Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/27/23: Hunter Pleads Not Guilty, McConnell Freezes At Press Event, Congress Holds UFO Hearings, Rudy Giuliani Admits Election Lies, Biden Dog Bites Secret Service, Abigail Disney Calls Out Greed and AOC Folds Into Democrat Establishment

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Hunter Biden's plea deal falling through as he pleads not guilty, new information on Biden's involvement in corruption, McConnell freezing mid sentence during press event, Congress holds explosive UFO hearing, Rudy Giuliani admits election fraud lies, Biden's dog keeps biting secret service members, Abigail Disney calls out corporate greed, and Freddie DeBoer on whether AOC has become the Dem establishment.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do.

There is a lot that is unfolding this week. So first of all, very dramatic Hunter Biden plea deal hearing yesterday. The whole thing is on the rocks. We will take you inside all of the chaos there. Also, quite a dramatic, scary moment with Mitch McConnell. He seemed to freeze completely, was unable to continue speaking while answering questions. Came back, was able to speak after that, but we're trying to figure out what the heck is going on there in terms of his health. Sager was on Capitol Hill yesterday for the big UFO hearing. By the way, thanks to premium subscribers for making things like that happen.

And we have additional coverage of those hearings, all the highlights today. We've also got some legal drama involving Rudy Giuliani. He's now admitted in a court of law that he was lying about some election workers down in Georgia. We'll show his original comments and what he is saying now. We also have updates for you on situation involving the first family's dogs. The youngest dog has been involved in a number of biting incidents that were not disclosed. So we'll give you what is going on there. Happy to have Freddie DeBoer joining us this morning to talk about his latest column about how AOC is now just a regular Democrat.

And I'm taking a look at some comments from Abigail Disney, Disney heiress, going after their CEO, Bob Iger. So lots to get to this morning. But before we do any of that, as I alluded to before, we just want to take a minute to thank you to all the premium subscribers. We've been very busy this week. Yes. It was a big week for us. Multiple presidential contenders really enjoy getting to do those interviews and press them on policy questions and see how they respond. Being able to send Sagar over to Capitol Hill. All that is a really big deal for us. I mean, look, there's no way any of that happens without any of you guys. I mean, because

you guys helped us build the studio, we were able to compel these interviews. And every time we have these interviews, we hear from the candidate afterwards about how much they enjoyed it. Even the staff usually reaches out and they're like, hey, that was one of the best interviews that we've done so far. We'd love to come back. And we've actually gotten commitments, I believe, from every single one of them to come back onto the show, which is amazing. It's really a testament to everything that you guys have helped us build here. And then to the UFO point, I mean, I was like, hey, I want to go to this hearing. And, you know, attending a hearing by itself is already kind of a rigmarole. But then to have a crew, to be able to just last minute,

just spin it up, to talk to my friend Jeremy Corbell, some of the other people who were involved in the hearing, and just be like, hey, we're going to set up, we're going to film it, we're going to have it edited, we're going to have it out on our channel. That stuff costs actually quite a bit of money. So I just want to say again, like, thank you to all of you guys who give us the confidence, the ability to do that. Not only do we provide, I think, a good service to everyone there, but it's really helping grow. I mean, we've gained, Crystal, thousands of YouTube subscribers just because of these interviews I've noticed, you know, or the snap coverage or whatever on the UFOs. And it's putting us, you know, not out of our comfort zone per se, but into a different, I think, type of realm. And I think that, you know, a lot of YouTube shows and

all that, it can feel stale, it can feel sterile, it can feel like things aren't, things are exactly the same over the time. And I think one of the commitments we've made to everyone is that we're always going to use your hard-earned money to grow the show, both for your sake, for our sake, and for everybody else out there who's not going to watch her. Yeah. And of course, if you are not already a premium subscriber, you can sign up at breakingpoints.com and all of the interviews, these special presidential interviews and things like Saga going to Capitol Hill, or maybe I'll find some reason to go over to Capitol Hill myself. Yeah. All of that stuff goes to the premium subscribers first as a thank you for being members. So thank you guys so much to all of that. And,

you know, the presidential candidate interviews. One thing that I was realizing is in the cable news format, the time is so limited that you just they just even if they wanted to press them on a variety policy policy issue, there's no ability to do it. So the fact that we have the time and the space to ask the questions, ask the follow-ups, try to get real answers from them is really a privilege and a luxury that we enjoy. It's very true. And I only implore more comms directors out there, stop just giving us 30 minutes. There's no reason that we want to do just 30 minutes. But I've noticed that 30 minutes to them is eternity.

That's why I always try and cut it. Yes around 30 where heaven because they're used to I can fill it right so exactly exactly answer the question and get away with it and back and forth So, you know just so everybody knows they're always in there, you know the ears the staff They're like, hey, we gotta cut this off. He's gotta go. He's gotta go do this So I once again, I'm just employing everybody Let's do an hour an hour is a nice solid period of time. And I think if you're confident enough in what you have to say, those people should speak for an hour. But okay, let's get to the Hunter Biden news. This was shocking. So while I was on Capitol Hill, all of this is going down. I'm getting

caught up afterwards. I said, this is one of the wildest things that has unfolded in terms of like legal wrangling at the high level that we've seen in what years now, I think, this is one of the wildest things that has unfolded in terms of like legal wrangling at the high level that we've seen in what years now, I think at the top level of politics, Hunter Biden and his lawyers, it appears showed up to court with a completely different understanding crystal of a plea deal that they had reached with the department of justice in the minds of the Hunter Biden legal team. They believed that they were not only going to plead guilty to this sweetheart deal, but that they were going to receive immunity from all future charges and specifically related to foreign corruption. The Department of Justice was like, hold on a second, that's not really necessarily what we agreed to. And it led to an extraordinary

confrontation actually inside of the courtroom. Here was a snap view of what that looked like. That was actually covered live on television as it was going down. Let's take a listen. And they said, OK, so you're asking me to accept a plea agreement. But does that cover any potential charges? And she referenced the work that Hunter Biden has done for entities in foreign countries. And she said, does this preclude you from bringing FARA charges in the future if I accept this plea agreement?

And the government said, no, we could bring those charges. The defense, Chris Clark, acting on behalf of Hunter Biden, disagreed with that and said, no, that's not my understanding of the agreement. And then the federal prosecutor said, then there's no deal. That was at 1131. And Chris Clark, who represents Hunter Biden, says, as far as I'm concerned, the plea agreement is null and void. Just as I left the courtroom itself, the judge determined that there should be a 10-minute recess to try and figure out whether or not the two parties can quickly come to an agreement. That was Tom Winters at NBC.

He's an absolute pro in terms of covering these things, Crystal. So after in that 10 minute interim period, here's the most crazy part. It seems that the DOJ did actually agree to some of Hunter's demands. Because in that 10 minute interim, the Department of Justice, of course, led by Merrick Garland, agreed effectively to some immunity, at least in the future to some of these charges, to get Hunter to plead guilty on these tax charges, which would effectively absolve him of not having to serve any jail time, regardless of the fact that he failed to pay lots of back taxes, that it was all eventually paid back by donors.

And there's a lot more that we can discuss and talk about there. But then the most shocking thing is not that the Department of Justice agreed to an even more, frankly, sweetheart deal. It's that when they presented this to the judge, that the judge threw out this hastily agreed to immunize deal, effectively saying that it was too sweet, that she needs to take a lot more time, that they need to take a lot more time to actually look at it. Here again is some of the live coverage. The son of the president of the United States has just pleaded not guilty. Not guilty is what he has pleaded to. The judge here says that she will not accept or reject the plea

agreement. She wants more information. Basically, excuse me, what she's asking for is to determine whether or not it's appropriate for her to consider something in the diversion program. This relates to the gun charge. So as part of that agreement, effectively what you have here is a provision which asks the court to weigh whether or not possibly Hunter Biden could have violated his pretrial diversion agreement as it relates to the gun charge. What would happen, according to that agreement, is that the defense and the prosecution, but they have the opportunity to bring the facts to the court and for the court to determine whether or not there was a breach of that. If there is a breach, then the government could then move forward and prosecute Hunter Biden on the gun charge.

