Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/13/23: Hollywood SHUTDOWN, Actor Negotiations Collapse, Americans Feel Recession, FBI Dodges Jan 6th Questions, Billionaires Flee DeSantis, RBG SCOTUS Corruption, Morning Joe Begs Biden Staff, Biden Whistleblower, Housing Vultures, Panel on Jonah Hill

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss the breaking news of SAG going on strike with the WGA writers guild in a total Hollywood shutdown, Americans feel Recession despite Inflation cooling, the FBI dodges Feds at Jan 6th questions in hearing, Jan 6th Rioter Ray Epps Sues Fox for Defamation, Billionaires flee DeSantis sinking ship, RBG and Clarence Thomas SCOTUS corruption revealed with billionaire trips, Morning Joe begs the Biden Admin to hide his Age, Saagar looks into the Biden Whistleblower confirming Hunter-China corruption, Krystal looks into Housing Vultures and if DC will wake up to investor pillaging, and we host a panel with Kyle Kulinski and Emily Jashinsky on the Jonah Hill text messages and if they warrant "cancellation".To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hey, guys. Ready or not, 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. We've got some breaking news this morning. It looks like we are headed to a Hollywood-wide shutdown, so we will bring you all of those details. We've also

got some big numbers coming out about inflation and wages that we definitely want to break down for you. We've also got the highlights for you from a pretty blockbuster hearing yesterday with FBI Director Christopher Wray. So we'll give you some of those details. Wray Epps is going forward with a lawsuit against Fox News. So we will break that down for you. Probably end in the settlement, but we will find out. Also, we had talked to you before about how Fox News seemed to be not as warm and fuzzy towards Ron DeSantis, and now there are multiple outlets reporting that the Murdochs are considering turning and moving on to other candidates. At the same time, we've got a whole rash of new instances of SCOTUS corruption. And this one is conservatives, liberals, the whole damn court seems to be

totally corrupt. And we have, for the second time in the week, have to cover some Morning Joe comments that were really just chef's kiss, covering for the President of the United States, blaming his staff for his failings. We also, now this is a big deal, got a panel in-house to cover the controversy of the week. How do we all feel about Jonah Hill's comments to his ex-girlfriend, his conduct. So we've convened a panel. We are going to discuss it. I figure we'll just settle it here, and that way everyone can move on from this moment and go to the next controversy of the week. We've all been embroiled in it.

We might as well just put our cards all out there. It's just a fun Thursday thing that we're all going to get to. Indeed. All right, so let's go ahead and start with that breaking news. This morning, as I said, it does look like Hollywood is heading to their first industry wide strike in 63 years. So SAG-AFTRA, that's the actors union, said at nearly 1 a.m. Pacific time on Thursday that negotiations with Hollywood Studios over a new contract had collapsed. Their negotiating board has unanimously voted to recommend a strike.

They are meeting this morning, 9 a.m. Pacific time, so that's noon Eastern, for a final strike vote authorization. So it looks like the actors are going to join the writers who have already been out on strike for about three months. You know, this is a huge deal in terms of the, you know, entertainment industry and also really a sign of the times in terms of increasing labor agitation, increasing labor militancy. As I said, it was back in Marilyn Monroe's heyday was the last time that you had this kind of an industry-wide shutdown. This also comes, Sagar, amid some comments that were made by an anonymous studio head to Deadline magazine that they sort of gave up the game here in terms of their plan. As I said, the writers have been out on strike already for quite a while, and, you know, these are people who are probably starting to struggle in terms of paying their rent.

And this anonymous studio executive said that's actually their plan. Quote, the end game is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their plan. Quote, the end game is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses. Deadline also spoke with other unnamed insider sources that confirmed the studio's approach. So pretty fascinating developments here. And, you know, one of the key issues for writers as well that we have been tracking is they're very concerned about how AI is going to impact their industry. because, you know, if you have AI like generating first drafts and then bringing in writers to touch them up and mess around at the edges with them, obviously you would need a lot

fewer writers and there would be a lot less work. But, you know, those pieces also just pay and other conditions have been central to the bargaining. So it does look like we are headed to a Hollywood-wide shutdown this morning. Oh, it's a historic event. Fun fact, as my memory was piqued and I just confirmed it, the last time that the writers and the actors were all on strike at the same time, a man named Ronald Reagan was the president of the Screen Actors Guild. Oh, wow. And was actually the head of the SAG union whenever they were negotiating for new contract terms. And that actually had to do with residuals in terms of release, the rise of television.

So not that history really does rhyme and kind of repeat itself in this way. As you said, I believe that one of the big mistakes that was made here was that they tried to play the actors and the writers against each other. And they've seen now a huge alliance with so many of the actors also who are really moonlighting and often act as both be treated and played against each other to make them align and say, look, with the revolution of streaming with AI

and post COVID, the explosion of all of this content, we have to reclaim some sort of ownership and different payment model when the studios are gonna be specifically doing something completely different than was originally agreed upon. You know, I really think about HBO Max or, quote, Max, I guess as it's known now.

Yeah, what the hell is up with that? That's a whole other conversation. Horrible branding. Yeah, horrible branding. That sounds like Cinemax, not HBO. Let's take the best prestige TV name in all of history and take it off. And just ditch it for no apparent reason. Okay, that's a whole other interesting thing. But this actually happened during the pandemic. It was pretty interesting. So Christopher Nolan and all of these other people had signed deals with Warner Brothers Studios to have their movies distributed

in the theaters. The reason they did that was because obviously the theater was the desired venue that they wanted their movie to go out. What they didn't realize though, is that during the pandemic, that HBO Max, I believe Jason Kylar was his name at the time, who was the head of the organization was like, yeah, because of COVID, we're just all going to release it on streaming. And they were like, well, hold on a second. They're like, I signed up to be the number one studio in Hollywood. I didn't sign up to be distributed on the number three streaming network. And they believe that it cheapened the movie experience. Many times they manufacture the actual movie itself without the thought that it would go direct streaming, which would also cannibalize some of the movie theater views, which is also how they get paid.

This is why Scarlett Johansson was suing Disney as well over the release. I think it was Black Widow. Terrible movie, but beside the point. The thing is that compensation, the way and the structure of all these deals matters for the actors, for the writers. When you have so much of this power in the studio, being able to shift things around and say, nope, we're just going to release it on streaming. It's like, well, yeah, but if all the deals are negotiated on ticket prices and all this, there's not just the actors, the, you know, the people who work on the film, agents, you know, camera guys, like all this stuff, so much of their compensation can depend on performance and things that they had never considered. So ultimately, you know, this really

is about technology and about the future, just like the last screen actor strike happened in 1960. That's, that is exactly right. And just to read you a little bit of how the actors are describing their demands, this is from the New York Times. They write that their demands mirror a lot of the demands of the writers, including higher wages, increased residual payments type of royalty from streaming services and aggressive guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence to preserve jobs. Guild leadership also wants new regulations regarding self-taped auditions, a pandemic phenomenon that has resulted in significantly fewer live casting sessions. So apparently became a thing during the pandemic and, you know, wasn't great for actors, you know, and studios just decided to continue the practice for whatever reason. I'm sure it was cheaper and easier for them.

So those are some of the key sticking points. You know, you have to think that the fact that the actors are, in a lot of ways, I mean, they're fighting for their own interests, but they're also in a certain way standing in solidarity with the writers, to think that that gives the writers a lot more leverage here as well, because nothing's going to happen in Hollywood until this gets resolved. So it's quite an interesting development, quite significant. It's personally a tragedy, you know, just because so much prestige content is now effectively going to be on hold. All of our favorite shows basically going to be pushed back for, you know, possibly even years. As I think, I believe we have to wait even longer for the new Avatar movie. Can you believe that? First, we had to wait a decade.

Now we're going to have to wait even more than that in the original slate. But that's just that. I mean, so many of the streaming shows. We'll have more time to watch Working Points. Yeah. I mean, I hate to say it, but it is actually great for YouTube. So, you know, in some ways that is often the, you know, the casualty is that self-created content, like stuff like ours. Well, you know, unfortunately, I guess for them, but fortunately for us, there'll be even more of a demand of it just because there's going to be a lot less content for people to consume. I will say let's all enjoy the Oppenheimer Barbie double feature while we have it. I'm really excited for it.

I have the whole day planned out. I'm excited to hear what you guys think of all of that as well. Yes, indeed. All right. Well, let's go ahead and get into the new economic numbers, which fits very closely with this story because, of course, the overall landscape of the economy really impacts how much power labor has in these types of negotiations. Some actually good news in the new inflation numbers, quite a significant drop. This shows, you know, perhaps maybe the Federal Reserve can quit trying to crush the economy and put everybody out of work because inflation is, in fact, cooling. Slowed sharply

in June to its lowest pace in more than two years. Consumer price index increased 3% in June relative to a year earlier. That's a slowdown from 4% in May. We've got some numbers here about exactly where that inflation is coming from. Let's go ahead and put a one up on the screen. This is from Heather Long on the, I guess it's on your your screen, the right hand side as well. You see the inflation numbers. You can see the drop off it, plus 8.3% in the past year. Eating out, still on the rise, plus 7.7% in the past year. Car maintenance has gotten significantly more expensive, 12.7%. Car insurance also spiking 16.9%. And then she also has the areas where inflation has eased a lot. You have gas down 26.5 percent, used cars down 5.2 percent, meat relatively static at this point, but down 0.2 percent, and airfare down 18.9 percent. So, you know, this is encouraging for sure.

And the other piece of this was that for the first time in a long time, wages actually rose a greater amount than inflation. We'll show you some of those numbers in a minute. At the same time, you know, this is why the picture is so mixed, because people have been struggling with this inflation for so long. You have student loan debt payments set to restart. You've got Americans with record-breaking amount of credit card debt. You have a bunch of pandemic-era programs that help people out in the short term that have all more or less been rolled back at this point. So in terms of how people feel about the economy,

even with some positive numbers just now coming out, the answer is still not great. Let's put this up on the screen. There was a poll from Economist YouGov asked people, do you believe the U.S. is currently in an economic recession? Not are we heading there, not is there a chance of one, but do you feel that we are right now in a recession? And you have very close to a majority saying yes.

