Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/19/21: Biden Pressuring Facebook, CNN Humiliation, Lab Leak, Delta Variant, Caitlyn Jenner, Inflation Deepdive, Climate Disaster, Right to Repair, and More!

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

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Become a premium member today, which is available in the show notes. Enjoy the show, guys. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. So many good stories to talk to you about this morning first of all uh one of the most incredible things i've ever seen unfolded on cnn and i cannot wait to share it with you it's really it's really quite something i'll just leave it at that um the biden administration intelligence agencies starting to think maybe the lab leak is really a thing. Dr. Fauci still believes more zoonotic. We'll give you all the details there. The Delta variant is surging and some places are

taking extreme action. We'll bring you the details of whether that seems warranted or not. Caitlyn Jenner has hired a film crew with her own money to film her run for governor. Is this a real? Call me governor. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it was kind of apparent from the beginning, but apparently this is all just basically for reality show purposes. We've got Louis Rossman on, really excited to talk to him about the right to repair.

But we wanted to start with some big moves from the Biden administration that are really quite something. I mean, this really just set the internet and really, I think, society on fire. Whenever it happened on Friday, when the press secretary, Jen Psaki, said that if you're banned from one social media platform, you should be banned from all others in an escalating campaign in order to kick people off the internet, this time for anti-vax sentiment, but setting a very dangerous precedent.

I'll let her just say it in her own words. Take a listen. Providing for Facebook or other platforms to measure and publicly share the impact of misinformation on their platform and the audience it's reaching. Also with the public, with all of you, to create robust enforcement strategies that bridge their properties and provide transparency about rules. You shouldn't be banned from one platform and not others for providing misinformation out there. Notice what she said there. She said misinformation. Now, we have talked, I don't even know how much on this show,

about who defines what misinformation is. Misinformation would have meant a year ago that the lab leak theory, you should be banned from all social media platforms for promoting that. Many people were in fact banned. Right now, California, which we'll talk about during the Delta variant segment,

putting in mask mandates in violation of CDC guidance. Should they be banned for spreading misinformation? Something tells me that it's not gonna go that way. I think that putting her in that words, she doesn't even include vaccines on there, basically defining it exactly as they want. It shows the end game for a lot of these establishment liberals, and they want to rig these platforms to pretty much go with whatever they want. We've seen the escalating campaign from the White House. Chief of Staff Ron Klain said that he talks to Facebook all the time. And we also, many of you sent it to us as well, that the government, the U.S. government itself is flagging specific posts, sending them to Facebook, requesting their

removal. So once again, the United States government, the White House, the political administration, the elected government, then going in, deciding what constitutes misinformation and not, flagging it to Facebook, and then escalating their rhetoric even further, saying not only should be you removed from Facebook altogether, you should be removed from the Internet, which essentially silences you as a human being in the year 2021. I really don't know what else to say, Crystal. This is as 1984 and Big Brother as it gets. Well, and I really don't want to keep this in a partisan lens because really there is a tribal partisan battle going on about who controls, who can be on the internet, who can say what. We already know the government of Israel has a program with Facebook doing exactly what the administration is threatening to do here, which is they work

directly with Facebook to decide who they think is spreading misinformation or violent threats, et cetera, et cetera. And as you can imagine, oftentimes Palestinian activists are deemed by the Israeli government to be spreading misinformation or making threats and all of that. So just ask yourself, just ask yourself, maybe you love Joe Biden. Maybe you think Jen Psaki is amazing. But are you comfortable with Donald Trump having this kind of power, deciding who can and can't be on the Internet and who can and can't say, you know, whatever about Antifa or Black Lives Matter or any climate change or any issue that's important to you, you're comfortable handing that over to Republicans as well, because we know these sorts of powers, they never get rolled back.

Once one administration claims the ability to police the Internet, the next administration is going to do the same damn thing. This is all part of a major escalation on the part of the Biden administration to fight misinformation. And it comes in Facebook. We'll show you this in a moment. It comes at a time when they're struggling to get more Americans to get vaccinated. The numbers have sort of flatlined. They've missed their own goal that they set. And so I think they're really scrambling to figure out something to do, because the last thing that they want, I do think that this is a real threat to the administration, is if, you know, the numbers

on vaccines flatline and you do have another coronavirus surge and you have localities like L.A. and other places starting to lock down again. This is the, you know, this is the polar opposite of what they portrayed to the American people. We're going to come in. You're going to be able to get back to normal. We're going to be vaccinated. Life is going to return. Well, the vaccine numbers right now pose a real threat to that. So I think they're sort of panicking and scrambling. And that's why you end up with this outrageous proposal of not just are we going to patrol what's on Facebook, but we think we should be able to say whether you can be online on

any of these platforms at all. That is truly, truly stunning. No, absolutely. And you saw Joe Biden. He's escalating the war as well. I was wondering whether this is something that he seems to have greenlit. And this is something he's doing. He called Facebook out specifically. Let's take a listen to what he said on Friday. What's your message to platforms like Facebook? They're killing people. I mean, it really, look, the only pandemic we have is among the

unvaccinated. And they're killing people. You know, Crystal, this is so reductive and it's just so frustrating because, look, as we have said here a million times, we're both fully vaccinated. I encourage you to get vaccinated. If you're not vaccinated, I can completely understand where you're coming from. There's a lot of different resources that maybe we can point you to. All that being said, I think this goes back to a lack of agency brain that these people have. It's very elitist mindset to think that people are so dumb that they're going to just be influenced willy-nilly by whatever they see on their Facebook page. Maybe somebody's been screwed over by the health system time after time after time. Maybe their dad died because of medical misdemeanor, whatever.

And then they're like, you know what? I have a lot of questions. And then people are screaming at them. And instead of trying to address the real problem in our society, which is a trust deficit between the lowest and poorest Americans and those who are at the very top in the government and the media and more, they're just saying, no, we're going to take away all of these things that are on Facebook. That is just simply, A, it's not going to work. B, it's going to make people feel even more persecuted. And look, I don't know how I ended up on the side of Facebook here. Here's what they said. Let's put this up there, which is that Facebook responded being like, look, the fact is more than two billion people have viewed authoritative information, to find out where and how to found the vaccine. And really what they're saying is, hey, White House, don't start pointing fingers at us because your vaccine program isn't going the way that you want.

And you know what? I agree, which is that, look, if the White House really, really wants to get more people vaccinated, They should look at the data. And we're going to talk about this more in the Delta variant segment. It is disproportionately lower middle class Americans who make less than $50,000 a year. They should go and find people who are authoritative voices specifically to anti-establishment people, which is generally the working poor in this country. And you know what? Have us tour sponsor the U.S. government that goes through all throughout the South and the Delta and more and say, hey, this is why you should get vaxxed. And if that doesn't work, you know what? It is a free country. It's on them. At a certain point, we just have to accept that we live in a free society. And some people, if they don't want to get vaxxed, it's OK. And the rest of us who are, so be it. We're good.

Delta variant, even if it infects me, it's going to be a mild cold. I mean, like we don't want to get vaxxed, it's okay. And the rest of us who are, so be it. We're good. Delta variant, even if it infects me, it's going to be a mild cold. I mean, we don't shut down the economy for that. And I think that that's something that we just have to start grappling with. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, any social media or media platform is an accelerant of the existing fragilities,

vulnerabilities, sectarian divisions, everything that exists in American society, it's going to be reflected on these platforms. And is it going to sort of like accelerate those things or blow them up on a larger scale so they're more visible, so they have like more of an impact in American society. Yeah, they are. But part of, I think, why establishment liberals in particular reach for these little band-aids of like, well, let's just ban this person or let's just censor more here or let's just kick this idea out is because they don't want to actually think about how how we got to a place where so many people would be so mistrustful of the government, would be so mistrustful of the media, would be so mistrustful of the Biden administration and the public health officials. Those are more difficult conversations.