What she says is, wait just a minute. I'm not somebody who normally has to consider those provisions. I normally don't see a pretrial diversion agreement. And now you're putting me in the position possibly of being the gatekeeper as to whether or not the Justice Department and the government files charges against Hunter Biden. There you go, Crystal. I mean, in terms of the breakdown, an extraordinary move by the judge, extraordinary collapse live. I mean, you couldn't script a more of a drama in terms of corruption, the president's son, how it really, you know, the tax charges, the money and all of this. So what did you make of everything as it was going down? Well, again, just to set the context here, everyone was expecting this to be a very perfunctory, predictable hearing with zero

drama. And instead, from the get-go, we had chaos and drama unfolding in what was really a wild way. So there are two pieces here that are really bad for Hunter Biden and by extension for his dad, which is number one, the government did not agree to the idea that all of the potential FARA charges, that's all the foreign lobbying, unregistered lobbying stuff. They did not agree that that was part of this plea deal. And Hunter Biden and his team had to accept that. So this deal, the tentative deal that now the judge is considering whether she's even going to accept, includes immunity from drug charges, past drug charges, additional gun charges, and tax. So those are the three areas that they're saying, OK, we'll put those pieces to the side. But that leaves a gigantic swath of some of the most concerning legal trouble if you are,

you know, Hunter Biden or again, if you are his father, Joe Biden, which is all of these foreign entanglements that we've been hearing so much about. So that's one piece that is out now in a disaster for him and his team. And the second piece is, you know, probably when the judge comes back in 30 days, they're going to she's going to figure out how to get to a yes on this plea deal. But it's not certain at all. She very uncomfortable with it. As they as Tom Winters articulated there, there were pieces of it that she even went so far as to say, I'm not even sure this is constitutional. So the very status of the whole plea deal, which is a very good deal, a very sweetheart deal for Hunter Biden, I think you have to say that, the whole status of that is in jeopardy at this point.

And on the politics of it, obviously, this just drags out the messiness of all of this and opens it back up into the public eye and also makes it clear, and there were some questions about this going in, there were discrepancies over whether or not the DOJ's investigation into Hunter was continuing or not. One side said it was. The other side said, no, no, no, we got assurances it wasn't. It's very clear now that that investigation does continue. It's very clear that it's possible that he's going to face additional charges. So very, very bad day if you are Hunter Biden. I also think this absolutely validates the criticism by the career IRS officials who said

this is not how a normal tax investigation would go under any other citizen. They said they were prevented from executing search warrants on the Biden residence. They said that this was treated with kid gloves, that this was treated in a political manner, that they never would have brought just misdemeanor, that they had a full-scale criminal investigation that they would have pursued. And clearly, the judge here agrees, at the very least, in principle. They're like, hey, this is not how this normally would have gone. So I think at a very basic level, it validates the IRS whistleblowers that spoke before Congress and actually does show that these are not partisan people are actually speaking from

a place of conviction. And then again, on a basic level, we just have to return to the facts of the matter here. Why is Hunter in trouble at all? He received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments for lobbying, which, by the way, he's on text proof, subpoenaed, saying, I don't want to register as a foreign agent because he didn't register as a foreign agent while working with the Chinese government. Okay, so that's actually illegal. That's number one. Number two, he got all this money,

which I guess is not illegal, but although in my opinion, it should be. Then he didn't pay taxes on that money. I mean, we're not talking about a paltry sum here. We're talking about $1.5 million. That means that 1.5 million is like 37% of whatever the sum is after he included all of his insane write-offs for prostitutes and all this other stuff. That is a colossal sum of money

that we are talking about here for only a one to two year period. And then that money, part of the reason they were able to justify the misdemeanor charge, Crystal, is because they said he was current on his tax obligations when we know it's not because he used his personal money. He used a mega Democratic donor, loaned him said money, somehow violating like federal gift tax laws and all kinds of other stuff to pay his tax obligations. And then I know I sound crazy here, but then in just the last couple of days, we learned that a frequent guest of the Biden White House is paying $800,000 for this fool's paintings. As if that's somehow market value. I'm sure that's all on the up and up.

Exactly. How does he afford to live in this Malibu mansion? And why does any of this matter? Look, Hunter, I genuinely wish him best. He seems like a troubled guy. I actually know some people who know him. They say he's actually fun at parties. I guess not shocking. But they were always like, look, you know, he took it really hard, the death of his brother. And he actually was an affable dude. He's been through hell. His mom died. No one can deny that. Yeah. And so I have nothing against him on a personal level. It's only that so much of his shenanigans expose the lies from the Biden

administration about Biden's involvement here. And especially when he's getting all this back tax and personal profit to the family, to the brother and so many other, from the actual connections of the president of the United States, and so many other, from the actual connections of the president of the United States, that's when it becomes not only a scandal, but should venture into the territory of illegal if it not already is. So some of it may be legal. I'm sure it is because of our insane laws. But I mean, he played so fast and loose. It's very easy to see here how he very likely violated the law in a number of places. And unfortunately, only because I think the Republicans are in charge of the House, they've been able to drag any of this stuff up through an official level.

Otherwise, we would never have heard about it. So there's, let me give you what, if you turn on MSNBC or CNN, what their side is going to be, right? Number one, she's a Trump-appointed judge. Number two, this has nothing to do with Joe Biden. This is just a personal matter involving Hunter Biden and the process should play out, et cetera, et cetera. On the piece about her being a Trump judge, listen, it would have been crazy for them to accept a deal where he's not going to face any scrutiny over all of these foreign entangled.

I mean, that would, it would be an abdication of any judge's duty to allow that to just go through and for the government to say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's part of the deal. That would have been insane. So I think it's based on what I can tell entirely appropriate that she's taken some time to scrutinize this deal, which, as she put it rather mildly, has some atypical elements to it. And let's talk about those atypical elements, because that's where it goes from, oh, this is just a personal matter involving Hunter Biden and he's not president. Joe Biden has nothing to do with this. This is Joe Biden's Department of Justice we're talking about here. And so if his son is getting a deal that has, quote unquote, atypical elements,

that very much does involve Joe Biden. Not to mention, you know, all of the evidence suggestions that Joe knew a lot more about these business dealings than he has so far said. And we'll get to that in a moment. So, you know, for the White House to just try to say, oh, no comment and this is totally separate, et cetera, et cetera. It's just no one's going to buy that. I mean, the public is certainly not going to buy that piece. And I'm certainly glad that the government and the judge were like, no, no, no, this does not take all of your troubles off of the table because some of the most serious and most consequential in terms of the public trust elements still remain under

investigation, apparently. Oh, absolutely. And actually, let's get to that. As I referenced, the House Republicans have been calling many of these witnesses who, in my opinion, should have been deposed or at least appeared before the DOJ and others for years ago. I don't know why it's taken so long. Let's put this up there on the screen. They say Hunter Biden put then Vice President dad Joe Biden on the phone with business associates, quote, at least two dozen times. That is according to the ex-business partner of Hunter Biden named Devin Archer. So Archer, who, by the way, just to be clear, is facing jail time for his role, quote, in a $60 million bond fraud. So not exactly the most savory character, although I guess, you know, this is Hunter who we're talking about here. So it's not like he was in business with the best.

The thing is about Archer is that he says is that after dinner with the Burisma board at a very famous hotel in Dubai, he and Hunter then traveled six miles north to the Four Seasons Resort Dubai to have a drink with one of Hunter's friends. Quote, while they were sitting outside at the bar, a senior Burisma executive phoned to ask where they were because Burisma's owner needed to speak with Hunter urgently. Soon afterwards, two Ukrainians joined Hunter and Archer at the Four Seasons bar, and they asked Hunter, quote, can you ring your dad? Hunter then called his father, put him on speaker, placed the phone on the table, and introduced the Ukrainians to Joe Biden as the

names of the two associates who were actively with him at the bar at the Four Seasons Hotel in Dubai. Also, I mean, just to give a little bit of more credence to this, Archer is actually pictured with Joe Biden and with Hunter Biden playing golf while he was the vice president of the United States. So it's undeniable that they actually had met in the past. Now, look, of course, people play golf with a lot of people, especially when you're vice president. Obviously, you take photos probably with tens of thousands of people a year. So it's not like that proves anything. But more so, we know for a verifiable fact that Devin Archer was a longtime business associate of Hunter Biden involved in many of these sketchy foreign deals. I've known his name

for years, having done some reading investigation and all this into the Chinese business dealings, to the Brisbane dealings, and how he really was at the center of this. He was also there with John Kerry's stepson. The children of the elite really are amazing. Gotta love the nepo, baby. They're all in business together. It's incredible. But these people- It's all merit-based, I'm sure. Oh, it's very merit-based, of course. And they're multimillionaires, as if their parents' fortunes weren't enough. That's what always is interesting to me. Right. Anyway, so Devin Archer, like I said, is an unsavory character, certainly in his own right,

certainly facing jail time and all that right now that I alluded to. But he does have business. He has had past instances with Hunter Biden. He's testifying under oath here. And remember, he is facing jail time. So it's not like he isn't still under scrutiny about some of these past instances. And he's going to say under oath that Vice President Biden spoke, quote, two dozen times with business associates of Hunter. And this also backs up,

Crystal, numerous allegations that Hunter not only introduced his Ukrainian business partners to his dad, his Chinese business partners. Well, remember, he flew on Air Force Two to Beijing and then was conducting business while he was there. And according to them, had some sort of drive-by meeting while Hunter was raising billions of dollars from the CEFC fund, which I've spoken about here previously. It is now feeding, Crystal, into a lot more questions around, did Biden lie about not having those dealings with his son? And are the current White House denials, why have they started changing their language? That's the key. That's why I really think he screwed himself on the initial denials, which went so far as to say, I never even talked about the business deals with

Hunter, which by the way, if that's true, like you should have been talking to him about them to be like, stop doing this crap. Right. Number one, number two, it's just hard to believe you never had a conversation with your son about what he was up to. Come on. And so increasingly, you know, I mean, you've got this guy out there who, listen, he's not the most trustworthy, savory character, but also he's under oath and he has no apparent reason to lie, at least no real motivation or whatever to lie, saying very directly that, yeah, Joe was on the speakerphone. He was read in on some of these deals at the very least.