47% say yes. 29% say no. And 24% say not sure. So a solid majority, very large majority saying either yes, we're in a recession or we might be. I'm not sure. So that's kind of at odds with some of the big picture economic numbers that we've been getting out recently. And big debate about why this is. Is it that, you know, people just don't understand how could they really have it? Obviously, that's not really what we think here. But there are

people that are arguing that. Others are saying, listen, there are a lot of factors that go into this. And the reality is I just stated of, you know, the high levels of debt, the fact that key things like shelter, housing, food, that these are still really expensive. People are still really being stretched. And, in fact, there was another story in The Washington Post about how many Americans are having to resort to an installment plan just to pay for groceries. Let's go and put this next piece up on the screen about wage growth. They're significantly above inflation for the first time since March 2021. They're up 4.4%. So that's a big deal. That could change the way people are feeling about the economy if that continues in this direction. And at the same time, you know, it's confusing because you've still got the recession warning, the inverted yield curve is still in place, sending a strong signal that typically means we're headed towards a recession.

But they quote a number of analysts in this New York Times piece that say, maybe this time it won't end up being predictive because we're in such a weird space post-pandemic. And maybe this really just reflects optimism about what the Fed is ultimately going to do. So that's everything we know. Yeah. I mean, it's actually a fascinating portrait because it's one of those where the Biden folks can say, hey, look, you know, wages are finally outstripping inflation. But I always come back to the way that people feel. And, you know, often people are like, oh, facts are not feelings. And I'm like, but on the economy, I actually kind of think it is. People are pretty

good descriptors about how they are experiencing everyday life and whether they are actually fulfilling the thing that they want on a very basic level. And if you still look at the inflation data, sure, the overall number is down. What's the top one? Rent. Okay. Well, if rent is up 8.3, if your overall paycheck, you're spending 25, 30%, and your rent goes up by 8%, that's a ton of money of your disposable income. Second, eating out, one of the few luxuries that people have, up 7.7%. Car maintenance is still up 13%. That's always one of the biggest reasons in terms of why people go into debt. It's a health event and cars.

Those are like the two money pits that people get into. It's an unexpected thing. People very rarely save for it. They don't have the cushion. And then when it hits, the price is even higher and they can gouge you even more than they want to. Car insurance also up by 17% largely as a result of some road accidents that we continue to see. But they're like, oh, gas is down by 26%. Yeah, drop from $5 a gallon. So it's still $3.50. Used cars, they're down $5. Still, I did monologues here. It is nearly impossible right now to buy a used car for less than $20,000, which I can't even say that out loud because it sounds so crazy to me. And then airfare, same thing. Airfare is down by 18.9%.

But as I have described here, and so did we, I believe we did an entire thing about this, Crystal, the price to a destination, which has anything even tangentially to do with vacation, is higher than ever before. So yeah, I guess the Boise to Montana route is down a little bit.

But try flying to Europe right now. I mean, I told you this. My flight was canceled on my way over to India. They were like, yeah, the next flight we can put you on is three days because every flight across the Atlantic is booked solid. So that's what people are actually dealing with, you know, on the desirable routes. Almost every one of these metrics, whenever you actually experience it, especially in a relatively high demand way, the cost is completely out of control. Student loan debt payments are set to restart here very shortly. And the average monthly payment is about $393. So every month for people who are student loan debt holders, which is a lot of the country, and especially young people are just

getting started out in their careers, is about $400 a month. That's a big hit. A lot of money, yeah. At a time when U.S. households hold a record $17 trillion in debt, including nearly $1 trillion in credit card debt. So there's a lot of overhang here. And so let's be clear, like people are not crazy to feel like their financial situation is not great. And to tell pollsters, yeah, to me, it feels like we may already be in a recession. But we should also say if the numbers continue in this direction and you genuinely have wage growth, that is outpacing inflation, which, again, has like not happened ever in my lifetime. And you have inflation continuing to cool and you have the Fed taking off, you know, at least they may not put their foot on the gas, but at least taking their foot off of the brake. This is the best news

possible. It's good for people in general. That's the best part of it. But if you're looking at the politics of this, I mean, these might be some of the most critical numbers in terms of whether Joe Biden is going to be able to get reelected or not. Because in 2022, you know, we really felt like and a lot of people felt like the fact that there was high inflation, people are feeling so poorly about the economy and right track, wrong track, that that was going to pretend a potential large red wave didn't materialize because of a variety of issues, but primarily abortion. You know, is abortion still going to be the key issue in 2024? Or are people going to revert back to the economy being kind of their primary focus at a time when Joe Biden's numbers on the economy are trash? They're not good, right? And so if you continue to have this kind of

wage increase, lowering of inflation, the White House has to feel very good about these numbers and the fact that you have seen inequality come down over the past number of years. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see whether people actually start to feel this, start to feel like, all right, my wages are picking up. I'm able to, you know, make ends meet. I'm not having to take on more and more debt, as has been the trend over the past number of months. So we'll see if this trend is able to continue. We'll see. I just think that because the fundamentals still remain so far out of reach, like with housing, rent, you know, continue to go up.

Gas, obviously, is an immediate concern. But health insurance costs, car insurance costs, all of these, especially the fixed ones, and then, you know, the event ones. To me, housing is the big one. Housing is a huge one. And this is my whole monologue today. I mean, this issue just overhangs everything and puts stress on everyone who is not just like wealthy,

you know, like pushing people into homelessness, people who are, you know, aren't able to afford rent anymore, getting pushed under the streets and then housing supply still incredibly constrained, impossible, get your foot on the ladder. I mean, there's just a lot of issues there, especially in terms of access to affordable housing. So I do think that is a big one that a lot of people don't notice. Absolutely. No, I think you're absolutely correct. Okay, let's move on to the next one. There was an interesting moment yesterday. The FBI director, Christopher Wray, appeared before Congress, actually before the House Committee, the GOP Oversight Committee, and he was really grilled

on a couple of key subjects. Obviously, there's a lot of interest we'll be spending some time on today around whether there were federal informants, agents, undercover people in the crowd on January 6th. That's been a hot topic of discussion. The FBI director was specifically pressed on this, and let's listen very carefully to his answer. Here's what he had to say. How many individuals were either FBI employees or people that the FBI had made contact with were in the January 6th entry of the Capitol and surrounding area. So I really need to be careful here talking about where we have or have not used confidential human sources. Was there one or more individuals that would fit that description on January 6th that were in or around the Capitol? I believe there is a filing in one

of the January 6th cases that can provide a little more information about this, and I'm happy to see if we can follow back up with you. I just want an answer. Was there one or more? I mean, you would know if there was at least one individual who worked for the FBI who entered the Capitol on that day. I can't, again, I just can't speak to that here, but I'm happy to get the court filing. Look, it's been two years, and you're now come before us the gentleman asked these questions makes all kinds of insinuations and you you nod your head yes and then i ask you simply was there one or more and you won't answer that so i'm going to make the assumption that there was more than one more than five more than ten and that you're ducking uh the the question because you don't want to answer for the fact that you had at least one

and somehow missed understanding that some of the individuals were very dangerous and that there were others inciting individuals to enter the Capitol after others broke windows. So I think that the best point there, Crystal, is it's been two years. We got it. Like, you know, at this there, Crystal, is it's been two years. We got it. Like, you know, at this point, whether there's more than one or not.

There's also I found in a little bit later questioning, there was a parsing around agents and undercover employees, which is a little bit of a dodge. They're like, well, there were no FBI agents involved. Well, first of all, let's see about that. Let's find out. But the core allocation from very the beginning has really been also about informants and about people who are developed confidentially as well. I mean, from that, it's almost certain, considering we know from the court filings that have come

out around the Proud Boys, Enrico Tarrio, around the Oath Keepers as well, like who was, you know, who wasn't a Fed in some of these organizations. And it also comes to the core question, which I think is correct. Now, look, let's not say that these people aren't acting in bad faith, but they're like, well, if you guys had all this info and you knew so much about what was going on,

how could you then have the debacle occur in which you are so completely unprepared? That also is, you know, fundamentally one of the core questions here around, like, was this a screw up or does this justify, you know, basically encasing the entire Capitol as a cage for several months and spending half a billion dollars on National Guard deployment? Yeah. Well, and I think that's why they're so reluctant to answer any of these questions. This is humiliating for the FBI. That should be. I mean, think of all the like fake plots that they

invent and then swoop in to disrupt Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping. I mean, throughout the war on terror and the way they would entrap young Muslims and invent these plots and set them up. So when you had an actual threat and you had informants littered throughout all of these organizations, and this is not a mystery at this point. I mean, we know this from, as you said, Sagar, the court filings with the Oath Keepers, with the Proud Boys in particular. But we know that the feds had informants throughout a number of these right-wing organizations that were involved in January 6th. And you weren't able to disrupt what was an actual violent threat. That's humiliating. And so to me, at this point, the mystery is solved. The answer is they had

tons of informants. They should have been able to know. We know there's a ton of reporting about how these informants were never asked about the activities of their own organizations. A lot of what they were asked by the feds was like, what do you know about Antifa, especially the Proud Boys informants within their organization? There was no curiosity about whether the Proud Boys themselves pose some sort of a threat. It was all about like, oh, you've got proximity to Antifa.

