Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/18/23: Ben Shapiro Hits Tucker/Trump On Ukraine, Ted Cruz Blocks Rail Safety, Florida Abandoned By Insurance Companies, Major UFO Hearings, Gilgo Beach Killer, Arizona Water War, Europe Vs Asia, Allie Beth Stuckey On Andrew Tate

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Ben Shapiro hitting Trump and Tucker on their Ukraine stances, a top Ukraine Commander says "Screw You" to US warnings of escalations, Ted Cruz hypocrisy in a corporate push to block Rail Safety legislation, Florida is abandoned by insurance companies, major UFO legislation and hearings are announced after whistleblower claims, how Police corruption let the Gilgo Beach Serial Killer go free for years, Saudi Arabia draining Arizona's water as politicians did nothing, and we're joined by conservative host/author Allie Beth Stuckey to speak about the hypocrisy of Andrew Tate and how his ardent supporters in the conservative movement might be getting it wrong.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.

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We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know.

Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, I know. coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. We got a couple of big intra-GOP fights that we want to break down for you.

First, one that is breaking out into the open on Ukraine. Another one with regard to that rail safety legislation that was pushed in the wake of East Palestine. As predicted, news media moved on and a bunch of people who talked big game about wanting to do something about it now decided they do not actually want to do something about it. So we'll tell you about that. We also have more home insurance companies pulling out of the state of Florida as premiums there have been skyrocketing. It's become a real issue for everybody in that state. So we'll break that down for you. We've also got some UFO news that Sagar is very interested in and I am mildly interested in.

So we will tell you about that as well. And this is really fascinating and horrifying, has riveted the nation. The Gilgo Beach serial killer has been caught, at least allegedly. You know, this is a case, it was a cold case, that goes back more than a decade. So we've got some details about how exactly they broke this open and who it was they arrested and some interesting and horrifying details there. We also are excited to welcome to the show

a conservative woman who, you know, she's been very, like, on the OK Groomer discourse and all of that. You know, her politics, my politics, not the same. That's fine. But she has been criticizing Andrew Tait and taking some real heat from her own side. So we wanted to get her rationale and what she is thinking about. Before we get to any of that, though, I want to thank all of you guys who support us here at the show. If you are able to sign up for a premium membership, we were just talking yesterday about how you cannot rely on any of these social media platforms, no matter which billionaire

oligarch runs them. So we really have put our fate in your hands, and we're super grateful for those of you who have supported us. Very true. We've seen it all before. Creator promises, things that will materialize, quite never quite does. The only people that we really can rely on are you. That's why we're able to pay our bills every single day. So BreakingPoints.com. We do offer, of course, the benefits. We can give our premium members the show an hour early. You get our responses to each other's monologues and all of that other jazz.

BreakingPoints.com. As I said, also you get to buy socks early. Those awesome socks with the flying off the shelves. So anyway, you can go and check all that out. We haven't checked in on the sock sale numbers yet to see if they're flying off the shelves. So anyway, you can go and check all that out. We haven't checked in on the sock sale numbers yet to see if they're flying off the shelves. I am just going to believe that they're flying off the shelves after I had to spare the indignity of showing my ankles on all of them. I saw one premium subscriber say that I have small ankles but long feet.

So I'm not quite sure how to take that. Small ankles but long feet. It's all right. It's all right. I'll sit here and I'll just take it. I'm getting a little uncomfortable with this discourse. Let's move to the show. Let's get to Ukraine. I guess that's the hardest pivot that could ever exist. Some actually fascinating moments when President Trump was interviewed by Maria Bartiromo over on

Fox News. Now, he has famously said, I can end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Been a bit scant on the details whenever he was pressed on CNN and in previous interviews. He's given us the most detail yet to date, and things took a little bit of a plot twist inside the answer. Here's what he had to say. You said you could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Yes, I could. How would you do that? I know Zelensky very well. I felt he was very honorable because when they asked him about the perfect phone call that I made, he said it was indeed perfect. He said it was, he didn't even know what they were talking about. He could have grandstanded, oh, I felt threatened. Well, that's not going to be enough for Putin to stop bombing Ukraine. No, no, no, no, I'm not saying that.

What I'm saying is that I know Zelensky very well and I know Putin very well, even better. And I had a good relationship, very good with both of them. I would tell Zelensky, no more, you gotta make a deal. I would tell Putin, if you don't make a deal, we're gonna give them a lot. We're gonna give more than they ever got, if we have to. I will have the deal done in one day, one day. So in the same breath as saying he's gonna have, I'm gonna have the deal done in one day. So in the same breath as saying he's going to have, I'm going to have the deal done in one day, he's also actually putting on the table, uh, offering Ukraine even more military aid than ever before, uh, really taking off any sort of breaks or anything in terms of escalation of Putin doesn't agree to what he wants. I mean, it is a plausible strategy. I guess it's a kid

into like a Nixonian madman strategy. It also risks a lot of escalation. And this is always the issue with Trump, is you actually have no idea what you're going to get. He can come out with a statement against cluster bombs all he wants. He said he wanted to reset our relationship with Russia. While he was president, he broke the Obama standard and actually shipped more Javelin missiles into the conflict. Arguably actually heated up the Civil War

and got us to a point where the invasion seemed to appear justified or whatever on the Putin side, at least in the eyes of Putin around how the West, you know, really was united against him. Not validating the reasoning, just saying though that he did certainly contribute to that. Same in terms of sanctions. He sanctioned historic amounts of Russian officials. And often, Crystal, the way that he would do it is he would say like, look, I'm being tougher on Russia than Obama just to try and circumvent the Russiagate criticism. It both didn't work in terms of stopping the criticism and also arguably completely cut against any rhetoric that he was making on an actual policy level. Nord Stream Pipeline is another good example. Like in almost every case,

he was far more hawkish on Russia than President Obama was. So he may say he's against, you know, clustered munitions to Ukraine, like he put out that statement. But he's also very much leaving himself the door open for way more than like the dreams of all the hawks in the Biden administration. Do not count on former President Trump to be your anti-war hero because, I mean, listen, we've got the record. One of the many disservices that the news media did in poisoning everybody's brains with Russiagate is they had the exact wrong criticism of Trump. The idea was, oh, he loves Putin, he's so soft on Putin, Putin's his bestie, et cetera, et cetera. And listen, to be fair, Trump played into it with some of his comments and, you know, the way that he personally behaved

towards Vladimir Putin. In terms of his policy actions, he was hawkish. He was more hawkish than the Obama administration. And that was where the real criticism should have been is some of those actions which helped to precipitate this particular crisis that we are now dealing with. You know, you saw this on a variety of issues as well. He was extraordinarily hawkish towards Iran. He talked a big game about getting out of Afghanistan, but ultimately it left it to Joe Biden to actually, you know, pull out of that country, which was a very difficult situation. So, yeah. And even within his rhetoric on Ukraine, he has vacillated between saying that Biden is not hawkish enough. He's not doing enough. He needs to do more. He needs to be more aggressive. And the sort of, you know, let's get this deal done. Let's negotiate. I have the war over in 24 hours.

He has vacillated between those two extremes. And I think it is the only thing that we could expect is that he would continue to do the same. And I also think that, you know, we were about to talk about the way that the Republican base feels about the Ukrainian conflict. I think the extent of the reluctance to continue with military aid towards Ukraine, I think Trump has a lot to do with that. And I think he has really helped to drive up that sentiment within the Republican Party. But I also think it could flip on a dime where you could easily, you know, if he starts coming out and saying, we should have sent F-16 sooner, we should have sent cluster bombs sooner, we should be doing even more, we should let them hit, you know, hit Russia and not complain about it. You could easily see the Republican base flipping to a position of Biden's not being strong enough. He's not being hawkish enough.

And because the news media always is in favor of war hawkishness, you know, they would help to beat those drums as well. I saw it in Afghanistan. You know, you had a bunch of people who said we need to pull out of Afghanistan, but like, wait, not like that, even though it's under a Trump peace deal. And, you know, before the inevitable, oh, but we should have kept on Bagram. Yeah, apparently everybody online is a military genius that can figure this out. The problem that comes always to the fore is that when it's actually time to limit the amount of aid, press for a diplomatic solution, the media is going to go against you. So then are you actually going to stand in your convictions? With Trump, he consistently did not do that. He escalated troops in Afghanistan. He didn't actually pull out up until the end of his presidency,

even whenever he did sign that peace deal with the Taliban. The Russia, we gave numerous policy examples. So there's a lot to doubt whenever it comes to some of his rhetoric. And to your point also, in terms of the debate and kind of where it stands. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. A shot across the bow from Ben Shapiro. This is really against Tucker Carlson, J.D. Vance in some of their more recent comments on Ukraine. He's saying, quote, Ukraine is becoming a litmus test for Republican candidates because of the bad faith argument that if you think we must fund Ukraine in its war against Russia, you don't care about American poverty. This is wrong. The two issues are not connected. First off, pouring money into poverty-ridden areas does not result in prosperity.

That has nothing to do with Ukraine. Half the people now promoting this line now have spoken out openly against it in the past. You can be skeptical of Ukrainian military aid while still being in favor of entitlement reform. Love how he puts that one in there. Second off, the notion that America has no interest in Ukraine is untrue. We have an interest in the Russian military being defanged so they do not invade surrounding nations, thus threatening global supply chains and threatening American opponents. We have an interest in deterring China from invading Taiwan.

