Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/15/21: Biden's Infrastructure Package, Inflation Facts, Bush On Afghanistan, Cuba Developments, FBI Failures, Epstein Update, Job Losses, and More!

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

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What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. We got Zed Jelani on. He actually has a fantastic mini-doc about a pharmaceutical plant that is closing down in West Virginia with deep ties to the Manchin family. A lot to get into with him on that. New details about how the FBI botched their investigation into the serial predator Larry Nassar, who was, of course, the longtime doctor of the USA Gymnastics team. Just horrific details there. We also have new voices, both left and right, calling for intervention in Cuba. Bay of Pigs wasn't enough for these people. They're always clamoring for more. On the regime change front, we also have George W. Bush and some comments on Afghanistan. We're going to dig into the numbers on inflation. What's real? What do you need to be concerned about? What is not real? But we wanted

to start with this gigantic reconciliation package, the details of which we are now just starting to get. And, Sagar, I think the way to think about this is really as like the opening bid, because this is what's being put out by Biden and Schumer and Bernie Sanders and Mark Warner. They're the ones who were prominently involved in sort of negotiating this initial package deal. We don't know what the right wing Democrats, Joe Manchin in particular, but also John Tester, Kyrsten Sinema, et cetera. We don't know exactly what kind of a sort of like hammer they're going to take to it. So this is the opening bit. And we're just starting to get the details here of what they're looking at. So here's some of what is included. We can throw this Axios report up on the screen. So first of all, the top line number, three and a half trillion dollars. You

add to that the roughly one trillion trillion infrastructure deal that's being negotiated. So you're talking about $4.5 trillion here, which is no small amount. It's not the $6 trillion that Bernie and the progressives were pushing for, but definitely a sizable chunk of change here that we're talking about. And there is, in fact, a lot that is included right now in these negotiations and what has been put forward. To start with, you've got universal pre-K for three and four-year-olds. You have free community college. You have money towards elder care.

You have paid family leave, although there's some bad, weird loopholes in there that need to be ironed out, but paid family leave. You've got an extension of that child tax credit, the checks of which are starting to hit people's accounts today. Literally sizable, you know, significant benefit helps to catch the U.S. up with the rest of the developed world in terms of providing for our children, reducing childhood poverty, probably reduce childhood poverty by somewhere around a third. Some people say it's a half, but because of difficulties in getting checks to everybody, it's probably more like a third. You have money for a civilian climate corps. That was a big push from the Sunrise and sort of the progressive climate change movement. In terms of health care, you don't have, it looks like, they're not going to do the lowering the Medicare eligibility age, but they are going to expand the benefits so that dentures, hearing aid, vision, all really important quality

of life issues, those will now be included in the benefits. That's key. Those Obamacare subsidies that we had from some of the stimulus with regards to the pandemic, those are going to be expanded so that more people, especially in red states where they didn't want to move forward with the Medicaid expansion, so that you have more people on Obamacare, represents kind of a locking in of Obamacare versus a move towards universal health care, but still a significant expansion of benefits there. On the climate change front, you have a significant renewable energy standard. You have incentives to buy electric cars.

You have potential taxes on imports from high pollution countries as one of the payfors. And then you have a few things in here that, remember, Biden's line and his commitment has been to like follow whatever the parliamentarian says. Yes. So some of the pieces that they put in here, it seems unlikely will pass muster from the parliamentarian. I would put those three, the clean energy standard, which is a big deal for the climate change movement. That's one that has a big question mark of whether a parliamentarian would go for that. Immigration reform. Again, big question mark, whether parliamentarian would go for that. And then one that's, of course, near and dear to my heart, the PRO Act, also included in this reconciliation bill. And probably there are a

few pieces of that that would pass muster with the parliamentarian. But there are also a lot of pieces that, again, there's a big question mark. I sort of feel like with some of these things, they're doing what they did with the $15 minimum wage, which is like they can pretend that they want to do it. They can allow the parliamentarian to strike it down and be like, oh, well, we tried. We wanted to get it done. But I don't want to take away from the larger picture here, which is this package, as it stands, is truly significant. Is it a big is it everything that I would want to know? It's not everything I would want to see. Is it a significant shift? Would it put a lot of money in the hands of working class people? Yes, it would. Would it help in terms of climate change

and moving us in the right direction there? Yes, it would. Would it really change the game in terms of education-wise to have universal pre-K and free community college? Yeah, those are big deals as well. So the pay for's, I think, are going to be the place where you actually have some of the most friction. Remember, we covered that Exxon lobbyist who revealed their whole strategy was like, we're going to go after the pay for's to try to narrow down the bill. I think you're going to see the same thing here. I think that's what you're going to see Manchin and Tester and the other sort of carriers for corporate America pushing back on. So, you know, will it ultimately be what is being presented right now?

Probably not. But this is a pretty significant starting place. No, absolutely. Let's take a listen with Bernie and say yesterday when they were announcing it. Let's hear it. The American people have seen the very rich getting richer and government developing policies which allow them to pay, in some cases, not a nickel in federal income taxes. They've seen corporations make huge profits.

In some cases, they're not paying a nickel in taxes. And what this legislation says, among many, many other things, that those days are gone. The wealthy and large corporations are going to start paying their fair share of taxes so that we can protect the working families of this country. So this is where I have to unfortunately be the Debbie Downer for everybody. You can see this also, Joe Manchin is already speaking up, you know, to your point, let's put this up there, which is that while he's okay with some of the stuff that's in there, he says, but boy, does he have thoughts on climate, saying you can't be moving towards eliminating fossil fuels. It's unclear exactly what that means.

And by and large, I see, look, it's like you said. Remember this. The American Rescue Plan, that had a $15 minimum wage in it, and then it wasn't ultimately in the plan. The PRO Act, as I understand it, the parts of the PRO Act which makes it enforceable, like fining people, that's not allowed to be within there because of the reconciliation package. So actually, that's the one piece that I think could get through is the ability to levy heavier fines on these companies that violate labor standards and violate workers' rights to unionize. Things like rolling back right to work, basically eliminating right to work across the country, that probably can't make it in. And some of the other, the PRO Act also allows more militant striking and organizing tactics. That probably doesn't have a budgetary impact, according to the parliamentarian. So I actually think the fines might be the one part that can get through, but a lot of the other pieces won't.

What explained to me was is that it has to be, I remember because everything with the pay-fors and the revenue, anyway, it's alchemy as I described it previously. And immigration reform is another one where I just think there's absolutely no chance. And when you look at all this, I was speaking yesterday with a friend who knows the Senate and knows reconciliation really well. It is possible there are elements of immigration that you could get in there, but nothing like a pathway to citizenship. And even DACA would be very, very dicey for them to try and do within this. I see this more as it's not even just opening bid. I think it is the checklist, which is that, OK, we did this.

We tried. We tried this. We tried this. We tried this to go to, you know, constituent groups, activists, whatever. But ultimately what does end up passing, I just, I don't think it looks like this. I saw Kyle actually tweet this morning I thought was a great line, which is that the parliamentarian actually essentially has a line-by-line veto for this entire thing. Which is bananas. This can go in. That can't go in. Well, and remember, they could fire the parliamentarian. They could hire a new one, which is what the Republicans did for the Bush tax cuts back in 2000. So this time, they are very much at the whims of how this particular parliamentarian

is going to interpret this. I don't want to downplay. I think there's some good social welfare elements to the bill, and I think those very likely will pass. Those will keep muster. But some of the more fringe stuff, like you were saying, with the clean energy standard, almost no chance. The carbon tariff, I mean, look, if that's what I need to do to get damn China, fine. Turns out it's the highest polluting nation on earth, which Sunrise and all those people like to ignore all the time. So cool, cool with me if we want to tariff them. All of these things, though, it will be very dicey. And then here's the other part, which I don't think people are taking into consideration. The House also is very tight, right? We've got six votes only in the House of Representatives for Democrats. So they

also are going to have sizable veto and the ability to come in and say, like, no, we are not going to have this part. And remember the way that this works, guys, which is that the Senate wants to pass both of these bills by the August reconciliation, which is very, very close. I'm sorry, the August recess. So the process wise, they would not only have to pass both of those bills, then the House would have to pass their version. Then they would have to reconcile those two. And then the Senate would have to repass those and the House would have to pass it. And then the president would have to sign it. I see so many roadblocks ahead of this. Like I see a lot of hope from a lot of people online. And I'm like, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. That being said, it is a significant achievement.