Tell us about that. And so meanwhile, they completely missed this thing that's developing right underneath their own noses. So I haven't seen any evidence that there's like truth to this idea that this was some sort of a false flag. And in part because, again, this is nothing but embarrassing for the FBI and the deep state that this was allowed to unfold. And they basically, you know, had informants in the crowd that did not tell them key details about what was going to happen. Exactly. And there also was a really interesting moment where they referenced some of the stuff that came out in the Twitter files about FBI agents specifically flagging and taking things down, censorship

requests, flagging requests that was directly brought to his attention. So here's what he had to say when he was confronted over that. The evidence shows you, your agency, the people that directly report to you, suppressed conservatively any free speech about topics like laptop, the lab leak theory of COVID-19's origin, the effectiveness of mask and COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccines. But what I would say is the FBI is not in the business of moderating content or causing any social media company to suppress or censor. That is not what the court has found. What I would also say is among the things that you listed off, I find ironic, the reference to the lab leak theory. The idea that the FBI would somehow be involved in suppressing references to the lab leak theory is somewhat absurd when you consider the fact that the FBI was the only, the only

agency in the entire intelligence community to reach the assessment that it was more likely than not that that was the explanation for the pandemic. But your agents pulled it off the internet, sir. That's what the evidence in the court has found. So it's kind of an interesting little testy exchange. He's not wrong in terms of when they talked about it, but they didn't start talking about lab leak until literally like two months ago. So before that, though, as the congressman points to,

given what has been revealed in the court, and I know, yeah, you guys did a great job on this, the Supreme Court case that came out around the Biden administration and their ability to have censorship requests with social media companies, which of course they're freaking out about already, which really does tell you.

But at its core, I mean, what they are, what he is couching behind here is saying, well, we don't censor anything. We just strongly advise that you take it down. That's like, well, as we saw from the Twitter files, FBI agent says, take down this shit posting account with six followers saying that the election's on Wednesday. And at a core level, you're like, why are we paying the salary of somebody who is doing this

for a living? That's insane. Yeah. That's yeah. There's multiple levels there. There's first of all, the like disturbing dystopian surveillance and, like, violation of First Amendment and all of those sorts of pieces. And then when you actually look at the tweets that they were flagging to be taken down, you're like, this is what you're spending your time on? Remember there was one lady who was, like, some resistance activist who was pretending like she said some snarky thing about, like, for everyone who shows up without a mask, I'm going to change one vote from Republican to Democrat. Like clearly a joke. She had like five followers or something, got two likes, you know, and they're like, this is a threat to their national security. It's just a clown show stuff. But then also it's very serious because of obviously when these social media companies get a strongly worded request from the FBI, the federal government, that's going to carry a lot of weight with them. So what you were referring to, Sagar, is there's a case now filed by a number

of attorneys general working its way through the court system. One federal court judge found that they actually issued an injunction that the Biden administration, unless it is an actual issue of national security, can no longer have these communications of just, you know, nicely suggesting a variety of tweets and users and whatever that need to be censored or blocked. of national security can no longer have these communications of just, you know, nicely suggesting a variety of tweets and users and whatever that need to be censored or blocked. So this is very much a live issue. Yeah, absolutely. So anyway, look, the FBI director certainly getting pressed there. I thought it was interesting. I do still, though, we need less grandstanding and more like actual cooperation. That's the biggest problem is,

look, it's great to see them grilled, and I think that's awesome. But how many clips have we now played in this show over two years of FBI director refuses to answer around J. It's like, we got it. Look, at a certain point, like do the work and actually get some of this stuff done. Or if they're not, you know, hold them whatever in contempt of Congress for refusing

to provide some of this info. Because it's clear that like everything just always plays out the same without any real confirmation. Confirmation is with all the stuff that's actually important, the documents about the cases and all that. So anyway, keep that in mind as we go to the next story here. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, please. Fox News finding themselves embroiled in another defamation suit. This one, though, I think is pretty different. Arizona man, a.k.a. Ray Epps, who I think viewers of the show will long know,

the Trump voter who was on tape multiple times urging people to, quote, go into the Capitol before January 6th and on the day of January 6th, is suing Fox News, and specifically the Tucker Carlson Tonight Show for falsely naming him as a covert government agent who incited the January 6th attack. Now, the details of this case are actually very important because what Ray Epps is alleging is defamation and public harm that was

done to him as a result of people who were effectively harassing him and his family, which I do not condone and I do not think is correct, but apparently that's what happened after his name surfaced. He says that his wife and he received numerous death threats and were forced to sell their ranch and wedding business in Arizona and move to a mobile home in the mountains of Utah. The problem for him is that whenever he, his core allegation by the Tucker Carlson Tonight, by Revolver News,

and some of the people who aired the initial allegations against Ray Epps was, this man is on tape multiple times trying to get people to go into the Capitol. He has not yet been charged by federal authorities, while QAnon, Shaman, all these other folks are not only in prison at this point, but fully gone through the judicial system. The reason why most people don't get charged is usually that they are federal informants. So the question is, was he a federal informant? Now, by focusing in on that, you know, by someone who was created and posted on wanted posters, that was part of the other, you know, curiosity about this case. Ray Epps was initially flagged as a core instigator of some of the violence or going into the Capitol and then was taken off of FBI wanted posters afterwards. What happened in this sudden change. You know, why was he taken

off of these posters? Why was he not charged? Well, interestingly enough, though, in the actual lawsuit, Mr. Epps claims, we don't know if this is true or not, that the Justice Department actually notified him they are planning to file criminal charges against him related to his role in the Capitol attack. Quote, details about the charges remain unknown, but the fact that they are being filed undermines the notion that Epps was being protected because of his role as a supposed covert agent. So effectively, their defamation revolves around the fact that he was falsely accused as an alleged government informant, government agent, whatever you want to call it, by Tucker Carlson tonight, you know, on the show, in terms of that speculation.

I personally think this is spurious and ridiculous, Crystal, because, number one, all it took is a single, like, first of all, Epps made himself a public figure. He's on video, and the FBI also made him one. So in terms of the private citizen defense, I think it's completely thrown out the window. And second, as long as you say alleged and you ask a question instead of a direct accusation, you're good. I mean, in terms of the court of law.

That does not mean, though, that they may not settle. They very much could settle because they don't want to go through a trial. But personally, I think you should take this man's ass to trial because I want to know every single detail about these folks and actually get him in an actual lawful deposition to see what's going on. I think that's an actually important point. Yeah. Because if he was like, you know, Fed false flag instigator, then I don't think he would be suing Fox News and opening himself up to discovery. Possible. And I also, so I asked because, you know, I'm not a defamation lawyer, whatever.

So I asked the guy, Mark Bankston, who was one of the top lawyers for the Sandy Hook families in their suit against Alex Jones, which was very successful. And he said, and he told me I could say this on the record, quote, the liability case against Fox is extraordinarily strong. Fox broadcast statement saying Epps was, quote, the smoking gun of the fedsurrection. Not alleged, not maybe, not I'm asking a question. The smoking gun of the fedsurrection. That's clearly defamatory and it's easy to prove as false. Unlike in prior cases involving Tucker, it's not easy for Fox to defend this by saying it was only an opinion. They were unquestionably making factual assertions about Epps. The next thing he says Epps will have to prove is Fox's level of fault. If he was a public figure, he'd have to prove actual malice. But Epps is just one

of 120,000 private citizens at the Capitol that day. He is not a public figure. So he only needs to prove Fox acting negligently under the law. That means Fox is liable if they fail to act as a reasonably prudent publisher would act. That is bad news for Fox. And then he goes on to say he'll have to prove that he has been damaged. And, you know, I don't think I don't think that there's a problem there. So listen, what I ultimately think is going to happen is they're probably going to settle. They just settled with the Tucker, former producer who had alleged sexual harassment. I think she got like $12 million, which for her is a lot for Fox News is nothing. Do you really think that they're going to want to open the kimono again

and go through the whole process again that they went through with Dominion, all kinds of embarrassing correspondence and emails and text messages, and what did this producer say, and did they know that this was bullshit, etc., etc.? No, they're probably not going to want any of that happening. So I imagine they will probably settle here with Mr. Epps because I do think that he has a decent case. I did not realize that they had called him the smoking gun because, yeah, oh, I mean, we always do the same thing.

You got to say alleged. That's just one of the most basic, especially whenever you're talking about this public figure, though. I really, you know, I think that on that one, just saying that you're one of 120,000 like that, that doesn't really pass scrutiny whenever he was literally on an FBI wanted poster and made himself a core part of it by shouting constantly on video and knowing that he was being filmed at the time. So, I mean, we could quibble about this all day long. Is he an actor? No, you know, but at the same time, I believe there have been multiple cases in the past where witnesses and participants in big events have been declared public figures after they later on tried to sue for defamation specifically like this.

And the reason was that it's like, well, even though it is no fault of your own, you became one whenever you became involved in the case. We'll see how it all plays out. As you said, though, the reason why I think the only reason he has a good case is reputationally, Murdoch and them, they just want to wash their hands of this. They don't want to deal with it anymore. So they're willing to pay somebody to shut up and walk away. They already paid out a billion dollars on this Dominion voting system. They just paid $12 million to this former Tucker producer.

To them, one of the reasons that they fired him was because they didn't want to deal with this stuff anymore. And to them, they want to walk away. So, you know, for them, he very much could get a very big payday from him. So we'll see. And reportedly, Rupert Murdoch really hated the Tucker January 6th stuff. I was going to say, Rupert in particular was very upset. Yeah. And so, I mean, the whole like, you know, Fedsurrection documentary, quote unquote, thing that Tucker did, apparently they didn't like.