We are now stuck in this weird binary straw man in which we are told that we must fund Ukraine, quote, until they win, as long as it takes, without defining winning. And looks like, does it mean withdrawing all aid, thus leading Russia to take Kiev in terms of defining what stopping is? Quote, all nuance is lost in politics pretty quickly. It is always much easier to malign your opponents as uncaring about their fellow Americans, but demagoguery comes at a pretty high societal cost. So clearly he's coming out there a little bit in favor of aid to Ukraine. I also would note, I mean, if we look at the actual comments we played on our show yesterday,

Crystal, Mike Pence can say that he got caught and was responding to one part of the answer, all you want. But rhetorically, it's a terrible look whenever you're saying, quote, it is not my concern whenever you're asked about the binary. I also think that one of the reasons why this analysis is spurious is because everyone's like, well, you know, we can do one, we can do both at the same time, but we're not doing both at the same time. One gets massive bipartisan majorities and timeliness and one doesn't with no consensus whatsoever. Now, in terms of the debate, I think we should always be honest here about Ukraine. A lot of people want to continue and increase military support to Ukraine. Not all Republicans actually do agree on Ukraine.

There is room for debate in the party, and we're about to show everybody polling to that effect. But, and I think this is the big but, ask yourself if that number, the number of Republicans, is representative of the number of Republicans in the Senate, of the number of Republicans in the debate. Why is it only like four people? I can count on one hand the number of people who are actual GOP elected leaders or officials who are actually against the Ukraine consensus. That, to me, is what the real imbalance looks like. That is an interesting point, that there's a difference. The Republican base, based on the polling that we can see, and it always depends a bit on how the question is asked and what the particular moment is in the conflict. It looked like after the Prokosian-Wagner coup attempt thing, support for Ukraine increased in the wake of that.

But it appears that the Republican base is basically split 50-50 on whether they want to continue military aid, whether they're of the sort of Mike Pence view, or whether they're of the Trumpian when he's articulating the let's just get to the table and get this thing resolved immediately when he's articulating that view. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen from the Washington Post that broke this down, because there's a real difference between if you ask the overall Republican base how they feel about the conflict versus the most plugged in online activist base of the party, which is overwhelmingly against continuing military aid to Ukraine. So the headline here is GOP Ukraine skeptics dominate the debate, but not the party. You've got some numbers here that sort of illustrate the point. You had a Quinnipiac poll last month that showed 66 percent of Americans said supporting Ukraine was in the national interest of the U.S., while just 28 percent said it was not.

Even among Republicans, you had a 52 percent majority that said it was in our interest compared to 40 percent who said it was not. In an Economist YouGov poll last month, you found a similar result. Twice as many Americans favored increasing or keeping the same amount of aid as supported decreasing it. Neither among Republicans nor among 2020 Trump voters was decreasing aid a majority position. So in many of these polls, you find actually a majority of the Republican base supports the Ukraine consensus. It's hardly a surprise given the fact that, you know, elected Republican elites hold that position, given the fact that the media is almost uniformly in support of that position. But then again, you turn to put this next piece up on the screen from Mediaite. straw poll on this very question. And they found that 95.8% of attendees in that straw poll said they oppose the U.S. supporting Ukraine against Russia. So I tried to make this point yesterday.

I think if you're thinking about this issue and you're just thinking about the politics of it, and you're a Republican presidential contender, you might be on the correct side of overall GOP sentiment. If you have the like Mike Pence, let's continue to support them or the Chris Christie, let's continue to support them position. But in terms of the people who are most motivated, who are most organized and who, frankly, I think care the most about this issue, they're all on the other side of that. And, you know,

it's a similar dynamic that we see play out with issues like abortion. Again, taking like, you know, the your particular position on these issues and how you feel about them out of it. You have a very hardcore, very well organized, very active, very engaged base of the Republican Party that has some very hard anti-abortion positions that don't even line up with where the rest of the GOP base is. Same thing on LGBTQ issues. And so once again, you've got an issue with Ukraine where I think the most active, the most organized, the people who care the most about the issue are on one side, and then you have a different sentiment among the rest of the GOP. Yeah, I think those are always excellent points, is that if the party faithful believes something,

the activist base, you can take over and you can really run the table. That's what the Tea Party was able to do back in 2010. And in this case, it very much could be just even though we have a few lawmakers, people like Rand Paul, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gates, J.D. Vance, and Trump. Trump is the most popular figure, and those are some of his most loyal allies inside of Congress. So the Turning Point USA poll is probably Trump is the most popular figure, and those are some of his most loyal allies inside of Congress. So the Turning Point USA poll is probably one of the most important ones around where the energy is. There's also, don't forget about those comments from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy previously about no more Ukraine aid would pass, even though Mitch McConnell and all of them do disagree. But I think that the overall, you know, fracture inside of this is interesting because it also shows that Trump is leaving the door open. You know, he's not closing the door.

He's not actually ideologically committed to an actual, like, reducing aid, making sure that you drive Kiev to the table and to the bargaining, for the bargaining table. He really is, you know, opening the door to even more military if needed and politically could make that case quite easily, I think, to the Republicans. I also do think in terms of why a lot of Republicans, specifically primary voters, do support some of the Ukraine consensus, a lot of these people are old. You know, old people are still locked into a Cold War mindset. I was born after the Cold War ended. I don't care. I wouldn't really think about it at all. These people, they, you know, when you go through nuclear drills and all that stuff, I think for a lot of people like our generation, Crystal, millennial generation, we will probably never be able to

forget the specters of like 9-11 and Islamic terrorism. Whereas, you know, if you grew, if you were born, let's say in, you know, 2009, you really didn't even come of age up until, you know, like your memories and all that. You're really in the post-Islamic terror era. So you'd be like, what are you talking about? You guys had threat levels in airports. So I think it's the same, you know, the same in terms of the carryover effect and it'll stick with you for the rest of your life. So anyway, just an interesting corollary, I think, to the politics of it. Now on the policy of it, of which you and I do certainly care about, there was a crazy interview with the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces who gave one to the Kiev independent from a few days ago that we wanted

to make sure that we actually spent some time with because it's extraordinarily revealing as to how the actual Ukrainians fighting this battle think about some of the things that we spend a lot of time debating here on Breaking Points. Do they really, Crystal, not care what we think and they're just going to use our military aid and weapons to do whatever they want? Do they not care about escalation with Russia? The answer to both of those questions appears to be, yeah, they really don't. So let's put this up there on the screen. In terms of what he has said on Ukrainian strikes inside of Russia. Quote, it is up to us to decide how to kill this enemy. Now, once again, you could say that is true,

but you can use your own weapons then. Oh, wait, you don't have any of your own weapons. In terms of partners, he says, quote, if our partners are afraid to use these weapons, we will kill with our own, but only as much as necessary. Once again, ridiculous. They have no industrial base. They don't have any of their own weapons. All of their weapons are provided to them by charity. They can't even afford them themselves because they basically have no economy. And, you know, he does make the point that we always try to emphasize here. He says, to save my people, why do I ask someone for permission what to do on enemy territory? You don't if you're able to make your own weapons and you're able to supply your own military and you're able to pay your own bills. But you actually can't do any of those. You are

entirely dependent upon the charity of NATO and of the United States. Really not NATO, but the United States. So in that case, yeah, you do have to listen whenever we tell you what to do because we have stakes that are in the conflict. And they always want to have their cake and eat it too. And, you know, I'm not the only one, actually, who thinks that the Ukrainians are ungrateful and they always have their hand out asking for more, even though when they're getting a historic amount of aid. I'm not sure if you saw this, Crystal, but Ben Wallace, who is the defense minister in the UK, gave an on-the-record statement saying, you know, sometimes we'd like to see a little bit more gratitude at the NATO summit. And just that freaked out the Ukraine and NAFO people, the Lithuanians. And Zelensky sarcastically was like, OK, we will say thank you. You know, is our thank you enough?

And it's like, it gets to the point of, look, the UK, in my opinion, they haven't sent nearly enough military aid relative to what we have, considering that they actually are on the continent. They are the great power. They have a massive economy. They have a real industrial base.

You send it. Why do we have to do it? But even, you know, compared to the rest of the European countries, Crystal, they've sent way more than anybody else. And so for them, they're like, look, our population supports you, but you got to say thanks, man. And this same thing happened with NATO membership. So Zelensky famously put out his angry tweet about NATO membership. And apparently the United States, Biden and the delegation was so miffed, they almost watered down the language at the last minute, inviting, you know, I guess, eventual NATO membership. Now, I would say, though, that his ungrateful attitude works for a reason, which is in almost every case, nothing actually happens to you.

They still get all the aid that they want. So why wouldn't you keep doing it if you sound like a whiny child? Yeah. And, you know, on like on balance, he actually is getting everything he wants on paper. But there is still a bit of a fraying that is happening, I think, even amongst the most pro-Ukraine people who are involved in those decisions, because it's just the arrogance. It's the arrogance. It's the lack of gratitude. And, you know, it's on the record statements like this

from Ukrainian military commanders being like, you can't tell us what to do. And, you know, once, yes, we can. We quite literally can whenever we're the ones who are paying all your bills. So we could, we just don't. I mean, remember there was a reporting, reporting like last summer about how Biden was getting irritated with Zelensky for exactly this reason, because it was just constant. It was just the sense of entitlement. But to me, the most chilling comments from this military commander, this Ukrainian military commander, is he says, listen, as soon as I have the means, I'll do something. I don't give a damn. Nobody will stop me. And he's right. Yeah, he is right. He's 100% right.

You know, we talked about this with the Kerch Strait Bridge, Ukraine taking responsibility for an attack on that bridge this week and how that contrasts with last, what was it, fall or summer when there was a similar attack on the bridge. And there was a little Ukrainian wink and a nod, but they didn't feel bold enough to actually take responsibility for that attack at this point. Now, between then and now, you know, we've had all these attacks on Russian soil. We had direct attacks on the Kremlin. And there have been no repercussions in terms of all Ukraine has seen as continued escalation of our support. And, you know, OK, we will send you the Abrams tanks. OK, we will send you the F-16s.