And look, I like to see big things happen in Washington. So I, you know, in a way, like just procedurally, I hope it goes through because I think it's good whenever legislation passes. There are a lot of hurdles and roadblocks between here and actually getting anything done through reconciliation. Effectively, what, you know, what they'll do in terms of this process is it's different than writing normal legislation and then you pass it through. They give instructions to each of the committees with basically dollar amounts, which is why some of this is sort of squishy of like exactly what these programs are going to look like and exactly what they're going to do on health care or education or PRO Act or any of these things. That's why it's kept a little bit high level and a little bit loose. The big question marks are, you know, Manchin, Sinema, moderates, or, you know. Maggie Hassan.

Yeah, Maggie Hassan. The more sort of conservative Democrats in the Senate. And then you've got to ask yourself, too, in the House, like, what's the SALT tax crew going to do? What's Gottheimer going to say? The Problem Solvers Caucus. What are they going to demand? And they'll go to the mat. What's their kind of flesh to say? The Problem Solvers Caucus. What are they going to demand? And they'll go to the mat. What's their kind of flesh?

We know they will. So Manchin has been very clear about it must be paid for. And I do think that in terms of corporate attacks on this and conservative Democrats' attacks on this and attempts to sort of pare this back and make the dollar figure a lot less, which means cutting out a lot of significant programs, I think they're going to do exactly what that Exxon lobbyist suggested and go after the pay force. I think that's going to be where the conversation happens and where they really push back. Because Manchin has also drawn lies in the sand about not wanting to lift the marginal tax rates too high. He's sort of put

some parameters in there. So if you can't garner enough revenue ultimately to pay for the size that they want here, that would be what I would look for in terms of how they're actually going to go after this, because, you know, it's hard to it's hard to attack any of these programs individually. They're all very popular. Like if you talk about any of these individual pieces paid, family leave, free community college, universal pre-K, expanding Medicare benefits, all of these programs individually, you know, the renewable energy standards, all of this is individually extremely popular. So what will they try to knock it back without having to go directly after any one of these programs? They'll go after the pay force. They'll say we have to make it deficit neutral and we don't want to raise taxes too much.

That'll be the sort of line that they pursue. So, yeah, with regards to the parliamentarian, you can also see in all of this why Biden and the, you know, Democratic powers that be decided to give the parliamentarian a line item veto because it's very convenient for them. Yeah, because they don't have to do it. Like you can be like, I can pretend we tried on immigration reform. Right. Parliamentarian just said we couldn't do it. And I do think with immigration reform, I mean, this was a key promise to a lot of, you know, important constituencies and very, like, important to the base of the Democratic Party who care a lot about this. And so this is a way for them to be like, we tried, guys. We really do care about

immigration reform without actually having to push and fight to truly get something done, which would be a very politically fraught battle, et cetera, et cetera, that they have no interest in. It will light the country on fire. And I think the GOP guaranteed would win in the midterms. It would be one of the biggest culture war battles of all time. I think they'd be fools, frankly, to include it in a reconciliation package like this. So look, I just think at the end of the day, it's like you said, the parliamentarian is going to be the line by line veto. And none of this is even written. That's just a part that I don't think people understand. It's not written. As you said, the actual committees still have to go through and figure out this part, that part. You can negotiate all you want.

Jon Tester, what did he say? A, quote, shit pile of money? Yeah. Is how he refused. That's a senator's words, not mine. In terms of referring to what this thing is, there are a lot of reservations. And there will be, I think, a ton of backroom haggling and the end result is not going to look

anything like this. So before people start celebrating and all of that, I would just, you know, I wouldn't hold my breath. All that, like I said, even if they pass $2 trillion, that's a lot of money.

Yeah, I do think you are going to get something through. Yeah. At the end of this process, it's not going to be totally hamstrung and nothing happens. I think it will be pared back. I think some of the key priorities here that are really important to people are going to either be struck by the parliamentarian or struck by Joe Manchin, not allowing the price tag to go up into the three or four trillion dollar mark. But I think you will end up with something getting through,

and we'll see what those pieces ultimately end up being. Absolutely. And one of the key things that is going to be opposed to this, and I'm already seeing a lot of people in the GOP talk about, is inflation. So let's move on to this next segment. So it turns out the last time we talked about inflation ended up being one of the most controversial segments I ever did. Oh, really?

I had no idea. Yeah, sure. I've never received this amount of pushback on inflation. So let's talk about inflation. And I think two economics graduates here, right, unlike many of the people online who are posting. So, all right, let's try this out. So inflation, the numbers came out, the CPI for the month continued in June. The average CPI, consumer price, has leaped 5.4%, biggest jump since 2008. Lots of consternation online. Oh my God, we printed all this money. Everything is getting a lot more expensive. This means that we shouldn't have any more spending. This means that the Fed needs to stop, you know, whatever it's doing, raise interest rates, put the brakes on the economy. It's overheating, all of that. To which I say, okay,

let's take a little bit deeper of a look. Heather Long, she put this from the Consumer CPI Bundle. What's going on here? It turns out most of the quote unquote inflation is car rentals and used cars. So Eric, please keep this up there because I want to read this for the people who are listening. Car rental is up 87% year over year. Used cars are up 45.2%. Gas is up 45%. Now we're getting into consumables. Laundry machines, 29.4. Airfare, 25. Moving, 17. Hotels, 17. Furniture, 8.6. Bacon, this one's actually important, 8.4.

TVs, 7.6. Fruit, 7.3. Shoes, 6.5. Fish, 6.4. New cars, 5.3. Milk, all of that. Rent, 2.3. So why does all of this matter, Crystal?

Well, none of this has Rent, 2.3. So why does all of this matter, Crystal? Well, none of this has anything to do with spending. Car rental and gas and airfare and moving are factors of pandemic demand, as in people were locked up for a long time and now they want to go somewhere, aka there's a large boom in price because we had an extraordinary shock to the economy. I'm not sure why this is so difficult to understand. Same with used cars. Used cars are up 45.2%. Why?

Oh, it's because we have a massive semiconductor supply shortage, meaning that it's much harder to buy a new car today, but people still want to buy cars, so they're buying used cars. Gas is the same thing. Gas is a supply thing. This has nothing to do with monetary policy. You actually pulled this. Let's put this up there.

OPEC has already come out and said, okay, we're going to unlock more oil supply. Saudi and the UAE have reached a compromise to unlock more oil. So again, these are supply issues more than anything. The reason that laundry machines are up so high is once again, very little to do with monetary policy. It's because we have a global shipping crisis and we are not able to get machines like that predominantly from China. Airfare is the same, supply problem. Furniture is also subject massively to the supply issues. I did that entire monologue about shipping containers and shortages. We have a big supply

shock problem in the economy because our entire global shipping infrastructure is a disaster, and we're subject to globalization at the same time that everybody just got vaccinated and wants to go outside, go on Airbnb and go try rent something. It's a real fun experience. That has nothing to do with monetary policy. So look, I know I'm going to piss a lot of people off here, but is there some transitory inflation above the baseline of 2%? Maybe. It's actually a big maybe. But the scaremongering around the 5% number is leading to a lot of people saying this is ridiculous. Like we can't spend any more money. The average price of things that Americans need is going up.

I mean, outside of bacon, you look at that list and you tell me what exactly up there is an essential that you have to have right now. I guess the only people, not the only people, the people I really feel for is if a car breaks down or whatever, you have to get it fixed. That's going to go up. That's more expensive. I don't want to downplay. That's a real thing. But again, the Federal Reserve has very little to do with what's happening within that market. So that's just generally how I think we both see the situation.

So when I first saw these numbers come out and I saw the White House's take was like, everybody relax. Like a lot of this is used cars and rentals. And I kind of thought that they were exaggerating. Like I thought, that's convenient. That's like, you know, this is an inconvenient number that just came out for you and trying to spin it. But when I actually looked into the numbers, it's actually true. I mean, just to give you a sense of how much of the overall inflation number is accounted for by just these couple of items. Used cars alone account for a third of the inflation uptick.

A third. OK, the gas part. Now, that really does, of course, hit consumers' wallets, the fact that gasoline prices have been increasing. But again, as you say, you've got to dig into like, OK, well, why is that happening? Well, we had a pandemic. We had massive global shutdowns. OPEC during that time had agreed to output cuts of almost 10 million barrels per day last year in order to cope with that slump in demand. And they have not adjusted.

So that's why you've seen these prices going up and up and up. It doesn't have anything to do with Biden or with spending or with monetary policy or really any of that. It doesn't actually have to do with the U.S. at all. And now we just had an agreement made between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi that they're upping the output so that that should ease oil prices. They are not relaxing output to the place that it was completely before the pandemic. So I don't know that we'll get gas prices all the way back down. But again, you've got to look at, OK, well, what's going on here? Is this overall price increases, price inflation so that it's really cutting into workers' wages and all of that.