So you do have in recent weeks and months, instead of them leaning into the Joe never even talked to Hunter, now the messaging is, well, Joe wasn't involved in the business, which is, you know, a little bit of a subtle shift there. Kareem Jean-Pierre was asked about exactly this shift in messaging by reporter journalist Philip Wegman. Let's take a listen to how that went. The president has previously said that he has never discussed overseas business dealings with his son. But the White House now says that the president has never been in business with his son. So why the updated language? Which statement is true? Or is this semantics and they're both true? As I stated on Monday, when I was asked this

question multiple times, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed on this. Nothing has changed on this. And so you could ask me a million different ways on this question. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed, but the language has changed. And there is, you know, increasing We can show everyone from the campaign trail whenever Peter Doocy, Fox News' Peter Doocy, was the Biden campaign embed. And he repeatedly pressed Biden on many of these issues. This is also a good view into why it's important to get people on the record early when they are running. So years later, if it does turn out that they're lying, that you can point to it and show this. So this is from the campaign trail 2019, where Biden is confronted exactly over business dealings with Hunter. All of this was actually known, much of it within the public record. Here's what Biden had to say. I've never spoken to my son about it. Here's what I know. I know Trump deserves to be investigated. He is violating every basic norm of a president.

You should be asking him the question, why is he on the phone with a foreign leader trying to intimidate a foreign leader, if that's what happened. That appears what happened. You should be looking at Trump. Trump's doing this because he knows I'll beat him like a drum. And he's using the abuse of power

and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me. Everybody looked at this and everybody's looked at it and said there's nothing there. Ask the right question. Ask the right question. Grandpa needed a nap.

That's not the right question, Chris. The right question is not, did you speak with your son? The funniest thing too, he's like, you should be asking Trump, do you know how many times people ask Trump? You think Trump never got asked that question about the Ukrainian phone call? Why do you even think they call it the perfect phone call? Because he talked about it ad nauseum all throughout his impeachment. He just didn't want to be asked.

And I always think it's a tragedy. Ducey really was the only one on that campaign trail who would ever ask him a damn thing about this. And it shows you once again why it is so important to press people on these things, even when it's uncomfortable, even when the media doesn't want you to do it, because he now said, I never spoke to him. Now it's, I was never involved. Neither, both of those are incongruent.

And it's very obvious to me that that's a flat out lie. I also think not enough people pay enough attention to the very first debate when Trump was going after Hunter Biden. And they reference actually the congressional report that came out from Senator Ron Johnson, which lists many of the accusations against Hunter, which have all been verified now, specifically by the IRS, by who he's getting money from. And Biden says, again, that not a single thing in that report is true. I mean, the IRS is suing and prosecuting Hunter, the Department of Justice, for the exact business transactions that they validate inside of that report. That's another lie, you know, from the campaign trail. It's

amazing to me that the, you know, the CNN, what is it, the Washington Post lie tracker or whatever, where are you people now on this? He just disappeared into the ether. I, the CNN, what is it, the Washington Post lie tracker or whatever. Where are you people now on this? He just disappeared into the ether. I checked the CNN guy, the fact check guy. He's still on Trump for some reason. I mean, sure, you know, Trump is running. But, dude, you've got to be able to show like some semblance of like actual fairness in terms of the coverage. So, yeah, I just think it's ridiculous.

Yeah, I mean, the one part of Biden's rant there that is fair is of course, Fox news in particular doesn't go after Trump in that way. But yeah, I find that clip, that whole soundbite of him, it is like the perfect encapsulation of democratic politics and of like Biden era politics where it's like, yeah, I'm not great. Yeah. There might be problems there, but look at Trump, look at Trump. Look at Trump. Look at Trump. That's the whole strategy. That's the whole thing right there in that soundbite. That's the whole bit.

So it is kind of amazing to watch it unfold. But, yeah, I mean, he said it. He used to say it very, very clearly. Never even spoke to Hunter about any of this. And I just, I mean, that was a lie. I just cannot believe that that is the case. And now we have increasing evidence that it was not the case. At the same time, there is some there are some machinations going on over within the House Republican caucus about whether or not they want to move forward with impeachment against Joe Biden.

Of course, you have put this up on the screen from Politico. You've got the more, you know, sort of hard right part of the caucus very much in favor of it. You've got a number of moderates who are in Biden districts, very uncomfortable with the idea of pushing forward with a Biden impeachment. McCarthy is trying to sort of walk the line right now of saying basically like, well, we might do an investigation, impeachment investigation. That's different than an actual impeachment. So they haven't exactly put together what all this would look like. And, you know, I mean, on the impeachment piece, it's interesting because the thing that they're contemplating going after Biden on would be corruption. And there's a reason why Democrats didn't go after Trump on the many manifest incidences of corruption. Instead, they went and did Russia and then, you know, appropriately, I think January 6th.

But they didn't do corruption because they're all implicated in corruption. And so if the Republicans actually choose to go down this road of trying to impeach a president over actual corrupt dealings, that opens up a whole can of worms that, frankly, I would be very happy to see opened up and applied across the board. But I'm not sure if they look at their own lives and their own siblings, sons, daughters, cousins, brothers, aunts, whatever business dealings they might feel a little bit more uncomfortable with. So that's part of what, to me, is very intriguing about this prospect of the Biden impeachment. Let me tell you, Crystal, if they cell phone themselves into making corruption an impeachable

offense, go for it, man. I mean, listen, let's set the historical precedent. Let's get the trial. Let's get the impeachment thing going. I'm loving it. I think a hell of a lot more people should be impeached. So look, they impeached Trump twice. The first one, in my opinion, was the biggest load of BS that we have seen yet in terms of impeachment. And, you know, in particular, a lot of us said, I recall, you know, covering it at the time is like, hey, guys, you shouldn't be, you know, just ripping the bandaid off for something like this because it can really come back to bite you. And so again, if the Republicans want to continue to erode the norm around impeachment, open the door then in the eyes of US history to impeach people for actual corruption and not just let some forward drama play out where you get pardoned after you leave office

and you have to resign and live in a multimillion dollar mansion in California. I'm all for it. I think it's great. So yeah. Well, the other thing I will say is, and they even sort of acknowledge this, they don't exactly have the goods yet on Biden in terms of their suggestions. There's uncorroborated evidence. There's this uncorroborated like intelligence report or whatever. They need to have more of a smoking gun direct tie in than what they have right now, I think, on Biden in order for this to work out and for the American people to accept that this is a sort of legitimate direction. And then the other thing which we've said before is like, you know, with the Hunter stuff and if you're going to impeach Joe, like leave the dick pics out of it. It's it does not help your costs. Right. And this is what you see on both sides

of the aisle. Honestly, they radically overreach. And then the pieces that are actually legitimate seem like such small ball in comparison to the wild overreaching accusations that are made that the public then just looks at it and they're like, oh, this is it. Like, you know, this is not a big deal to me. So after the grand conspiracy, I mean, Russia gets a perfect example. Like you were we were told there were pee tapes and all of this stuff and that there was some like low level sketchiness is all that it amounts to. Like, this is ultimately nothing based on what we were originally sold. Yeah. I mean, people may interpret what I said as saying that the first impeachment about the Zelensky phone call with Trump, you know, I said it was BS. Yeah. As a matter of impeachment,

I didn't say it was a good phone call, but like, you know, it's like you can judge things on their merits and be like, yeah, you know, I don't think it was a good phone call. It's like you can judge things on their merits and be like, yeah, I don't think presidents should probably talk that way. Do I think you should be impeached over it? Hell no. And that's where it's just so good that they try and assign historical gravity to things and then they end up messing it

up by really focusing on the most salacious or the worst parts of it. And then when those end up becoming true. Or making stuff up. Outrageous stuff, making things up. And then when those end up don't becoming true. Or making, outright making stuff up. Outrageous stuff, making things up. And then when those don't end up be true, and then the underlying, which can be bad, you know, but there are gradations of bad. And that's one of the actually things that we've lost, not only in media, but in political discourse as well around how all of this stuff goes down.