OK, we will send you cluster bombs. So from their perspective, they're like, why should we hide it? Why should we do anything other than exactly what we want to do in this conflict? Again, I don't blame them. I don't blame them for having that view. I blame us for allowing what is a very dangerous situation to unfold. And the blasé attitude that some of these people have about potential nuclear war, I just cannot wrap my head around it. We had an interview yesterday with former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who is a 2024 contender. Really grateful for his time.

Super nice guy. Wildly differ from him on a whole variety of issues. But the thing that was most stark to me that he said is, I asked him a question, all right, are you concerned that we're going to get into a nuclear war, that we're risking nuclear war? And he said, we risk nuclear war every day. He said we risk it every day. I was shocked. That seems like a bad thing. Maybe we should try to decrease that risk. So the fact that we have, you know, from the beginning of this conflict, we have been sounding the alarms about the

possibility of sleepwalking into a nuclear conflagration. And every step in this direction, every bit of Ukrainians feeling emboldened to take these really dangerous actions risks drawing us directly into this conflict. You know, if there was a potential attack on a NATO country, God forbid, it risks, you know, Putin and Russia getting into a desperate situation where they create an escalatory ladder that it's very hard to get out of. And listen, I know that people are not as spun up about the nuclear risk as they were, for example, last fall when even Biden was talking about trying to avoid World War III. But make no mistake, this is still a nuclear armed superpower that is facing, you know, some at least domestic turmoil and instability. And we need not to take our eye off that ball. Yeah, I think you're right. It's just one of those where you really shouldn't put it off

to the side because you just absolutely never know when something could burst to the fore. I mean, you know, the Ukrainians are one breakthrough away in some cases from actually increasing the risk or vice versa. If they completely collapse and then they resort to some sort of, you know, crazy action like a gamble to try and get back into the game, that could increase it. So in a lot of ways, the current stasis is probably the safest. But because the universe of options is so big in war, you never know what's going to happen. There's always risk there on the table as long as the conflict continues. So I think it's always important to keep it at top of mind.

And in the most cliched phrase of all time, when people tell you who they are, believe them. When he says, I don't give a damn what you guys think, believe them. I mean, imagine if you had military, like the US military commander effectively saying this when somebody else was paying our bills and somebody else was like, hey man, like you shouldn't be doing that. And we were acting with such level of arrogance. It would be universally agreed that this is

unacceptable. And yet these comments, they just fly completely under the radar. Nobody in the mainstream media, you know, picks it up. And apparently we're the only ones who can read, you know, an obvious interview here, which is actually given in English just so everybody understands. It's one of those where I don't know why it doesn't get the attention it deserves, but apparently it doesn't. Yeah, I mean, we covered when those leaked Discord leaks came out, and it said in there, one of the gating items that was keeping them from launching more attacks on Russian soil was that we hadn't provided them with the weapons to do it.

And then, you know, this is information our government had. These were intelligence intercepts that our government had. They knew that, and they're like, yeah, we're going to give them F-16s anyway. It's fine. And so, yeah, his brazen, I'm going to do what I want to do is totally justified based on the fact that it reminds me when Hillary Clinton said she went to Wall Street and told them to cut it out. Oh, that's right.

And they're like, okay, ladies, sure. Sure, we're going to do that. It's the same deal. We'll send our little like, please don't do that anymore. Please don't do that. We don't like it when you do that. You think that they care? No, because there's no consequences attached to it. So that's where we are. Yeah, that's well said. All right, guys, yesterday there was actually a pretty significant train derailment outside of Philadelphia. A train, you know, relatively large freight train outside of that city derailed, I think, 10 plus cars of that train off the tracks. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what happened there. Some homes in the Philadelphia area are being evacuated after a train derailment

on this Monday morning. Police say a 40 car freight train derailed around five o'clock Eastern time, about 90 minutes ago, and at least 10 of those cars reportedly came off the tracks. You can see right there, no injuries have been reported. Hazmat crews have been called in. A white substance was reportedly seen leaking from at least one tanker, but there's still no word on what's inside the derailed train cars. So that evacuation has since been lifted. Residents have been allowed to return to their homes. But this is yet another reminder that, I mean, first of all, the number of derailments that we have in this country is insane. And other countries do not have this same, like, we're just going to routinely accept that trains come off the track Palestine that led to them, you know, lighting the whole thing on fire and exposing all of these residents to some sort of horrific chemical cocktail,

the residents of that town may well be dealing with the fallout of those actions for their entire lives. They are certainly right now still dealing with the aftermath of this. But it slipped out of the news media's attention. And guess what? At the time, the rail lobby basically said, we're going to wait this out and we're going to wait for public pressure to die down. And then we're going to try to kill any bill that comes forward. And as of today, it kind of looks like that strategy is working. Let's put this up on the screen, the state of play in terms of what is a bipartisan rail safety effort. The headline here from Politico is GOP discord threatens Senate response to railway disaster. The rail safety divide within

the Republican Party is a microcosm of its realignment over the past few years. Trump supports it. But other than Senator Mitt Romney, the effort gets almost all its GOP support from the party's small yet growing populist wing. And unless the party's establishment gets more fully on board, the safety plan that J.D. Vance shaped with Senator Sherrod Brown, they're both from Ohio, Ohio colleagues there, may stall out. You only have, remember what a big game Republicans talked at the time about how much they cared about this issue and how much they trashed the Biden administration, how they out hearings, they, you know, all virtue signaled about how much they cared about making sure that this never happens again. Do you know how many Republicans have now said that they support what is a very modest incremental improvement in rail safety? Seven.

Yep. Seven. That's it. And so, you know, again, the rail lobby having their way and they do contribute a lot of money to some of the key members of that party. There's also in the House, the situation is even less promising because it's controlled by the Republicans. So in the Senate, you have, as far as I know, basically all the Democrats on the side of this legislation, which, again, is very modest. Actually, let me give you the details here. Put this up on the screen from Bloomberg. This is all that it would do. Would require sensors to detect overheated ball bearings. That was a likely cause of that East Palestine crash.

Would tighten rules on hazardous cargo and increase maximum fines to $10 million. Would require a two-person crew on freight trains. Two people. That's it. That's all we're talking about. Labor agreements already require the same, but the Association of American Railroads has argued that new technology should allow single-person crews to operate safely. Think about how gigantic these trains are, and you want a single-person crew. A study for the group in 2015 estimated railroads could save more than $2 billion a year using one-person crews, a boon, to freight giants like Norfolk Southern or Union Pacific. So they've been pushing for this for a while. And, you know, Republicans now throwing up objections about how, oh, we can't do this because it would empower the Biden administration, would hand them more power, et cetera. I mean,

these are really modest proposals. And it's just pathetic that you have so little support for this bill so that, you know, that was crafted in a bipartisan manner that was on an issue that everybody seemed to care about at the time. But as the public spotlight has moved on, they feel like they can politically let it die. Yeah. I mean, look, this is the classic story. And actually, this is a really good one to analyze the problems in our politics today. So let's go through the details. This is a bill that has been endorsed by the president of the United States, Joseph Biden. This is a bill that has been endorsed by the president of the United States, Joseph Biden. This is a bill endorsed by former president Donald Trump. It is one of the rarest things in the world to have the support of both leaders, ostensibly of each party. And yet, despite all the media protestations,

they care about Ukraine and not East Palestine, all of the savaging of Pete Buttigieg, when an actual bipartisan decent fix to the problem comes to the fore, what happens? Nothing. And in fact, one quote here is perfect from a Republican senator who actually does support the bill, quote, J.D.'s gotten the classic runaround here, which is we want to work with you. We want to work with you. But then they try and kill it in the committee. And now they're slow walking it to the floor. What I'm told is that there are not 60 votes. They also know people like Susan Collins, the queen of bipartisanship, Lindsey Graham. He never met a Democrat he doesn't want to work with to send more aid to Ukraine. They're, quote, non-committal. And not one member of GOP leadership supports this bill. So that includes John Cornyn,

that includes John Thune, Senator Mitch McConnell. None of the actual bigwigs are actually working to pull this thing. I once again note, endorsed by Donald Trump, Joe Biden, it's got both senators from Ohio, legitimately bipartisan in its introduction, and can not even yet get to 60 to actually come to the floor. And the main person responsible for this, honestly, is Ted Cruz, who is the head of the Commerce Committee, who tried to kill the bill while it was in markup and remains the major obstacle to the bill coming to the floor. I actually asked J.D. about this whenever he was on our show previously. Here's what he had to say. The fundamental argument here that Ted made is he doesn't like the fact that the bill gives any discretion or any authority to the Biden administration, right? Well, the Biden administration

enforces the laws. So I've been saying for the past three months, and a lot of Republicans have been echoing me, that Biden administration needs to do more. So here's a piece of legislation that forces the Biden administration to do more. You can't, on the one hand, say they're not doing enough, and on the other hand, fight a piece of legislation that forces the Biden administration to do more. You can't, on the one hand, say they're not doing enough, and on the other hand, fight a piece of legislation that forces them to actually take action. There's a deeper problem here, which is if you think that we're going to have to fight back against corporate America, against big tech, against the pharmaceutical industry, if you think we're going to have to do these things, well, the government's pretty much the only path in town. That is the representation of the people. That is the entity that has the