And again, gasoline cost increases definitely cut into workers' wages. But this is a kind of an isolated phenomenon linked to the fact that the pandemic, there was a choice made during the pandemic to significantly cut output. And now they're starting to ease up and put more output into the system so that the prices should ultimately ease. So it looks like that's what's going on here. We will definitely keep our eye on it and see if it becomes troubling. But the other thing is, you know, sometimes you also have to look at who it is that's sounding the alarm on these types of numbers and figures and what is their track record in terms of the economy and their past decision making.

Unfortunately, Larry Summers has continued to be sought after both by the press for comment. Republicans love to use, you know, he makes these comments about inflation. Even Democrat Larry Summers. Right. Republicans and Fox News, even Democrat Larry Summers. And they love to ask politicians about, well, your Democratic friend, Larry Summers, says inflation is a problem. This guy has also been extraordinarily wrong throughout much of his tenure in Washington. I mean, this is a guy who was, you know, linked into the free trade, the bad free trade deals of the 90s. Just to give you a sense here, I pulled this paragraph that kind of sums it up from an Atlantic profile of him. So it says, as a government official, he helped author a series

of ultimately disastrous to wrongheaded policies, from his big deregulatory moves as a Clinton admin apparatchik to his too tepid response to the Great Recession as Obama's chief economic advisor. He pushed a stimulus that was too meek, and along with his chief ally, Tim Geithner, helped ensure millions of desperate mortgage holders would stay underwater by failing to support a cram down that would have allowed federal bankruptcy judges to reduce bank mortgage balances, cut interest rate and lengthen the term of loans. At the same time, he was supporting every single bailout of financial firms. All of that left the economy to struggle for years and years and years. So on the big economic decisions of our time, Larry Summers was frequently at the table, a key player in those decisions, making the wrong calls.

Yep. So important to look at the track record of the person that everyone's listening to on this inflation stuff. And we just had a report that he was just at the White House advising Joe Biden, which is, I don't know why you would allow this guy back in, given how wrong he has been and how often. The reason why is that, frankly, there's not a lot of economic literacy. People look at the top line.

And look, me too. I was like, oh, man, 5%. I was like, was I wrong? I was like, what's happening here? OK, so I dig a little more deeping. I'm like, oh, so, 5%. I was like, was I wrong? I was like, what's happening here? Okay, so I dig a little more deeping. I'm like, oh, so this is all about used cars? It seems like a pretty easy explanation, which is we have a horrific supply shock on the semiconductor side, and people really want cars because a lot of people have a lot of money,

and so they're buying used cars, and they want to go out and go. Okay, I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, it's just like you said with with the oil situation, we had a pandemic. Nobody was driving that. So OPEC, the oil producers cut supply and they just haven't readjusted. I mean, makes a lot of sense, right? Yeah. You go down these lists and you're like, like I was talking about with the laundry machines. It's not that laundry machines got more expensive. It's that we have a massive global backlog of shipping. And because in America, we don't make anything anymore, you have to actually pay a large shipping premium in order to get everything from China. And we have a huge shortage of shipping containers, which is driving up the prices

of things like furniture. How exactly do you think Wayfair and Overstock and all those places keep their prices so cheap? Because they don't make anything here. I mean, once again, whenever you throw the economy out of whack for a year and a half, and then you try to dial up right back to the exact same level of demand, if not more so, like we're seeing in the travel industry, prices are going to shoot through the roof. Again, has zero to do with a lot of what's been printed i mean even from that extent that it does it's about demand that comes from people having money in their pockets which is a good thing we have record consumables in this country around i'm

seeing stuff around clothes people buying more clothes than ever before they're like ready to go they're ready to get out. Fashion is back. Sneaker heads are having a bomb time. It's a bonanza out there in terms of, you know what, good. Especially if you make your stuff here. That's awesome. People are having fun.

So I think from that perspective, we all just need to put, we need to read a little bit deeper into what's happening. And I'm sure we're going to get a lot of pushback, a lot of gold bugs on this. But look, you can't dispute it. Look at the data. Look at the numbers. Data says it's about used cars. Sorry, guys.

Yeah, and I do think that just intuitively, like zooming back out a little bit, I think intuitively it makes sense to a lot of people that after a year, when you had such an insane shock and everything dialed down and everything shut down and people in their homes and, you know, this demand dramatically reduced. It makes sense that as things reopen here and in some places around the world that there'll be some bumps along the way and some of these supply shortages and shocks and all of this. And that will take some time for the economy to catch up to where people are right now. So I think intuitively that just makes sense. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was? Well, here we are again to remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen to our constant pleas

for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to BreakingPoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. You know, speaking of people who are wrong about this, you know what I did there? Routinely wrong and yet the press still wants to listen to them. Let's go and see what our heroic former president, George W. Bush, he's opened his mouth for the first time in a long time. So George W. Bush is very concerned that Joe Biden is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. So he tells a German broadcaster, quote, I think it is, yeah, because I think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad and sad. And he speaks specifically about girls. He says it just

seems like they're going to be left behind to be slaughtered by those very brutal people. And it breaks my heart. And I have a lot to say about this, which is that if only George W. Bush had had the same broken heart about the thousands of American soldiers who were killed in Iraq because of his policies and then the thousands more who were killed in Afghanistan because he kept them there for an indeterminate mission and then required multiple presidents to have to go in and clean his mess, perhaps we could have shown some compassion for those people and, you know, the civilians and many others who were killed in the ensuing violence and more. There is nothing about this pisses me off to the highest degree to watch these generals and these warmongers,

and especially people like Bush, who got us in this mess in the first place, weaponize people's good hearts and empathy. Listen, it's a tragedy about what's happening in Afghanistan to Afghan women, but it's not our fault and it's not our problem. We've spent over $100 million trying to protect Afghan girls. The Taliban is stronger today than they were when we invaded in 2001. Think about how much of a failure that is. And we have spent $100 billion trying to build up the native capacity of the Afghan National Security Forces, who, by their own admission, have problems with child sexual abuse within their ranks,

which we were complicit in and tried to silence back in 2015. So look, it's a messy situation. I don't know how else to say it. And if George W. Bush wants to resume, well, I guess legally he can. So if him, his brother, wants to run on a position of going to go and protect Afghan girls to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and, you know, American soldiers and lives, he is welcome to do so and he'll get shot down by the American public. Like the tone deafness on this stuff is just so absolutely, it's unbelievable that this man is even considered a authority in anything. And, you know, it's one of those terrible situations where because he's affable and polite, everybody overlooks the fact Iraq was bad, guys. I mean, we're not supposed to just move on from these things. It was the worst foreign policy disaster in probably American history in terms of we brought it upon ourselves, didn't even get slow walked into anything.

And we look at how he has the gall to be like, oh, this is a disaster and criticizing the current president on this. I mean, this is one place where I will defend Biden to the death in terms of, you know, in terms of what God has done. He's been right on this. He's been very clear about it. And he's ultimately been consistent and kudos to him. And that is no easy feat. No, it's not. We've seen the way that the national security state will do anything to undermine you

when it comes to winding down any of these conflicts. The only reason anyone should be listening to what George W. Bush has to say on foreign policy is to do the opposite. Right. That's the only like, what is this idiot who did everything wrong in a horrific and unconscionable way? What is he saying? Maybe we should probably do the opposite of whatever it is he is ultimately saying. But you're right, because not only because he's like affable and he's friends with Michelle Obama and Ellen DeGeneres and whatever, but he also got held up and lionized as like, well, even George W. Bush says that Trump is. But, you know, like as the good Republican is great, like we don't have to rehab this guy's reputation in order to oppose Trump. You don't have to do that, guys. And yet that's exactly what's been done.