So anyway, I think it's interesting, important. It was a crazy day, absolutely, yesterday to watch all this full. I also got to say with the media too, they had no idea how to handle this. Like, they would be like, you know, a slight hiccup or whatever in Hunter's legal procedure. I'm like, it's not a slight hiccup. I'm like, this is crazy to see. This was a disastrous day for him. I mean, he thought this was going to be it for him. Like, he was going to be done. And even if the, you know, the judge does decide ultimately to accept this plea deal, even with this quote, atypical portions, the fact that Farrah is still hanging out there, that's a foreign

unregistered agent, lobbyist, whatever, that stuff, that that's still hanging out there. That's a disaster for him. He is guilty as sin on the Farrah thing. There is no... And if you are going to prosecute Manafort, and I don't even remember what the other guy's name is, and it's kind of like the documents case. How can you look at that set of facts and not prosecute the person under? You have to, no matter what the last name is. So if they don't, it's gonna be absolutely outrageous.

Yeah, true. There was another really, I mean, dramatic, wild, scary, frankly, disturbing moment that was unfolding on Capitol Hill, which is Senator Mitch McConnell came out to give a statement to the press. It was all going sort of according to plan. And then he just freezes mid-sentence, stops talking for a full 15 seconds, just total blank look on his face. Let's take a look at what that looked like. A partisan cooperation and a string of... Okay, Mitch. Anything else you want to say? I'm sure it's good.

Do you want to say anything else to the press? Let's go back. So very difficult to watch. You know, he seems to be starting to slow down. He slurs his words and then he just stops and just stares at the camera. And then Senator Barrasso comes over. And I don't know if you could hear what he said. He said basically like, Mitch, do you have anything else you want to say to the press or do you want to go back to your office? And then after a pause, they sort of escort him out. Now, he was able to come back

after that a few minutes later. And understandably, the press was, I think, was CNN's Manu Raju was like, what just happened? Are you okay? Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Could you address what happened at the start of the press conference and was it related to your injury from earlier this year where you suffered a concussion? Is that?

No, I'm fine. You're fine? You're fully able to do your job? Yeah. So he says, no, I'm fine. You're fine? You're fully able to do your job? No. So he says, no, I'm fine. What does that mean? Manaraji says, are you able to do your job? And he's like, yep.

So some of the context here, obviously Mitch McConnell is 81 years old. That's number one. Number two, there's reporting now that he's apparently been using a wheelchair quite a bit, pushed around in a wheelchair quite a bit to get around the Capitol, especially in crowded spaces. Number three, he suffered a concussion a while back that caused him to be out of the Senate for a while. Number four, we're just learning this morning that apparently he suffered another fall

just recently on July 14th. So, you know, very in the past couple of weeks, he suffered a fall at Reagan National Airport. So I don't know what was going on with him health wise. And he's clearly not saying he made some joke about it later that he got sandbagged in the same way that the president United States did. He's referring to when the president fell on stage. But, you know, falling on stage like we understood the cause and effect of what there was a sandbag. He tripped over it. We have no idea what's going on here. And this is an incredibly powerful individual.

Well, don't forget, Crystal, he was also hospitalized not that long ago. It was actually in March 9th, 2023. He was hospitalized for a few days after a fall at Washington Hotel during a private dinner and was treated for a concussion. And, you know, you and I were talking about this this morning. It's difficult to be able to cover these things and not appear as if you're trying to be mean. I am not trying to be mean in any of this. I actually feel a tremendous amount of pain

to watch a person who is elderly, you know, on the cameras, in a job like this, freeze up like that. That sounds not only humiliating, but if I was a relative of his, or if this, I almost look at it like a grandpa, I'd be like, I'd be like, please stop doing this. Please. I am begging you. I am absolutely begging you to step down, to not put yourself through this. But, and then we have to reconcile that, that's when you're a private citizen.

You're the most important Republican in the entire chamber. And he pointedly ignored two major questions yesterday, which reporters asked him. They said, what happened? Right. And all he says is, quote, I'm fine. Then they go, did you see a doctor? And he ignores the question and walks off. I'm sorry, but that's actually completely unacceptable.

We cannot be having septuagenarians like this be the leaders of the Republican Party in the Senate chamber. It's really not fair to many of the people behind him, people like John Thune, who are number two in the Republican Party, Cornyn. I mean, these guys aren't spring chickens. They're like 60, but they look like it compared to him. If you need to be rolled around in a wheelchair in private spaces, should you really be in a vigorous job where you're flying back and forth between your home state and all this? And I think a lot of it is ego. They just cannot handle the idea that some people do need to step down. Some people need to retire.

Last time I checked, his wife is like a billionaire. Go relax, man. I mean, you've been to Kentucky. I hear there's some nice places out there. Buy one of those crazy estates on some hill somewhere. Drink bourbon and sail off into the sun. It sounds like a great, you know, last couple of years of your life. Why do you want to be doing this?

And the answer is ego and power. And that's where we as a public have to demand that this does not become normalized for people who are in power. It has never been more stark to have an 81-year-old president who regularly is tripping and can't find his word. This guy's having a full-blown medical event. And then the crazy thing too is, you know, do these people not care about his well-being? Get his ass to a doctor immediately. Like, why is he even coming? He doesn't get a say in those type things. You're like, no, the doc needs to come here right now because what's going on in his mind? He's like, oh, my God, I got to shore things up with the press.

That's the least of your problems, man. You could die. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was the very first thing he said is that it's basically criminal. They didn't immediately take him to the hospital. I mean, imagine this was your mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, beloved elderly person, whoever they are, and they just complete freeze for that long. And the slurring of the words, it's very,

it's very disturbing. And then the broader piece here is so many of these freaking people are so old. And you know what? If you're able to do the job, fine. God bless you. No problem. But the complete lack of transparency and all the efforts to keep the public in the dark about your actual capability of fulfilling the job. You know what? If the public has total information and they're still like, all right, I still want this dude. You know, I still would vote for this person. Then

that's one thing. But we know the great lengths that they go to to hide any sign of aging and decline. We just covered yesterday Biden's AIDS having, you know, he's having to take the shorter stairs on Air Force One. They're trying to figure out all kinds of ways to shield from the public the realities of his age. And I think that that is incredibly wrong. Dianne Feinstein, obviously, you know, for years she has been declining mentally and people have known it and they have hidden it from the public. And she refused to debate. And, you know, she's always being shepherded around and has someone right on her elbow to be able to tell her what she needs to say and even tell her you're voting this way on this bill. And still now it's gotten so bad that they can't possibly cover it up. I mean, another thing that we actually paid attention to at the

time, which I think is worth noting once again, in terms of since we're having to read the tea leaves here and not get any actual information about Mitch McConnell's health, they passed in the Kentucky legislature back in 2021. This is, I think, around the time about Mitch McConnell's health. They passed in the Kentucky legislature back in 2021. This is, I think, around the time when Mitch McConnell was looking unwell and then he ultimately ends up being hospitalized. That would change the plan, the replacement plan, if a United States senator was to pass away in office and have to have a replacement filled in. As it was previously, the governor would make that replacement. Well, the governor of Kentucky is a Democrat. And so,

you know, Andy Beshear would very likely put a Democrat in that slot if that was to happen. So they changed the law so that it would go to the Kentucky legislature, which is Republican run. And domestically, you know, in the state, at the state level and people who are in the know, they really thought that that was Mitch McConnell pushed this legislation through. And domestically, you know, in the state, at the state level and people who are in the know there really thought that that was Mitch McConnell pushed this legislation through. And they really thought this was about Mitch McConnell's declining health. So noteworthy to put that out there now that we have this latest health incident. And, you know, the fact that they just stonewall, don't answer any questions, don't provide any transparency. It's really an affront to democracy. I mean, at bottom, that's what it is.

No, it's enraging. And that's what I mean. It's so hard because my anger, you know, I get these very snarky messages from people who work, let's just say, in and around McConnell. We're like, oh, this is not fair. It's not nice. I mean, they have the gall to tell the press immediately after. He, you know, had a moment.