He was at what was he about to do an interview with someone or is about to do some additional commentary on that just before he was fired. And then if you just look at the business piece, you know, he was named in the Dominion lawsuit. He's named in the Smartmatic lawsuit. His former producer was suing for sexual harassment. The Ray Epps thing was already hanging out there that they expected a lawsuit on that front as well. So, you know, when you start getting wrapped up in multi tens, hundred million dollar lawsuits, then the fact that you generate great ratings ends up being less consequential, especially because there were a lot of advertisers who would no longer place their ads during his program. So it becomes less financially lucrative. So you can sort of put all these pieces together and see why they were like, all right, we're done here. Well, we'll see how it plays out. Yes. Speaking of the Murdochs,

what you got for us? All right, let's go and put this up there on the screen. This is pretty interesting in terms of the proclivities of billionaires and why you never really want to make sure that you are aligned with them. The Murdochs, the kingmakers of conservative media, are starting to lose confidence in Ron DeSantis. This was reported by Rolling Stone. Now, normally, I would not just rely on Rolling Stone, but one of the reasons why I think that you can take this to the bank is that the Murdochs and clearly the people around them

are basically leaking this to anybody who will listen. Go ahead and put the next one up there. Literally almost an hour after that story posted, another one was posted by the New York Times saying, quote, DeSantis confronts a Murdoch empire no longer quite so supportive. The Florida governor faced tough questions, as we noted from Fox News and outlets,

in a sign of growing skepticism. Furthermore, Crystal, Mr. Murdoch, quote, has privately told people he would like to see Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia enter the race, according to a person with knowledge of his remarks. And he has made clear in private discussions that he thinks Trump, despite his popularity with Fox News viewers, is unhealthy for the Republican Party. And I think when you can put these two things together, you are actually seeing a growing trend

of a lot of these billionaires are just the most fickle people on earth. I mean, just earlier today, I was looking at a story. Top donors are starting to sour on DeSantis and looking at former current Senator Tim Scott. Now you also see people like Ken Griffin, who I've noted here before, and it shows you again how ridiculous these people are. Griffin, you know, makes it known months ago, I've got a blank check for Ron DeSantis. He'll never want

for money. Now it's like Ken Griffin's eye is beginning to wander. Oh, for real? Oh, yeah. I mean, these are fickle people. They have no loyalty. Their ideology is ridiculous at best. All they care about is lower taxes. They thought DeSantis, he's the guy who will get it done for us. He's just not so mean as Trump. And now at the moment that they think that you're not doing well, they really have no loyalty whatsoever. So the Murdoch problem is a much bigger billionaire problem that I think Ron DeSantis has right now. I mean, it's disgusting the way that these people

just like play with the whole nation. Like it's their playthings, you know, and they think that they're kingmakers and whatever, even though, I mean, it's really not even, money in politics is still a big problem, especially at the lower levels. But at the presidential level, I mean, you know, Ken Griffin could write his billion dollar check to Ron DeSantis or whatever, and I don't think that it

would get him across the finish line. But the reason that I think there's a lot of confidence in this reporting, too, is because you can see the signs of it all over the Murdoch properties. We covered here how Will Kane and then Maria Bartiromo just basically, you know, confronted DeSantis with what's going on with your poll numbers, buddy, which really contrasted with the treatment that he got early in the campaign, where it was nothing but puff pieces. You know, remember he was like playing softball with, was it one of the boxing friends, Kilmeade, I think it was. And he was getting this, this unbelievable, I mean, embarrassingly friendly write-up from Selena Zito in the New York Post. I mean, it was just puff piece after puff piece.

They would go out in the wilderness and do their best to find a few Ron DeSantis supporters to be like, we're done with Trump. We love Ron DeSantis now. So the fact that they've turned is becoming increasingly apparent, both on Fox News. They also note in this Rolling Stone piece, the editorial pages of news courts, newspapers, which they say are often important tea leaves for divining the Murdoch family's political wishes. They've taken recent jabs at DeSantis' New York Post editorial board, which once hailed DeSantis as the candidate who gives America the chance to move on from its punch-drunk stupor. They've begun to look askance at DeSantis. They curated pieces expressing skepticism at, quote, DeSantis's odd choices

to criticize Trump's Supreme Court picks and to be too online in his constant culture war crusading. So part of, I mean, the biggest thing that happened here is just the polls aren't good. And so they're looking at it and they're like, you know, you don't look like a winner to me. And then there's a lot of other justifications of like, oh, we don't like your position on this or that, or you've taken too hard of a turn on culture war issues. But I think the bottom line is if he was committed to cutting their taxes, which I'm sure is, and he was winning, they would stick with him. I think the Tim Scott thing is interesting. I keep going back to the reporter we had on.

What was her name? Shelby Talcott. Yeah, Talcott. Yeah, that's right. She had told us months ago. She was like, you know, the people that the Trump team are, the person that the Trump team are actually looking at is Tim Scott. And, you know, maybe that's just what the Trump team was telling her. But I do think it's interesting that he's getting a second look

from the elite media and donor class. And then I just, the young kid flirtation is to me hilarious. Like, that guy's going to be your Trump slayer? Okay, good luck with that. Good luck with that, y'all. He's a nice guy. You know, I think he's a good politician

for where he is, but like, even he, I don't think, has any compunction that he could ever win an actual election. I don't know, he's like flirting with it again,

so never undermine these people's egos. Look, I mean, you know better than I, but Virginia, I do think that it is a perverse incentive that these guys don't have to run for re-election, so it's you know better than I, but Virginia, I do think that it is a perverse incentive that these guys don't have to run for re-election.

So it's basically, what is it? Because you have a one-term limit, right? Yeah, one-term limit. Whenever you're the gov. So I guess the idea is then you won't focus on that, but it also almost immediately makes you want to think and look for the future for national prospects or for donor dollars.

So in a way, I almost think that having to run for reelection is a good limiter on keeping you at least like semi-focused within the state. But I don't know. I've heard a lot of different theories around it. At the end of the day, though, Glenn Youngkin is not going to be the GOP nominee. You know, remember this. There was a lot of theory that he couldn't even win a real primary. They had to use ranked choice voting at the GOP convention to even get him the nomination. If they had led it to the base, we would have had some crazy wacko

be the Corey Stewart level guy who would have got blown out in a GOP gubernatorial election. So anyway, that's another reason I like Lenny. Yeah, I forgot about that, that they had to basically usher him through. Yeah, usher him through the GOP primary because he was going to get his ass beat by some

weirdo crank if he didn't do that. I mean, it worked. Yeah. Terry McCullough would probably be governor of Virginia. So yes, it did work, but they probably won't be able to pull that off at the Republican primary level as much as they would really like to. That's right. All right, let's give you the very latest on a beat that we've been tracking closely, which is the seemingly bottomless well of corruption at the Supreme Court. We got a couple of pieces together that have been reported out over the past number of days. Let's put this first part up on the screen. So New York Times did a deep dive into some additional sketchy connections with Clarence Thomas being very closely tied to a lot of elites who have

business in front of the court. But packed into this piece was an interesting little nugget about the bipartisan nature of some of this corruption and how this is apparently just the way people, you know, these people, these justices view they have carte blanche to do whatever while they're sitting on the court. They talk about who was actually number one in terms of the trips, the, you know, all expenses paid trips that they took while they were on the court. And they say that Justice Scalia's disclosures showed he took 258 subsidized trips from 2004 to 2014. Destinations included Switzerland, Ireland, Hawaii. He died, you might remember, in 2016 while staying for free at the West Texas hunting lodge of a business executive whose company

recently had a case before the Supreme Court. So that is the late Antonin Scalia. The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg disclosed more trips than any other justice in 2018. During a trip to Israel, she was a guest of the Israeli billionaire, Morris Kahn, the year before the court had given his company a victory by declining to take up a case. Now, it is also worth noting that Justice Thomas, at least,

appears to have just stopped disclosing a lot of the trips that he has been going on. That's why we only found out about the whole Harlan Crowe situation once there was reporting on it. So there's willy-nilly approach to what they even decide is, you know, we're worthy of knowing about. So that's one piece. The next piece here is some reporting on current Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Let's put this up on the screen. So she has been going on book tours. One of the exceptions to the rules about how they can get paid is they are allowed to write books. They're allowed to make money from writing books. And so she has a habit of going on these book tours to libraries and universities and whatever. And the AP here

got their hands on multiple emails where her staff was prodding public institutions, as they put it, to buy her memoir or her children's books, works that have earned her at least $3.7 million since she joined the court in 2009. Repeated examples, they say, of taxpayer-funded court staff performing tasks for the justices' book ventures. That's the thing that former Governor Cuomo got in trouble for, that we really raked him over the coals for here. Apparently she is doing that as well. But since the court holds itself to basically no standards, there's no actual prohibition even on her using her staff, her taxpayer-funded staff, to help her write her books so that she can earn millions. There's a quote here from an ethics expert who says this is one of the most basic tenets of ethics laws that protects taxpayer dollars from misuse.

The problem at the Supreme Court is there is no one there to say whether this is wrong. The justification, by the way, just to give her side of the story from the court about her aides constantly prodding universities like, you need to buy more of her books if she's going to come here. They say when Justice Sotomayor is invited

to participate in a book program, chamber staff recommends the number of books for an organization to order based on the size of the audience so as not to disappoint attendees who may anticipate books being available at an event. Yeah, totally. That's exactly why. They'd be so disappointed if they didn't have the book that they didn't get her children's book. The most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, as you said. The worst part is that these people are federal employees who are pushing private books. This is the most basic ethics violation. I think they're kings and queens, really.

Same thing happened with, what's her name, Elaine Chao, Mitch McConnell's wife over at the Department of Transportation, using federal resources to help flog her billionaire father's book while she was literally a secretary of transportation. I mean, this is one of the oldest tricks in the book. And one of the reasons why is that books are normally one of the avenues that federal officials and elected officials can make a ton of money while not, you know, directly serving in another job. So So look, the other problem is we don't even know how much money she's making off these books. But literally, like you said, millions. What? Yeah, she all of a sudden decided to become a children's author out of nowhere. Or maybe the margins on children's books are incredible because they're like this big and you can sell a ton of them. The problem I think with all of this is just the sheer lawlessness is what they

seem to behave. I mean, especially coming out in that. Like RBG really just thinks you can fly around the globe. You can just do it all for free. You can stay at these billionaire residences whenever they're arguing cases before you. And they don't think twice. Clarence Thomas doing the same thing, Scalia. I mean, but these are really just the tip of the iceberg because these dinners and events and all these things, these people get to go through in Washington throughout the legal world. It's like, you see, they're Kings and Queens and they behave that way and they expect the courtier treatment. And I often find that one of the reasons why they're so comfortable accepting a lot of freebies is because in their minds, they're like, I've given up so much to serve on the court. I make a mere

$300,000. I could be a multimillionaire. And I'm like, yeah, well, you know, you can leave anytime you want. And then you can go make a ton of money and live that lifestyle and nobody would care. But, you know, this just shows you the mindset that they have about the sacrifice. I think that's exactly right. And, you know, they're in this high position of power. There is no accountability. They have no actual set, really, ethics, rules that they have to abide by. And they feel themselves to be a part of this extremely wealthy elite set.