So now he's in a position where we have to listen to his terrible ideas on Afghanistan. I love how now he's this like internationalist humanitarian caring about the women and girls of Afghanistan. Like what about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians that are dead because of your war? What about them? You was your big-hearted humanitarianism? Sunni militias murdered all of these women in the streets of Iraq, all because of Bush. And actually, most of it happened under the Bush administration. And they had to send a thousand more troops there in order to stop the terrorist militias that we are the ones who allowed to foment and foster in the first place. Go and ask people in Baghdad how much they remember Mr. Bush's care for a lot of their children who had their heads drilled with Sunni militias. Seriously, overwhelmingly, the public supports us getting out of Afghanistan. And that is a good thing to see. But you're starting to see

in polling more of a partisan divide. You know, back when it was Trump who said he was going to get us out of Afghanistan, Republicans were all on board with that. Yes, we should end these wars. Let's get out of Afghanistan. Now that it's Biden who's actually getting it done. Now the feelings are a little bit more mixed. So we can throw this tear sheet up on the screen from the Hill. This is a write up of a Politico morning consult survey. Now, like I said, they found a majority of registered voters, 59 percent, support Biden's plan to withdraw the troops. That is good. In comparison, only 25 percent said they are opposed. Sixteen percent had no opinion. But again, if you draw drill down into the partisan makeup here, you have 76 percent

of Democrats in support. You have 59 percent of independents in support, which is equal to like the overall numbers as well. Only 42 percent of Republicans, roughly an equal percentage, oppose the plan at 43 percent. So, again, when it was Trump, all the Republicans were like, yes, get us out of Afghanistan. Now they're split basically 50-50. I'd also be curious to see what how the Democratic numbers shifted. Oh, I'm sure it's opposite. I'm sure it was probably the same.

They were when it was Trump who was going to withdraw. They're like, what about the women and the girls? Now that it's Biden that's doing it, they're all in for it. But I just, you know, it's not surprising because of how sort of tribal and sectarian and partisan our politics are. But you would think on a core issue of war and peace, people could hold just like a consistent principle and not filter it through the lens of whichever like tribal team they more identify with. But even on this, tribalism seems to control. Well, that's the culture war, isn't it? It's beautiful. My favorite graph of this, I think I played it on Rising, which was the Republicans

who felt the economy was doing really well. And then on January 21st, the day Biden is inaugurated, boom, it was like 75 percent. Now Now it's 20%. Democrats, same thing. They're like, this is a disaster. The day Biden gets inaugurated, 70% approval rating. The economy didn't change, folks. Same economy. This is the same thing. It's a really sad thing, which is that it gets even great policies like this. Whenever it's touched by the culture war, things completely switch around. 100% of these people would have supported it if Trump did. And a lot of the Democrats are probably against it. But look, on a policy substance, I want to give as much credit as I possibly can to President Joe Biden. Let's put this up there from NPR. The top U.S. commander

in Afghanistan has relinquished his post, according to the government. And we should check on this. They say that 95% of the withdrawal has already happened. The Afghan government itself is already preparing for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces. The Kabul embassy is really the last thing that's going to be there. Of course, are CIA contractors and all those other people going to be still running around the country. Almost absolutely. But to not have active duty combat soldiers patrolling the streets of Afghanistan, getting killed, stepping on landmines for nothing. That will be his, in my opinion, probably his greatest legacy for coming out, having the actual stones to do it. Mark Milley and the generals, they threw everything they had

at Biden. He did what Obama could not. He did what Trump could not. Trump folded every single time that these people threw the mat at him. And, you know, that takes real courage in order to actually do this, because as you can see, the entire international machine is trying to keep him there. And he's, as from what we can tell right now, he has not wavering course. Everybody out on August 31st. Yeah. Been completely adamant and consistent and said, look, we said we wanted to get bin Laden. We said we wanted to root al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan. We did that a long time ago. It is long past time for us to come home. And anyone who says otherwise, look, yes, it is a horrible situation to imagine what some of the people in Afghanistan are going to be going through.

What's your plan? What's your alternative? And that's the part that George W. Bush or any of these people who are leaking to the press, none of them have a plan that's other than endless war, endless resources, endless lives. And what have we got for it? As you said, Taliban now stronger than ever after all of our investments, after all of our training, after all of that, stronger than ever. So show me a trajectory that doesn't end in a horrific place. And no one has ever had an answer for any of that. At the same time, the voices in favor of regime change, man, they just don't stop coming out of the woodwork left and right. People not learn.

This is with regards to Cuba, where, of course, we've been covering, you know, really rare and historic demonstrations that have been happening there. You've had a government crackdown cutting off the Internet, so it's hard to figure out exactly what's going on in the ground there. And of course, none of this can be said without taking in the context also of the U.S. embargo, which makes life very difficult for the people of Cuba and has for now 60 plus years. But the minute that there are any protests on the ground in Cuba, you got people coming out of the woodwork ready to invade, literally calling the mayor of Miami, a Republican mayor of Miami, literally suggesting airstrikes and an intervention in Cuba right now on Fox News. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

And that country had peaceful democracy for decades. And you had interventions by by Democratic presidents, you know, taking out Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. It's a sovereign country where they took out a terrorist that probably saved thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives. And President Clinton in Kosovo intervening in a humanitarian issue with airstrikes. So there have been many, many opportunities in the history of airstrikes in Cuba? What I'm suggesting is that that option is one that has to be explored and cannot be just simply discarded as an option that is not on the table. And there's a variety of ways the military can do it, but that's something that needs to be discussed.

It needs to be looked at as a potential option in addition to a variety of other options that can be discussed. 60 years after the Bay of Pigs saga, they just never give up the dream of some full-scale invasion. Look at the examples that he cited there. He cited the Afghan war. Right.

And he cited Kosovo, which, by the way, Kosovo is 10 times more Islamically fundamentalist today than it was back in 1990. Also is one of the big reasons that we have problems with Russia, NATO expansion. I could go into it for a long time. There's a's one of the big reasons that we have problems with Russia, NATO expansion. I could go into it for a long time. There's a lot going on there.

This guy's really something. And he doesn't, I mean, the Miami political system is weird, and you were telling me about this. He's not actually a real mayor. In terms of his political power in Miami, he doesn't have a lot. So basically his job is to go and do cable business. He's a ceremonial mayor. And so, yeah, in Miami, apparently, this is how it was explained to me, there's a ceremonial mayor um and so yeah in miami apparently

this is how it was explained to me there's a strong mayor a city manager they have all the power they're the people who do like vaccines and stuff you have ceremonial mayor so he's a ceremonial mayor of miami doesn't actually have control over miami-dade county that being said he's pretty popular yeah um and i don't want to downplay like this is actually a very popular view amongst many cubans who live in Miami, especially the Cuban-Americans who are very politically active. I think that's the important part, is especially the ones that are most politically active, influential, donate money, etc., have this very hawkish, hardline view. This guy's wild,

though. I watched some other hits that he was doing on Fox News as well. Apparently, he's all over that channel right now. And he was making the flat out like war on terror argument, too. He's like Cuba's exporting terrorism. And that's why we need to consider potential interventions like what are you doing right now? We literally learn nothing from any of these conflicts, from any of our, you know, hundred years of intervening these countries and the blowback and the disaster that results not only for the people of those countries, but for our own people. But I don't want to make this just purely a partisan thing here. You got some Democrats down in Florida who are also pushing Biden to do something. You must act swiftly.

We can throw this tear sheet from Politico up on the screen. Democrats warning Biden in Florida not to blow a golden opportunity. I'm going to read to you a little bit of this. They say now in this is from the Politico piece now in Cuba's historic uprisings, Florida Democrats see what many are calling a golden opportunity, a chance for Joe Biden to help bring democracy to the island. Okay, that should make you very nervous. And as a result, attract the Hispanic voters that he hemorrhaged eight months ago. This is a Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall opportunity, said State Senator Annette Taddeo, a Democrat from Miami who represents a district that Trump won. We need to be the beacon of hope. There are people in Cuba protesting, waving the American

flag. That has never happened. We need to understand the moment we're living in. We also and I brought this to you earlier this week, Val Demings, congresswoman who's Senate hopeful in Florida, calling on the White House to, quote, act swiftly. Now, they're a little bit less direct than the mayor who we just covered is and calling for intervention. But like, what are you actually asking for? What is it you want the Biden administration to do and to move swiftly and to act swiftly? Like, lay it out. What is it that you actually want them to do? This is the problem that I think these people are actually poisoning the discussion. So one thing that I've seen floated, I'm curious what you think, is restoring internet service for people in Cuba. DeSantis is calling for that. Right. And apparently we do have the capability. And I was like, okay, well, that seems reasonable. That being said, how do you decide when to do it and not?

So if you have the capability, so then are you going to pick and choose? This is where it gets dicey, where you're like, okay, well, are you going to pick and choose which protesters? There's protesters all across the world. So allied governments would not get there or would we help them shut down internet service turkey which is an allied government they shut down their internet all the time pakistan shuts down their internet whenever there's like blasts so you know what i mean so let me it just gets dicey it's like on the surface i'm like okay i mean sure you know restore internet services seems pretty reasonable. That being said, would there be a proportionate response from the Cuban government?