He was sharp afterwards. Let me just say, that's not sharp. Don't bullshit me. That is where I just, I'm just like, just level with me, man. Let's just be real here. Let's acknowledge reality. They said he was lightheaded. I've been lightheaded before. I get low iron, a little lightheaded. It doesn't look like that. It does not look like that. Okay, it does not look like that. So stop bullshitting us, please. It drives me nuts. And the thing is, is that they expect the public to just sit there and absorb it.

And I will also say this. I was on Capitol Hill yesterday. There is far too chummy a relationship between the press and many of these representatives. You can actually see, we don't have the clip. There was a second clip that happened late last night whenever he went to them and said he got sandbagged. Like, how are you, sir? And all that. And even tepidly, you can tell that the guy feels bad. He's like, hey, did you see a doctor or anything? You should, I mean, listen, I know this is uncomfortable. You

need to be screaming in the man's face. You need to be like, listen, did you see a doctor or not? Are you going to answer the question? Or are you just going to keep saying you're fine? And I understand. It's a geriatric man. He just suffered a health event. It's super uncomfortable. But you have to put yourself out of that. You're the only people in that position. You know, press access to where he was, the gallery or whatever, is very, very tightly controlled. And so you're the only opportunity the American people have to actually get an answer here.

Otherwise, we're relying on his aides on background saying he was super sharp, as you can see whenever he was. I mean, it's just insanity that they want you to imbibe and to believe this stuff. But that's what living in Washington is like, is that they literally deny reality in your face. Constant gaslighting. This parlays well into the next piece we wanted to show you, which is Fox News Digital went out and asked a bunch of voters, hey, do you think that maybe if you're running for president, you should have to debate? And voters felt very strongly in the affirmative that that should be a requirement. Take a listen to a little bit of that. I think 100 percent. If you don't know how someone's going to speak in a public setting in front of millions of people on TV and with other people asking them questions, then how do you know how they're going to react when they're answering questions for millions of people and they're

trying to talk to the whole United States of America. Of course, I always think so. I think you get more of their point of views on things. If you can't stand up for what you believe in and have a debate with somebody, you're out. We need to be able to hear what people have to say before they can just run to be in charge of the most powerful country in the world, you know? So we have a lot of influence and we need someone who people can hear and be confident about. 100%. You should be able to defend any and every policy that you have or any question about an existing policy in any kind of a public debate where you can be asked questions that are not, you're not getting softball pitches that are questions that you've been told ahead of time. You need to be able to clearly and accurately have a discussion

about policies that are affecting the entire country that you are going to be the leader of if you're elected. Obviously, voters are like, of course you should debate. And I have to say, Sagar, if you call yourself a journalist and you are enraged and demanding out there just on the agenda of the people demanding that Trump and Biden subject themselves to public debates, neither one of whom is a spring chicken, by the way. So it ties in very closely with the Mitch McConnell discussion that we just had. I don't know how you call yourself a journalist if you just accept as like appropriate political strategy that, of course, they wouldn't debate.

Yeah, obviously. I mean, it's actually probably the biggest disconnect between just being a normal person or people who interact with normal people and then the actual political class. We're like, of course not. We're not going to debate. Everyone knows and wants and needs that moment that for politicians. I mean, I think it's actually ingrained, luckily, in our historical lore. I mean, one of the most important things that ever happened in modern American history were the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Like when we think about these long, drawn out questions that thousands of people would come to such that the idea of Lincoln-Douglas even became its own

event. I know some high schoolers who are watching this probably participated in it. It's a great format. And when you think back to how important those debates were, they were actually printed in pamphlets and they were distributed across the country and millions of people at that time. Imagine you're a farmer, you don't have a lot of access to technology, entertainment, TikTok, and all this other stuff. And this comes in the mail, you know, several months later. And you're reading this like, hey, this is some great arguments around slavery and about the most important debates that are within the country. Luckily, that's kind of carried over, I think, even to the most basic level, if you go through somewhat of a civics education,

and then you look at the current state and you're like, wait, this is all I got? I mean, you know, first of all, we missed out on a debate last time because Trump got COVID. And then even on this one, you know, I've always loved the primary debates. I believe that Obama debated some 19 times before he got the Democratic one. Wow. Which is incredible, actually. I mean, A, it put him in fighting. He's even said this. It put me in fighting shape.

Yeah. For when I had to go up against McCain. Everyone remembers his disastrous first debate against Mitt Romney. And the reason why is because he was an arrogant prick who'd been president for four years. And it's like, turns out out when you're in the bubble, you have no idea how you really come off. And then in the second debate, you could see he was much more approachable. He took the time to sit there and engage in terms of the audience member, even though Candy Crowley put the, what is it, put her finger on the scale for him. Still haven't forgotten about that one.

I enjoyed that moment. Please proceed, Governor. Crazy, crazy, crazy moment there. I can't believe it's been more than decades. I know, it is wild. You know, I was thinking about it too. Yeah. It can seem like, oh, it's just sort of like entertainment,

these debates, you know? I mean, we do enjoy them in a sense, like entertainment because we're weirdos and dorks, but it also does actually matter to get these people on the record. I mean, what did we show you earlier? Biden, when he was on the campaign trail, getting pressed, having to be put on the record specifically about Hunter Biden, lo and behold, that turns out to matter now. Biden also, I mean, the whole reason that he was pushed into having to say anything about student debt cancellation was because he was on a primary stage versus other opponents. It matters to get people on the record.

Nancy Pelosi getting that question about the stock trading ban and being really revealing how she actually thinks about things, which is like, oh, it's just free market. People should be able to participate. It matters getting people on the record. And, you know, as we have these super old men who are running for president and probably going to be the Republican and Democratic nominee, it also really matters to be able to see in some sort of a test of whether they are up to the rigors of the office. As a piece of information to evaluate with all of the other pieces of information that exist. These things really do matter. So it is absolutely atrocious and such a sign of just utter decline in the country

that it is very likely the two top contenders do not debate in their primaries, don't feel that they have to go out there and actually prove themselves to the American people. It is such an incredibly sad state of affairs. I would also disagree with the idea that debates are just for nerds. I mean, some of the, you know, the 17th primary debate, yeah. But, you know, I just looked at this up. 84 million people watched Trump and Hillary debate. Yeah.

The first of them. That's a major cultural event. People. It's like Barbie right there. Yeah, I mean, that's wild. That is half the u.s adult population you know and you think also about the first uh 2016 campaign debate that trump participated in i mean i'll never forget only rosio i literally will never forget that moment

i think politics changed the day that he took that stage i am thinking also uh there are a lot of debate moments you know know, that still resonate. Newt Gingrich had some big ones. Gingrich went after, he said that, you know, actually that pressage Trump in a lot of ways when he attacked John King in the media. I remember that one as well. These moments, we've just talked about Candy Crowley, you know, all of these different things that we can think about. Americans, regular Americans do pay attention. You know, of the top 20 most viewed live events in 2022, only one of them was political. 19 others were sports, but it was the State of

the Union. And by the way, that State of the Union was boring as hell, but 42 million people watched it. So I think we should put more faith in people that if you do give them a reason, they will show up. You know, Americans are interested. They're not all like, you know, we have this thing about how like, oh, everyone's checked out. And some of that is true to a certain extent. But when you give people the opportunity, they do show up to watch. They at least tune in for a little bit to try and figure out what's going on. So anyway, I think people should get that opportunity. I think it's important for the for the republic, as people often say. All right. Let's go to the next part here. Wow. Big day yesterday. Had to hold it all in. This go to the next part here. Wow, big day yesterday.

Had to hold it all in until we got there. This is like your Super Bowl saga. This was the Super Bowl. We had the UFO hearings that happened on Congress. I was there live in person on Capitol Hill. It was absolutely electric energy. I talked to some of the press people who were involved. They said they had rarely seen so many people who were interested. There were hundreds of people lined up outside, many of them Breaking Points fans, so shout out to all of you who I got to talk to a little bit yesterday. I think we should take this opportunity to just go through some of the most important events that happened during that hearing. If you're interested, Jeremy Corabella and I did a live reaction right outside of the

Capitol that I referenced earlier in our show that's available currently on our YouTube channel. But to me, this moment's gonna stick out above everything. It's what all the news outlets picked up. Backstory, I was sitting at the press table with all the other reporters, and when Dave Grush said the words non-human biologics, there was an audible gasp, not only at the press table, but throughout the entire room. The energy was just absolutely insane. Here's the moment that I'm talking about.

Let's take a listen. If you believe we have crashed craft, stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft? As I've stated publicly already in my News Nation interview, biologics came with some of these recoveries. Yeah. Were they, I guess, human or non-human biologics came with some of these recoveries. Yeah. Were they, I guess, human or non-human biologics? Non-human. And that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program. So that's probably the biggest thing that came out of that crystal, non-human biologics. Now, okay, let's try and steel man the case because I think that's always fun. That could mean anything, right? That could mean a rat.