And the fact of the matter is, you know, censoring more people on Facebook. This is a bandaid that, frankly, isn't going to work. I mean, I remember before it was Facebook, it was, you know, my dad would get these like weird chain emails about Barack Obama, you know, that, and there's, there's also a conversation to be had about oftentimes it's, it's older Americans who are sort of vulnerable to this media ecosystem and this type of misinformation. So this very reductive conversation about like, is Facebook saving lives or is Facebook killing people? The reality is probably both because good information and bad information is being shared in equal proportions on there. It's a reflection of what our society is. And

if you don't actually get at those underlying root causes of how we got to this place, your little band-aids of your little like authoritarian band-aids that lead us in a very scary direction as a society, they're not going to be effective and they're just going to pull people apart and make people seek out that type of information at an even higher rate. And they're escalating this, Crystal. I just saw today a guy named Aaron Jin, who's a libertarian writer. He said that he wrote in a Google Doc, he was drafting a piece called Evidence Over Hysteria, COVID-19. Google Docs deleted and removed access to his copy of it. Wow. through and censor or remove content that they don't like, which is being used within Google. I mean, think about that. Google Docs, the open access platform. Free is not free in terms of what they're offering. And you're seeing this escalating campaign all throughout the internet ecosystem. And once again, look, I understand why it may seem in the minds of people to be like,

look, we're doing this in the goal of getting people vaccinated. But exactly once you lay the groundwork for censorship at such a mass and level, a high scale with the deliberate interaction with the U.S. government, then you're on the road to hell here. We talked about the SMS things. I mean, the text messages that seems to have flown under the radar. But the DNC and the White House working with SMS carriers, again, the very backbones of, you know, communication in modern society to censor your text messages or to stop, you know, delivery of those texts or deliver texts to you about misinformation. I mean, you can see this, the definition over misinformation would be the great battle then of the 21st century. And do you want to live in a police state in which people jockey for who gets to control the police state instead of living in a free country? I choose the latter, even with the worst benefit, so-called worst benefit, of 100 million people or so who are not going to be vaccinated.

That's on them at a certain point. That's certainly it. There's no substitute in a democracy for actually like trusting the people. Yeah. And if you lose that where you think I got to police this half or I got to police that half, I got to censor this half or I got to censor that half. I mean, it really I don't want to overstate things, but that really is the beginning of the end of being able to live in a democratic society with the understanding that, you know, there are already limits to the amount of democracy that we have in this society already. But you can't go down this path because ultimately, yeah, today it's the Biden administration, but tomorrow it's the Trump administration again,

or it's the Ron DeSantis administration. And you do not want to hand anyone, anyone this kind of power, whether you like them or you hate them, you think they're good, bad, well-intentioned, bad intention. It doesn't matter. You do not want to hand any person or entity this type of power because, you know, in the modern era, being able to communicate on social media platforms, I mean, that really is foundational to speech, right? That really is core to you being able to exercise your First Amendment rights. The reality is that a democratic society, it's always going to be messy.

There are always going to be people saying shit on there that is offensive and bad and wrong and dangerous and all of that. That's part of the price that you have to be willing to accept if you actually believe in democracy. And so I think that's why this is so troubling. Do it. Look, I want to be clear. Like, do I actually think that the White House is going to be able to, like, get every social media platform together and be able to say, like, we're going to pick and choose who's on all of these platforms. No, I don't think that they're going to be able to pull that off. Facebook is pushing back very, very strongly here.

And I mean, they're disingenuous in their own ways as well, obviously. But the train of thought in the direction that a lot of liberals are going in. And honestly, I think conservatives are the same way. They just, they frame their desire to police the internet as free speech because they're much like smarter politically and tactically. But this is really just all about a battle for control. I think it's mostly about power. Yeah, it's all a battle for control and for power. And they have roughly the same sort of like desire to be able to

police and sanction and censor and have their own good information out there. That direction is very dangerous, is very troubling. And the more steps that you take in that direction, you know, the less that you ultimately have a free society. No, I completely agree with you. And the last thing I'll say is for years they told us, well, look, just because you're removed from Facebook doesn't mean that your freedom of speech is curtailed. You can still go on Gab, WhatsApp, Twitter, you know, whatever, podcasts. Then they

were like, well, you know, just because you're removed from two out of the three, you're still on the third one. Then, oh, well, you still have an email. So you're not that. This is full blown. This is if you violate what we consider misinformation or not, you're done. And I think that is about as analogous to an encroachment on freedom of speech as we get. And it is being couched in terms of a public health campaign. But if you think they're going to give these powers up, or that this won't set one of the most troubling precedents yet by the United States government, then I really don't know what to tell you.

And I'm not so sure, Crystal. Facebook may push back, but I think they're probably still going to remove two thirds out of the three that the White House might point to them. And if that's a 66 percent hit rate for the U.S. government, that's still really bad. I don't know what else to say. Yeah, no, don't, don't, like, for sure. I'm not trying to sugarcoat it here. The piece that I don't think they're going to be able to pull off in the near term is being able to give the complete internet death penalty across all platforms in the near future. So I don't want to scare monger about that. But you're right for now, because today it's OK. We've got this influence with Facebook. And as I said, this

isn't unprecedented. Facebook already works directly with the Israeli government and perhaps others out there that we don't know about. So not unprecedented that they're already taking into account who the government wants to censor, that's as dystopian as it gets. Yeah. And look, it's summer. Like this is when cases are supposed to be at their lows, like in November, December, when it gets cold and people go back inside and there's more indoor transmission, the numbers are going to go up. And if you don't think that the White House isn't going to go full bore because it's a political problem for them. This is a big problem for them. This is a huge problem for them. They are going to use everything in their arsenal, especially at that time, in order to drive and put the screws even more to the social media

companies. And seeing where we are right now, I think most of those people are going to buckle. I think it's just a terrible thing. I have something very satisfying to show you all. This is good stuff. Okay, so Michael Wolff, he's a journalist. Gadfly. Gadfly is the better way to describe him. Yeah, I say journalist with the quotes, air quotes. He's written two books now about the Trump administration. The first one I know he relied very heavily on Steve Bannon, who obviously has his own agenda. Some of the information that he put into the book may have, in fact, been misinformation. There are some doubts about, you know, the credibility.

So I'm not trying to, like, lionize Michael Wolff here. However, he went on CNN's Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter in order to sell his latest Trump book. And he really had some things to share with Brian about what he thought of his journalism and the network writ large. Let's take a listen to that. I think the media has done a terrible job on this. I think you yourself, you know, you're a nice guy. You know, you're full of sanctimony. You know, you become part of one of the parts of the problem of the media.

You know, you come on here and you and you have a, you know, a monopoly on truth. You know, you know exactly how things are supposed to be done. You know, you are why one of the reasons people can't stand the media. Sorry. You're cracking me up. It's your fault. So what should I do differently, Michael? You know, don't talk so much. Listen more. You know, people have genuine problems with the media. The media doesn't get the story right. The media exists in its own bubble.

That's true. I agree. You know, you've got to stop. I mean, that last segment that I just had to listen to of all of the people saying the same old stuff. Also, you're incredibly repetitive. It's week after week. I mean, you're the flip side

of Donald Trump. You know, fake news and you say virtuous news. You know, there's a problem here. I'm listening. Amazing. He goes on, Brian's like,

so why are you here then? And he's like, I gotta sell books. I'm a book salesman. And then at the end, Brian's like, thanks for coming. It was great talking to you. Let's do it again. It's like, what? Oh, man. Yeah.

I mean, the whole thing is incredible. For him to tell Brian Stelter to his face, like, you're sanctimonious, number one. True. Number two, you and your network are part of the problem. Number three, you're repetitive. It's the same crap every single segment. True. Same people saying the same thing over and over again. You are the reason why people hate the media so much.

Again, not trying to lionize Michael Wolff here because there's issues there as well, but pretty incredible to see Brian and Stelzer doesn't know what to do. He's never even heard it before. I think that's the crazy thing is that he never seems to have addressed this critique. He has no idea how to deal with that. Yeah. And, I mean, it really was pretty wild to see. And it did make me think about, remember after Trump was first elected in 2016 and there was this conversation happening within the media of like, oh, shit, did we give this guy too much airtime? Because they did from the very beginning because he rated, you know. so even before he was really particularly serious as a candidate, they're

giving him all this airtime because it was great for them, great for their bottom line. And it continued to be. I mean, there's this famous, you know, moment where Hillary Clinton is giving some kind of a speech and instead they choose to have Donald Trump's empty podium on the screen instead of the speech that she's giving, because that was good for their business in their bottom line. Jeff Zucker admitted as much as did other television executives. And so this is one thing that Matt Taibbi said. He's rather than like have any sort of corrective of maybe there are other things that we're like, we don't have to do every single segment on donald trump they went from 10 000 hours of donald trump to 10 000 hours of donald trump is

bad yep right and that was the correct and so now i and you tell me if if you've uh noted this as well um the ratings for all of these networks are total you, dumpster fire, train wreck, whatever you want to say about them. And so they seem to be now going back to, there was a little lull in like their Trump coverage. It seems like now they're amping back up their Trump coverage and going back to that model because whatever else they were doing wasn't working. So they're going back to the well to try to gin up like Trump outrage again, even though, you know, the guy's not president. I completely agree. And I see it. So in the limited interactions I have with cable, which is like passing by it for some reason, it's on at a diner.