Would they see that as an act of war on them? So I'm like, well, this is, you know, it gets complicated. And I do look at it as something which maybe should be in consideration if that's what we're going to consider acting. Well, here's what I would say. First of all, I don't even have freaking internet where I live in the United States of America. So if you're going to give people internet access, how about you make sure the citizens of this nation have internet access if you have that capability and you're so casually ready to use it.

That's number one. Number two, this all has to be taken into consideration in the context of our long and bad history with Cuba. Yeah, as DeSantis points out in his, you know, request for them to do this, we have a long history of piping propaganda into that nation, including directly involved with the Bay of Pigs failed invasion attempt. So all of these things, any sort of direct U.S. action with regard to Cuba, yeah, it's going to be received incredibly poorly. It's going to look like we're taking those sort of heavy-handed tactics and with good reason, too, by the way. Could also be used as an excuse by the Cuban regime to combat them even more.

I saw the Chinese would do this a lot. They would say, because the Hong Kong protesters, many of the Cuban protesters are waving American flags as symbols of freedom, but the Hong Kong people would be like, see, they're American agents. That's what the Chinese government would do, and they would go and they would kill them or throw them in prison. It's miraculous they've never heard from them again. So I would also be concerned from that view, which is like if you do restore the Internet and then the people who do use it could be labeled as American agents. They could all be slaughtered, you know, under Cuban law. So like that's another area. Anything that we do with regard to intervention and messing with what's going on with Cuba has potential blowback.

Because of the incredibly horrific, and not just with regards to, you know, trying to remove Castro, trying to assassinate Castro like countless times, more times than we even possibly know about. But, you know, installing Batista and back before it was Castro, the U.S. was, you know, so powerful in Cuba that the U.S. ambassador was the second most important person on the island, sometimes considered the most important person on the island. U.S. business interests, mob running the joint. I mean, so we have, we just, this is a sort of situation where, look, I 100% support the liberation struggles of people. Everyone should be free from repression. They should have freedom of speech, just like we're supposed to have here, which also is, you know, sometimes sent out in this nation at this point. But for us to get involved directly, other than to lift the sanctions that, again, if you care about the Cuban people, lifting the sanctions that have made life very difficult would be the one thing that we should, you know, act swiftly to do. Because also, as we've discussed before, look, all that the government has to do to cover up from

their own failings is point at those sanctions. Look, it's the U.S.'s fault. They had these sanctions on us and they have some justification for there. So don't give them the excuse if you actually care about supporting the people of Cuba. And by the way, I was looking at some of the polling here. You know, it's a lot different than I think the way that Cuban-American opinion is portrayed, it's a lot more it's it's not uniformly hardline the way that it's portrayed. But the hardline voices are the ones that are most elevated. They're the ones that are most influential, especially within the Republican Party. In the past year, they polled Cuban-Americans in Miami on whether the sanctions should be lifted temporarily during the pandemic, not overall, but temporarily during the pandemic, 57% said yes.

Wow. So, I mean, because it's horrific. I mean, it's immoral when people are suffering during a pandemic to put these further sanctions. We're not at war with Cuba. Like, what are we doing with this? And it hasn't worked, by the way. If your thought was, like, these sanctions, and that has always been the thought, oh, we're going to put pressure on them, and then they're going to overthrow the regime, and then we're going to—it hasn't worked by the way if your thought was like these sanctions and that has always been the thought that we're going to put pressure on them and then they're going to overthrow

the regime and then we're going to it hasn't worked for 60 years what do you think is going to change and make it different this time around so i also don't think the opinion is quite as like you know uniform as it sometimes is caricatured in the media my general opinion on this stuff is if you're going to do it then you have to be willing to go all that was what we were talking about with the afghan girls like you know you can be listen willing to go all the way. What we were talking about with the Afghan girls, like, you know, you can be, listen, I am 100% with the protesters in Cuba is inspirational. People putting your life on the line and all that. It's amazing to watch. It's something that's so incredibly rare. That being said, if you should probably not do something, unless you have think there's a 100%,

a reasonable more than 50% chance of success. Do we really believe that the Castro regime is about to fall? I just don't believe that. Where has it ever worked that we've installed democracy and it's really gone well, you know? Well, it's not even about installation. I'm saying if you're going to let you tip the hand on the scales or whatever, like you'd be pretty damn sure it's going to work. I just don't think that these are probably going to work. It's like with Hong Kong. Frankly, look, I've stood with the people of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong protesters. Hong Kong is a more dystopian place today than ever

before. Why? Because the CCP rules it and it's theirs and there's not much we can do about it. And so outside of being like, I stand with the people of Hong Kong, and I think that generally it's the tenor of the Biden administration so far, which is, look, we stand with people, like you're saying, peoples of liberation everywhere. We stand with people who are holding the American flag in the streets. God bless you. That being said, actively working to try to overthrow the regime, especially if it fails, is also an embarrassment. Look at Venezuela. They're laughing at us over Guaido because we can't even do a coup anymore. So I'm just saying, whenever it comes to it, you have to be very dicey.

I heard from some Cubans who were very upset that we're not fully. Listen, once again, you can be very, very, very appreciative and hopeful and inspired by the people who are standing up in the streets, especially when their lives are actually on the line. But it's complicated, and the United States does not necessarily have the responsibility to get involved and then to try and overthrow this government, especially given our long history on the island. I would just ask those people who are upset to consider our own history in Afghanistan and in Iraq and even our ability, given Venezuela, to do what you want them to do. I don't think that's frankly within the capabilities. So there's also a lot of hypocrisy that's been revealed here from, you know, and Glenn's been pointing this out a lot online.

I have a tweet that I can share. Yeah, but about, you know, there was this idea of an America first, you know, foreign policy doctrine that's basically like, look, let's take care of this country and let's not worry so much about the rest of the world, which involved both that. So, you know, non-intervention kind of philosophy and also let's get us out of Afghanistan and also like an immigration restrictionist view. All of that like goes out of the window where Cuba's concerned. It's like bring in the refugees, which I support bringing in refugees, by the way, but if we're going to do it, we don't just pick and choose which nations,

you know, because of what their ideological, what the government ideologically happens to believe, or which political constituencies in the U.S. happen to be very influential. So you have that thrown out the window, and then you also have just like in this one instance, yeah, we should go in, yes, we should intervene, yes, we should have regime change. this one instance, yeah, we should go in. Yes, we should intervene. Yes, we should have your regime change.

It's like what happened to the principle that y'all claimed to support for the past, you know, four plus years that seemed to sort of just like go out the window. Which ties in with Afghan numbers we were showing you earlier too. I'll just show you this one. And I was shocked to see this. Let's pull this up there. This is wild. So this guy, I can't pronounce his name. I think it's Giancarlo Soppo. So Giancarlo, if you ever watch this, I'm sorry if I mispronounce

your name. He got into a fight with Glenn Greenwald. I mean, he ran Hispanic outreach for Trump and he's saying, I would gladly enlist and so would many other Cuban Americans. So he's very upset with Glenn for talking about American first and he's accusing him of being a surrogate for Latin American leftists, which is pretty ridiculous, in my opinion. But that's an extremely extreme view of saying that you would enlist in the U.S. military, and so would many other people, in order to invade Cuba. Now, look, I don't want to denigrate him personally because, you know, maybe he's Cuban, maybe he has ties, like many of these people can feel very passionately. But once again, the whims of a segment of the population should not be subject to the lives

of the United States military and American foreign policy. And I would encourage him and others, try polling it. See how many people want to go and invade Cuba in order to install democracy. It would probably poll like 5%. Even at the height of the Cold War, this shit wasn't popular. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's why they tried to hide our involvement in the Bay of Pigs. No, you're right. Because even whenever we were facing the nuclear annihilation, people were like, I don't know about this whole Cuba thing, man. And that was a different, much more hawkish country.

This is pre-Vietnam. So just think about how deeply unpopular and frankly ridiculous of a policy that is. And I think that shows you how out of step a lot of people online who are talking about this. And yeah, I don't even know. I couldn't believe it when I saw that. I would gladly enlist. I was like, oh, my God. I mean, you're basically calling for literal bloodshed in terms on behalf of American soldiers to go in and to change the situation there.

I just think that's completely ludicrous. I don't think there's anything America first about that whatsoever. It's wild to see him with that view and the mayor just openly like, hey, maybe airstrikes. What do you think? Maybe foreign intervention. Maybe, you know, democracy instillated. Maybe regime change. Like, this does not go well, guys.