actual authority and the power to go after something like a big tech or like the railway industry. So you've got to be willing to use the power that the people gave us under this constitutional system. And I understand people are reactive. And look, sometimes, of course, the government, oftentimes the government does things it shouldn't do. Sometimes it fights progressive battles that it shouldn't fight. But if we're going to win the argument, we have to be willing to actually use the levers of power and use what the people gave us. That's what this fight is all about. I mean, what he lays out there is a theory of government, apparently, which is novel to Republicans whenever corporate interests are involved. They're like, we'll use the government whenever we want, you know, in order to cut taxes and all of that. But when it

comes to regulating one of the industries most benefited by federal dollars in the entire country, no, no, no, then we can't be doing anything. Even when dangerous chemicals have leaked out, injured people who were in the area, you know, allegedly for the Norfolk Southern lawyers here, and, you know, all these pets who allegedly died as a result of this and who were allegedly poisoned in East Palestine, Ohio. Yeah. And Ted Cruz, I mean, it is disgusting because he was one of these ones. Yeah, he was happy to go out in front of the cameras and, you know, trash Pete, trash Biden, which we did the same. in town poisoned because we failed to take basic precautionary measures like having sensors aboard a giant freight train with explosive chemicals that can poison waterways for like a 50 mile radius. And so, yeah, Ted Cruz, he was happy to posture for the cameras and a whole bunch of them alongside him as well. But when it comes down to it, guess what? He's going to side with

the donor class. He's going to side with big business. And they throw up the most transparent, like tired talking points that if you dig one inch deeper, don't hold up to scrutiny. And they'll just say like, oh, it's too much government. You know what? Don't be so stupid about regulation. Yes, some regulation is way over the top and becomes counterproductive and is genuinely an impediment. And you should be opposed to that regulation. I don't care if you're on the right, left, center, whatever. Some things are important for health and safety. And you know what? These rail giants have turned massive profits, record-breaking historical profits. They can afford to have two people on their cruise. They can afford to install

a few sensors on their trains to keep these horrific derailments from happening. And one of these other things is just they have to notify officials in the state if their train is carrying hazardous materials so that first responders are prepared. I mean, we're talking about such basic, obvious stuff. But rather than get into any of those details, because any thinking person would look at this and go like, well, that makes sense. I can't believe we don't have that already. Instead of getting into those details, they just hand wave away. Oh, we can't give the Biden administration power. It's too much government. We're in favor of a small government. And so we're just going to wait and sit back and let this whole situation unfold again.

It is truly disgraceful. Yeah, and look, the bill's not dead yet. It is possible. So, you know, I would rarely do this. But if you're one of those people and you know a senator and you live in their state, you know, maybe consider actually sending something. Because, look, I mean, how many senators, Republican senators specifically, I was a congressional intern once upon a time.

The number of boomers who are calling in being like, I'm so sick that you're not doing enough to find Barack Obama's birth certificate. That is what these staff assistants and offices have to deal with on an almost daily basis. So I bet they rarely get any mail or a phone call or anything like that on rail. I'm not sure if it would even help. I'm literally just doing this of my own accord. But consider it, you know, especially if you're from the industrial Midwest and you have a Senator, you know, in that, or you have a lot of railway that moves through your state because, you know, nobody thinks about it until an entire town gets basically, you know, allegedly poisoned. And after that, you know, it becomes a flash in the pan moment and

then boom, it's gone. And unfortunately it's just business as usual. And these are people who actually want to do something. Sherrod Brown is a serious person. So is J.D. Vance. Many of the Democrats and Republicans who signed on to this bill, there's a reason the former President Trump endorsed it. And there's a reason that President Biden endorsed it. It's not a joke. It's not one of the rare messaging things. In my opinion, that's why they're trying to kill it so badly.

That's exactly why they're actually trying to do it. Because it might actually do something. I mean, God, they're so greedy. They don't want to take a single penny off their bottom line. And they've got all of these dudes in their pocket. And you see, you know, their strategy, and this has worked so many times, is just we'll delay it, we'll push it out,

and then we'll quietly kill the thing. And next thing you know, you know, next time this happens, people are going to turn around and go, wait, I thought you cared about this. I thought you said you were going to do something about it. And as of today, absolutely nothing. So, yes, shame and pressure these people. We're at seven Republican votes.

We need like three more in the Senate to get it over the line. Then maybe, you know, the House might take it up and feel some pressure to do something as well. It'd be great if President Trump would, instead of just sort of tacitly approving it, if he would actually get involved. But as of today, this is a shameful episode as it stands at this point. Absolutely. Okay. Let's talk about something that we've been keeping our eye on here, which is a number of states in terms of homeowners insurance are becoming virtually uninsurable. It's a huge issue for homeowners, you know, on top of housing costs being out of control. Premiums in Florida in particular have been absolutely skyrocketing

as they have been facing catastrophic hurricane after catastrophic hurricane. Some of the most expensive disasters in history have taken place in that state. And so we've got another insurer that is pulling out of the state, making things even more difficult. Let's go and put this up on the screen. So Farmers has now joined Bankers Insurance, Lexington Insurance, which is a subsidiary of AIG and withdrawing from the market just since last year. So multiple major insurers just pulling out of the market completely. Again, this is not just a Florida problem, although it may be the worst in Florida. It is a huge problem in California because of wildfires, huge problem in Colorado also because of wildfires, Texas, Louisiana.

There are a number of states that are really struggling with this. And by the way, these huge floods that we just had in New England are going to exacerbate problems for them there as well. This piece from The Guardian was, I think, really powerful because they actually talked to some of the residents in the state that are struggling with this. And what they're seeing is that as homeowners insurance is getting completely unaffordable, normal, middle class, working class, longtime residents of Florida are being pushed out. And guess who's coming in to gobble up their homes? It is permanent capital. It is, you know, these gigantic Wall Street investors who are snapping up a lot of the Florida real estate that is being made available by these homeowners that are being pushed out. They say in this piece

that climate change is threatening the very existence of some parts of Florida. The costs are being felt by Floridians at the end of 2022. Average annual property insurance premiums had already risen to more than 4,200 in Florida. That is three times the national average. I saw estimates. I did a monologue on this a while ago. The estimate is that they're going to see another 40 percent increase in homeowners insurance costs just this year. They spoke to one resident. I think this guy was in Vero Beach, who said,

none of my immediate neighbors have hurricane insurance. Various of them are now trying to self-insure, meaning they're trying to build up pots of money to pay for possible damages, which is a huge risk and probably will not work. Some of them were rejected by citizens, for instance, for not having sufficient storm coverings on their windows and could not afford other insurance. To make matters worse, the Republican legislature basically gave a giant giveaway to the industry, created a big bailout fund for them, made it more difficult for homeowners to sue some of these property insurers who have been out and out scamming them,

especially in the wake of Hurricane Ian. Put this up on the screen from Politico. They say that Hurricane Ian battered these middle-class beach communities, repair costs, finish them off. That hurricane's assault on southwest Florida is speeding a transition already occurring in some of the state's coastal communities, driving out middle and working-class people, replacing them with deep-pocketed buyers in the waterfront cities of Fort Myers Beach and Cape Corral. Even homeowners with flood insurance are finding they cannot afford the cost

of rebuilding their houses to modern building codes as federal rules demand. And part of that is, as I was saying, there was a whole investigation, a series of investigations into the fact that many of these homeowners, even the ones that had insurance, were basically scammed by their insurers,

which were these fly-by-night operations since the big guys are pulling out of the state, they're either giving them pennies of what they actually are owed or they're tying them up in paperwork and not paying out at all for the damage that has been incurred to their property. So this is a huge deal in Florida, but it is a growing deal across the country, really, Sagar. This is a major senior issue, too. So I did the math here. So at $4,200 is the average annual premium. That's $350 a month.

The vast, well, not vast majority, but a large portion of people who are seniors rely almost entirely on Social Security. Their average monthly retirement benefit right now for Social Security recipients is only $1,700 a month. So $350 of that is just going to freaking home insurance. I mean, just think about the percentage cost. Then you include a car payment, you include a mortgage, or you include rent. What exactly are you supposed to eat on? You know, especially consider when you have inflation and food. So, A, good reminder, save for retirement.

But if you're not and you're already in that environment, they also quote somebody in that Guardian story that you're referencing. Quote, my insurance premium went from $750 in 1999 to a little over $3K last year before then jumping to $4,678 in 2023. Despite the fact that I live in an area that has not been hit by a hurricane in over 100 years and, quote, have an itty-bitty house. Luckily, I was able to then get insurance through a state-funded program. This brought my imprimium down to $2,200 annually. So I think that the answer here is one that many Ted Cruz people are not going to like. We're going to have to have some sort of government-sponsored insurance program. And I'm not saying that people won't have to pay.