Yeah. What I have noticed is that, yeah, they tried to return to 2013, 2014 coverage of Biden, of a few other things. But now they are all in back on Trump. Is he going to run again? What does his latest statement say? This whole thing about if I would have had a coup, then this is how I would have done it. Generals were terrified in December of, you know, six months ago, even though nothing's happening right now. And then now what are they doing also? I'm seeing the exact same thing.

Fear-mongering over the Delta variant, which we will get to. But they're trying to create, recreate the COVID magic. COVID and Trump at the same time, plus Black Lives Matter and the January 6th Capitol riot, they were the greatest thing

that ever happened to these people. It was live, because think about it. You got to think about what these people are really good at. Live pictures, breaking news, bringing in varieties of experts, trying to have, you know, that's the organ of mass media. That's kind of what it was built for. And fake tribal outrage.

Fake tribal outrage is the byproduct, though, because they have to fill in all that air time in between and also get people ginned up for every once in a while when they have a useful segment. So this is what's happened, is that now they're trying to recreate all of that with the Delta variant and talking about Trump absolutely 24-7. So I think it, you know, it's like you said, there's no heroes in the Michael Wolff, Brian Stelter story, but Michael Wolff is right, which is that, I mean, Brian Stelter, we covered this. He got higher ratings on his show when he was on vacation. Like that guy is literally, I mean, I've seen him referred to as the media's janitor,

which is that any time the Washington Post or whatever screws up, it's all like, well, here's why it's really Trump's fault. Or here's why you still should trust the media. An accurate self-reflection of 2016, which actually did occur in some places. Yeah. And I really did appreciate there were very few and far between people being like, hey, I missed it. I screwed up. You know what? The entire country's been changing over the last eight years. We focused too much on Obama and all these false promises. We tried to build Hillary up into something that anybody with a brain could have seen that she was one of the worst political candidates of all time. And we should just admit we completely screwed the pooch. There was a brief period. But then what happened? Hillary and many of these other people started

blaming fake news on Facebook. And this is why it all, I think, comes full circle, which is that I think Biden and many of these establishment liberals, they believe in their bones that Trump was elected in 2016 because of fake news and misinformation on Facebook. They can't accept for a moment that millions of people lost their faith in the Democratic Party or even the media or even in all of our institutions of higher life. And they just want to say, screw you. They want to hold up a middle finger to you specifically, Brian Stelter, to you, President Joe Biden, to you, Jen Psaki. But it's much more convenient to be like, oh, their brains are rotted by Facebook. Many of them are. But I wouldn't blame Facebook, though, necessarily.

And I think that when you see full circle around what they want to blame and what they don't, then you see how they choose to use the levers of power. Let's just think about CNN. Like, how can you go out there with a straight face and be like, we're, as Michael will put it, virtuous news, we're accurate and unbiased and just calling balls and strikes here. And then you see what Andrew Cuomo and Chris Cuomo are doing. Like, give me a break. Come on. I mean, we saw how they were happy to prop up

one political candidate who was a useful foil to Trump and completely ignore any conflicts of interest with his brother, who's a primetime host, who was literally advising him, giving him campaign strategy, political advice at the time, and getting VIP treatment in terms of his own coronavirus testing. And the network's just like, little slap on the wrist and continue forward. Like, just as one little example of why maybe people don't have so much trust in the media. That's it right there. And I mean, the irony with Michael Wolff is like, this is the other part that's really funny.

Is part of what's given the media justification to really reinsert Trump into the middle of everything is that there are a couple of these new books, Trump books that have come out. It's about the right timing post administration. People have had time to get their, you know, their books out and on the shelves, et cetera, et cetera. Wolf's being one of them. And the funny thing is like, you know, this guy's fairly discredited in terms of being an accurate source of information. But because he

gives them these salacious little tidbits from in the administration, a lot of these outlets report it as if it's fact, even though they know what you and I know that, you know, a lot of this, some of it is true. I'm sure some of it is sort of true. Some of it is just completely fabricated and given to him by someone who has their own agenda to push. They know all of that, but they can't resist it. And so it's really ironic that he would be the one telling them the truth about who they are and what they're actually doing and how they are the problem in terms of the media because he's playing into that dynamic very cleverly and feeding them exactly the type of juicy tidbits about Trump and about the Trump administration that they themselves want to consume. So it's like a full-service economy here between the two of them.

You are 100% completely right. And, you know, it's just funny, just speaking to their future, let's put this up there, which is that MSNBC's Casey Hunt, the former host of the early morning program at like 5 a.m., has now been hired by CNN to the tune of reportedly between a million and 1.5 million dollars in order to beef up their push into streaming. To which I say, Casey, CNN, welcome to the game. You may discover here in the internet world of actual people, especially younger people, not boomers who you can scare, that a lot of the people here don't want to hear anything you have to say. And in many of the ways that you guys know how to report the news and all that, yeah, good luck. That's all

I have to say. We shouldn't be too mean, but it is funny. You pair it with MSNBC's Nicole Wallace, them being like, yeah, we're going to do extra streaming on Peacock. Look, people, people only subscribe to Peacock for one reason, because the office is on it. That's it. If they didn't have that, they'd be totally screwed and it's funny like nobody wants to watch b-rate like whatever doesn't make it to air on msnbc yeah which is already extremely low lowly rated during the day they're gonna put that on a streaming so why would you want to watch that same with that with morning joe oh extra morning joe content that's what the people cry out for on their streaming networks it It's a total joke.

And it just shows that they are not even close to equipped for battle in the actual new media age. Cable news is not like a competitive ecosystem. People have it on in the background. You know, it's like the default on their channel. It's on at the airport. It's on in the restaurant in the background. And so you've, your numbers and having worked in cable news, I can tell you this, like your numbers and your ratings are very much dependent on like whoever was watching before you showed up. So it's a very different dynamic because people are not in most cases. There are a few exceptions. I would say Rachel Maddow,

Tucker, probably being the two primary ones. There are a few exceptions where people are appointment viewing. I'm showing up for this person at this time. Most of it is just by default. And if you take away that default audience, there is literally no audience. So the idea that and again, this is not to be like mean to Casey Hunt in particular, who I knew at MSNBC and was always very nice and lovely to me. But the idea that there's anyone who's going to affirmatively seek out Casey Hunt and what she has to say about politics. Not just her. Especially any of these people. It's funny. I mean, it's just hilarious.

It's actually funny. people is it's funny i mean it's just hilarious it's like and it also there's a larger conversation about the people the executives who make this choice and think that these millions of dollars on nicole wallace or on casey hunt in a big streaming bet to appeal to young americans thinking that this is a good use of resources like it also really really undercuts the whole idea of the meritocracy that these are our best and brightest who are these executives running these companies, because it's a hilarious idea. And on YouTube and in streaming and where you have to have an audience that actually shows up for you, very few of these people would ultimately succeed. Their success is dependent on, like, the default sensibility of the network, the people who have this on in the background all day, every day. And you could swap out this anchor, that anchor, this pundit, that pundit.

And it really ultimately doesn't matter all that much or make that much of a difference. With, again, with a very, very few limited exceptions. It also does remind me, and this does circle back to like the Brian Seltzer, Michael Wolff thing, is Trump really saved these networks. Oh, wow.

They were dying. Cord cutting, like their content was boring. It was repetitive. People were tuning out, especially young people who have continued to tune out, by the way.

But because they got this giant bump from basically boomers, resistance boomers on one side and like Trump boomers on the other side, it really it gave them this new life. It gave them this renaissance. And I think they started to believe their own hype that this was actually something they created, something that they did right. And that's how you can end up with these very, we'll just say, perplexing programming choices. Good luck.

That's all we have to say. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was? Well, here we are again to remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen to our constant pleas for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to BreakingPoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. All right, we got another interesting piece here for you about lab leak and how the consensus has moved incredibly dramatically. It's another CNN tear. Oh, yeah. Let's throw this up there on the screen. So apparently, according to CNN, so take it with a grain of salt, senior Biden officials are finding the COVID lab leak theory is just as credible as the natural origins explanation.

And of course, why is this notable? crazy, racist, xenophobic, etc., to even posit that it was possible that the lab leak theory could be true or say, hey, you know, maybe we should look into that. Maybe this is a path that it's worth exploration. And the reality is, like, we still don't know whether it's natural origin or lab leak. We might have had a better chance of actually finding that out if there had been an aggressive push from the media from the jump, looking just at the facts and the science and what we knew and what we didn't know and pushing the Chinese government for more information and all of that from the beginning. But we are where we are. But it's just remarkable turnabout that now even the Biden administration is saying it's kind of a 50-50 chance either way. They part of the report here says current intelligence reinforces the belief that the virus most likely originated naturally from animal human contact and was not deliberately engineered.