That could mean a dog. But it was clearly implied in the way that Dave Grush stated that, that as the UFO whistleblower testifying under oath, under penalty of perjury, having represented all of this not only to News Nation, but also entering it into the congressional record and also going through the whistleblower process to say that we have recovered alien craft, he refuses to say the word alien, or extraterrestrial,

he just says non-human origin, that these not only crash, there not only was a crash retrieval program, but that quote, biologics were recovered then at the time. I mean, that's just one of the most stunning things that you really could say under oath before Congress in the UFO context. Obviously salacious, it has a little bit of the giggle factor. It has a little bit of the movie factor and seems so unbelievable. And of course,

you know, extraordinary claims do also require extraordinary evidence. But I'm curious what you've made of that or if you have any questions or anything. I mean, it was just wild to watch members of Congress seriously asking these questions. I mean, that was just wild to watch members of Congress seriously asking these questions. I mean, that was wild to see. It is a remarkable development that this is being treated with the gravity that it is at this point. And I think obviously the turning point was when some of these videos were released and just became undeniable. And Congress has clearly become increasingly frustrated at the stonewalling that they feel like they are getting. I mean, one question I have for you, Sagar, maybe you can

just set the context for people is, you know, he's making lots of allegations. He wasn't directly involved in the program. This is based on what he's been told from people that are involved in the program. Well, why weren't any of those people required to testify to be there so that we could have something more direct than secondhand testimony? Excellent question. Unfortunately, there's a full-blown cover-up going on. So effectively, Dave Grush, as I said, he will go to jail if he violates the terms of his disclosure agreements with the Department of Defense, where he is going through the formal whistleblower process. So he will be prosecuted if he reveals any classified information.

So they repeatedly were asking him exactly what you said. They're like, look, who are these people? And he said, I cannot give you those names in an unclassified setting. And so they said, oh, so you could give this to us in a classified setting. He said, I would be happy to give you the names, the specific names of both hostile and non-hostile direct reports. I can give you the exact locations of crashed UFOs, where these programs are happening, the people involved, the dates, when things were moved, et cetera. But I can only do that inside of a secure compartmentalized facility called a SCIF. There are several SCIFs inside of Congress. Congressman Tim Burchett, who I actually personally spoke to before the hearing, as well as

other members, Matt Gaetz, Anna Paulina Luna, and Jared Moskowitz, who is a Democrat, let's be clear here, so this is a bipartisan thing, that were denied access to the skiffs inside of Congress to be able to debrief Dave Grush and to be provided these unclassified names. Grush repeatedly said under oath, he's like, I am dying. I would love to give you all this information, the names of the people to be called. He is literally unable to give them those names outside of an actual interview inside of a skiff. And those members of Congress who are actually pushing on this issue have been denied skiff access. So I think it's very important for me to explain that, that there is a lot more, you know, everyone's like, okay, well, where is it? I'm like, well, he, he will literally break

the law. And as we all know, like they are dying to throw him in jail. They want to shut this man up. They keep calling him a liar. And I will get to that in terms of this statement that was released here. Another of the absolutely extraordinary allegations that was made was under questioning from the congressman from Missouri about whether any U.S. personnel had been physically injured while handling a crashed UFO. Here's what Dave Grush had to say. At one point, you had said that there has been harmful activity or aggressive activity. Has any of the activity been aggressive, been hostile in your reports? I know of multiple colleagues of mine that got physically injured. And the activity... By U has been activity by alien or non-human technology and or beings that has caused harm to humans.

I can't get into the specifics in an open environment, but at least the activity that I personally witnessed, and I have to be very careful here because you don't, you know, they tell you never to acknowledge tradecraft, right? So what I personally witnessed, myself and my wife, was very disturbing. Very disturbing. I mean, I understand why people are skeptical. I get it. They're like, everyone talks big game. Where's the evidence here? He's made clear he can't actually talk about this in an unclassified setting.

I thought it was still extraordinary to get him on the record under oath. And listen, I mean, I think it's also important for me to say, if this man is lying, no one is going to be more upset than me because he wasted a lot of my time. He wasted your guys' money, people who pay our bills for me going down there and for getting a camera crew, for investing so much airtime and discussion to all of this, but he ticks enough boxes for us to consider, at least me, to be consider this credible enough. And not just me. I mean, this is the freaking house oversight committee here. Right. Testifying under oath, bringing these guys in a setting where he could be able to actually face questions. I mean, face some

questions actually from a few people. And he also revealed something pretty interesting about the actual timeline. Now, remember, UFO lore really begins, at least in the American context, Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. But Grush actually told us that things predate Roswell by a pretty significant portion all the way to the 1930s. Let's take a listen to what he said there. Has the U.S. government become aware of actual evidence of extraterrestrial, otherwise unexplained forms of intelligence? And if so, when do you think this first occurred? I like to use the term non-human.

I don't like to denote origin. Keeps the aperture open, both scientifically. Certainly, like I've discussed publicly, previously 1930s. Previously 1930s. So there you go. There's actually some extraordinary backstory you and I were talking about. Yeah. I mean, this is where I start to go like, I'm definitely going to need some more evidence because we're talking about cover up with the Vatican and Mussolini going back to the 1930s. I mean, there's just, listen, it's a lot to swallow. That's the bottom line. It's a lot to swallow. You're talking about U.S. personnel who are being injured by aliens and non-human biologics and cover-ups going back

to the 1930s. And we don't have more than like a few grainy images. We don't have more than someone who, you know, secondhand might might have heard something but can't say exactly what it is in a public setting which on the one hand you're like cover up on the other hand you're like that's also very convenient so i'm just gonna need more soccer hopefully this is step one we'll just say that i i think it's the beginning of something and i i again want to say i want these people if it's uh if they're lying i want it to be speedily proved to come out and just be like, this is BS. Everything that this man is saying is a lie. If he did lie, I want him to be prosecuted, again, for wasting my time, for wasting the entire community's time, for misleading people down this wild goose chase.

I mean, that's not only immoral but illegal now that he's actually testified under oath and gone through the DOD process. So, listen, I mean, we don't know fully yet whether everything he said or not. We know that there's some breadcrumbs that have been scattered in terms of where, if they're eventually given SCIF access by these members of Congress. And I will say, I got to give these people a lot of credit. You can say a lot about Matt Gaetz, but he does seem genuinely very interested in this topic. And part of the reason why, Crystal, is he shared a personal anecdote about how there was a UFO encounter

at Elgin Air Force Base, of which one of his constituents contacted him and was like, man, this is one of the craziest things that's ever happened to me. My radar went down. My FLIR systems went down. I was able to snap a manual photo. He showed Gates the photo in the classified setting.

The DOD won't allow him to release the photo. And he's like, I'm sitting there trying to get access to a military base as a member of Congress with top secret clearance. He even served on the House Intelligence Committee. And the freaking United States military is telling me, a congressman, basically screw off. We're not giving you any access. He's like, that's an extraordinary, extraordinary situation for me to be in. You know, these are one of my, these constituents come to me in good faith because the pilot, this was a test pilot actually who encountered this, told Gates, the best thing you can do for your career is shut up and forget that this ever happened. Because when you start reporting this stuff up the chain, they're like, Hey, this isn't, we're not, we're not dealing with this

because they don't want to, you know, they don't want records. You got no records. You got nothing to turn over to Congress. Yeah. I mean, I look at it on the one hand, I'm like, this is a lot for me to swallow, as I just said. On the other hand, I'm like, but then I see the photos and the videos, and I'm like, they don't have another explanation for it. So give us some kind of explanation for what's going on that passes the sniff test, and, you know, perhaps we can move on. This comes through also with Commander David Fravor's testimony.

I thought it was so important. David Fravor is the only reason I'm interested in UFOs. I thought it was BS, frankly. And I read the only reason I'm interested in UFOs. I thought it was BS, frankly. And I read the 2017 article and I was like, yeah, maybe. Then I heard Fravor and I was like, man, this guy's unimpeachable. I mean, this is the, like I've said this before, he was a commanding officer,

led people into battle on an aircraft carrier, has a verified UFO incident. I mean, he himself called it the most credible UFO sighting in history. He said multiple times at the hearing, he said, I'm not a UFO incident. I mean, he himself called it the most credible UFO sighting in history. He said multiple times at the hearing, he said, I'm not a UFO guy. This, by the way, is not even, you know, the craziest things that ever happened in my life.