I'm just saying that clearly kicking this to the free market, it's not going to work because they're either straight up scamming seniors in Florida in all these scams or raising premiums to such an outrageous level that they are untenable for home ownership or for staying in Florida where, like it or not, a lot of old people live. And if we're going to have external factors like hurricanes, wildfires, and all these other things become such an impediment to a very basic tenant of living, then you're going to have to have some sort of program. So it does look like the state has a state-funded program, the Citizen Insurance Program in Florida, the Citizen Property Insurance Corporation, which is a not-for-profit insurer of last resort in the area. We're going to have to have some federal programs spun up that are at least able to support it. I do like that model, a not-for-profit

insurer of last resort so that people can get private insurance, better insurance if needed, but you can keep an insurance program, which is still able to pay out at a competitive or relatively decent rate if disaster were to strike, but isn't actually trying to turn a profit. Yeah, I mean, I think that's almost the only answer. Florida does have that fund. They did just limit who is eligible to prone, that are completely uninsurable. And you've got residents who are really desperate. California, they have a fund set up as well. But let's be really clear. This is going to be a tremendous cost, tremendous cost for states, for taxpayers. If you have a federal government program for, you know, listen, you can't tie all of these things

and say 100 percent this is because of the climate crisis. But we can see the way that one in 100 year floods are coming like every year now. You can see the way that these massive catastrophes just fall one on top of another and say, we know that this is not normal from what we've experienced even in the recent past. So it's going to continue to escalate as a major issue and a major cost of not mitigating the climate crisis. And, you know, you're leaving a lot of homeowners high and dry and making it very difficult for them to stay in communities that they have lived in, you know, for literally decades. They're being pushed out right now for a lack of any sort of comprehensive plan to really deal with this. Yeah, I do think it's a major cost issue, specifically with the insurance problem in

California and in Florida. And if anything, it's even a bigger problem right now in Florida, because Florida has so much net in migration. So we have a lot of people who are moving to the state. I think that's great. Cost of living, all of that, having fun, I guess enjoying the weather. And for those people, though, a need to make it sustainable, especially for newer transplants and for future retirees who have always enjoyed the state. So I think this is really a retirement and age issue as well to try and make it affordable because you can't be saddling people up with crazy amounts of debt, you know, in their last years while they're around with us. Yeah. I think it's really important. Let's go over to UFO has been dying to get into this topic.

And, you know, we finally have a news peg. So some big stuff that's been happening in the last couple of days on top of an announcement. Let's go and put this up on the screen. Senator Schumer and Mike Rounds are introducing new legislation to declassify government records related to unidentified anomalous phenomena, aka UFOs, modeled actually after the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act. By the way, I guess I have to do this now. My fiance does work for Senator Schumer, so full disclosure. But whenever we're looking at this legislation, the most important language is one that jumps out immediately, and that is specifically about, quote, non-human intelligence. So let me read directly from the text of the bill here. intelligent, non-human life form, regardless of nature or ultimate origin, that may be presumed

responsible for unidentified anomalous phenomena or of which the federal government has become aware. So specifically written in the text. Now, in terms of the UAP phenomenon, here's how they describe it. Quote, means any object operating or judged capable of operating in outer space, the atmosphere, ocean surfaces, undersea, lacking prosaic attribution due to performance characteristics and properties not previously known to be achievable based upon commonly accepted physical principles. Unidentified anomalous phenomena are differentiated, are both attributed and temporarily non-attributed objects by one or more of the following observables.

Instantaneous acceleration absent apparent inertia, hypersonic velocity absent thermal signature and sonic shockwave, transmedium such as space to ground and air to undersea travel, positive lift contrary to known aerodynamic principles, multispectral signature control, physical or invasive biological effects to close observers and the environment. So this is spelled out straight up in legislation. We're talking here about the freaking Senate majority leader who's including this, and this would ride as an amendment onto the NDAA, which is what funds the entire Pentagon. So this is the strongest and most clear language to date that has come from Congress. Congress is fed up. After the whistleblower allegations of Dave

Grush that came out, the Pentagon continues to obfuscate. They basically called him a liar. We'll see. I absolutely don't think so, considering what even Inspector General of the intelligence community said about him, said that he has credible and highly sensitive and timely allegations that are being put forward. You can go watch the interview that he did with Ross Coltrane yourself if you want to judge for how credible he is. I found it incredibly compelling. But put that aside. Now we're talking here about actual Congress and hearings putting people under oath. So let's go to the next part here, please, where the White House was actually asked about this yesterday. And the spokesperson, the spokesperson himself, John Kirby, had this to say.

Some of these phenomena we know have already had an impact on our training ranges for, you know, when pilots are out trying to do training in the air and they see these things, they're not sure what they are, and it can have an impact on their ability to perfect their skills. It's already had an impact here, and we just want to better understand it. Now, we're not saying what they are or what they're not. We're saying that there's something our pilots are seeing. We're saying it has had an effect on some of our training operations. And so we want to get to the bottom of it. We want to understand it better. So, yes. You want to understand it better. On top of that,

Crystal, we got some big news here. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on UAPs. This is from Representative Tim Burchett on Wednesday, July 26th. So that's going to be next week. Already doing some planning and some interesting stuff that'll be happening. Now, in terms of that hearing and who's going to testify, there's still a lot of questions about it. According to Ross, quote, Representative Andre Carson, we played actually some clips about him before. He was the first UAP hearings that were held in Congress. He's a Democrat from New York. He says that he would actually love to get Dave Grush to the hearing before the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee on Intelligence, but quote, he is currently in the minority. So we'll see

how that works. So we don't yet know who the witnesses are going to be before the Oversight Committee. I should also note, you know, Burchett himself, he's a believer. This guy knows a lot about Roswell, the history. So he's been one of the people pushing for this behind the scenes. But overall, I would say that this is a victory in terms of getting transparency and answer from these lawmakers. I mean, to have the Senate majority leader put a rider like that in Congress is just extraordinary. I mean, you heard the terms that I use. Yeah. It hopefully will become literal law of the United States. So to have that out in writing and demanding answers, that's pretty big.

So I have a few questions for you. So that whole list that you read off that's in the amendment here. Right. That, you know, transmedium, biological effects, and supersonic, hypersonic speed, or whatever. Like, where does that come from? Well, they come,

you mean in terms of like- Like, where do they get that particular list from? Well, it gets from reports. I mean, you know, we've played a lot of video here before about, that show some of these alleged instances.

Not exactly, but in terms of the witness reports that have come out from Ryan Graves, from David Fravor and other, a lot of them report objects that appear to defy the laws of physics that you can see that are on video. Transmedium is one that's been reported for a long time from people in the U.S. Navy and in the U.S. Air Force, specifically being able to go sea to air almost seamlessly. And in some cases, even reporting seeing things that were under the ocean. And transmedium actually would make sense if you had some sort of, not even propellant, because that's probably the wrong way to think about it in terms of the way that these things move. But it would make sense in terms of the way that something that does defy the current laws of physics

would have to be able to theoretically move between these. And the medium itself, air or sea, should not matter as it would to a conventional jet engine. That's where they get the term from. The thing with Kirby is confusing to me because he probably has like the highest classification level you could possibly have. So doesn't he already have access to everything there is to know about this? But I don't think it's true. I mean, that's what Dave Grush really – I mean, look, I know a lot of people who have very, very high top secret clearance. And one of the reasons why it's called TSSCI, top secret,

secret compartmentalized information, it's because it's compartmentalized. It's a need-to-know program. So I mean, I've said it before. John Podesta, who is a freaking White House chief of staff, they have something, I believe it's called Yankee White. That is the highest clearance that you can get whenever it's the president of the United States and core national security people around him. He tried to find out and they wouldn't tell him. So if he's the one who's trying to find out, what are you supposed to do? Bill Clinton is on the record, say, quote, I am embarrassed to say that I tried to find out and I couldn't really get to the bottom of it when he was the president. So, I mean, there's a show in the UK, this is more akin to their system called like Yes Minister. And what it, there's a show in the UK. This is more akin to their system called, like, Yes Minister.

And what it effectively boils down to is in the UK, because the government is constantly, like, changing. But whoever the secretary of the, what do they call him, exchequer, whatever, in terms of their treasury secretary. So their treasury secretary is constantly, like, moving in and out as an elected member of parliament. But there's a permanent bureaucracy. But the permanent bureaucracy is always like, yes, minister, absolutely, we'll get on that. And they just do whatever they want. Yeah, because they're the ones

who are actually in the permanent government. That's how they think of government. Whereas we kind of tend to think of it as elected. And while you would want us to live in a more directly responsible system, the truth is that the deep state and all of these things are real. And then my last question on this is like, if John Kirby can't get answered, responsible system. The truth is that the deep state and all of these things are real.

And then my last question on this is like, if John Kirby can't get answers, how hopeful are you that, you know, this effort to declassify these documents is going to actually yield any real results? I think it's about pushing. I mean, let's think about the church committee. The church committee, and a lot of people don't know about this, but back in the day, the church Committee was an extraordinarily important event because they exposed all the wrongdoing of the FBI and the CIA and the intelligence community, which was completely out of control on domestic soil from the 1950s to the 1970s. You want to know why that we even knew anything about it? It's because, Crystal, a bunch of militants broke into an FBI warehouse and stole some papers. And because of that, we got this name. And we said, hey, what the hell is this name?

Cointelpro. Based on Cointelpro, MKUltra and all of that was only as a result of people knowing what terms to FOIA, which then, FOIA is the Freedom of Information Act for people who aren't nerds like me, and then was able to come and be analyzed by the church committee. And these guys were in the

oversight committee. They had no idea about what was going on here. So the point here is about public pressure, about people like Grush, who sees people like us talking about this, Jeremy Corbell, Ross, and out there and say, hey, you know, I'm looking at some stuff which directly contradicts what this guy is saying in Congress. And I feel pretty compelled to come out and to talk about it. So do I think Congress is going to get the answer? No. Will it inspire, though, maybe more Dave Gruches, somebody with even more compartmentalized information, to come forward? Will it maybe inspire, and I'm not advocating this, to be clear, a future mission like what happened with MKUltra and Cointelpro about literally going and

stealing documents to try and figure it out. Maybe it'll inspire a next Daniel Ellsberg. It's just about starting the conversation. And I think that that's what it will do. And it also, it exposes lies. So, you know, our current committees, we've gotten Sean Kirkpatrick, this guy on the record being like, yeah, these things, we don't have any possession of these technology. So if it turns out to be true, he's a liar. I mean, no, I'm not saying he'd suffer any consequences. Remember when Clapper lied to Congress about the, it's not like anything happened, but you know, he did, at least for some people, he could always point to his credibility in the future. At least there's a little bit of public shame. Yeah, be like, he's on video.