It does not end well for us. It doesn't end well for the country involved. No. No, no, no, no, no. No, I think you're absolutely 100% right. And, look, I don't even know how to do a hard turn towards this one. This is something I care a lot about. I've followed this case for many, many years, and that is a serial pedophile predator, Larry Nassar. So you guys will recall he was the doctor who was attached to the University

of Michigan, who was also attached to the USA Gymnastics team, the USA Gymnastics team, the female gymnastics team, largely adolescent females, teenage girls, who he would routinely over a period of decades was molesting under the guise of, quote unquote, medical procedures. He was able to fool many parents, regulators, police, agents, so many folks. Everything ultimately caught up with him. He's now in jail, I think, for hundreds of years. But there's a new inspector general report from the Department of Justice, which will make your blood boil. So let's put this up there. It came out yesterday. A long report that says that the FBI's handling of the sexual abuse case was completely subpar. They found that 70 or more young athletes had been sexually abused by Mr. Nassar, but that specific delays within the FBI's office led to dozens more young girls getting victimized in the interim period because of their lack of investigation.

It said specifically, and it points to this one agent whose name is Abbott, W.J. Abbott, lied to the inspector general's office numerous times when it asked him about the Nassar inquiry. He gave false statements to, quote, minimize errors by the Indianapolis field office in connection with this. And he violated FBI policy because he spoke with Steve Penny, who was the president and chief executive of USA Gymnastics, about potential job opportunities with the U.S. Olympic Committee, even as the two were discussing the allegations against Mr. Nassar. I'll put that tweet up there. I want to underscore this for everybody who is watching and for everybody who is listening. The special agent in charge of the Indianapolis field office, who was in charge of this investigation

at the time of questioning USA Gymnastics, Arout Larry Nassar, was asking about a potential job opportunity with the U.S. Olympic community, specifically at the exact same time that he slow rolled that investigation. The slow rolling of that investigation cost the innocence of so many young girls who are out there. And there were lies and obfuscations by the FBI at every step of the chain. And I can't help but think, Crystal, given what you're doing in Monologue On and more, which is that it is amazing to me. And I'm doing mine on Epstein about what these people just look away from and let go. And meanwhile, oh, there's a photograph of everybody who happened to be in Washington or whatever on January 6th.

There are people sitting in jail. In terms of the things that do get the political impetus, these things never get botched, all of that. And then sexual predators like Larry Nassar walk free for, look, every day that that man was free was a day that he victimized another young girl. And I have listened and watched documentaries, podcasts, and more. He was a monster of the highest order. His neighbor's daughter. These are young, young girls full of innocence. As young as eight.

Up to him. As young as eight. They looked up to him. They thought he was their special healer or whatever. And the way he manipulated the community. And then the most disgusting part is how these people stood for him. These FBI agents and the USA Gymnastics and the University of Michigan and many of the prosecutors even were involved in the state of Michigan and the cover up around this all the way

up to the U.S. Olympic Committee, a cover-up of the highest order that happened here. And looking at it, it's crystallized. It's hard to even put some words to it, given how each instance, each additional instance, means the robbing of innocence of another human being. We don't even know how many young girls he ultimately victimized. We know hundreds for sure. This was over the course of at least 30 years where he was put in a position of power over these young girls. Again, as young as eight years old. And over years he would groom them,

they were required to go to treatment with him. When girls tried to come forward, they were dismissed like they were the hysterical ones, like they were the crazy ones. They were taken off the Olympic team. That's what happened. The one girl who came forward. For 30 years,

every single adult involved failed. And then when there finally is supposed to be an FBI investigation, this dude who's in charge is too busy trying to get a job with the Olympic Committee to take this predator down. her down, enabling him to victimize dozens more young girls because you all weren't doing what you were supposed to do after 30 years of delay and allowing this monster to continue in these positions of power and trust. It is truly disgusting. And as you alluded to, the monologue I'm doing today is about how the FBI, as you all know, during the war on terror, I mean, they would consistently invent these plots that they could then go in and disrupt with much fanfare. We now know with this Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot that they had at least a dozen informants involved.

And there are real questions over whether, you know, was this a real plot that they had at least a dozen informants involved um and there are real questions over whether you know was this a real plot that was gonna happen the suspects right and more than yeah more than the people who've been indicted so they're spending all kinds of resources basically inventing and then just disrupting quote unquote these terror plots which again in the war on terror was documented time and time and time and time again. But when you have a real predator and monster who's victimizing young girls on a near daily basis, you can't get your act together to take this guy down. It's truly disgusting and beyond words. Yeah, look, I mean, and we said dozens.

The number is estimated to be 70. But I say dozens because we don't know. And that's the number in between when the first allegation between July 2015 when USA Gymnastics first reported those allegations to the FBI in August 2016. He victimized 70 people, estimated that the low end, it could be 100, it could be even more in that interim period. That's what Mr. Abbott, the special agent Abbott, and I want to say his name as many as possible because it's amazing to me how these people just slink away into the darkness or whatever. And this should follow him for the rest of his life. And we pulled the heroic testimony of Allie Reisman. She's one of the Larry Nassar's victims. Let's just go ahead and listen to what she had to say. Larry, you do realize now that we, this group of women,

you so heartlessly abused over such a long period of time, are now a force and you are nothing. I am here to face you, Larry, so you can see I've regained my strength, that I'm no longer a victim, I'm a survivor. I am no longer that little girl you met in Australia where you first began grooming and manipulating. Treatments with you were mandatory. You took advantage of that. You even told on us if we didn't want to be treated by you, knowing full well the troubles that would cause for us. Lying on my stomach with you on my bed, insisting that your inappropriate

touch would help to heal my pain. The reality is you caused me a great deal of physical, mental, and emotional pain. You never healed me. You took advantage of our passions and our dreams. Your abuse started 30 years ago, but that's just the first reported incident we know of. She's really a brave woman. And there's another one, Maggie Nichols. So I actually watched a documentary on her. It's called Athlete A. She was one of the first people to report Nassar's abuse. And she was taken off, not even as an alternate. And she did not make the U.S. Olympic team because specifically retaliated against because she was brave enough. her and her mom were willing to sped up

to all these people who wanted to cover up what was happening there. It's one of the most ridiculous situations. I believe that she's very happy now. I think she did a university NCAA gymnastics, but she never got to go to the Olympics and it's because she had the courage to speak up about that. Yeah, Simone Biles, top gymnast in the world right now. Also, you know,

survivor of his abuse. So just disgusting the way that every single adult involved failed because they wanted something for themselves because they were in it for, you know, they didn't want their organization to look bad. They don't want them to look bad. They didn't want to rock the boat. They didn't want to miss the job opportunity that they thought they might have coming to them. Absolutely disgusting. Absolutely. Wow.

You guys must really like listening to our voices. While I know this is annoying, instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial, when you're done, check out the other podcasts I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American society. You always need more Crystal and Saga in your daily lives. Take care, guys. Crystal, what are you taking a look at today?

Well, as I was saying, there are new questions this morning about just how involved the FBI, again, may have been in hatching a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, that they then disrupted with much fanfare. Here's the background here. You will recall in October of last year, the news media exploded with what was truly a sensational story. Right-wing extremists outraged over pandemic lockdowns had been narrowly thwarted in an attempt to kidnap the governor. That's what we were told. Remember this? Storming the state capitol, instigating a civil war, abducting a sitting governor ahead of the presidential election. Those were among the plots described by federal and state officials in Michigan on Thursday as they announced terrorism, conspiracy,

and weapons charges against 13 men. At least six of them, officials said, had hashed a detailed plan to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has become a focal point of anti-government views and anger over coronavirus control measures. That was the report from the New York Times. Now, of course, that narrative really fit the moment. Trump had been going after Whitmer in recent weeks. Tensions were extraordinarily high heading into the November election. In her press conference after the plot was revealed, Whitmer actually blamed Trump for inciting these domestic terrorists. Very quickly, there were some signs that maybe the narrative wasn't quite as clear cut as the government and media were portraying it. Those warning signs

were explained in a now-prescient piece by Bronco Marsetic, who warned that maybe, just maybe, the FBI was, quote, up to its old Obama-era tricks, helping manufacture the very terrorist plots it ends up thwarting and then publicizing. In particular, Marsetic drew some parallels between this action against right-wing extremists and how the government targeted young Muslim men for entrapment. He noted, for example, that while during the war on terror, the government would frequently go after the poor or even the developmentally disabled for their entrapment schemes. The supposed ringleader of the Michigan kidnapping plot also seemed to really be at the margins of society.