And so to them, it's only fitting that they be treated and vetted to these trips and vacations and goodies and perks and whatever, because they do feel this sense of like, you know, there's been some reporting on this with regards to Clarence Thomas, like they feel that they deserve this lifestyle rather than, yeah, I do think if you are going to serve on the Supreme Court, if you're going to serve in these positions of quote-unquote public service, I do think that there should be some measure of sacrifice,

more so even than what has been, you know, what is the actual reality for these individuals. And, you know, I can't get past the irony that these are supposed to be the arbiters of true justice in our land. And forget about like a, you know, two-tier legal system. Like they hold themselves to no standards whatsoever and they have no plans to change. There was additional reporting about Clarence Thomas. I mean, this is just like another weird, sketchy, I don't even know what's going on here. Let's put this up from the

Guardian. So lawyers with Supreme Court business were sending Venmo cash to a Clarence Thomas aide. And it all seemed to be with regards to some Christmas party that he had. But I'm talking these lawyers. One of them was on the affirmative action case. I mean, these are really, you know, serious, big time people. And they're like cash apping money to his top aide. What the hell is that about? And we don't exactly know, but it sure looks sketchy as hell. So yeah, what's the explanation? I don't know. I don't know. They didn't respond to a request for comment. So we really don't have an explanation. The Venmo account, which was public prior to requesting comment for the article and is no longer, show that this aide received seven payments in November and December from

lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks. The amounts of the payments not disclosed, but the purpose of each payment is listed as either Christmas party, Thomas Christmas party, CT Christmas party, or CT Xmas party in an apparent reference to the justices' initials. So, you know, they just feel themselves to be above it all. None of the laws, apparently, they think apply to them. They don't think that they should be held to any sort of ethical standard when I think it's clear to everyone else that they should be held to the highest ethical standard given the amount of power that they hold in our system. Yeah, and most people would not disagree with that at all.

The only people who do are them. So, you know. Yeah, truly. Yeah, really does show you. Them and their spouses. That's it. Yeah, the spouses probably most of all. All right, let's go to the next part here.

This is just one of the best that we've been able to see in a while. MSNBC's Morning Joe and Mika Pruszynski are very upset with Joe Biden's staff for letting him appear old. They're not upset with Biden for being this old and continuing to run and be trying to run for re-election and run the country, put himself in a very stressful job.

They are upset with the staff for not helping hide how freaking old that he is. Here's what she had to say. They also managed his schedule very carefully. Yeah, I think his staff needs to own his age. I'm just going to be honest. I don't think they do a good job helping out the president. And I'm not talking about it like I'm just saying if you are managing a president's schedule and you are managing a president getting on stage and getting off stage and doing getting on planes and getting off plane. And yes, he's 80. You need to be there for him and you need to make a pathway. And you sure as hell better make sure he doesn't fall

on a sandbag. And I blame the staff for that. I mean, these are the things that are going to hurt him. These are things that are going to be played on a loop. OK, let him do his job. Let him do his speeches. Let him work on policy. Let him do his connections in Congress, unlike any president that we've seen, I don't know, since Clinton. But my God, make sure, you know, your Secret Service, you're his staff, that you were there and you're telling him what's next. And it's not because don't don't take this as, oh, he can't even get from one place to another. When you're busy and you're on stage and we've been on stage, I've done speeches and I'm so nervous. I'm doing the speech. I'm trying to get it right. And when it's done, I don't know which way to go.

And I'm looking for direction. So do a better job because you can't have these video images of the president tripping or the president like going the wrong way. It's not going to work in this presidency because his age is going to be a factor. His age is going to be a factor and it's your job to make sure he gets from one place to another. He can handle the presidency. You have to handle his schedule and where he goes. You've got to handle his schedule and where he goes. I would posit that we've had several presidents. Many of them faced the exact same circumstance and they didn't wander off in weird directions, whatever it is, because they're not old. I mean, it's very basic about what the issue is. And effectively what they're saying is you've got to cover up his age more.

You've got to basically come in. I mean, it's so patronizing too. It's like he's a grown man. You know, if he really does require someone to come and grab his arm, the moment that he's done and point him in the right direction, he should not be in the position.

So, you know, you really can't look. Autonomous adults, people deal with these stressful things all the time. We can all acknowledge that it is stressful and part of the presidency, but no president in modern history has been as old as Joe Biden. And if that's what he requires to serve in the job, then he shouldn't be in the job period. They want him to get the Dianne Feinstein treatment. Yeah, true. Good point. Where it's like, you know, staffers constantly surround her. She never gets asked a question without a staffer there to feed her what the answer is.

They shepherd her through the hallways. They do everything they can and have for years to make sure that people don't know just how far her mental decline has gone. And apparently that's the sort of thing, the system that they feel needs to be in place for the president of the United States. Awful. I mean, it is, listen, the other piece of this too is Mika is really going off here. Like she's really in her feelings about this one. And it's like with all the issues that exist in the world, the fact that you don't feel the president's aides have, you know, lied to the American public enough about how the

president is actually doing. That's the thing you're going to get on your righteous high horse about. It's just amazing. And you know what? The other thing is that there's a lot of signs that his aides have really been trying to aggressively stage manage him. There were pictures of like, you know, they were always giving him these note cards with really clear bullets to really hammer home. Like, this is the thing that we need you to say. And this is the person that's in the room or whatever. But, you know, they can't control if he goes off script and says, where's Jackie when Jackie died in a car accident a month ago? Like, how are you possibly going to protect against that? And we also have the example of the fact that, you know, he barely does interviews. He's not going to debate. Very few public appearances, very few press conferences.

So they're clearly doing everything they can to try to hide his very apparent aging from the American public, but still not enough for Mika and Joe. The big problem that they are getting to with all this, like you just said, is that age is a factor which is so visceral for all of us and they want it to be covered up. And I find that just so disgusting. And she could spend more time being like, hey listen Mr. President, you're an old man and it's time to go sometimes and that's okay. Her own father, I think he just died very recently,

lived up into his 90s. And he was a great man, quote unquote, I guess in his time as a national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, a great statesman and all this. But there is just an inevitable decline that happens with this. And let's go and put this next part up on the screen, which really hammers this stuff home.

Biden skipped the NATO dinner with all of the leaders citing workload. And you're like, okay. It turns out, let's put this next part. This is the third major dinner that he has now skipped with world leaders on an international trip. The last time, quote, still after fatiguing days on the road, he skipped dinner with world leaders in Indonesia and again in Japan in May. Now, let me just offer some sympathy. I just returned from Asia. I get it.

The jet lag is a pain in the ass. Don't get me wrong. But I checked. Vilnius is seven hours ahead, okay? It ain't that bad. It's not terrible enough for, you've already been on the continent, you know, one day.

You can stomach a single dinner, especially whenever. You so rarely get to actually meet and commiserate with some of these people. From what I have heard, many of these are a chore, these diplomatic events and all that. You know, don't be the head of state then. I don't know what to tell you. If you don't like to be feted and attend some of this stuff, then you probably shouldn't run for president. It would drive me crazy, don't get me wrong. Yeah. You know, that's not what I do. Joe Biden used to live for this stuff.

That's the other part. You know, he's not like, he's not like us in that we were like, you know, like, I don't want anything to do with this. Like, I'm not interested. And you're like, you know, bullshit table conversation. He's not like that. He's a, you know, old school, glad handling politician. Very, you know, really prizes those personal relationships. Kind of sort of Trumpy in this regard, like, you know, really views foreign policy through the lens of his like personal relationships with various world leaders.

So, yeah, when he decides in multiple trips that he's going to skip out on those dinners, it's indicative. And I it's a rough schedule. No one is saying that being president of the United States is a cup of tea. You know, it's brutal. It's stressful. It's exhausting. It's long days. It's late nights. It's early mornings. It's it's all of those things. And, you know, ideally, you would have someone in the job who was ready and able and willing and up to that task. But, you know, just to bring it back to Mika, I just can't get over someone who is supposedly, I guess, sort of a journalist. You're actually arguing here for less transparency for the American people.

What you're arguing for is you need to do a better job hiding the reality of what's going on in the White House. I mean, the real thing you should be asking for is, hey, Mr. President, people have questions about your age and your ability to do the job. You should debate your primary opponents so people can see in real time that you're up to it, that you've got a vision for the future, that you're able to articulate, that you've got the energy to take on these other competitors. Like, get out there and show us. What you should be advocating for is, hey, we need to have more availability. We need to see you out there in press availability. We need to see out there in press conferences. We need to see you doing interviews. We sure as hell need to see you, you know, being able to attend these dinners that are with other heads of state. That's what you should be arguing

for if any of your rhetoric about democracy means a single thing. But of course, we know that it doesn't. It's all just partisan flacking. And in that regard, you know, if you're just a like Democratic partisan cheerleader, you're not wrong that maybe the staff should up their game in further trying to hide from the American people the actual condition of the president of the United States. Yeah, no, I mean, at the end of the day, like this is all they can really stomach. If he can't handle the very basics of the presidency, like, you know, going abroad and holding a meeting and being able to be sound of mind, well, then he shouldn't be in that. And it's not a staff problem. It is a personal problem. It is a very legitimate question. And it's one that we've probably the

most gaslit on from the very beginning, really, of his entire candidacy, from the, you know, fake stutter that suddenly rematerialized 80 years later to any, you know, just, you know, accusations of ageism or sexism whenever it came to Dianne Feinstein. They'll use anything in their playbook to get people to shut up. It's anti-Irish bias. Oh, that's right. I haven't actually heard anti-Irish. I mean, I'm sure they would say it actually sounds like something he would say. It really does. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, Hunter-Biden-gate, much like Russia-gate or Obama-gate, has many, many layers.