He literally lied. Like, he lied bald-faced to the Congress. So I think we very likely will be able to see that with this topic. I think I'm really excited about it. I'm going to try and attend the hearing myself just to see exactly what's going on. Because I do think that this one could be a big one in terms of what we're able to get on the record to the public and then combined with the legislation itself, if it does pass, would really be extraordinary. Yeah. All right. So I wanted to give you an update on a huge break in a case that was basically a cold case for more than 10 years. This is the Gilgo Beach

serial killer. Police say that they have caught and apprehended the man. Let's go ahead and put up on the screen what we know about him, and then I'll give you a little bit of the backstory here. The man they've identified and arrested is Rex Heuermann. They say he is a suspect in Gilgo Beach killings, led a life of chaos and control. He was painstaking in his Manhattan professional pursuits, but at home in Massapequa Park, he left neighbors disconfident. So they paint a portrait in the New York Times of a man who was an architectural consultant, worked with, you know, some well-known entities.

His professional reputation was that he was very fastidious, almost over-the-top attention to detail, which some of his clients apparently appreciated, and some of them he was, you know, sort of irritated them, the level of attention to detail and obsessive focus that he had. But interestingly, his neighbors really had a very different feeling about him and tried to avoid him and gave him the creeps, for lack of a better term. One neighbor, Mr. Furchaw, said,

I was not surprised at all when he was arrested because of all the creepiness. Mr. Furchaw recounted several run-ins with his neighbor, none pleasant. There was a time he said hello to him as he was cutting wood, and Mr. Huerman responded by silently glaring back between chops of his splitting maul. Another neighbor, who has lived in that neighborhood for 10 years has a friend who lives behind Mr. Heuermann. Sometimes Mr. Schmidt would visit his buddy, have a few beers in the backyard,

look out at the sagging Heuermann house and say, he probably has bodies there. So obviously giving off some really weird vibes. There was another instance where that same neighbor, Mr. Schmidt, and his friend resolved to take their kids trick-or-treating at his house just to get a look inside.

They were surprised when Mr. Heerman answered the door, gave each child a small plastic pumpkin, but when they got home, Mr. Schmidt's wife was like, there is no way in hell

you're letting our children eat that candy based on who it came from and threw it in the trash. Made him throw it in the trash. There's also a weird incident where he, like, stole oranges from a Whole Foods that were meant for kids. So anyway, there was a really mixed picture of this guy, I guess, consistent with the idea that he was

really living and leading two lives. He was married. He has one, one report I saw said one child, another said two children. His daughter worked with him at the architectural firm. He was arrested, you know, outside of that firm. But part of what makes this, you know, something that we wanted to go into here is that this case was basically dead. And this was horrific. We're talking about 10 years ago, roughly, more than 10 years ago, they found four bodies. Then they started to really, you know, look more extensively and they found remains of up to 16 different people in this area near Gilgo Beach. Put the next piece up on the screen. But there was a huge corruption issue in the local among the local police officers.

And so they didn't want to work with the FBI because the head dude was actually under investigation by the FBI for corruption, for the fact that he beat up some suspect and then got everybody to cover it up and lie about it, etc. So he didn't want to work with the FBI. So he let the case drop. And so it didn't come back up and get close to any sort of conclusion until they brought in a new police chief. There was also another element here where because the women who were brutally murdered and their bodies left in this area of the beach, they were mostly, they were escorts on Craigslist and they had moved to New York from other areas. And so they were mostly, they were escorts on Craigslist. And they had moved to

New York from other areas. And so they were seen as sort of like not that important and became not that high a priority for the people who were involved. So it was, you know, a really horrifying look at who people actually care about and who they thought mattered. So this new police chief comes in, decides because there's new technology related to DNA evidence that maybe she could have another crack at solving this case and being able to bring to justice this Long Island serial killer. Also, this woman really had an understanding of how much, even if the news is horrible and families find out that, you know, yes, this was my daughter and yes, this was her killer, that that sort of revelation can at least bring some closure to the family.

So she was really committed to that and ultimately is able to sort of break this case open. There was a pizza crust and DNA evidence that was involved and matching his truck with, you know, a truck that was seen at one of the scenes of the crime. And they were able to bring the alleged killer to justice. Yeah, this is one of the craziest things that I've read in terms of the serial killer kind of discourse. I think that the worst part about it, as you said, Crystal, was that it was a cold case for so many years, which really does, if they're able to catch them also based on old witness testimony and doing

the basic groundwork of looking at car registration and then eventually obtaining DNA, I mean, presumably all of that existed a decade ago. So don't the police really have a lot to answer for here as to why? I mean, you know, look, if it was development of a technology that didn't, you know, exist a year, okay, fine. But the world wasn't that different in 2012. Whenever we saw a witness statement, and then they were checking car registration records, if anything, they

would have been current at the time rather than having to go retrospect. It's not like DNA also didn't exist also. I always am of two minds whenever I think about neighbors and witnesses and all this, because on the one hand, like, I've got some weird neighbors. That doesn't mean you're a serial killer. But, you know, if somebody is joking about bodies in a basement

and then also making people throw candy away, and then you have multiple instances also of, the report, Crystal, that his interior designer said that he had a chamber inside of his basement that he wouldn't let anybody go into. I mean, that is where things could just get sketchy to the point of you probably should alert somebody. At the same time, like, look, there's always an innocent explanation. He said it was for guns. I know gun people who've got gun rooms. I guess they wouldn't let a lot of people into them. So, you know, maybe that's what they were just willing to brush it off. But I think the fact that you had to bring in a new police chief after a decade

to really just do some very basic legwork here is really an awful look for this area. And, you know, you got to think about, too, the victims. This is very common, unfortunately, in a lot of these serial killer cases is they just target the underclass, people like prostitutes and escorts and others. Nobody's going to miss them. A lot of them are runaways. They're not as much of a high priority.

They don't have their family members beaten down the door in order to get their cases solved. And they're the ones who are victimized the worst. I mean, we sometimes as a society pay attention to them, really, whenever they get killed. But, you know, these are really just, you know, the outliers. There's a lot of them who, you know, get raped or mistreated

or terribly abused, literally on a day-to-day basis. And nobody ever really looks or even cares about it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you had some people who were involved in this case who basically outright said, like, oh, well, we're lucky that it was no one who really mattered. I mean, there was it was horrific. Some of the things that they said in the attitude towards this case because of who these women were. But these women were a lot more than just, you know, an escort to be discarded with.

These were mothers. These were daughters. These were people who had hopes and dreams and aspirations. And, yeah, were maybe struggling at that particular point in time in their life, but they were human beings who really mattered. So there's that piece of it. There's the part of, like, who society cares about and who these police cared about to actually try to identify their killers. And think about all these years that went by. Like, we don't know that this maniac, this bloodthirsty killer wasn't continuing to murder girls during this time. So there's also the piece of like, you could have saved lives if you had gone aggressively after this and actually tried to, you know, to close this case. Let me just tell you, because the other piece about the corruption aspect of this

really speaks to an abuse of power and like a power trip piece too. So here's the details. They say that the former chief of the police department in Suffolk County, who was the one that had the corruption issues, his name was James Burke, and he was the one who really sort of let this case drop because he didn't want to work with the FBI. The reason was the Justice Department was investigating him for corruption. In late 2012, a year after assuming control of the Suffolk police, Mr. Burke assaulted a man who was being held for a parole violation. The parolee, whose name is Christopher Loeb, had been brought on suspicion that he had stolen a bag from the police chief's car that contained pornography and sex toys. Mr. Burke then pressured detectives who saw him

beat this man, deny that they saw the attack. Even the Suffolk County district attorney, Thomas Spoda, helped with that coverup. Eventually, both of them were convicted of conspiracy and Suffolk County became notorious as one of the nation's most corrupt law enforcement jurisdictions. So the other piece of this is, you know, these guys who felt like the rules didn't apply to them, they felt like they were the law, they thought that they could abuse their power and engage in a cover-up and get away with that. The fact that they had their own personal issues of corruption is part of why they did not aggressively look to solve this case and just let it linger for years and years

while vulnerable women continue to be at risk. Yeah, and I think that's why the public is involved in it. It's not always grisly details and they're always so interested. It's always just a question of how does something like this happen? It really is a tragedy. And yeah, I'm glad that we actually spent some time on these because sometimes people, and I see this all the time, Daily Mail and all these people are having a field day in terms of like, oh, like I said, interior designer. Guess what? I read it. I had to, you know, I had to know.

But we're trying to think about this from a systemic level of like police screwed this up. The people were responsible for protecting. And then also people were the most vulnerable amongst us in our society very often just get disregarded. And then when they get killed, you know, nobody takes a notice. That's why cases allowed to languish for a decade when apparently it really wasn't that difficult to solve. And who knows? Maybe somebody else could have been saved. Apparently they're still pulling bodies and remnants and all those things out of his residence.

So it's really gross. It's very sad. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, extreme heat alerts are blanketing the country right now as a brutal heat wave punishes the west and the southwest of this nation. Particularly hard hit is the state of Arizona, where sidewalks have reached temperatures high enough to cause contact burns. Death Valley may now notch a new record for the highest temperature ever reliably recorded. And Phoenix broke its daily record with a high temperature of 118 degrees.