I never wanted to be involved in this. I never wanted to come forward. I'm only doing so because I believe that what I saw that day did not come from human technology. I mean, he repeatedly referenced that a human being who was inside the craft that he saw with his own eyes would have died from the G-forces that were inflicted upon the way that it moved. And David Fravor, again, a multi-year pilot in charge of hundreds of millions of dollars of aircraft, said on a number of bases, who's also involved, I believe, in the field at this moment, is like, look, from a material science perspective, this does not exist.

And not only now, it doesn't exist 100 years from now it doesn't exist 200 years from now in terms of human capabilities and then when you combine that with what dave grush said in many cases that many of these ufo crash retrieval programs predate you know our own like ability to fly at supersonic speed i mean we didn't even break the sound barrier. I believe Chuck Yeager did it in like 1950, something like that. So, you know, post-Roswell at the very least, some people say it's connected. Anyway, I think it's important. And I just want to end actually with the statement though, that the Pentagon, to be clear, is still saying that he's lying. So guys, C5, please, let's put this up there on the screen. This was the full readout from Susan Goh, who works at the Pentagon, who gave this statement on the testimony. She says, to date, the all-domain anomaly resolution office has not discovered any verifiable information

to substantiate claims any programs regarding the possession of reverse engineering of extraterrestrials may have existed in the past or exist currently. So again, this is actually very clear. The Pentagon says he's lying. Dave Grush says the Pentagon is lying. Let's see. If you can prove vice versa, one of those people lied to Congress, they need to go to jail for what they did. And I actually love that it's so binary here because eventually you can prove whether one or two of those people or whether one of these individuals is telling the truth or not. They've both done now so in an open setting. And yeah, we'll see. I mean, either this is a colossal, I mean, a colossal, not only just like

PSYOP, but like, you know, stage and all this. I mean, to have this man who literally worked in the intelligence community come forward as a decorated combat veteran, served in Afghanistan, Air Force cadet. So much of his military service, he referenced in his testimony, they're like, why are you doing this? And he said, he said, it's because he's like, I took an oath, you know, 18 years ago when I became an Air Force cadet, I followed that oath. I believe that there was a coverup going on. I'll just end on this note. You know, he says that he's been doing this at tremendous risk to his own life, fear of reprisal. Here's what he had to say. It was very brutal and very unfortunate. Some of the tactics they used to hurt me both professionally and personally, to be quite frank. Yeah.

It's very unfortunate, as they say, when you're over the target, that's when they do the most firing at you. Do you have any personal knowledge of people who've been harmed or injured in efforts to cover up or conceal these extraterrestrial technology yes personally have you heard have anyone been murdered that you would that you know of or have heard of i guess i have to be careful asking that question i directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities. In the last couple of years, have you had incidences that have caused you to be in fear for your life for addressing these issues? Yes, personally. So you can take that for any way that you want. I choose to take it actually pretty seriously. If it's real, it's the biggest story in the world. So keep pushing, guys. Can't stop.

All right, let's turn to some more terrestrial affairs here. Rudy Giuliani facing charges over defamation. He's embroiled in a lawsuit there over comes that he made about two Georgia election workers. Let's put this up on the screen. So it's kind of an extraordinary admission that he just made in a court filing. This is a Forbes tweet. They say after about a year and a half of battling in the courtroom, Rudy Giuliani stated Tuesday night that he lied about two Georgia election workers stuffing ballots, committing election fraud, but did not say that he had caused any damages to them despite harassment that the two had faced. This from the New York Times report. They say that this concession by Mr. Giuliani came in court papers. And basically, he's admitting that what he said about these people was completely wrong,

that it was a complete lie, that, I mean, he smeared them and it happened multiple times, etc. But he's saying that he still has legal defenses because he doesn't believe that they suffered any damages. So that will be the major piece that they will be deciding in this lawsuit. So just so you get a sense of what allegations he was making about these two election workers that led to this defamation suit, here he is on basically a Zoom call talking about what he thinks was going on in Georgia with these two election workers' legalism. Quite obviously, surreptitiously passing around

USB ports as if they're vials of heroin or cocaine. I mean, it's obvious to anyone who's a criminal investigator or prosecutor, they are engaged in surreptitiously illegal activity, again, that day. And that's a week ago, and they're still walking around Georgia lying. So it's a bold accusation, basically comparing them to drug dealers. It was immediately

debunked. They were passing mints back and forth to one another, nothing more nefarious than this. But nevertheless, he repeated it multiple times, and it became a part of the whole litany of the case that the election was stolen. And it was also repeated and really taken in by the president, who apparently invoked one of these women's name 18 times during that infamous phone call with Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State on January 2nd, 2021. That's the one where he asked for him to find the requisite number of votes for the former president to be able to win the state, which, you know, is leading to quite a bit of legal scrutiny for him as well. So, you know, I think it's important because it just shows you what a little crock this was. And it also shows you that many of the people involved, Sagar, knew it was a crock. Yes. And were happy to ruin the lives of these women in pursuit of foisting a lie on the American people.

I think it's actually not only criminal. I think it's disgusting because how many, you know, well-meaning Republicans out there, average goes, they hear Trump. They're like, wow, that's horrible. They hear the freaking former mayor of New York. I mean, one of them at the time was one of the most respected politicians in the entire country talking about people passing USBs back and forth. You know, if you're one of those people, you have no reason not to believe or at least think, wow, that's a little bit crazy. How do you know whenever he's lying? Or how many people are going to watch this segment seeing that he admitted that he's a liar? That's why I think it's so

gross. I mean, I know personally, a lot of people, and I've had some crazy interactions. I remember a guy, Uber driver once, he's like, do you really believe the election wasn't stolen? He's like, you just seem like a guy who would believe it. And I was like, well, I guess I could understand why you would think that, but I had laid out, you know, the cases, they lost every single one. He's like, yeah, but these judges, you know, that's rigged. I'm like, really? It's rigged. like across like all these red states actually. With all of these Trump appointed judges and whatever. People are throwing it out. It's like, well, that's kind of interesting. And then all of them, inevitably it comes back to Giuliani. And it's like, no,

but Rudy Giuliani said this stuff. So I don't think you could really, you know, underestimate how important Giuliani was to the lore of Stop the Steal in a lot of these people's minds. And that's why I think it's particularly disgusting what he did. Yeah, that's absolutely right. He used the credibility that he built up as America's mayor, not only to try to mislead the entire country. And let's be clear, some 60 to 70 percent of the Republican base still believes that the election was stolen based on things like this, him alleging that these two women, mother and

daughter, were passing USB ports back and forth when really they were passing mints back and forth. And again, he knew that. He knew it, and he lied to you about it because it served his purposes at the time. It is utterly and completely disgraceful. And it also enrages me. I mean, these are just two regular women who it is a genuine civic duty to show up and work the polls. You don't get paid for it. It's a pain in the ass. You got to deal with all kinds of, you know, people who have whatever going on. It's a whole thing. And they were willing to do it. They were there, State Farm Arena, Fulton County, doing the thing late at night, et cetera, et cetera. And they were, you know, subjected according to what they have

to say. And I completely believe it because I remember hearing this claim at the time. I mean, this was like one of the core things that was being circulated in within the circles that were believing this stuff. They say their lives have been completely upended. You know, private citizens who now are being accused of this incredible nefarious crime just casually by a very powerful individual. So it really is disgusting. The other piece of this is there's been a lot of conjecture about what exactly is going on with Giuliani right now. We, of course, are back on Trump indictment watch. Looks like the Jack Smith investigation into what happened on January 6th and fake elector scheme, that may be drawing to a close. We may get charges in that relatively soon. And Giuliani has been talking to

the government about whatever he knows with regard to that. And there was some question over whether Giuliani may have flipped and may be providing information. The government may be working out his own deal. He denies it, to be clear. But I think there's still a bit of a question mark there. bit of a question mark there. And the other question mark on that front is Mark Meadows. Oh, yeah. Well, Meadows in particular. Actually, there was a video circulating yesterday where he was walking into his office and he was repeatedly asked, you know, whether he had like whether he had any comment about this case and the grand jury and all that. And, you know, there were some federal prosecutors who said that given his level of non-response, that he'd certainly seem like somebody

who could be cooperating with the government. Apparently Trump's own people think he's cooperating with the government. So who the hell knows what's going on there? And then, you know, as a reminder, there's a former White House chief of staff that we're talking about here. So it would have been extraordinary. I mean, he was in the room, like when a lot of that stuff was going on. He was integral. I mean, he really was at the center of it. So we'll keep our eye on that one. We also have an extraordinary glimpse into whatever is going on inside the White House with regard to their dogs. So this is, I don't know, it's really, it's honestly sad. So put this up on the screens from the New York Post. This was some records that were revealed through a

Freedom of Information Act request. Biden's dog, this is the younger one, Commander, sent a Secret Service officer to the hospital and has bitten six others after replacing, they say, the first pooch, Major. Major had, I think, was also German Shepherd, same breed, and also had to be removed from the residence because of some aggressive incidents. But what was revealed through the Freedom of Information Act request was that Commander has bitten seven people in a four-month span after Major was ousted over similar aggressive behavior, the shocking spate of incidents, none of them previously reported, mirrors attacks involving Major, who the White House says was given to family friends after

biting Secret Service members in 2021. In the most serious of the incidents that were documented, the White House Physician's Office on November 3rd had to refer a Secret Service officer to a local hospital for treatment after Commander clamped down on their arm and thigh, according to emails released under that FOIA request. Commander broke the skin of a different Secret Service member's hand and arm weeks later after the president unleashed him outside the White House following a family movie. Night communications indicate in the following month,

Commander bit the back of a security technician at Biden's Wilmington, Delaware home. So seven different bites in a four-month span. So I have a lot. First of all, for anybody who's accusing us, this is the fun block. Everybody knows that. So let's just keep putting it on the end. But I did a little bit of research into this. I know people who— It's not fun for these Secret Service officers.