Most people are familiar with Hunter's payments from a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma. That certainly was bad. But honestly, for those familiar with his sketchy business dealings, it barely scratched the surface. Hunter has millions of dollars in dealings that he still needs to answer for from Russian, Romanian, and most importantly, Chinese businessmen. The Chinese dealings in particular have deep links both to the government and they remain very understudied by the press. The Chinese deals came into focus in recent months after Republicans retook control of Congress, and they began their investigation into Hunter Biden and their possible links to the current president. One of those inquiries into China relied on a whistleblower named Gal Luft. He is a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen. According to Luft, he was previously contacted by the Department of Justice

in March of 2019, and he detailed his knowledge of the Biden family's deep financial ties to China. Here is the story he told in his own words. My ordeal goes back to a fatal decision I made in March of 2019 to share with the U.S. government my knowledge about the Biden family's relations with CFC. Over an intensive two-day meeting, I shared my information about the Biden family's financial transactions with CFC, including specific dollar figures. I also provided the name of Rob Walker, who later became known as Hunter Biden's bagman. Finally, in February this year, I was arrested in Cyprus on an extradition request from the

Southern District of New York, the very same office that met with me in Brussels. The seven-count indictment said I violated the Arms Export Control Act, and if I convicted, I would face up to 100 years in prison. Okay, so he contacted them in March of 2019. A bunch of FBI agents met with him. Nothing happened. So then what? As he continues to detail, after he contacted the DOJ and the FBI to detail his knowledge of Biden's ties to China, they ignore him. A few years later, after attention again is sparked into these allegations, he is suddenly indicted by the Department of Justice. That indictment, which became public on Monday, alleges that he evaded registering as a foreign agent in the United States while working to advance the interests of the Chinese government in the U.S. and seeking specifically

to broker the sales of Chinese weapons and Iranian oil. The charges against him total nearly 100 years in prison, as he said, if convicted, and they detail a very serious breach of the law. But it does leave us with a few questions. Number one is, is this true? And number two, why is this happening now? Let's focus in on the second part of that question and also untangle some of the details. One of the charges against Luft is based upon a donation to his think tank by CEFC. That is a Chinese energy company from 2015. Now the money was given to that think tank in an effort to recruit a former CIA director to make statements beneficial to the interests of China. Shady and gross stuff to be

sure. But what they are not telling you is that the CEFC is the exact same company paid Hunter Biden $5 million between August 2017 and May of 2018. Great work, if you can get it right. What exactly did Hunter get paid all this money for? It's not actually clear. Millions of dollars, though, to represent this Chinese energy company's interest in the US, and $1 million even more to provide legal services to the very Chinese go-between that the DOJ says Luft was working with, who was a Chinese spy. So in other words, if Ga Luft is an unregistered Chinese agent, Hunter Biden sure as hell looks like one too. And the timeline of almost everything matches up. If anything, actually, it vindicates much of Luft was saying.

And I guess it takes one unregistered foreign agent to know another one. As my friend Chuck Ross over at the Washington Free Beacon notes, the initial contact to both of these individuals was made in 2015. That is when the first donation actually happened to Hunter Biden's link charity, and it is when the first payment to Luft was made. In fact, both Luft and Hunter both appear to have had knowledge pretty soon afterwards that the people they were dealing with were no ordinary Chinese businessmen. Hunter himself, in a text message in 2017, specifically said he wanted to avoid registering as a foreign agent as part of his deal with the CEFC. Now, for those who are familiar, this is where the character Tony Bobulinski also

comes in and relates to this entire saga. Bobulinski, of course, came forward after the release of the Hunter Biden laptop and alleged that he specifically met with Joe Biden in May of 2017 regarding this exact Chinese energy company deal and that Hunter himself laid out the quote 10% for the big guy, the big guy being Joe Biden. So upon closer inspection, the headline the Department of Justice sought in trying to make this all go away is not close to reality. The reality though is that Hunter Biden whistleblower has been revealed as a Chinese spy. It is also though the Department of Justice has confirmed that the company which paid Hunter some $6 million

is now confirmed as an agent possibly of China, and that the same behavior that the whistleblower was now indicted for is the same stuff that Hunter Biden was doing. That the company in question here at the least is alleged by this whistleblower to have been directly financially connected to the President of the United States. And I understand this can all seem complicated, but it's not. Even the government now admits, effectively, that the company is a Chinese spy front, and they paid the Biden family. Plain and simple. The only question now is, did he get a piece of that as president or not? This too vindicates the previous text message revealed by the House committee. IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley specifically noted that a previous search

warrant uncovered this infamous text message by Hunter to the very Chinese energy company, threatening action if he was not paid. It invokes how his father was sitting right next to him. So look, now it's actually all coming together. The shocking part is that upon investigation, it actually looks even more clear that Hunter and possibly Joe got into some very sketchy stuff with this Chinese energy company. But don't expect the media to actually tell you the truth about the case. So Crystal, that's my investigation. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at?

Well, we have closely tracked here the way that private equity has swooped in to buy entire neighborhoods across the country, vacuuming up single-family homes and positioning themselves as America's landlords. Great money-making venture for them, disaster for literally everyone else. Well, this week, a group of Senate Democrats, including Sherrod Brown, Ron Wyden, and Elizabeth Warren, they introduced legislation seeking to cut the legs out from large investors who are buying up the nation's housing stock. The Stop Predatory Investing Act aims to make it less profitable for these private equity-backed companies to purchase single-family homes. So basically, the bill says you cannot deduct mortgage, interest, or depreciation on these homes once you own more than 50 of them, undercutting one

aspect of the very lucrative nature of this business. In addition to cutting into the profit margins of mass single family landlords, the bill also attempts to incentivize selling homes to actual aspiring homeowners. According to a Senate one-pager quote, if an investor sold one of those properties to a home buyer or a qualified nonprofit, they can deduct the interest and depreciation for the year in which the property is sold. So basically, if you're one of the big guys, you don't get tax breaks while you own the property, but you do get a break if you sell it off to an actual human being rather than to permanent capital. Now, let me temper my expectations here a bit. First of all, no Republicans have signed on as of yet, meaning

those prospects in the Senate are dim, let alone the GOP-controlled House. And second, hard to say just how impactful this bill would actually be, even if it did somehow pass through. With high mortgage rates, a good chunk of these large investors actually buy houses in all cash, making the tax deduction piece of this less significant to their bottom line. It's ultimately a much more reformist and less radical reform than what I would like to see, but it is a start and at least aims to tackle what is a very real problem. What's more, the fact that this issue is getting serious attention at the federal level is telling in and of itself. Housing is literally the least affordable that it has ever been in history. Take a look at this chart showing the way that the median monthly mortgage payment has skyrocketed in the last several years as housing prices have spiked

and mortgage rates have jumped thanks to the Fed. This has huge ramifications for every income level outside of the rich, pushing up shelter costs for everyone from renters to aspiring homeowners to current homeowners who need or want to move. The net effect here is to push everyone down a rung on the ladder of stability, and those who are barely hanging onto the bottom rung, they get pushed right out into the streets, leading to the homelessness that has become endemic across the entire country. This disastrous state of affairs is apparently starting to break through at the federal level, as evidenced by this effort and by some others too, including legislation introduced by Bernie and AOC. Now, their bill would fund

upgrades to public housing and repeal an amendment that caps construction of new public housing units by the federal government with the goal of expanding and improving social housing. Now, the fact that Sherrod Brown has made himself the face of this new effort aimed at private equity, it also tells you something key about the politics of pushing back on investors buying up American neighborhoods. It is no accident that he is pushing this bill at the same time as he faces a very tough reelect in his home state of Ohio. Now, Ohio may be an increasingly red state, but this bill is good policy and good politics there, especially because Cincinnati, Cleveland, and other Ohio cities, they've been going to war with the private equity-backed giants that are

destroying neighborhoods, pricing out homebuyers, and jacking up rents. In fact, according to the Cincinnati Inquirer, 20% of the homes sold in the first quarter this year were snapped up by investors. That puts Cincinnati in the top 10 of cities nationwide in terms of investor share of purchases. This has been a huge source of tension, major issue locally. The Cincinnati Inquirer recently documented how one single Texas-based company, Vinebrook Homes, now owns more than 3,100 homes in the county that includes Cincinnati. They've specifically targeted increasingly scarce starter homes that are priced around $100K to $200K. That means that working-class neighborhoods have been transformed practically overnight from real neighborhoods into just another profit center for giant corporations. These companies' increasing

dominance in the rental market has also caused rents to skyrocket as they push the whole market to be way less affordable. And it's not like these renters are getting good service for their money either. Vinebrook was sued by the city for neglect and failure to pay their bills. They've since settled for half a million dollars in fines. Just the cost of doing business, I guess, for our nation's slumlord behemoths is what it appears. In recent years, Sherrod Brown has been the only Democrat who seems to be able to win in the state of Ohio. He's done it by leaning into a pro-labor economic populism that is uniquely suited to a state that has struggled with industrial decline, post-NAFTA, and opening up trade with China. By honing in on private equity and housing, he's once again placing a big bet on bread and butter issues. But

this will undoubtedly be the toughest fight of his political career, and it's far from certain that he can overcome a partisan tilt that makes the state more and more difficult for a Democrat to win, no matter what they do and what good legislation they back. I just hope more politicians recognize that curbing the abuses of these giant landlord vultures is good for the country and also good for their careers. And this is something it's really bubbling up. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. So I made a big promise at the top of the show that we're going to convene a panel together so that we can all sort through what's going on with Jonah Hill, come to some sort of a conclusion. So we have gathered here with us today.