But that does not preclude the possibility the virus was the result of an accidental leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology where coronavirus was being conducted on bats. Although many scientists familiar with the research say such a leak is unlikely. So they're still putting a lot of caveats in there. But basically, the bottom line is now they really feel like it's 50-50. It could go either way. Yeah, they do. And there's a lot also in here, which is that on Thursday, which the director general of the WHO, Tedros, I can't say his last name. We all remember him from the early months when he was spouting China's lies, he now says it was, quote, premature to dismiss the possibility of the lab leak. So even the guy bought by China says that it was premature.

That's where things stand. But don't worry, our fearless Dr. Fauci is still out there defending the natural origin theory. Let's take a listen to what he said, I think just yesterday. CNN has learned that some senior Biden officials think that the lab leak theory, which has been talked about for a while now, is at least as credible as the natural origins explanation. Has your thinking on this changed at all? Does that align with your thinking on this? I keep an open mind and say that we should consider all possibilities until we definitively prove one. qualified vaccinologists, including, and virologists, I mean, including a recent paper by 21 internationally renowned virologists and evolutionary biologists from all over the world

indicate that although we keep an open mind that it is possible that it could be, as they say, a lab leak, that the most likely explanation is a natural evolution from an animal reservoir to a human. Now, look, he's actually lying there. He hasn't kept an open mind, which is that in almost a year, more than a year ago, May of 2020, National Geographic explicitly told them, quote, no scientific evidence that coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab. Absolutely unequivocal terms. Fauci emails, many of you already know the story. He was aware in January that the virus was, quote, not consistent with evolutionary theory. All of this comes down to that if you want to look at the facts, the facts are that the lab leak theory both is, you know, just as possible as the natural origin theory, and frankly, has a hell of a lot more circumstantial

evidence. Is it true one way or the other? I have no idea, and neither does anybody else. But we should probably still investigate. And yet, Fauci has a lot to lose, which is that the lab leak theory, if it's true, it specifically indicts him. He's the one who went around existing U.S. policy, greenlit dollars to the EcoHealth Alliance, who gave it to the Wuhan lab. And the more we learn about this lab from Sky News Australia and more about how they were, A, they had monkeys in the lab, even though they lied about not having monkeys in the lab. They were apparently begging for help in terms of developing safety procedures. They had admitted on the record that they had no experience in BSL-4 laboratories, which is the highest level of security. This is a total mess that we were 100 percent complicit in funding. And the person who greenlit that funding is Dr.

Fauci. And so I think the worst fear, though, is coming true, Crystal. It's July. It's been months now that the lab leak theory was even considered fine to discuss out in the open. Joe Biden gave the administration 90 days. I think it's a delay tactic. Even if they do conclude it's going to be one way or the other, and they're not going to do anything about it, which is that, look, the WHO, they can't do anything. They're bought and paid for by the Chinese. Only the United States, given the fact that we literally fund this lab, will have to pretty much put some measures, sanctions, whatever, I don't know, on China in order to try and force some sort of cooperation. Will that actually happen? Probably not. But the

White House is cowering, and I think in fear, and not actually doing anything real by leaking this stuff anonymously and by not doing any real enforcement against the Chinese government or even Dr. Fauci. I mean, if Fauci greenlit those funds and covered it up, he should be fired. It's obvious to anybody who's involved. To me, the big thing is, you know, are we going to continue to push forward with data function research and funding this in large dollar amounts and not asking any questions about whether this is really safe or not or whether this is going to be, you know, we're like funding the next pandemic. We always say on this, whether it's the military industrial complex, whether it's, you know, cable news, like whoever you're listening to, you have to consider what their interests

are involved. And even if they're not like nefarious actors trying to lie directly to you, people are very easily influenced and very easily swayed by whatever their personal or career or monetary interests happen to be. We have a situation with this research and with this pandemic that if the COVID lab leak theory turns out to be true, it means that the scientific community themselves created this pandemic. There are a lot of people who do not want that to be true. Yes. And even if they aren't like directly like with knowledge intentionally lying to you, they have a mental incentive to try to find the evidence that supports the idea that this

wasn't our fault. We didn't help fund this research. We didn't push this research. This wasn't part of the purview of what we were doing. So it's just really, really important, whether you're a journalist or a consumer of journalism, trying to understand and sort fact from fiction, you have to keep in the back of your mind, what are people's incentives? What are the implications if this theory turns out to be true? And for Dr. Fauci in particular, not only is it like a broad indictment of science created the pandemic, but it's also an indictment of some of the exact type of research that he was involved in helping to fund. So it's a direct and also it's an indictment of some of the exact type of research that he was involved in helping to fund.

So it's a direct and also it's an indictment at this point of some of the early statements that he made that were very, very dismissive of the lab leak theory. I also thought this was interesting going back to the CNN article, the way that they framed the, you know, hesitation or the like ban, outright ban on talking about the lab leak theory. The way they phrased it was, for the better part of 2020, advocates for the lab leak theory had to fight against claims they were being xenophobic or racist, in part thanks to anti-Chinese rhetoric from then President Trump, who embraced the theory. Now, that is true. Part of what made this very difficult to talk about in a straightforward, non-political, hot topic type of a way was Trump and his irresponsible rhetoric. And he always takes these things and he goes way too far with them and sort of insinuates that this may have been an intentional bioweapon. None of that is true. But it completely lets them off the hook

for just like, you know, turning their brains off and being like, well, Trump is saying this, X, so Y must be true. Like, that's an indictment of you. You're supposed to be trained to look past those sorts of things and be able to just get at what's possible, what's not possible,

what's in the realm of likelihood, what's not, what should we be able to just get at what's possible, what's not possible, what's in the realm of likelihood, what's not, what should we be able to discuss and not. And so none of that self-reflection is there. It's still all excuse-making about, well, it was understandable that we called you racist when you said, maybe we should look into this lab leak theory thing. No, what they're giving away the whole game. They're basically being like, Drumpf was bad, so we didn't believe it.

I'm like, okay, so you didn't like the president, so you just decided to let go of all your standards and not do your job? That's not an excuse. It's very revealing. It is extraordinarily revealing, I think, on this entire story. And look, we'll continue to keep you guys updated. Like we said, they're halfway through the 90-day intelligence review. My personal thinking is that nothing of consequence is going to come through. Because by the way, if it did turn out to be 100% true and the

intelligence community had the intel all the way back a year ago, where's it been, folks? A lot of people have too much to lose if this thing does turn out to be true. Now, they're going to try and bury it and we shouldn't let them and we're going to continue to stay on top of that. There you go. Okay, so we also want to cover, and we've been insinuating and talking a lot about this, the Delta variant. Building up to this segment quite a bit. Building up. I have a lot of thoughts on the Delta variant.

So cases are going up across the United States. There's been a modest increase in California. There's been a big debate. This is what the whole deplatforming discussion is around as well. We have what the CDC director calls a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Well, in order to deal with this, this Los Angeles County, let's put this up there on the screen, they say, quote, haunted by past virus surges, California will lean on masks and vaccines. Los Angeles County has decided to bring back an indoor mask mandate. And I have a lot of feelings about this, Crystal, because what they say is that that mask mandate, according to the CDC, is in violation of CDC guidance. CDC says fully vaccinated people do not have to wear masks indoors. And by the way,

at this point, I generally feel that if you're not vaccinated, it's a choice. It's a it's a choice that you've explicitly made. That's fine. It's your right as an American citizen to do what you would like. But you're putting your health in danger. Or maybe you're cool with that. Maybe you're like, I'm young. I'm not going to suffer. I'm more afraid of the vaccine.

I don't want to have to take off today. All right. I get it. I 100 percent understand that. But you know what? That doesn't mean that people who were vaccinated should have to go back to living with restrictions. And I see this very much as an effort to not only bring back mask mandates, but eventually, as we were talking about, we have winter. They're going to try and do lockdowns again. And I think that's outrageous. Here's the deal, which is that asking people to wear face masks and then bring around lockdowns because we have a pandemic of the unvaccinated is asking people who are vaccinated to have more regard for the health of people who are unvaccinated than they do themselves. And sorry, I mean, at this point, and I don't want to sound too callous, if you couldn't get vaccinated because you can't take the time off work, or that is outrageous. We should be doing everything in our power in order to make sure that's okay. If you want it, you can get it.

