of this how you do. Joining us now, we've got Ross Barkin. He is the author of the brand new book that you should 100% go out and get. It is called The Prince Andrew Cuomo Coronavirus and the Fall of New York. He is also a contributor to The Nation and is our personal resident advisor on the insane New York City mayoral race. Great to see you, Ross. Good to see you, Ross. Great to be back and being the first Breaking Points repeat cast. That's right. It's a very special ground. Just for people who haven't been following this closely this week, last time we covered the New York City mayor's race here, just after the

primary occurred, it looked very much like Eric Adams had romped and was headed towards being the next mayor of New York. Although we did say, look, there's an outside chance either Maya Wiley or Catherine Garcia could make up that gap as the ranked choice ballots are counted. What has transpired since then, Ross? So since then, the Board of Elections in New York City has run its first ranked choice voting population. And that was not a straightforward process. What happened was it was supposed to be released yesterday, and then it was, and it turned out the very incompetent Board of Elections included dummy ballots or fake ballots in the population, about 100,000 or so, because they'd been testing the system and forgot to remove them. So they released a preliminary result yesterday that was not quite

correct. They had to withdraw it from the website and then did another tabulation. I should say, yesterday, we got the correct tabulation. Two days ago, we got the incorrect tabulation. Time is flowing in a very odd way these days. So as of now, the race has changed. Eric Adams had a very significant lead among first place voters. But the ranked choice tabulation showed that Catherine Garcia is within two points of defeating him, I think the margin is about 15,000 votes or so. And there are about 120 plus thousand absentee ballots that must still be counted, that will be counted by July 6th as the plan right now. Got it. So we have this New York BOE tweet. Let's put it up there. I still don't really understand what the hell is going on. So 135,000 votes, which were not real votes, were included. Is that correct? As in they were running a simulation and then they changed the results. So what are the actual results? Like, do we have a good idea of where things stand right now? Yes. So we now have the actual results based on everything but absentee ballots. To tell you

the truth, the easiest thing would have been done to wait until you, with the absentee ballots. To tell you the truth, the easiest thing would have been done to wait until with the absentee ballots. New York made the law that you can't count absentee ballots until after election day, which is really stupid, but that's the law. So what we really should have been doing is waiting until after those ballots

were counted. So right now we do have an accurate rank choice simulation of all in-person votes basically all in-person votes early votes in person and that shows a very tight race between garcia and adams and wiley actually came pretty close in the rank choice simulation um getting coming out ahead of garcia she she fell. So the absentees could change things. I mean, that's the big thing right now. The absentees could give Catherine Garcia the Democratic nomination, make her the next mayor. Very possible. Also, this race could go to court.

If the margin is close enough, she could be litigating the ballots in court. There could be a recap. So that may happen as well. And I just want to make it really clear to people. The problem here was not ranked choice voting, okay? Which is a little bit of a complex system, albeit. But plenty of localities have been able to manage this just fine. The problem is with the New York City Board of Elections, which I want to get to in just one minute. But the other question I had on the specifics of the results is there seems to be an expectation that in the, what is it, 130,000 or so absentee ballots that remain, that there's a good chance Catherine Garcia may have an edge there, that those ballots may be rather good for her. Why is that the expectation, Ross? And is that correct? I think that is correct. So while more ballots are outstanding from areas that Eric Adams won, Eric Adams won a lot more assembly districts than Garcia on Election Day anyway. And the actual proportion of ballots outstanding is more tilted toward Garcia relative to the election day outcome.

Also take in the factor that typically it's more affluent people, older people who are doing absentee balloting, especially now with COVID. And it's pretty possible that Garcia could be winning 60% of the remaining absentees. It's not a guarantee. It's not anything close to that. But it's not impossible that she could make up this margin when everything gets canceled. Got it. Another question for you. You've written that even though Catherine Garcia and Eric Adams, they ran on very similar platforms.

Obviously, stylistically, they're very different. Why do you think that if you're a progressive and your choices are just Catherine Garcia and Eric Adams, if that ends up, in fact, being the case, why do you think you should be cheering for Catherine Garcia, given that their platform was similar? Sure. So, yes, definitely Catherine Garcia and Eric Adams ran on very similar platform. It's very against the funding the police for charter school. You know, people that's right. I think they're both neoliberal in orientation. I'd say the difference is Garcia would be a much weaker mayor in terms of that. She would come into office without any real strong institutional ties, without strong coalitions. You could probably dangle the threat of a primary challenge over her. I think Eric Adams as a black man would be very hard to primary just based on how he has

gathered up his votes based on his ties to organized labor. Garcia is different. I also think Garcia would be more amenable to compromise because though she is more conservative than Bill de Blasio, she worked in his administration. Many of Bill de Blasio's staffers are volunteering and working on her campaign. to pivot to the left as mayor, especially since many of the people who voted for her self-identify as progressive. She won liberal Manhattan. She won the Upper West Side. She mentally won people who otherwise would call themselves progressive, would have voted for Bernie Sanders, even Elizabeth Warren. So you are going to probably have to adjust to that reality. Whereas Eric Adams is very insulated from pressure. I've been saying this for a long time. He's built a very strong coalition. And he's not someone who really has to listen to people. He doesn't necessarily have a history of listening. And he won't be afraid to go after his enemies.

Garcia doesn't really have many enemies, have many vendettas. She fundamentally has a different temperament. So I do think for the left, she's much more manageable, if that makes sense. And so Ross, final question here on my end, when are we going to know? When will we know about who will be the mayor? So right now, election results are set to be certified July 12th. I think you'll have some idea after July 6th when absentee ballots are included in the rank choice voting tabulation. But here's the catch. If the margin is very close, I mean very close, than a few thousand votes, which everything is on the table right now.