We've got Emily Jaschinski, great friend and, of course, co-host of CounterPoints and Federalist and does all sorts of other things, busiest working woman in show business. And we also have Kyle Kalinsky, host of Secular Talk, and my husband, full disclosure, which I guess is relevant to this conversation. It certainly is. To sort through the various issues. So first of all, we do have an update, and I'm not asking anyone to defend this alleged action on the part of Jonah Hill, but apparently former child star

Alexa Nicholas of Zoey 101 says that Jonah Hill, quote, shoved his tongue down her throat against her will when she was 16. So we have some additional character says that Jonah Hill, quote, shoved his tongue down her throat against her will when she was 16. So we have some additional character questions about Jonah Hill. But the thing that everybody. Yes. He was 24.

They were at a party at Justin Long's house. Who was it? I don't know. I don't even know. Yeah, I don't know. Justin Long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To be perfectly honest with you, I don't know who any of these people are.

But the piece that people are really debating, let's go and put this up on the screen, is Jonah was in a relationship with this woman, Sarah Brady, who is a surfer. That's basically all I really know about her. And she posted online these text messages that he had sent her. He said, quote, plain and simple, if you need surfing with men, boundaryless, inappropriate friendships with men, to model, to post pictures of yourself in a bathing suit, to post sexual pictures, friendships with women who are in unstable places and from your wild recent past beyond getting a lunch or coffee or something respectful, I am not the right partner for you. If these things bring you to a place of happiness, I support it and there will be no hard feelings. These are my boundaries for romantic partnership, my boundaries with you based on the way these actions have hurt our trust. The last piece of information I will put up here, let's go and put this next piece up on the screen, is some of the photos that apparently he had her take down.

Again, she's a surfer. There's one where she's in a full-piece bathing suit. It's actually relatively modest, in my opinion. But anyway, she's got, you know, her back to the camera, so you can see a little bit of her booty. It's from, like, 100 yards away. I know. I love it. I'm just trying to be fair to both points of view, alright? And also, apparently

in this one, he, like, accused her of being in a thong, but it's literally, like, a pretty modest one. Anyway, so that is the setup here. Emily, let me go ahead and get your take on all of this. Okay, so timing is also interesting context here. Jonah Hill just had his first baby a month ago. She posts these from a relationship that's more than a year old out of absolutely nowhere. After he has the baby, actually even invokes his baby and one of the Instagram posts and says I hope my ex has

A girl because of XY and Z for so that he understands this stuff Okay And I still also think one of the funnier parts of the discourse on this is that Jonah Hill slides into her DMS after apparently seeing one of these pictures. That's how their relationship started Turns around then and says no These are my boundaries And a lot of people I've seen in the discourse are like, well, that's so hypocritical. Au contraire. This is a man who knows exactly what he should be doing if he's falling in love with someone. He does say they

were in love. So you meet, you realize actually all of the other men in the world are looking at these things that made me attracted to you in the first place. This is my big contrarian take here. So yeah, this is a boundary for me because I don't want other men sliding into your DMs because I'm a man and I know that's what men are going to do. He is being pretty respectful in those messages. There are a lot of things we might not know about the relationship that he alludes to, reasons that they've lost trust, et cetera, et cetera. So while I think it's weird behavior, I definitely don't think it's quote emotional abuse, which is what she said that seems to be a line too far Kyle Well, let's be clear Nothing here is illegal and I don't think anybody's claiming it's illegal

And I think it's a fair criticism to say she continued to post private correspondence and she's still doing it like right now Yeah, so I've seen everybody kind of be like, oh, all right, reel in it now. You've gone a little too far. I don't think I want to be in a relationship with either one of these individuals. Right, so that gets to my point. This is good news. I'll get to that. So that gets to my point.

It's like when I saw this, I tried to put myself in his shoes and put myself in her shoes, right? And from both perspectives, this was doomed to failure because to have a relationship that's functional, in my opinion, you need three things, attraction, things attraction trust and love and the love can develop over time But the second you click send on a message like that the attractions gone Literally nobody on the planet is gonna want to sleep with you if you're posting that long diatribe about like here are my rules for you That's not how it works. And then obviously from his perspective. He has no trust of her So why are you even in a relationship with her? So if I was her friend, I'd be like, get out right now.

Don't hang on one more day. And if I was his friend and he was showing me, hey, this is the message I'm going to send to my girlfriend, I'd be like, get out. Don't even bother sending the message because their values just don't align. That's just not a good fit. Yeah, I think that this woman who's posting these messages is definitely an attention-seeking narcissist, and what you said was very key, is like, bringing the daughter into this was a big mistake,

when she was like, I hope his baby, or what, he remains feminist or whatever. Now, okay, that said, I have also been increasingly annoyed by the entire rise of therapy culture, and I will say, I don't, no, okay, but emotional abuse. These terms all get thrown around, and I will say, I don't, okay, but emotional abuse. These terms all get thrown around, and unfortunately, Hill himself is the one who's been endorsing a lot of this.

He recently did that whole documentary with his therapist. I think a lot of, he actually got a lot of praise for it. But this actually is the end state of a lot of therapy culture, and I notice this a lot in our current relationship, how it's portrayed. A big fan of the show, Love Island. And what I see constantly is they're like, this is just who I am.

They're like, this is me. And it's like, but you're actually a crazy person. You're not supposed to just say and validate your own insanity. But I mean, I'm being true to myself. As you just said, if you wanna be in a successful relationship, and specifically a successful marriage,

it's just all about communication. 90% of it is a lot about compromise. Now, you shouldn't compromise your core values, but you also shouldn't get to that point if you're unable to do so. Can I go a step further? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Because I actually, look, I actually am of the belief that this whole thing, I'm going to list my boundaries. I'm going to list my boundaries. No, if you're in a successful relationship, the boundaries are kind of intuitive. You know what they like and what they don't like.

They know what you like and what you don't like. And you kind of respect that inherently. I feel like any time you're at a point in your relationship where it's like, I shall list the things you can't do. It's like, what are we doing here? What are we, children? Yeah. And that's the thing, too. So, listen.

The therapy language, to me, comes out also in his post of like like these are my boundaries and blah, blah, blah. As if it's reasonable for you to impose whatever boundaries are like 100% make you feel in control of this relationship. It sort of reminds me of because, you know, I'm a weird wonk, you know, economic obsession, whatever. Where is this going? It reminds me of like contract law and like employment. Oh, yeah, that's a good point. No, you're right. You're allowed to freely contract like a worker can, you know, I'm going to offer my services

and this is the wage or whatever. But there are also boundaries established in the law about what a reasonable contract looks like. You can't pay below a minimum wage. Here's what the hours are. Here's when you have to pay overtime. And you are not you cannot just like agree to be an indentured servant. So if you are putting out, these are my boundaries.

You have to ask yourself, is it reasonable to tell this woman who is a surfer? She can't like basically be seen in a bathing suit. What is she supposed to like wear a burka everywhere now? So other dudes don't think she's hot um and she's not allowed to have friendships with women who are in unstable places beyond getting coffee or something respectful i want to know more about that see this this one to me was like the most over the line of like now you're telling her who she can and can't be friends with other women that she has been friends with like now you're saying you can only get coffee with these people?

That seems crazy. I would really like to know more about that. I mean, actually, I wouldn't want to know any more. I don't need to know any more of this situation. But since we're here,

I would like to know more about that because it seems like he's alluding to her very, what does he say? Her very recent past. Her wild recent past. Yeah.

But then why are you with her? Like, if you have a problem with her recent past, get out. And if you have a problem with people being in a relationship with somebody in bathing suits, then it's a weird thing to start a relationship with a surfer that said, let's just give him benefit of the doubt for the sake of the argument. They fall in love.

He's like, I really love this girl. He does use the word love in some of these messages. And they're going forward. She's like, yes, I realized my wild recent past was indeed wild and you know I want to change etc, etc And there were people for instance who were coercing her to a drinking problem or a drug problem And that's what he's talking about Then I can kind of see where she's trying to use relationships as a stepping stone to a healthier life

Not a great idea probably but no at the same time, you can see the sort of logic behind it. So this could either be something really minor, like girls who gossip that she hangs out with, that's the wild recent past, or it's like they're coercing her into a drinking problem and making it worse, something like that. Look, do we have the response actually?

Because I think his response is very illuminating. Screenshotting intimate texts between us is a huge triggering violation for me. Breach of trust as a friend. I've explained to you about breaches of trust I've had between trusted friends recently that have caused me trauma. I am increasingly incredibly hurt and feel a lack of safety where I've always trusted you. I'm sorry if a former partner moving on is painful.

I empathize with that, but I have done nothing wrong. And if I wasn't a public person, I wouldn't face this violation. Having shared that with you and then watching you be like this today shatters my ability to trust anybody even further. I have always shown you kindness and support. So once again, we see the return of the therapy language, the trauma, the hurt. No, but saying I am unable to trust anybody further. You know, another key part of this is that being famous is not all that's crocked up. Because clearly this dude is screwed up now. She didn't help her case.

She didn't help her case by continuing to post all these. No, that's what I said. She clearly isn't attention seeking. She's also obviously hurt by the relationship that he moved on and they had a child. You know, I guess we can all empathize with that. But he shouldn't be going starting something. He has a point that, you know, he wouldn't be facing any of this if he wasn't famous.

But also part of the reason why I think he's had to develop this insane complex around how to communicate with women is because he is famous. Well, he's also insecure because he played the role of like the fat loser. You know what I mean? Just like Screech from Saved by the Bell. And he's talked about that. I was going to say, his insecurity is clearly a driving point of this.

But I would also say, if she, if the roles were reversed, and let's say, again, the most charitable case for his text messages, a woman is saying this to a man who's been struggling with a drinking problem, or a drug problem, or cheating, something like that. These text messages leak.