At this point, they're basically throwing them away, trying to find everybody out there who will take it. People have had plenty of opportunity, and it's a free country. Many people decided that they don't want it and will take the risk. It's okay. Fine. And I'm not even denigrating that decision. I'm saying you can live with the consequences of that. But what's happened is that this panic is obscuring a lot and being used to bring back mask mandates in violation of CDC guidance, possibly previewing future lockdowns.

It's also being framed very much as a right-wing thing. So Matt Stoller actually put this graph, let's put this up there. I found it absolutely great because it breaks all of the conventional narrative, which is that if you can see there in the graph here in terms of all 40 states is that black Americans are actually the lowest disproportionate number in order to be vaccinated, along with Hispanic Americans, then white Americans, then Asian Americans. So what we have there is that the least vaccinated group of black Americans is the most Democratic-leaning. And there's a big push right now online being like Fox News is lying to its viewers. Now, look,

have there been some pretty irresponsible segments on Fox News? Yes, in my opinion. But there are 3 million. There's 3 million people who watch that show or who watch that program at the best of days. There are 100 million people who haven't been vaccinated. You think they're all just watching Fox News? No. A lot of people, 100 million, about approximately, have zero trust in our institutions. And that's a way bigger question that we have to solve here. Yeah, there's actually a lot to say about this. And of course, that chart also tracks closely with income levels. So, you know, the lower you are on the income scale, the less likely you are to have been vaccinated. So basically, there is a direct correlation to how badly you've been fucked by both the medical establishment and American society writ large

and whether or not you're getting vaccinated. I mean, that's the real sort of like correlation that you can draw from, you know, however you want to look at the demographic groups. On L.A. specifically, you know, I think that probably most people in L.A. aren't that upset about a mask mandate. It's not lockdowns. It's not closing schools. It's ultimately, you know, not the end of the world. So it's hard for me to get really upset about something that's happening in a place where other people probably more or less are cool with it.

Maybe. I don't know. However, I think your point about where are we headed with this is the right one. We covered over the weekend, a segment that posted over the weekend, how overdose deaths skyrocketed during the year of the pennant, worst that we've ever had in history. 30% increase. All of the gains that had been made over, you know, year over year, completely erased almost every state in the nation. There were more overdose deaths. It's a direct consequence of the lockdowns. We've talked, too, about the loss of a year of school, essentially, for children. And, you know, it was understandable at the beginning when we didn't have research. And of course, like, I'm a mom of three. The very number

one priority over everything for me is protecting my kids. It was very understandable early on that those truly extreme measures were taken. However, there was never a reassessment of, you know, we've got the numbers in now and we see that this isn't really harming children. So maybe we should make other choices, right? So there was, there hasn't been, again, I think at the beginning it was understandable because we didn't understand, we didn't know that much about the disease. And we thought that the death rate might be much higher than it ended up being, even though it was still, I don't want to downplay it. Like this was horrific. And, you know, hundreds of thousands of Americans said like, this was terrible. And so I don't want to downplay it whatsoever.

But we never did a reassessment of what are the real risk factors? What are the real preventative measures? And what are the costs? So now we're going into another season where the numbers are going up. I mean, there's no doubt about it. Caseload is increasing. Hospitalizations are increasing. Deaths will inevitably increase as well.

So there's no doubt that the numbers are increasing. The media has an incentive to scare you as much as possible, right? That's always their incentive because good money that drives ratings. And so what are we going to do with that information when this time around the deaths and the hospitalizations are truly avoidable? Right. Just get vaccinated and you won't be hospitalized and you won't die. I think that looking at the numbers, I mean, almost none of the hospitalizations and I think literally none of the deaths have been among people who are vaccinated. It's like 99%, I think.

And the people who were fully vaccinated who died, I believe most of them were extremely, like they're very high on the elderly spectrum and they were already immunocompromised. Very, very vulnerable. It's like 750, I think. Very, very vulnerable people. So what do you do with that situation where this time around, like, it's actually, it's preventable. We have the thing. You can go do the thing.

So if you're not doing that, even as I have a lot of compassion for people who have been screwed over and mistrustful, and they may have good reasons for saying, I don't believe a word that you're saying. But ultimately, they are making a choice and taking a risk with their own health. So what I don't want to see is that we, again, impose these very extreme costs and measures that came with unemployment and depression and suicide and overdose rates and violence, all of that stuff, without actually accurately assessing the cost and doing what we can in a non-hectoring and condescending way to help people get vaccinated. That's one of the really obvious things that, again, James Medlock and others have been pointing out that we could do is to get people paid time off so that they can go get the

vaccine, not have to worry about missing work, and also not have to worry about if they do have symptoms afterwards, having to miss work for that. That's a real issue for a lot of people. We know from the statistics, you said like 100 million people who still haven't gotten vaccinated. We know there's a good percentage of them who actually want to get vaccinated and are, you know, willing to do it. What are the reasons? What are the things that are holding them back? Where's the conversation about that? And I don't think that's like Facebook misinformation.

I think for a lot of people, it's probably just literally a logistical hurdle where they can't figure out how to fit it into their lives. And so let's do some of those things before we go back into lockdown mode again and impose these incredible costs on the entire population. I completely agree with you. And I didn't want to sound too callous earlier. I put it in the context of this, which is that we should not be locking down again.

We should not be making mask mandates again. And we should have that side by side with a great campaign to convince. So I'm reading Michael Brandon Daugherty, a national review. He wrote a great piece. We'll have him on tomorrow. We'll talk even more about this, which is that if you want to convince people who are vaccinated to get vaccinated, you can't disrespect them. And in many ways, they feel dramatically disrespected. What they feel is that being told that they have to get vaccinated is on par with forcing them to do something that they don't want to do for a disease, which is frankly not that deadly to them. And look, in a way, they're not wrong. And if that's the choice that you make based upon the data,

looking at the survival rate, looking at your own personal health, choosing to focus on a thing, like I said, so be it. You are generally leaving yourself more vulnerable to variants and stuff in the future. But let's be honest, you're probably not going to get die if you're like 30 something years old. That's especially if you're within good health. There are, you know, obviously externalities around people who can't get vaccinated, the elderly, all of that. But a lot of these people have taken that into consideration as well. And in general, what Michael talks about is that when vaccine skeptics feel totally disrespected by their institutions, as they have been in every area of life, whenever they apply for a public benefit, whenever they lose their job and they feel shame, whenever they have a belief which they see belittled in Washington and in the media, whenever they maybe voted for Trump and then they don't want to tell anyone, or they just feel like as if that is something which has been anathemized by

the respectable population that they feel, you know what, screw you, I'm not going to do what you're telling me. I 100% understand that. And as I have said here, which is that the best way to do that is to find people who have credibility within those groups and ask them to go out. I saw someone being like, Mitch McConnell says Republicans should get vaccinated. Why aren't Republicans listening? I'm like, uh, do you know? You know, Mitch ain't that popular with the Republican base. You're an idiot. Probably the only person.

I mean, look, even Trump at this point has told people to go get vaccinated. He's like, it's a great shot. I created the shot. Warp speed, I should get my credit. All of that. A lot of people still aren't listening. This shows that it's even deeper than Trump.

As we pointed out, black Americans are the most likely not to be vaccinated. Why? A lot of them have been screwed over by the health system. A lot of them have very negative interactions with public health bureaucracy. A lot of them just simply don't trust it. Okay, then let's find people within the black community or the Hispanic community, which is also disproportionately likely not to be vaccinated, and let's get some campaigns going. But instead, they want to rig Facebook or they want to force us all to wear masks. As I see it, going back to lockdowns and to masks would actually be an admission that vaccination doesn't work. And it's just simply not the case. If you are vaccinated, I think it's like 99.6% or something of Delta variant deaths are people who are not vaccinated. Okay. I mean, look, like I said, at a certain point,

even with the Delta variant going around, if you're vaccinated, it'll be something analogous to a mild cold, which is very likely given the fact that we now have 40% of the population. We have to accept it at this point as a part of everyday life, especially now that we have the I think the vast majority, 71 percent, I think, of the elderly who are vaccinated and especially those that, you know, of the gerontocracy like 70 and 80 and more who are also those are the people who are going to most likely die of covid anyway. Now we've taken them out of the risk pool. It changes the calculus on how we have to approach this entire thing. He had a line in here that was really interesting to me. He says, for some people who are choosing not to get the vaccine, excessive fear of COVID is the primary cause of public health restrictions. And their refusal to take the vaccine is in some small way an attempt to model a life unruled by this fear. Now, is that the choice I made? No, that's not the choice that I made.