This can go to court. It happened a few years ago in the Queens District Attorney's race. If you recall, that had a manual recount that was being litigated. And then a few months later, Melinda Katz was certified the winner over Tiffany Kapan. We've never had a mayor's race this close. We've never had a mayor's race enter a recount i still think that is not super likely but i do think court action outcome here so on one hand july 12th will be the original moment of clarity on the other hand if you told me this was in court and we're fighting this out all summer, I would not be shocked at this point. I've got two more for you. First one is Eric Adams hasn't been shy.

This is something you've written about, too, in weaponizing his race in order to both protect himself from criticism and also to allege there's some sort of like, you know, scheme originally between Catherine Garcia and Andrew Yang to disenfranchise black and brown voters in the city. If we do have a situation where Catherine Garcia makes a comeback once the ranked choice votes are tabulated, what sort of a stink is he going to, like, what's he going to say? What's he going to do? What are the expectations for how he will respond? Every sign points to Eric Adams denying the outcome or not accepting it if garcia pulls ahead now some of that is logical if the race is close enough you do take the court that's understandable but even if i think it's not that close if garcia really makes up the difference in absentees and pulls way ahead eric adams is someone who's a deep skeptic of ranked choice voting. Many of his surrogates believe erroneously it disenfranchises black candidates. Not true.

Eric Adams called an alliance between Yang and Garcia voter suppression, which was quite frankly insane. And this is really Eric Adams' playbook. He is incendiary. He has piled people up. He is canny. And he is cynical. And he weaponizes identity he weaponizes situations and so it would not surprise me if he is out there trump like not accepting the outcome

of an election right i'm not guaranteeing that he could accept it quietly and surprise all of us or maybe he'll still win right a lot on the table i do the thing if you really want to get ahead of yourself right if garcia does manage to win a white woman beating a black man eric adams will have the power to make her mayorality very difficult particularly i've won a coalition without and latino all right last question for me um what the hell is wrong with the new york city board of elections the new york city board of elections like the state board of elections and like a board of board of elections across the state um one is a state agency and not the city so new york city itself has no power to really fix or change it. And two,

it is controlled by the Republican and Democratic parties in a very old fashioned and bizarre system of patronage that dates back to the Tammany Hall era. So basically, everyone who works at the Board of Elections is an appointee of either the local Democratic or Republican parties. They're friends of elected officials. They're friends of district leaders. They're friends of people who are well connected. There's no civil service exam. Your resume doesn't really matter. And that's what happens when you staff an entire agency with patronage appointees. You get incompetence. And we've seen this over and over and over again from 2016, Democrats getting accidentally purged from the rolls in Brooklyn. You had ballot scanner

failures in 2018. You had wrong absentee ballots mailed out in 2020. Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature can fix this. They never have. They've never shown a real interest. Cuomo, of course, does not care. But the legislature has to step up, too, because it's a constitutional amendment that would actually change this bipartisan, bipartisan patronage structure of the Board of Elections. And in order to pass a constitutional amendment, it's got to go through the legislature twice. And you don't need the governor's signature. So the leaders of the democratic conferences in Albany have also been entirely missing in action.

It seems like now this may be the event that precipitates change at the board of elections. I've seen this movie before. Perhaps the failure in a mayoral race will convince politicians to do something that really is a travesty. It's been that way for many years. None of this is new.

Yeah. Yeah. Ross, thank you so much. It's so great to have your expertise on this. We're really grateful. Thank you, Ross. We appreciate it, man. All right.

Thank you guys for watching. We really appreciate it. Just a reminder, you can become a premium subscriber today. Watch the entire show completely uncut, delivered to your inbox an hour early. Listen to it that as well. Participate in weekly Ask Me Anythings that we have to record today, and all sorts of other awesome stuff. You become a lifetime member, you'll get your name in the credit section, and on a plaque, which we are dealing with the plaque situation, lifetime members, stay tuned. You're going to get an update today on what exactly the hell is going on there.

We love all of you, and we will see you all next week. Yeah, we got a little special video coming for our lifetime members with what we think we're going to do in terms of a plaque to make it work on the set. We ordered some. Turns out there's too many. There's too many of you. We're diligently working on that. Listen, guys, we appreciate all of you all so much,

whether you're a Lifetime member, a premium subscriber, or just someone who's watching the clips on YouTube or picking up the podcast. Actually, the podcast response has kind of blown me away. We didn't really expect that. So thank you, guys. We appreciate you. Have a wonderful, wonderful holiday weekend.

Stay safe, and we will see you back here. Actually, we'll have some content for you. We will have programming for you guys over the weekend. Monday's a federal holiday. We won't be here doing a show. We will be back on Tuesday. So full show right here back on Tuesday, but we will have content spread out throughout the week. Podcast people, if you're listening, that content is going to be up on YouTube. So stay tuned. There you go. All right, guys. Enjoy the holiday weekend. Happy 4th and we'll see you back here next week. Thanks for listening to the show, guys.

We really appreciate it. To help other people find the show, go ahead and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps other people find the show. As always, a special thank you to Supercast for powering our premium membership. If you want to find out more, go to crystalandsager.com. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica.

And I'm Mila. And we're the hosts of the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Yeah, we're moms. But not your mommy. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here. If you like witty women,, but not your mommy. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here.

If you like witty women, then this is your tribe. Listen to the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you go to find your podcast. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down

with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche,

we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, The term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.