In this case, the alleged head terrorist, a guy named Adam Fox, is very poor, he was nearly homeless, he was living temporarily in the basement of a vacuum store where he held a meeting, supposedly, quote, masterminding this plot. Marsetic also noted that, as was often the case with the Muslim men the FBI entrapped, the accused didn't really seem to have the financial wherewithal to carry out their evil plans

without the help of government money. An undercover agent told that ringleader Fox that explosives would cost about $4,000. There is zero indication that the men involved had come close to pooling together that amount of money. Finally, Marsetic noted the extensive use of confidential informants in war on terror entrapment. By 2017, 83% of ISIS-related cases involved undercover agents or informants. Well, now we are learning much more about just how extensive the government's use of confidential informants was in the Michigan kidnapping plot. New court filings in the case suggest the government used at least 12 informants in connection with disrupting this plot. Twelve. So just if you're keeping track at home, that's twice as many government informants involved in the plot as there were alleged terrorists.

According to an attorney for one of confidential informants, but with one exception, has not provided background on how they were recruited, what payments they might have received from the FBI, where they're based, or what their names are. Now, look, definitely worth keeping in mind here that it is the defense's strategy in this case to argue that the government hatched the plot and entrapped the defendants. So their assertion should absolutely be taken with a grain of salt. But so far, this case is looking a whole lot like the domestic terror version of what was routinely done to destroy Muslim men during the height of the war on terror. Now, I'm not cherry picking war on terror cases here either. Extensive review of such prosecutions by Human Rights Watch found that, quote, many of these people would never

have committed a crime if not for law enforcement encouraging, pressuring, and sometimes paying them to commit terrorist acts. The New York Times a few months back detailed how a highly touted disruption of a supposed plot to bomb the busy Herald Square subway stop, that was effectively devised and pushed by the government. An FBI informant radicalized a young Muslim man with photos of Abu Ghraib and other U.S. atrocities, helped that young Muslim man conceive of a plan, and then pushed him to act on it. Our hardened terrorist in this case was such a thug that he insisted he needed to check with his mom before he could agree to actually do anything in connection with this government-pushed plot. Why are these tactics and abuses so incredibly common? Well, all the incentives are aligned for the government to want to help create these plots and then make a big show of disrupting them.

And that same logic that applies to domestic extremism as it did to international terrorism. Political careers are made by making a big show of disrupting terror plots. What's more, elaborately demonstrating that the world is dangerous and scary. That can be a really effective tool for social control and for claiming even more power for the deep state.

Keep the public terrified. Keep them on edge. Tell them to spy on their neighbors and their family members. Keep them glued into cable news and elite media to learn the new explosive details of the latest narrowly avoided terror plot. Fear is powerful. And a scared people, they'll pass the Patriot Act. They'll go along with new wars. They'll accept mass surveillance. They'll desperately search for the next strongman

daddy figure to keep them safe. Survival is understandably prized above most other values. Allow me to state the obvious here. I abhor white supremacists, right-wing extremists, and all terrorists who would seek to kill, kidnap, and spread hate. But the very last thing that we need is the government actively fomenting and agitating and creating more extremism or just freaking people out for power and for profit.

These government abuses pose a much graver threat to democracy than any of the grand plots that they pretend to disrupt. And Sagar, look, just starting to get the details here. One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle and Friends, where we do long-form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform, or you can subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. So, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, it's been a while since my last Epstein update, as the case as Ghislaine Maxwell drags on. There have been some limited developments in the case, but overall the question as to how exactly Epstein

was able to get away with his predilections for so long ensnares so many powerful people and most importantly get away with it for decades, both in the legal and the financial system, is one we're simply just not that much closer to answering than we were in November 2019 when he died by alleged suicide. Now, the ultimate question around Epstein stems from his 2005 sweetheart deal with Florida prosecutors, where despite being caught trafficking and victimizing literal children, he only got a limited amount of time in the Palm Beach County Jail, enjoyed release on the weekends, and within no time was right back to sex trafficking and living a life of debauchery. Former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta resigned from his post in 2019 when

his role as the prosecutor who brokered the deal came to light. But there's been a lingering question as to whether political influence or even government influence is what kept Epstein free at the time. A new book by journalist Julie K. Brown, she brought this entire case to light, answers some of that question. Political corruption absolutely was a big part of how Epstein walked free. Journalist Julie Brown, she's the one who shed this light, she says is largely responsible for all the new developments in the case, says that Kenneth Starr, who you might remember as the prosecutor who went after Bill Clinton, underwent a, quote, scorched earth campaign to keep him out of prison. Now, Brown details how Starr was hired by Epstein's

team because, if you might recall back in the 2000s, George W. Bush administration was ruling the country, and he had good connections there. Brown reveals that when Epstein's team thought that he was in serious legal jeopardy, Starr came in and ran the show, writing an eight-page letter to Mark Phillip. Mark Phillip was the second most powerful prosecutor in the country and the then deputy attorney general. It just so happens that Philip was the former colleague of Kenneth Starr. They had worked together before, and that Starr himself used much of the flourishes that he did from the Starr report against Bill Clinton in his defense of Epstein. Starr somehow twisted a tale in which the Justice Department was going after Epstein in order to try and engineer a quiet plea deal with the billionaire which would benefit their friends. Which friends exactly are unclear.

Epstein's legal team started personally going after the prosecutors on the case who had nailed Epstein dead to rights. But here's where things get really interesting. to Brown's reporting, one of the prosecutors on the case in Florida told associates, quote, someone in Washington was calling the shots on the case. Worse, the female prosecutor who developed the case against Epstein felt she had no choice but to hurriedly sign a plea deal with him because she believed Washington was about to make a determination that he should not be prosecuted at all. Looking closer, it's even more fishy, the details that she describes. In 2008, when the court in Palm Beach County had to sign off on the state's plea deal with Epstein, the judge presiding over that case, who had a history of rejecting exactly such plea agreements,

on the very day of the hearing, for reasons that have yet to be explained, he was unassigned. A new judge was assigned to that case to handle the matter who accepted the now infamous plea deal he set Epstein on the road to Scott for your life that he basically lived until his death. Now, per the New York Times book review, Julie Brown doesn't arrive at any definitive answers. How could she? It's frankly a job too big for any one journalist who doesn't have subpoena power. That's always been the most frustrating part of the developments with this case. There's titillating signs and developments everywhere, but smoking guns never really seemed to materialize. All we have are smoke and indications of an absolutely corrupt deal involving the very highest levels of the Justice Department. Now, look a little bit closer. Why? Nobody knows.

Was it intelligence? Was it political? Was it billionaire influence? Was it all of the above? These are questions that the very department which likely was corrupted is really the one which is equipped to answer. And exactly that tension is what makes this, in my opinion, really unresolvable. All we seem destined to get are these nuggets, which admittedly are kind of juicy, like the revelation that Chris Cuomo's wife was apparently in Epstein's little black book from the 1990s. Weird, huh? I'll end with more questions than answers that I'll routinely be on the lookout for. What was the actual source of Epstein's wealth? Nobody still seems to know. Why did the richest and most powerful people in the world remain convinced that he, and he alone, seemed

able to deliver them a service which they couldn't get anywhere else? Why did the U.S. government and many others allow him to cavort around the world with underage girls with relative impunity for three decades? Why, when his now mistress is on trial and in jail, has there not been a serious development in the case after promises of unsealed documents and charges that only remain in the 1990s? Why is the largest financial institutions in the world get off pretty much scot-free in their pursuit of a relationship with Epstein? These are the same questions that we've had since November 2019, and we still don't have any good answers. Look, we're going to keep waiting and watching here on the show, but in

getting to think, I shouldn't hold my breath. It's crazy, Crystal, because Julie Brown... Joining us now, longtime friend of the show, Zed Jelani, independent journalist, what is it, author of Inquire More, author of Seemingly Everything. He's one of the most prolific guys that we know. He recently produced a mini documentary for Fox News, which was about a closing plant in Morgantown, West Virginia. Let's take a listen to some of Zed's work, and we're going to talk to him about it afterwards. They totally shifted their focus overseas, away from the hometown. They're interested in expanding in China. What I'm told is they're replacing these American jobs here in Morgantown with jobs in India and Australia.