Do I think that there's been a very intentional effort to inflate these very rare instances where vaccines have had negative effects? Absolutely. As a way to sort of like after the fact justify the decision not to get the vaccine. But I actually think that line most accurately captures for a lot of conservatives in particular, the root, like the core of why they're so resistant to the vaccine. And for some group, they, you know, are making this risk calculation and whether you think that they're accurately assessing the risks or not, you know, that's on them. And so the idea that you're going to impose these great costs on the rest of the population that made a different choice, you know, that did choose to get the vaccines that are now easily and widely available, it just doesn't ultimately

make sense. No, it doesn't. And like, yeah, look, we can, should and could have large real efforts for the, by the white house and by the public health establishment to actually reach out to the people who don't trust them. But instead they want to, you know, take people off Facebook and we're just only going to keep people even more, you know, people who go, I saw that thing, uh, by the way, and I follow a lot of people, um, who are people who are very, you know, who are anti-vax or at least anti-COVID vax. And that thing Biden said about or the White House said about going to door to door, it freaked a lot of people out. People were like, hell no. And now they're talking, you know, the door to door thing.

This is a big thing on the right. Do not underestimate the power of what people will feel like under threat of persecution. Think about yourself whenever you're in an argument and somebody's really coming at you. What do you want to do? You want to dig in. You don't want to give anything. You have to talk to people with compassion. And at the same time, we also just have to recognize that for most people, this is just no longer really an issue. This is something where, yes, you'll get a little sick, and that's about it. And that's, by the way, that was the best part of getting vaccinated in the first place. It's not that you won't get COVID.

It's that the severity of COVID for yourself and really for everybody else who is, is going to go way, way, way down. So I have a prediction. I actually don't think that we're going to see, I don't think we're going to see a big effort from the Biden administration to impose lockdowns again, because I do think that it is they understand this is very politically dangerous. State and local, right? State and local. You'll see, you know, places, places like probably a lot of cities where, frankly, the risk is higher. And a city like L.A. has large minority population. I don't know what their numbers are in terms of vaccination, but I bet they have a sizable chunk of their population that is unvaccinated. I think you're going to see it more in these kind of one off actions versus it really could be terminal to the Biden administration if there isn't this sense of the entire promise of his presidency was a return to normal. I mean, that's really the only thing that he campaigned on and really promised. And so if we're still living in lockdowns, if we're still living in these like

aggressive pandemic era restrictions, that is a true, you know, failure in terms of his most basic promise that he offered. And I think that they my guess, because they have been politically savvy in certain instances, is that they see that as a real threat. That's part of why they're freaking out about Facebook and trying to make that the like nexus of why there's hesitancy so that they can blame it on Facebook, misinformation, Fox News, conservatives, right wing, whatever, versus having any like accountability themselves. So I think that's what their push is going to be. I think you're totally right. All right. What do we have next?

This is an interesting story about Caitlyn Jenner. So as you know, she has been running for governor, allegedly. I mean, she is running a campaign. But there are new signs now that it really is all about the sort of like show versus an honest to God effort to become governor of California. Something that she has very, very, very little likelihood of actually pulling off. We can throw this tear sheet up on the screen so she's going to australia for potentially a month um to film what is this like uh some re what is the reality show big brother uh big brother vip big brother vip now she says of course well this is i'm just honoring honoring a work commitment. What serious candidate takes a month off the trail to go to Australia in order to film a reality show? And then you couple that saga with the fact that it's now been reported, we can put this tweet up on the screen,

she's paying for her own film crew to follow her around and record her run for governor. According to Ken Vogel and Politico had this reporting. We have this tweet. Oh, we don't have this tweet. Anyway, trust me, she's paid for a film crew that's following her around to record her run for governor. So it's become pretty clear this is just about creating a new show and some new content and branding for Caitlyn Jenner and not much else.

I said it at the beginning, call me governor. Look, a lot of people may watch it. It's very likely. I do think this does expose this for what it is. And it's funny because she was beginning to get some traction, not amongst actual voters, but amongst conservative activists

and commentators, very serious people. I thought Tomi Lahren was very excited about her. I didn't want to shout her out, but Tomi Lahren is apparently, you know, very call me Caitlyn. And yeah, that's really, it's been fun to watch this ridiculous candidacy kind of form. And I did that whole monologue about Caitlyn Jenner being like, look, this person is just a boomer Republican. If you look beneath the surface, she's like, we need low taxes. It's stuff which would put Mitt Romney's agenda in 2012 to shame, which I think is kind of funny. Remember when she was talking about how the guy with the airplane hanger

next to her was moving out of California? Very relatable stuff. Good job. Very relatable stuff. And, yeah, at the end of the day she's not the celebrity that we need there's kind of a uh there's like a meta conversation to be had here though about how much all of politics is just reality show and like for the content the content for the content's sake at this point um and it's all you know know, kayfabe, something again, Taibbi talks about here. It's all just like

pro wrestling. And none of it is actually, you know, I shouldn't say none of it, but very little of it is actually like genuine, authentic attempts to be public servants and do good things for the people. It's all about brand enhancement and public like profiles and being able to use that to have clout and potentially have, you know, some sort of, like, monetary opportunities after you finish your public service or run for office. It's a searing indictment of the current political system. Yeah, she's just, like, taking it one step further.

Yeah, yeah, she's taking it to this logical conclusion. Yeah, Trump took it one step, you know. He was, like, came from the reality show world and business, and he's got this whole branding and whatever, and then sort of accidentally actually becomes president and has to do the real job, which he failed miserably at. And now this is like, she's not even going to succeed. It's literally just about creating a reality show. Yeah, no, it's really hilarious.

And apparently, so Australia, given their tight COVID restrictions because she has to quarantine for two weeks and all of that, it's unclear. They're having a problem with COVID, right? They are. And it's unclear in Australia, given all of that,

whether she's even going to be able to make it back by the time of the September 14th actual recall election. Ridiculous. Yeah, it was all a show from the entire, from the get-go. What a shocker. Wow. You guys must really like listening to our voices. While I know this is annoying, instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial,

when you're done, check out the other podcast I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American society. You always need more Crystal and Saga in your daily lives. Take care, guys. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, as I predicted, the segment that Crystal and I did on inflation last week, it ignited a firestorm of controversy. And I thought it would be worth looking a bit deeper at the issue. Why I took the positions that I did, why I think parsing through our thoughts on the topic is really

important for the future of working class people in America today. Now, the crux of the segment was this. Inflation is technically up at around 5.6%. But if you look within the consumer price index bundle, or really just in the grocery store, the things that are driving the technical inflation don't have much to do with monetary policy. Used cars are literally a third of the entire increase. Why? Because we have a massive shortage of new cars due to a semiconductor shortage. Gas is up 45% because OPEC cut production around COVID and hadn't increased their production until a few days ago. Laundry machines and furniture are skyrocketing because we have a huge supply problem coming from China. Hotels, airfare, car rentals, and more are skyrocketing because we have a huge supply problem coming from China.

Hotels, airfare, car rentals, and more are up because we were all locked inside for a year and a lot of people want to travel. In other words, the problems we have with increasing prices is a problem of supply, not because of government spending or the Federal Reserve. That being said, if I regret anything from the tenor of the segment, it's that people might take away that I am saying I don't think inflation is a problem, or downplaying increasing prices in the role of our economy today. I am absolutely not saying that. For working class people, there is nothing that hurts more than higher prices at the grocery store, higher prices at the pump, car repairs, the other everyday expenses of life. For those who are struggling or seeing increases in prices that are maturing,

affecting their lives, I absolutely feel I'm fighting for you. What I failed to do in that segment is direct your, and even my anger, at the increase in price at the right people, those who architected our system of globalization and concentration within the American economy, which have made the American working class so vulnerable right now in a time of craziness. Let's take cars. As I've said, sure, some of the demand driven by stimulus checks or savings, sure. But never before have we seen consumer spending directed towards used cars instead of new cars. Now, one of my favorite monologues I ever did on Rising was exactly on this subject. The reason we don't have a plethora of beautiful new cars for Americans is because we have no semiconductors. Why? Because over the last 40 years, we allowed

our capacity to build these critical tools of the future to go overseas, while our companies that literally invented this technology, like Intel, have bought back billions of dollars worth of its own stock to boost its share price. Cars aside, the most in pushback that we also got was about food. Take a look at the grocery store, people said. You're out of touch if you don't see it. Now, one of the most important items on the list of rising prices I talked about, bacon, a vital resource for every American citizen, which has gone up by almost 10%. Dig deeper. You're actually going to see what's happened is that the meat industry in America is completely centralized, taking power out of the hands of actual ranchers, and they manipulate supply to their own ends. The reason bacon is so high is because about a year ago, millions of

hogs were culled from supply because the meat industry didn't have the means to process them due to COVID spikes in meat packing plants. Over a billion pounds of meat was left to rot and supply was curtailed significantly. So about a year later, when we need the same level of bacon we did in 2019, well, we killed all the hogs that should be supplying us right now. This is a pure product of factory farming and of concentration, speculation in the meat industry, just-in-time delivery, and more. It resulted in tremendous waste and now high prices for us all. Or take foods, generally. A lot of food price increase can actually be traced not only to a screwed up supply chain, but also to the raw inputs like wheat, corn, soybeans. Take a look beneath the surface. You're

going to see the same story. The reason grain prices are skyrocketing has nothing to do with increased demand here at home, but with increased demand in the People's Republic of China. Increasing post-COVID demand and the need to feed a bunch of newly farmed pigs in China is actually driving American grain prices through the roof. So basically, American consumers today are paying sky-high prices for grain raised and farmed in their own country because of increased demand in China.