I think it would be a really different response. I think there's something particularly triggering in the public discourse about a man listing rules for women that hits us in the wrong way. I do think relationships need to have boundaries, but to your guys' point, those should be sort of implied. You should be enumerate them in text messages like a constitution. And when I think of a best friend or when I think of a romantic partner, you're on their team and they're on your team. Like loyalty actually matters. Of course, if you get to the very extreme stuff, like, hey, I committed murder. But like outside of the very few exceptions, it's like the whole point is I'm on your team. You're on my team for a best friend, for a significant other. And, like, this dynamic is the polar opposite of that.

Like, nobody looks at here's a list of rules for you and goes, like, can't wait to hang out with them next time. Like, it just doesn't happen. Yeah. You shared with me, somebody had tweeted out, like, you know, I hope you understand my boundaries. Now get back in your cage. That is what it feels like. Like, you know, okay, so two questions I have for the group. Number one, on the question of her leaking these messages,

so putting the content of the message aside, do you think it was at all okay, I guess given the content of the message, like was it okay for her to share this with the world or no? No. Should have come at the time of the breakup if you actually cared. I mean, it's clearly, like, emotionally manipulative in order to try and hurt his recent, you know, his recent chance, I think, at a relationship and at having a baby.

And that, I do think it is really, you know, upsetting and bad. And I understand also where he is coming from. But I think, I mean, at the end of the day, I don't condone or think people should be releasing this kind of stuff. But if it were to be, like, in any realm of acceptability, it would have to come at the time of the breakup. And it would have to be the reason of, like, this is why I left. And, you know, especially she's like, he hurt me, and this is something that I want to exact. But right now, it just really looks like the worst type of bitterness and revenge. So I largely agree that it's, like, ethically sketchy. But having said that, that shouldn't prevent us from discussing the issue as such.

There's no question. I see a lot of people playing this like little trick where it's like because I don't think this should have been leaked, therefore totally off the table. And it honestly reminds me of back in the day when like Edward Snowden released it, the government was spying on all of us and the establishment was like, you're not allowed to talk about that. Pretend you don't even know that. And it's like, no, we're going to talk about the issue regardless of what you think, whether or not it should have been released. But I largely agree. It certainly is ethically sketchy. What I'll say this is I'll say that the earlier messages I think were more defensible than the fact that she keeps freaking going with stuff that's not improving her case at all.

Now you look like a psycho as well because you are kind of a psycho. Yeah, yeah, I agree. OK, another question. OK, let's say because part of the context here is she's a surfer. So that makes it more unreasonable to be like, you can't post pictures of yourself in a bathing suit. And we saw the pictures that he wanted taken down, which were really pretty modest.

They weren't like thirst traps. Because, you know, I would be a little more sympathetic if it was like, you know, she was posting these really overtly sexual pictures. I would be more sympathetic to that. But when you see the actual photos and you was like, you know, she was posting these really overtly sexual pictures. I would be more sympathetic to that. But when you see the actual photos and you're like, you're literally just surfing in a one-piece bathing suit, I became, you know,

significantly less sympathetic to his position. But let's say, and I think you brought this up, Kyle, maybe in the video you did. Let's say that you decide to date an actual Instagram model whose whole thing is to post thirst traps all day long? Is it unreasonable to ask that person to change themselves?

They're a model. They're an Instagram model. You know that going in, and then you're like, I don't want you posting thirst traps. What do you guys think? So why do we disagree on that? If you're dating an Instagram model,

that's the whole point. It's like you want the woman who posts the thirst traps. I agree on that. I agree it's a weird thing to do thirst trap. I agree on that. I agree I think it's like a weird thing to do. I agree on that too But then we control them after again if you fall in love and you realize you have a change of heart You want to like change your lifestyle because it would be weird. That's on you dog. Well, it is on you I agree with that But at the same time I can understand where in Jonah Hill's defense,

the way he wrote those messages wasn't like, I'm going to tear up your stuff and destroy your reputation. It was just, hey, if you want to do that, that's fine. It's not for me. I'm out. I think that's a reasonable thing. I don't think Jonah Hill was converting to some conservative faith. But if that happened in the realm of it depends, you get into a relationship with someone, you realize that you have a different sexual ethics or that this sexual ethics has been hurtful to you, something like that. Get out. And you ask. Just get out. And the other person says, no, fine. But I don't think the ask is crazy in and of itself. I think the ask is one of those things that will expose the incompatibility. I disagree. And then you walk

away. Listen, that is the weaponization of the therapy speak that we were just talking about. This idea that, like, you can hide behind this veil of high-minded, serious therapy stuff to be like, and I need you to change this very core thing

about who you are. So I think, look, you know what you're signing, everybody knows what they're signing up for. And he knew what he signed up for here. And so for him to turn around and be like,

no, I don't approve of any of this, it's like, nobody cares if you approve of any of this. She's going to do what she's going to do. And where does it end to? Because clearly a core part of what he objects to is just her being in any position where other men could find her hot. Yeah, that's just from his insecurity.

That's all that is. Where does that end? She's not allowed to go out in public. Wear your burka. That's where it ends. Exactly. Now she can't wear a bathing suit. She's got to wear a burkini or she's not allowed to go out in public. Wear your burka, that's where it ends. Exactly. Like now she can't wear a bathing suit. She's got to wear a burkini or she's got to, you know, she's got to like have floor length skirts. It just, it gets to a level of where this is not about her. She's not doing anything wrong.

You got issues that you need to work through. You need to maybe spend some more time with your therapist because you decided to date a woman who is beautiful and other people are gonna find beautiful and you're gonna need to find some way to manage that and cope with that, otherwise you're gonna have some major issues. She shouldn't have deleted anything.

I think that was a slippery slope. She obviously was trying to compromise them. Oh, she deleted some of the messages she posted? She deleted some of the pictures. Oh, oh, oh, right, right, yeah, no, no, you're right. These people are fundamentally incompatible. It should have just ended. Yeah, exactly, their ideas about what's appropriate and what, it is just fundamentally incompatible. To should have just ended. Yeah, exactly. Their ideas about what's appropriate,

it is just fundamentally incompatible. To the previous question, this is what I brought up when we were talking about, was Penn Badgley, I believe that's how you say it, from Gossip Girl, but also recently at You, actually said he is swearing off racy sex scenes that previously were a staple of the show out of respect for his new wife.

And I was like, that is actually kind of interesting. It gets to, you know, in a way, like his wife got into, she knew what he was whenever she married him, obviously. That said though, it seems to be out of discussions between him and his partner, like he felt like it was disrespectful to her. He no longer wanted to do it, but actually it did cause, yeah, but it did cause some consternation on the show

because they're like, well, hey, that's like a core part of the contract that you signed. Yeah. About the character. We don't know the background of that. His wife could have been like, you're doing this or I'm leaving. You know what I mean?

It's possible. I don't know. I just don't like that. If you know what you signed up for, I don't like the, well, now you got to change it. You know, it's like if Crystal can't be like, you can't play golf anymore. It's like, I've been playing golf my whole life

and now it doesn't mean I, like, what are you talking about? You're in those sexy golf pants. We can't have that. I know. Pleated pants. Let's go. Crystal told me before she started, or before we're married, it doesn't mean I, like what are you talking about? You're in those sexy golf pants, we can't have that. I know, pleated pants, let's go. Crystal told me before she started, before we started this, she was like, I think I'm gonna come out in favor of right to work.

Yeah. Oh, smart. That's right. One of the final points I wanted to make is about introspection, because I think the thing that drives me crazy about all this stuff is the lack of introspection all around, because even minimal introspection,

you would have realized like, I'm being a little crazy here. On her side for continuing to post all of this stuff over and over and try to be the number one story in the country. And on his side for like being so demanding and having this list of boundaries that he's enforcing after the fact

when you already knew these things about her. People need to, like, it goes back to the weaponization of therapy thing. If you stop and look inward and think like, just objectively, how would a reasonable person view what I'm doing? I think it would have nipped a lot of this in the bud and they would have realized very quickly,

like if I'm doing minimal introspection here, I shouldn't be with her. She shouldn't be with me. This just isn't gonna work. It's a toxic relationship. If anything, the trajectory is going in a worse direction. It will keep on going in a bad direction. So I think that could have prevented all of it.

But unfortunately, I actually do think that this modern age obsession with therapy type stuff, it actually gives people a very powerful tool to not do introspection. No, this is narcissism. Right, that's what I'm saying. Narcissism masquerading as intellectualism, basically, through therapy. Yeah, I was going to say on that last point,

and this is actually a fairly serious one, I think therapy culture has allowed people to inflate definitions of things like emotional abuse to a point where it is actually very dangerous because it cheapens the experiences people have with real emotional abuse and it allows everyone else to put themselves in this sort of like,

you sort of step into the role of a victim when she had plenty of agency in this situation. She wasn't being coerced or controlled. She could have done anything that she wanted to do and it's weird behavior on Jonah Hill's part, but she is a free woman who is able to do what she needs. She's exercising her freedom right now. And to say that that is emotional abuse I think is really allowing people to lump themselves in in an unfortunate way with people who are suffering very, very severe, actual, like legal, serious emotional abuse. And that really is an unfortunate trend, I think, for the country. Well said. Yeah, I agree with that. I would just say

my final point is just don't send the message in the first place, just leave. And to her, when she received that message, the second she received it, just leave. So I see a lot of blame to go all around. But I do think his, at least prior to her continuing to post all the messages, prior to that, I thought his behavior was way weirder. Because in those initial backs and forths, it looked like she was being kind of like trying to appease him and trying to be reasonable. And so that's why I think everybody sort of jumped to her defense initially

because it did seem like very, very controlling behavior. Yeah. I do feel like I should stand up at least for like therapy can be good for people. I'm not saying like therapy is terrible and I wish I had therapy. Have you ever tried golf? I just think there's a line between. Have you tried alcoholism? You know, it can be good to like

you know, self-reflect and work on your lives. They're all good things, but then you have to consider the line between working on yourself and then just like obsessive narcissism, especially when it comes into contact with your romantic partner. Yeah. Okay. Where I will leave things. All right. This is a great discussion. We had a lot of fun. Good way to end the show. We'll see you guys later. This is an iHeart Podcast.