So I believe this decision has been made by the company because there's more money to be made overseas. They told us for the better of the interests and its shareholders that it was best off to shutter the Morgantown plant. Just to see industry leave our country, period, has been absolutely detrimental. Wow. Okay, so tell me a little bit about what's going on here, Zed, because this is not just one plant. This is a special plant because Joe Manchin's daughter was the CEO. It involves Epigen, which was a big controversy, and now they're kind of central West Virginia. And I think a lot of viewers may recall the scandal with Mylan Pharmaceuticals and the EpiPen. You know, that was when Heather Brush,

who was CEO of this company, she was actually Joe Manchin's daughter. In 2020, this company, Mylan, merged with another company, Upjohn, to create Vietris, a new kind of mega pharmaceutical company. And at that point, Heather Brush skipped out. She left the company. She got a $30 million golden parachute. And they announced a series of layoffs. And those layoffs were centered in

Morgantown, West Virginia. Now, Morgantown is a town that was basically created by Mylan Pharmaceuticals. The founder, Mylan Pushkar, is talked about almost like a saint when you talk to people in the town about when it comes to how much he contributed to the vicinity, how much, you know, the stadium, the university, the hospitals, the merchants, everyone benefited from Milan being there. And it was a hometown company. It was kind of born and bred in Morgantown in that area of West Virginia. What happened was in the early 2000s, Milan Pushkar stepped down. He later passed away. Heather Bresch stepped up as CEO.

And the company started to globalize, right? And at that point, I think they started to feel a lot less loyalty to those people in West Virginia who had worked day in, day out in those plants growing the company. And they started looking overseas. Christmas Day in 2020, they announced and they told all the workers, you know, over 1,500, around 1,500 people that they'd be losing their jobs, that they'd be closing the plant and moving all of the work overseas to India and to Australia. Wow. Who did the workers that you talked to, who did they blame? And did they, I mean, it's just, it's a perfect story because, of course, the politically connected, you know, the daughter of Joe Manchin, she gets out, she gets her golden parachute,

no harm done there. But it's the workers left holding the bag here. Did they blame or did they have a specific person or entity or whatever that they thought was to blame for this situation? Yeah, I think so many of the workers brought up over and over and some of them had worked at the plant 15 or 20 years. So they had experienced, you know, Milan Pushkar, the old owner owning the company. They really blamed the, you know, the reality that he stepped down, that he passed away. And the company was handed off to people who weren't as loyal to the town of Morgantown, who didn't feel like they had roots there. I mean, Heather Bresch, who was the former CEO, Joe Manchin's daughter, she lives in Pittsburgh, right? I'm sure she has a nice place up there. She doesn't

even live in West Virginia anymore. So I think that the change in leadership in the company was one factor. And the other factor, I think, is that the elected officials in the town, they didn't have that much control over the situation. It's a private deal. Vietris, the new company, wouldn't allow them to tour the plant, which is a necessity for finding a new buyer for the plant and keeping the people employed. But I think there was a sense among a lot of them that the politicians really didn't care that much about them. So, for instance, Joe Manchin, not only does he have a family connection to this, but he's one of the

most important senators in the entire Senate. His vote matters for everything right now. If he were to go to Joe Biden and say, look, I have 1,500 people losing their jobs, or over that many, if you count the corporate layoffs as well, you need to give me some new investment in Morgantown, he could probably pull it off. And yet when the union leader of that plant met with Joe Manchin, Manchin was telling him, oh, y'all make penicillin over there. And he's saying, we haven't made penicillin in decades. Joe Manchin was barely paying attention to this situation. The West Virginia House of Delegates passed a resolution calling on the West Virginia government to ask Joe Biden to use the Defense Production Act to utilize the facility, you know, produce all kinds of medical goods. COVID. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot happening.

We've been talking for the past year about how we don't produce enough medical devices and pharmaceuticals here in the United States in a national security crisis. We need to have that capacity here. And yet the Biden administration hasn't moved. And we talked to a local reporter in West Virginia who talked to the other West Virginia senator, Shelley Moore Capito, asked her if she raised the issue with Biden. She said she didn't raise the Defense Production Act issue with him. So, you know, to some extent, yeah, the elected officials don't have total control of the situation, but it also doesn't seem like they completely care about the situation either. So let's dissect that, which is that Joe Manchin's got time for Exxon lobbyists. Joe Manchin's got a lot of time here about, you know, being king of the Senate,

but his own constituents here are losing a job. Not only is he not what's being manufactured in their plant, he has a family connection. Also, how does he not know if his daughter is the one who's running the plant? That's interesting. But you think, and you cut it down to this, is that it doesn't feel like anybody's fighting for these people. They're just left completely of their own to the whims of economic conditions that they can understand, but they don't seem to have any say in this whatsoever. And I think that's the saddest part. You know, people who have been reading this story have been asking me, like, what do I think is the solution?

And, you know, I think we're not talking seriously enough about the problem to come to solutions, right? Because what's happening in Morgantown, and one of the workers says this in the documentary, you know, it could be coming to the town to you next, right? This is the story of what's happened in Ohio over and over, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, industrial base, all over the United States, is we've seen homegrown companies grow to a size where they

start responding to shareholders instead of, you know, they're no longer family-owned. They start looking overseas. They see that it's cheaper to produce there. They see the workers are much cheaper to employ there. So they move out. And that's happened over and over. And I think in successive election seasons, we've seen politicians talk about how much they hate offshoring, how much they hate outsourcing. But the only real solution we have, I mean, these workers will get what's called trade adjustment assistance, TAA. And that means that, you know, I talked to one lady, she's in her 60s. Now she's going to have to go to school and get trained to do something totally different. Maybe she doesn't want to.

You know, yeah, she doesn't want to. And also, it's extremely difficult at her age for her to do that, right? It's not a real, it's kind of a band-aid to this problem. And yet it keeps happening to more and more people. We always talk about how we need industrial policy, how we need to discourage outsourcing through our tax code, so on and so forth. And yet when this happens under really bipartisan watch,

because you have a Republican senator, a Democratic senator, you have a state legislature, a governor who's a Republican, you have Joe Biden as the president. Very few people are paying very close attention to cases like this right now, right? How did this come about, this being a mini-doc and Fox News picking it up? What was the sort of like backstory there? Yeah, so it's really interesting. Fox Digital, which is kind of the digital or website of Fox, they have a unit that's really interested in broadening the Fox audience, addressing issues which I think aren't clearly a left-right partisan divide issue, and I think this is one of those.

It was the sort of topic they wanted to take on because they think that, you know, it's the kind of thing that you should be interested in whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. And when I was in Morgantown, it was really interesting because it is one of the more Democratic parts of the state. With the university. That's what most of the students and a lot of local elected officials are Democrats. But they were all happy to talk to Fox. And, you know, it's funny that they were even in this Democratic part of the state. A lot of people like Trump or at least like tolerated Trump or, you know, they they felt like he at least spoke to them.

So I think, yeah, it's it's the kind of issue that everyone should be concerned about. It's not a it's not a red meat concerned about. It's not a red meat culture thing. It's not a partisan thing. And I think these folks at Fox are really generous and really broad-minded to want to cover issues like that. That's good. So what are some of the other types of things you're going to be taking a look at, Zed? Yeah, so I think we'll be making a few more things. I don't want to scoop myself, but I think that, like I said, the wheelhouse for this unit will be looking at issues where people on both sides are kind of being given a raw deal, where

they're being kind of shut out from the system and from the process, and where they're just not being covered by the rest of the mainstream media. So those are the kind of topics we'll be looking to do. Well, and listen, guys, if you want that kind of content, then consume that kind of content, because ultimately, Fox News, business venture, they're going to respond to, you know, if they see this gets a lot of views, a lot of support, these kind of like actually digging into substantive things rather than like Potato Head or whatever else they're doing over there. If we can get this on primetime instead of some Dr. Seuss or MyPillow CEO, this is some true victory, people. Let's do that. So please do the work as they say. Zed, where can they find out more about you support your work all of that yeah so i i run a personal sub stack newsletter at inquire

more.com i just write about all kinds of topics there um and then i encourage everyone to go watch a documentary on foxnews.com it's when globalization hits home myelin pharmaceuticals if you just google that you should be able to get it we'll have the links down there in the description to both uh zed has been a longtime friend of the show. It's been amazing watching everything you guys grow. You grow, and you've helped us tremendously. So thank you, man. Yeah, I'm sure the audience is going to be sad

to not see your pink headphones. Or the Dratini. Whatever else is going on behind you. I can bring them next time. Next time, bring Dratini. I would put Dratini up here on the shelf, man. That's iconic. That's rising. That's real rising legacy stuff. Appreciate you joining us, man. Great to see bring Dratini. I would put Dratini up here on the shelf, man. That's iconic. That's rising.

That's real rising legacy stuff. Appreciate you joining us, man. Great to see that. Thank you. For everybody else who's watching and listening, we really appreciate it. You can become a premium subscriber today. All the links, you know, down there in the description.

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for powering our premium membership. If you want to find out more, go to crystalandsauger.com. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voice Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy. But to me, Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room.

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