Once again, American workers and consumers suffering at the whims of an interconnected economy, which we were promised forever, was actually going to drive prices down for the long haul. These are the big three. Gas, of course, is a big part of the story. But frankly, the same oil price shocks is the original peril in American society of relying on people who aren't yourselves to produce the most bedrock of your needs. So when we see these high prices, there are a lot of people out there who want you to think it's because of, frankly, a pretty good effort by both Republicans and Democrats to alleviate suffering of the public during COVID. It could not be farther from the truth. The reason

prices are higher today is because the rich have architected a society and economy where workers are subject to the whims of international bankers, consumers, and markets that they never wanted anything to do with in the first place. Real great nations build things, grow things, they produce things, and they take care of their own people first. So my message to all of the struggling with the prices at the store is this. I feel and I hear your pain. I just hope that you see that cynical actors want to use your frustration only to take more benefits future and now away from you while covering for the very interests that created your misery in the first place. That was what I really

wanted to focus on, Crystal. One more thing I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal, Kyle and Friends, where we do long form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or you can subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? We're getting more information and some truly horrifying images out of Europe where floods have ravaged parts of Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. This is perhaps the most stunning image, a before and after photo of farmland in Western Germany that went from bucolic idol to post-apocalyptic catastrophe in the span of one single day. But unfortunately,

there are plenty more photos like it. Here's a before and after of a charming village set between hills that was turned into a raging river, with every road and house and school and church and everything else completely submerged. This is a look at Belgium. You can see residents wading through chest-high water. They are hoping to reach safety. We know that across the entire region, more than a thousand remain unaccounted for as rescue missions continue. Some of the towns and panic residents are reachable only by helicopter. Others were not reachable at all. The known death toll, as of my writing of this segment, stood at 183. That number is expected to rise as recovery efforts

continue. Scientists are already saying that the once-in-a-millennia floods are fueled by climate change. In particular, one simple dynamic, the warmer the air, the more water it can hold. Every one degree Celsius increase in temperature means air can hold seven percent more moisture. Now, in this instance, the hardest-hit areas received two months worth of rain in a single hour. The waters rose so quickly it left towns and villages and families unable to respond in time. Now, another factor regarding climate change may be at work as well. Scientists are studying whether rapid warming in the Arctic has also caused changes in the jet stream that allow systems to linger longer in one place, creating this kind of devastation. Now, this all occurs against a backdrop of multiple record-breaking extreme weather events right here in our nation that have happened one after another.

Most notably, the West Coast has been hit by multiple historic heat waves. Another one is set to hit. That is four heat waves in just five weeks. Death Valley might have just set the record for the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth at a deadly 130 degrees. The normally mild Pacific Northwest, where the climate is typically so moderate that many don't even have air conditioning, they were hit with temperatures well over 100 degrees. Seattle hit 108. Portland hit 116. Lytton, Canada hit 121 degrees. That broke the record high temperature ever recorded in that nation.

And the town literally went up in flames, fueled by those hot and dry conditions. Across the region, hundreds of deaths were tied to the heat wave, which scientists say would have been impossible without climate change. And these high temperatures have also fueled massive wildfires. According to the Drought Center, nearly 60 percent of the western U.S. is experiencing a severe or exceptional drought. Those are the highest levels of drought recorded in this region in the Drought Monitor's history. Those conditions have already created a historically devastating wildfire season. According to a national interagency fire center spokesperson, we are a full month ahead of where we were last year.

And last year was a historic season. Cliffs are collapsing in California. Lake Mead is going dry. So is the Great Salt Lake. All of this is just a long way of saying that this shit is really bad. The costs are already devastating. In response, Ezra Klein, writing at the New York Times, writes that, yeah, while it's become in vogue to talk about a World War II-level mobilization to fight climate change,

we don't actually see anyone acting like the threat to the planet is anything like the threat that the Nazis posed. That effort, of course, enlisted the entire nation, quite a lot of the world, frankly, in an effort of mobilization, sacrifice and shared purpose. As we watch this destruction and mouth the words existential threat, Klein writes, You never know what watching seats ban. The bipartisan infrastructure bill cut most of the climate investments from President Biden's Biden's American jobs plan, leaving them for a future reconciliation package that may or may not pass. It's better than nothing. It is not nearly enough. The same is true, to be honest, even of the broader investments Biden envisioned. That is the state of climate policy in 2021, and I am not optimistic

that it will be much different in 22 or 25. To be honest with you, though, Ezra Klein is being far too kind to the Biden administration and also to the media that covers for him by pretending the scope of the proposal is enough and imagining political and economic constraints that don't actually exist. For example, one of the most ambitious pieces of the proposed reconciliation package with regards to climate is a renewable energy standard that would move all electricity generation away from fossil fuels. Unfortunately, that standard, not a lock for making it through the Byzantine reconciliation process thanks to Democrats' continued deference to an unelected parliamentarian

who provides guidance on Senate procedure. Are we really going to let the world burn based on the whims of one government bureaucrat? Or less obvious, but frankly just as pernicious, the demand from corporate-aligned Democrats like Joe Manchin that every expenditure be paid for and then relentlessly attacking those proposed pay-fors without offering a single viable alternative. That was the cleverly evil scheme laid out by an Exxon lobbyist in a secretly recorded video where he explained in detail exactly how that company has avoided significant climate change legislation. So, are we going to let the world burn because of some Reagan-era foolishness, demanding to know how we'll pay for it while the cost of doing nothing skyrocket? Are we going to

let the world burn because of some political tropes and conventional wisdom left over from the 90s, which insists that doing as little as possible is really the way to motivate voters in the midterm election? Or because you're worried about upsetting Joe Manchin, who isn't even up for reelection until 2024. All of these supposed constraints and checks on the ambition of the Biden administration, whether it's climate or frankly minimum wage or health care or making permanent the child tax credits, they're all imaginary. They are invented by Democrats afraid of displeasing their corporate benefactors, and they are enforced by compliant media that consistently carries water for the establishment. You can understand why people roll their eyes at the talk of climate change or climate crisis, because so many of the people who rhetorically embrace the gravity of the threat then go on to elaborate lengths to avoid taking real action. Now, maybe you're in the

camp that's just hoping geoengineering will keep us from having to act or that believes we're so far gone that we should just focus on mitigating climate impacts while praying for some kind of a miracle technological advance. But no one should be fooled by the lie that says we don't have the capacity or the political ability to act. Imagine saying that climate change is an existential threat and then letting the Senate parliamentarian keep you from acting. That is completely insane. Do not fall for the madness. And Sagar, we've had a series of horrific events. We're very excited to welcome Louis Rossman to the show. He's a right to repair activist, host of a very popular YouTube channel, and he's at the forefront of a very big and interesting political discussion. Louis, thank you so much for joining the show.