Now, these record-breaking temperatures are causing misery for the homeless and for outdoor workers in construction, package delivery and farming. They are also exacerbating a problem that has been many years in the making, dwindling water supplies. High temperatures from climate change plus a long-term drought also likely caused by climate change are drying up rivers, groundwater, and reservoirs at an increased pace. In fact, this water crisis has gotten so dire that Arizona has decided to ban additional construction in certain Phoenix neighborhoods to try to slow the depletion of this absolutely vital resource. Now, these Western water wars have been escalating in every

state in that part of the country, and they often pit rural residents who need water for irrigation with growing urban centers. But in Arizona, a new foe and new battle lines are being drawn, because as The Washington Post reports, and as we've discussed here before, one of the main consumers of water in the state doesn't have urban or rural Arizona roots or even American roots at all. A giant agribusiness with ties to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is guzzling up Arizona's water at a stunning clip. Here's the Washington Post quote. in the homes of farm workers near this desert valley. But green fields of alfalfa stretch across thousands of acres of the desert land, shimmering in the burning sunlight.

Wells draw water from deep underground, turning the parched earth into verdant farmland. For nearly a decade, the state of Arizona has leased this rural terrain west of Phoenix to a Saudi-owned company, allowing it to pump all the water it needs to grow the alfalfa hay, a crop it exports to feed the kingdom's dairy cows. Now, in their own home country, the Saudis have actually banned growing water-intensive crops like alfalfa in order to protect their own limited water resources.

So in order to feed their cows, they've turned to Arizona, exploiting the state's water usage laws to suck up vast quantities of local groundwater. And for years, they have faced next to no scrutiny, even denying Arizonans the ability to know just how much water they are actually using. The company, Fondamonte Arizona, aggressively lobbied the legislature and the governor, hiring key people with high-level connections. One of their top lobbyists had served as finance chair for the Arizona Republican Party, and as if that wasn't enough, they put a former Republican member of Congress on their payroll as well. Now, it made some sense to target Republicans, first of all, until quite recently the state was reliably red.

Second of all, their pitch landed with free market conservative types who viewed water as part and parcel of the property rights of landowners rather than as a public resource to be managed collectively. Perfect example of how companies and foreign governments have figured out how to use our own free market ideology against us. Now, the company also took advantage of the relative poverty of the county that their farm is in to attempt to foster goodwill. They donated a few thousand dollars to local high school for sports programs, ponied up the cash to buy white paint needed for a local landmark, purchased company-branded face masks for local distribution during the COVID pandemic. Small potatoes for them, but a big deal for a local community that was starved for funds.

In this program of buying politicians and buying local goodwill, it worked for years. But as drought, heat, and scarcity have become urgent problems, the company has come under some increasing scrutiny. Accordingly, the new Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, has signaled a tougher line. In a sign of mounting pressure, the company was forced for the first time to reveal just how much water it is actually sucking up, and the number is pretty shocking. They announced they had used 16,415 acre-feet of water in a single year. Now, for perspective, that's equivalent to the water usage of an entire city of 50,000 people, just this one company. It's enough, as the Post put it, to cover 12,500 football fields with a foot of water, again, in a single year. And this did not

go to feed, bathe, or cool human beings. It went to feed cows in Saudi Arabia, because that country has wisely decided to conserve their own resources while, of course, guzzling ours. Goes without saying that in a drought-stricken state, this astonishing level of water usage is a threat local farmers and city dwellers are facing alike. In fact, it's already having major impacts locally where wells are running dry and the very workers who tend those alfalfa fields have to haul buckets of water for showers and cooking. According to a proposal the Post was able to get their hands on, Governor Hobbs is considering taking significant action,

potentially even blocking Fondamante's land leases when they expire. It's not so easy to take on big business, so if she does, she should definitely be applauded. We need a whole mental shift, though, on how these questions are handled. How do we handle competing interests in a time of resource scarcity? What core interests need to be protected from the whims of the free market? And who should our economy and regulatory environment actually be set up to serve? As our world warms and disasters become more common, more devastating, these questions are only going to become more difficult to resolve and the stakes that much more catastrophic. Sagar, it really fits with the conversation we had earlier about property owners insurance and how, you know, just-

And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, perhaps the most frustrating part of the entire war in Ukraine to me is how much it has scrambled the minds of American voters and American foreign policy elites to our priorities. Walking around Washington today, you would think that the year is 1961, that our principal adversary is Russia, that the booming center of the world is Central Europe, which is both economically dynamic, prospering, and a sure bet to pay major economic dividends for our relationship in the years to come. Basically, none of that is true anymore. You can think that Ukraine is important for your own reasons if you want, but here's the truth. Whether Kyiv remains under Ukrainian hands or Russian hands has

zero impact on our way of life. Ukraine in 2019 was our 67th largest trading partner. Russia was our 26th. This isn't even to say that we shouldn't help Ukraine. It is simply a truth, though, that it doesn't really matter that much to us. Same with Russia. It is only important because of its nuclear weapon status and oil reserves. And as we have all found out, we can effectively blockade the entire country, and it will not change anything about the way that we do business here. So why are we spending some 90% of our foreign policy thinking and obsession over Ukraine and Russia? The answer is two-part. One is we share a long cultural heritage with Europe. Many Americans are of European descent. Of course, our histories are long intertwined going back to our founding.

We fought side by side in two great wars, and the United States saved the entire continent from Hitlerism and Soviet communism. Two, though, is frankly a Russian obsession, infecting the entire American foreign policy elite. It goes back to the Cold War, had gasoline poured on the fire by Russiagate post-Trump. Those two conditions have created the perfect storm. All the dreams of the old Cold War hawks are being fulfilled. Americans are being gaslit into thinking our most important global relationship is with the European continent. From NATO to the EU to the bilateral meetings that our President

Biden spends all of his time on, it is Europe, Europe, Europe. And yet by almost every available metric, Europe has never mattered less to the United States. Note at the beginning of this monologue, I said Ukraine or Russia does not impact us. It does impact Europe though. It's their land. They have long shared bad blood. And frankly, if it's a problem, it's really only a problem for them. And yet, as I've covered here ad nauseum, they don't pay for it. We pay the vast majority of expenses of the Ukrainian military. We remain the main diplomatic interlocutor, even though it matters the least to us. The trend is only going in the wrong direction.

NATO is expanding, meaning our obligation to defend even more European territory is somehow extending. And how is the continent that we are apparently wasting so much time and money protecting even doing? Europeans are poorer than ever before, and they are only getting even more so. As the Wall Street Journal writes, quote, Europe's current predicament has been long in the making. An aging population with a preference for free time and job security over earnings has ushered in years of lackluster economic and productivity growth. Then came a one-two punch of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's protracted war in Ukraine. It's actually very simple. They have huge welfare states. They don't make very many goods. They also don't innovate very much. Most of their energy also came from Russia. Zoom out and it's clear,

the Eurozone economy grew 6% over the last 15 years. The United States has grown by 82%. Now look, America's got a lot of problems, but ours mostly boils down to proper distribution of our riches rather than being actually poor in the aggregate. As the journal so aptly puts it, quote, if the current trend continues by 2035, the gap between economic output per capita in the US and EU will be as large as that between Japan and Ecuador today. I will take the action on that considering the state of politics on the continent. Meanwhile, let's check in on the rest of the world. You couldn't see a more different picture.

A new demographic analysis shows that by 2050, people above the age of 65 and older will make up 40% of the entire European population. For context, as Times notes, this is twice the current old population of Florida. It effectively will become a retirement colony, as will the major countries in East Asia, including China, Japan, and South Korea. So who's actually growing? Now, as the chart shows, by 2050, the countries with the largest working age shares of population will be South Africa, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Pakistan, Kenya, Indonesia, Egypt, and Ethiopia. So basically, South Africa, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and India. How much

time do we spend thinking about our bilateral relationships with these countries, the importance that they have to the current and the future U.S. economy and our way of life? Already, it is clear the top 10 trading partners of the United States in 2022 were as follows, Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, Germany, South Korea, the UK, Taiwan, India, and Vietnam. Already, it means six out of the top 10 trading partners that the US has are in Asia. Only two are in Europe. Compared to the rest of the world, this is already the case. Asia is 45% of global GDP, double the measly GDP of Europe. And by 2030, the current projection shows that Asia will become a full 51% of global GDP, Europe shrinking down to 18%. People think I have something personal against Europe. They would be right if we were just talking about food and

coffee. In reality, I have a problem with people who cannot do math. You can only pursue existential risk and effort when that risk is existential to you. If you think of it like business, you would never allocate so much time, effort, and money towards a dying share of your business. You would look clearly at trends and you would allocate resources both for reality today and for the future. If we do not change course soon, our future is obvious. We will end up like Europe, irrelevant to the affairs of the world,

arrogant, riding our cultural coattails from the past, and worst of all, vulnerable to the wants of whomever controls Asia. And, you know, I was just thinking about it, Crystal, in terms of, you know, a lot of people misunderstand. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now is Allie Beth Stuckey.

She is the host of Relatable. It's a great show. We're going to have a link down there in the description. Allie, we decided we wanted to talk to you after you put out a reaction to this video about Andrew Tate, the Tucker interview, and really about conservative embrace of Tate as a figure. We're going to play a little bit of this video about Andrew Tate, the Tucker interview, and really about conservative embrace of Tate as a figure. We're going to play a little bit of this video and then we're going to get a reaction.

Let's take a look. What are you charged with? That's a really good question. I'm charged with being the head of an organized criminal group, which is in charge of recruiting girls to make TikTok videos. They face charges which include human trafficking, rape, and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit. OnlyFans is the best hustle in the world. Are they accusing you of using violence or? No. They're accusing me of using the lover boy method, coercing them by being nice.