We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for taking the time. Enjoy your show. I'm humbled to be on. Awesome. Thank you. Louis, tell us a little bit about right to repair. It's something that I think is a really interesting topic, which concerns not only farmers, which is the context that I think many Americans might know it, but now in the realm of consumer electronics and more, you've been at the forefront of talking about it. Tell us a little bit, you know, in the most basic level, what it is and how and why it affects Americans of all stripes. Right to repair is the basic idea that you should be able to repair the devices you own. And I think it's really about personal property, because if you're not

able to repair what you own, you don't really own it, since there are lots of different things out there that may stop working a month or two after the warranty's up, and most warranties are one year now. So lots of companies have gone out of their way to take devices that used to be fixable and make them unfixable in fairly nefarious ways. And to be clear, when I talk about right to repair, I'm not saying that I want everything to look like it did in the 60s and the 80s. I don't want cell phones to be bricks again. What I'm saying is if you have a device that costs $4,000 and there's a $5 chip that dies inside of it, what used to be a part of our culture in America is that we could just buy

that part so that an independent service center or you could fix it in your garage or on your kitchen table. And now what companies do is they tell the company that makes that chip, don't sell it to anybody but us so that we're the only one that can fix it. This is something that happens in farming and home appliances and consumer electronics. Even happens in medical. I was interviewing somebody a few weeks ago who said that when the motor dies in this operating table, it's the thing that allows you to adjust the patient like here or here. It's like a $38,000 table and there's a $500 motor that dies. They use a proprietary motor. They'll change one small thing about the normal motor so that it's not compatible. And then they tell the company that makes the motor,

don't sell the motor to the hospital or the service center if they want to be able to fix that table. So now the hospital is forced to spend $38, service center, if they want to be able to fix that table. So now the hospital is forced to spend 38K on a new one instead of, you know, a thousand bucks to fix their existing one. So it's kind of something that's permeating every area of society over the last 30 years. And I think people are starting to notice it right after it's a little too late. What do you mean by that? A little bit too late? Every company does something like this now in just about every industry. And people typically don't notice this until it's a problem for them. So they don't

notice it when they buy the product. They notice it when they go to fix the product. And it's boiled over and become this large issue now in 2021. But it's been over 30 years since devices that we buy came with schematics and manuals. It's been 20 or 30 years since you've been really able to universally buy repair parts and tools for all the different devices that you own. So we're at a point where almost every company takes part in some way, shape, or form. Lewis, as I understand it, the original kind of American manufacturing sector operated very much in this way, like GE, Thomas Edison patents and more, all the way back in the early 1900s. And this was a problem of

monopolization that was keeping down competition. What do you think the greatest costs of the lack of right to repair is costing Americans right now? The first largest thing I think it's costing is a general sense of the detective mindset that you have when you actually fix what you own and a sense of ingenuity. There was a video that Steve Wozniak did a week and a half ago where he said that devices being open in the way that they were is how I was able to learn what I learned and start Apple, make the Apple II. That's the environment I grew up in. So if kids are growing up in an environment where their parents say,

you're going to replace your own brake pads in your car, you're going to fix your own computer, you learn as you're doing this. And when you grow up in a world where every single, every time anything happens, you send it back to the manufacturer because you're not smart enough to fix it yourself. Or if you grow up in a world

where you just don't open your own things because you're not authorized or not allowed to, I think that it takes a real toll on human ingenuity. Yeah, I think that's right. It creates a sense of helplessness. I would say it also contributes to a sort of mindset where everything's disposable, right? Because rather than send the thing in and get it fixed, which is going to be more costly than if you could fix it yourself, certainly, or even bring it to like local small business repairman to get it fixed or repair woman to get it fixed. You know, that cost may be too great. You just say,

I'll just get a new one. What the heck? Which I think is actually part of what these companies intentionally want you to do here. President Biden obviously just announced a slew of antitrust executive orders and administration wide efforts. He's directed, I think, the FTC to write a rule enshrining the right to repair. But as we all know, that rule can be written in a strong way or it can be written in a way that basically allows business to continue as usual. What are some of the things that you'll be looking for in that regulation? The primary things that I've been looking for in that regulation are, can I get access to schematics and diagrams? And can I buy chips? I'm not asking the manufacturer

to sell them to me. I'm simply asking them to stop telling the company that makes it for them to not sell it to us. So I'm not expecting people to stock every single little thing that they use in China to make their products. It's just when I knock on the door of InterCell or Texas Instruments, will you sell that chip to companies like Mouser or DigiKey or Newark like you do with the rest of your other chips so that I can then buy it from those vendors? So my litmus test for right to repair, at least in my industry, is can I get access to the schematics, diagrams, and chips necessary to do my job? Because Apple has released something called the Independent Repair Provider Program two years ago, but this program was clearly a PR stunt and a total joke. It doesn't address anything.

You can't even buy a charging port from this program if your phone charging port dies. So, I'm mainly looking for something that allows us to get access to schematics and diagrams. And I have a strong confidence that the FTC understands what we're looking for. Lena Kahn seems to be very pro-right to repair. And they released a 50-page report a few months ago. And that report really just sums out all of our problems. It sums up the manufacturer excuses and why they're not valid. So I have some level of confidence there. Good. And Louis, I've noticed that you seem to be saying that right now is a very, very critical point. Like, why is it right now at this time, um, that right to repair

is at a real crucial turning point in American society? Because the, the, the methods that I've been using to be able to get access to what I get, uh, get access to, so I could do my job are very quickly going away. And I think if it goes away completely right now and nobody does anything about it, it's not coming back. So it's kind of like manufacturing. With manufacturing, if you close the factory, you just can't snap your fingers and open it again because there's all that institutional knowledge that were in the heads of the people that were running the factory that was not on paper. So if you just want to start again, it's not like you just say when Trump is talking about, you know, making Apple products in Wisconsin, it's not like you

could snap your fingers and make that happen. And a lot of people saw it for a PR stunt and the jobs numbers kind of show it as a PR stunt. But here, if all of these repair shops that do this type of work close because this takes hold, there's no control zing and undoing this immediately once all of these people doing this work go on to other careers and are doing other things. Once this goes away, it's going to take you decades to get it back. And by then, it's going to be far too late. So I just saw a Vice article about there's a question in Massachusetts right now about people being allowed to fix their own cars. And there's this very scaremongering ad

that was released a while back that was saying, oh, if this goes forward, then predators are going to be able to get access to your private data that's stored in your car. And they have a woman who's fearful of a stalker and the stalker is able to find her because of right to repair. What do you think are going to be some of the arguments? Because corporations are not just going to allow this to happen and not have anything to say about it. So what do you think are some of the disingenuous arguments that are going to be made against right to repair? That was a good one, Crystal. So luckily, the voters didn't fall for it because that initiative won 75 to 25.

And they were pretty much saying that you will be sexually assaulted in a parking lot if this bill passes by McCann. Literally. Literally. Yes. That was bad. It was a good attempt because I was speaking with someone who runs a focus group. And he said that many of the people running the right to repair campaign in Massachusetts were men. So let's come up with something that you will look bad at fighting back against if you're male. And that was it was an interesting way that they went about that campaign. It was very dirty. It was very disgusting and underhand. And luckily, voters saw through it with here. I think what they're going to do is they're going to say privacy and security are a concern, as in people are going to hack into your device and get your

data if I'm able to replace a charge port. So if I can fit if I can fix the charging circuit on your laptop so that when you plug your charger and it works, somehow that means that I'm going to be getting access to your data and stealing it, which is fundamentally just ridiculous. I mean, you've had people at the Genius Bar go through people's photos and upload the end. Well, one of their third party contractors uploaded sex tapes off a customer's phone to Facebook. So I mean, oh, my God, authorize repair in the past, but they're going to say that this is going to happen widespread. We're going to get access to your phone's data. We're going to hack you. And this is absolutely, absolutely ridiculous. But that's the one line of fear-mongering that consistently works because we've done focus groups on this.

Got it. Well, I'm glad that you could at least set the record straight here. Louis, where can people find out more about you, about the Right to Repair movement, and all the important developments? People can go to websites like repair.org to figure out how to contact their local legislator. They're run by Gay Gordon Byrne, very good organization. For mine, you can just check out my YouTube channel. You just type Louis Rossman, two S's and two N's into YouTube. I'm always talking about what's going on, and I will have a better website put together shortly. Right now I have Fight to Repair it out. It's a place old.

That's awesome. We'll have links down there. Yeah, your explanation of GameStop and what was going on there was incredibly invaluable to both of us, also to our audience. You do a fantastic job just breaking things down in a way that's super understandable. So Lewis, super grateful for your time. Thanks for talking to us. Thank you, man. So much for taking the time. I really

appreciate it. Our pleasure. Thanks, everybody, for watching. We really appreciate it. Or listening. I can't forget all of those people. You can become a premium subscriber today at the link down there in the description notes. You know the deal. You get it, you know, an hour early. You get to listen to it completely uncut. All of that. it's a great way to support our work over here so we can talk to interesting people like Louis and highlight topics that we think the mainstream media are not covering. We really appreciate it, and we will see you all tomorrow. Thanks, guys.

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

go to crystalandsauger.com. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's your Not the Father Week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon.

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