So yeah, on corporatehate.com I have my PhD program and that is, PhD is a pimp and hose degree. Clever, clever. That teaches basically how I got girls, how I met girls, how I got girls to like me, how I got girls to fall in love with me, to work on webcam for me. And so Allie, after that video, you put out, uh, this, she said, quote, Andrew Tate is evidence that the right can be as easily deceived by empty platitudes and virtue signaling is the left. All the true things Tate says about social issues are just virtue signals to cover for his degeneracy. And I was curious, you know, to get your perspective on this as a conservative woman,

kind of in our media sphere and all of that as reaction, not to the interview itself, although maybe, but really Andrew Tate, some of the embrace that we've seen out there. I understand the appeal of Andrew Tate to a certain degree. Like if you look at the political landscape, I think a lot of young men, a lot of young single men, maybe they feel emasculated or they feel definitely at the bottom of the intersectional totem pole over the past few years. And so to hear someone they think represent masculinity and strength and tell them that the problem is progressivism, the problem is feminism, you need to take responsibility, you need

to be strong, you need to work out, all of these things. Okay, I understand that. Some of the critiques that he has of society, certainly of leftism, I would probably agree with some of the things that he tells men to do, like be strong, take responsibility, whatever. I can understand the attractiveness of that method or message to a lot of young men. However, he is charged with trafficking. He is charged with rape. He is charged and has admitted on tape several times that he has manipulated young women.

In one video, he slips up and he says, oh, you know, it's normal for 15, 16, I mean, wait, what's the age of consent? 18-year-old girls to come and work for me. And how he does it is he gets them to fall in love with him. He promises them some kind of future relationship, some kind of long-term commitment, has sex with them, and then after that, uses another woman to convince this girl to then do webcam work for him and then takes over half of their money. And he says this repeatedly on tape, on camera. He's not ashamed of it or hasn't been ashamed of it, I guess, until he was charged recently. And he calls it a pimp and hose degree. He calls himself

a pimp. And so I can't speak to Romanian law. I don't know exactly what's going to happen in this case. But at the very least, the very, very least, he is not a hero he's not someone just because he says some true things sometimes should be hoisted up in any way as an exemplar of virtue or strength or morality at the end of the day like he is a very dangerous narcissistic dork who has attracted a lot of attention for just being a degenerate that makes himself sound virtuous. We have another clip from that Tucker interview that I wanted to get you to react to, Ali, because, you know, his defense and what his supporters will say is, oh, the reason that they arrested him, they're going after him, it's the matrix, right? He's saying things that are dangerous. And so they're trying to take him

down. Let's take a listen to how Andrew himself framed this in that interview. The overall, my understanding of it, they're saying that human trafficking is when you convince a woman to do something she doesn't want to do for financial gain. And there's different methods you can do that. You can do that through force, and you can also do that through emotional coercion. I think most people, just speaking from the American perspective, most people believe that human trafficking is effectively slavery, selling human beings. And that's what I believe as well. Absolutely. And this is the thing that's so interesting. When you finally end up the enemy of the matrix, and they use the legal system as a weapon to punish you

for having an opinion, you realize how subjective the law is, right? Because it can be a weapon. When you have something subjective, you can just pick and choose. So they sit and say, ah, human trafficking is a woman doing something for financial gain against her will via emotional coercion. Well, he knows these two girls, they have TikTok accounts. Emotional coercion? Convincing her. That's what I'm accused of because they have no proof of me doing anything wrong. I mean, it seems to me like in another context, a lot of conservatives would describe emotional coercion as grooming. So that's one piece. But I wanted to get you to react to this Matrix piece because, you know, in your comments, you were talking about how the left has this vulnerability

to virtue signaling, which as a member of the left, I've spoken out against, and that there's a similar vulnerability on the right. People are susceptible to kind of taking mental shortcuts. And so if he sort of signals some of the right things, and then the people you hate seem to be against him, then that's enough of like proof that he's actually on your side. Could you talk about, you know, where the some of the specific vulnerabilities are on the right, because I just have fewer insights, fewer sort of like proof that he's actually on your side. Could you talk about, you know, where the, some of the specific vulnerabilities are on the right? Because I just have fewer insights, fewer sort of like intel into that world. Yeah, I think the right, because we are so often demonized by the mainstream, whether it's the mainstream media or whether it's Hollywood, whether it's the so-called elites, whatever, however you want to define that, the people in charge of the major corporations, the tech companies, academia, all of that. We kind of, I think, get embarrassed by

only being represented by Christian conservatives. So when someone throws us a bone, when someone who doesn't fit the standard mold of conservatives, some white Christian conservative who espouses all of these traditional values, we kind of get excited. We're like, oh, maybe this person is going to make us cool. Maybe it's not just the religious right, or maybe it's not just Christian conservatives who have the same ideas about feminism or masculinity or family or whatever as we do. So when we get like one comedian or one celebrity or one person who happens to express a kind of heterodox, almost conservative opinion,

like we get really excited about that. And we like, you know, put them on some kind of pedestal as our hero. And then we always end up being disappointed. The same thing kind of happened with Kanye West, not comparing Kanye West and Andrew Tate, but that's the principle that I'm talking about here. So I think a little bit of that is coming into play. But then, of course, when you add on top of it that I think Andrew Tate, much better than some of the other celebrities that the right kind of clings

onto so hastily, he really does understand the language. Like he does understand the concerns of a lot of conservative or at least non-leftist young men. I think he is in some ways very different. And as I said, degenerate version of Jordan Peterson in that he appeals to like very real emotions, very real feelings of like loneliness, of lack of value, of disrespect, of being kind of lost in the world and wanting to feel value, feel purpose, feel like you're adding something, feel like you're pushing back against darkness. Like he really appeals to that. And because he says things that are true and because he captures that like pathos so quickly, which is really the sign of like a good communicator, the rest of the stuff just kind

of gets justified. They either say, well, it's just part of his persona or that's lacking context somehow or uh it's he's joking or whatever it is but look it's difficult to detach yourself from someone who has emotionally appealed to you and kind of placed himself in the position of mentorship so i think that's what happens to a lot of young men who have become kind of his uh disciples if you will ally let, let me hit you with another one. I hear this all the time, which is why are you spending time even going after someone who is tangentially aligned with us? You're doing the left job for them. I've rejected that. But I'm curious, you know, I think you're probably someone more in the movement than me. What's your response to that type of criticism? Yeah, I wouldn't say that he's aligned with me at all.

Like, I'm sure that there are some people on the left who say things that I agree with. There are probably some people who espouse the tenets of gender ideology, which I think are extremely destructive, especially for children, that might say something sometimes that I agree with. I'm still going to criticize them when they say something that I not only disagree with, but vehemently oppose. And look, I'm a Christian conservative. And so, or a conservative Christian, maybe that's the better way to say it. So to me, when I'm thinking about truth and goodness and beauty, the things that I want to aspire to, the things I want society to aspire to, I see Andrew Tate as just as far from that as any secular left-wing person

espousing ideas that I don't like. I see his promotion of pornography, of basically polygamy, or at least Trump men anyway, and just moral rot. It's just as dangerous, just as destructive as any form of like, of any form of progressivism that I don't like. And so when I am trying to aspire to higher things,

good things, I mean, it doesn't really matter what the ideology is of the people who are opposing those higher and good things, but as long as they are opposing them. And so I see Andrew Tate as just as much of an enemy to those good things that society should be aspiring to as any enemy that I may have on the left. Got it. And Ellie, what's the reaction to your comments been? Because he obviously does have very hardcore group of defenders. But, you know, I mean, there were a few things that struck me. First of all, obviously, this is coming at the same moment as like the sound of freedom discourse. And there's been a lot of anti-groomer discourse on the right. So there's that piece of like, you've got that. But on the see, he is just out and out lying about what the charges and the allegations against him are. And listen, he deserves his day in court. We'll see what evidence he brings to bear, et cetera. There are seven different victims whose text messages they have, who, you know, have spoken to the prosecution about the coercion that was used.

He is, there is physical violence that is alleged. There is rape that is alleged. There's, you know, creating fake deaths and keeping these women basically in hock to to him and to his brother. That is alleged. So even just the you know, the basics of what he was spinning Tucker on are out and out false. Right. Why is it why is it sort of difficult for people to see that in this context? Yeah, you're right. I mean, he's admitted to fraud, and fraud is one of the things that they look for when they're looking for, is this person actually trafficked? Is this person actually a victim?

You don't actually have to be, and we don't know necessarily if there was physical violence that was used but he has admitted on tape to committing fraud to lying to these women to keep them basically trapped in these kind of webcam agreements um i was you know i i'm a fan of tucker a big fan of tucker i think that he has done a lot of good and telling a lot of truth and i think think it's fine that he interviewed Andrew Tate. I think reporters, journalists are supposed to interview all kinds of controversial people, whether you agree with them or not. But there were a lot of lies told in that interview that could have been caught. There was a lot that I think could have been pushed back on that says, okay, you say that they're not charging you with violence, but look right here,

like we're talking about rape. You say that there are no women who say that they're victims, but look right here, we actually have allegations or accusations of having seven victims. And so I don't know. I think that it's just a refusal to see things as they are, a refusal to kind of get out of this idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend and just see things as from a truthful perspective. And yeah, I think that people just don't want to give credence to anything that they view as a progressive, I don't know, perspective or a feminist perspective. You asked the reaction. I think most people probably agree with me. I think most conservatives probably agree that Andrew Tate is a degenerate that shouldn't be voiced up as a hero. But there are definitely people who have called me a feminist, a misandrist. Oh, feminism has infected my mind just

as much as any far leftist, which is just so funny. And so there's that. There's always going to be that. There's a lot of thoughtlessness. And yeah, that's just kind of how it goes. Well, yeah, that's how it is to relate in public discourse. You've got this show, Relatable. We'll have a link, as I said, in the description.

We really appreciate your time. I really enjoy talking to you. So thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Yeah, pleasure. All right, guys, we will see you all later. I'm Michael Kasson, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company.

The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone,

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