Yeah, well, first of all, it's not fun for the Secret Service officers. And that's kind of what I want to talk about, which is I know a lot of people who own German Shepherds. So I actually talked to them about it. And I was like, hey, what's going on here? Every single one of them pointed to this, that when you have two successive dogs that are both involved in biting incidents under your ownership, something's wrong with you. These are not breeds which are known for just being aggressive like this. Maybe they can go a little bit wild and they can get like this if they're untamed. But really what they all pointed to is like these are – and look, I don't have any inside knowledge,

but based upon people I know who own German Shepherds, I know a lot of people with German Shepherds. They're some of the sweetest dogs in the world. They need a little bit of training. They need to kind of like – you've got to force them. But you need to be forcible, I think, in terms of your direction and all that. You have – and sometimes actually the breeders who sell German Shepherds or give German Shepherds, they require you to put the dog through training specifically to avoid incidents like this because they know that if unchecked that this can happen.

So unfortunately, I actually think it is clear that there's just a sheer carelessness going on in the Biden household where they appear just like not to want to spend the time. Or even – this is the thing. You guys, people have a lot of money. We all know that thanks to the whole hunter uh situation why don't you just spend the money that a normal middle-class family buying a german shepherd or getting a german shepherd would do this just standard operating procedure here yeah or uh it could say there's another thing they all point to that the dog is criminally under exercised and is not being taken care of properly. We know for a dog that size,

you probably gotta walk that thing five miles a day. I can forgive the president for not having the time to do that, but you have a lot of people who work for you who could go do it for you. So at the very least, it's more like a lack of attention to that. And look, I can't help as a pet owner and, you know, I have a dog

and I'm a cat and I can't help, but just think frankly, less of people who don't do that. You know, it's like whenever you have, I lived in an apartment at one time and I knew a guy who had one of those Alaskan Huskies and he kept the Husky in the house. And I just remember being like, I mean like he was a nice guy, but I'll never forget that. I'm like, you put that freaking dog in an apartment all day? That's not cool, man. This is like a vanity project so you can get cool Instagram photos with an Alaskan husky. I'm like, you got to think about the dog's welfare. He could walk this thing.

It needs actual space. And you willingly brought it into this situation. If you don't have the time or the resources for it, then you shouldn't be handling that. And Glenn Greenwald has talked about this as well. You know, he's very involved in dog rescue and all that. There's unfortunately a massive spike of people who are returning dogs or giving up dogs or abandoning dogs because they got them during the pandemic and then they didn't do, you know, or they didn't want to do the actual work to take care of a dog. You know, in the long run, you know, this is supposedly supposed to be a lifelong commitment. It's like a blood contract in a way between you and this animal.

And so, yeah, I mean, that's just on a personal level. You can't help but observe here. Like, you know, everyone always says, like, it's not the dog, it's the owner. I don't think that's always the case. But when you have two incidents like this that happen back to back, it can't help us say there's something going on inside that house. Put this next piece up on the screen, which was some reporting at the time about Major Biden being sent away for offsite private training. And by the way, they say that Commander is going to undergo additional training as well and that they're setting up new dedicated exercise areas and new leashing protocols to try to keep Secret Service safe when they're around him. First of all, I liked this quote, Biden has insisted Major is sweet and loved by 85% of the people he meets at the Biden's busy

news. Well, that's not a great proportion. But what I found interesting in this article is they interviewed someone who was a professional trainer, who number one, took some issue with the type of training that they were getting for Major. They didn't think that it was the sort of, number one, took some issue with the type of training that they were getting for Major. They didn't think that it was the sort of, you know, they thought that a different style of training might be better. I don't know. But they did say this is a dog who, through genetics and early lack of good experience, because Major had been a shelter dog, has probably developed mistrust of certain types of people. And German Shepherds, they said, and I didn't realize this, are the number one biting breed in the country, though they tend not to bite hard. Most of the German Shepherds that this trainer says they've seen over the past 30 years have anxious,

suspicious dispositions. So it may be the case that this is a particularly difficult dog breed to have in an environment that is like the White House, which is tons of people in and out and lots of different folks. That makes sense. Yeah, it does make sense that this may be a particularly difficult type of breed to have in this type of setting. But then I don't know why, after the first incident, you choose this breed again. Yeah, you have a responsibility not only to the dog. First of all, I mean, this dog is so anxious.

If they're not going to be happy in this type of environment, then don't bring them into this type of environment. That's it. And then also, listen, listen i mean and i hate to say this but you know if you are a normal person and your dog bites two people the dog is going down yeah i think everybody knows i mean after one it's really usually i think they usually give you i forget exactly i think it's state by state and also in terms of localities as well what the rules are but like if you have one reported incident that's already bad like especially if you drop blood. But if you have two and you send somebody to the hospital, at least here, like I know this because I got bitten by a dog, by somebody. And actually they told me, they're like, hey, you need to go report. I actually didn't do it because I felt,

I was like, I can't be responsible. I can't have blood on my hands. Like even those dogs, they pounced on me and bit into my leg. But they were like, hey, that dog, you know, like we really need to – you know, you need to contact animal control. They're going to go and investigate this incident, and it will ultimately likely, you know, result in being the dog being like forcibly put down. So anyway, I'm just saying, you know, also it turns – it shows you that, you know, the special treatment I think that they're getting, which, you know, a lot of people have to deal with this. And a lot of people take a lot more care apparently than the first family on this. And yeah, I mean, I would just say on a personal level, I definitely think less of them for having two dogs now in this incident and then not taking the care necessary for their employees. I mean, these people, like you think the circuit service guy wants to be there all day? You know what you think? I know some of these guys from when I worked on the White House grounds.

They're sitting there in full body armor in a hundred degree heat, sometimes like with a machine gun, sitting in a bush, just literally wasting away in the heat. Like the last thing that guy needs to deal with is a dog. He's worrying about it. He's worrying about this dog. Seven people in four months. And by the way, in the report, they do have text messages back and forth from, you know, one of them saying like, Commander charged me very aggressively. I think it's only a matter of time before someone gets bitten. And yeah, so to me, that's maybe one of the bigger pieces here is how is it that we've had seven bites in a four-month span and it had to be brought to the public before it's really dealt with? Yeah. Oh, there you go.

Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, in a brand new interview, Abigail Disney, granddaughter of Walt and heiress to the Disney fortune, had a pretty blunt message for current Disney CEO Bob Iger. Now, Iger has recently come under fire for some absolutely trash comments he made about striking actors and writers saying their demands were, quote, unreasonable. All of this while he canoodled at the Sun Valley, Idaho, billionaire boys club. A little additional context for Iger's outrageous comments here. He earns $65 million per year, pays his workers such low wages that some have actually been forced into homelessness. Here's Abigail reacting to Iger's comments and the fact that his pay is 1,424 times the pay of the median Disney employee. Quote, if you have $65 million in your pocket and there are people in your company

who are struggling to put food on the table, that should not feel good to you. You shouldn't be able to sleep well at night. I woke up one day and realized that just by virtue of being born lucky, I had so much more than everyone else, and I don't think I've slept well since I figured that out.

And to her credit, Abigail has increasingly used her visibility as a wealthy and connected person into more and more radical activism. I've actually been watching her trajectory for a while, and while many put away radical politics as they age, she has actually been pushing herself into more and more activism. She was recently arrested for the first time as part of a climate change protest against private jet travel. She and a group of activists blocked the East Hampton airport where the nation's billionaire class boards and de-planes from their private jets, a just cause

if ever there was one given the number of stars and billionaires who wring their hands about climate change and then casually spew a million times more emissions into the air than the average human. I'm not exaggerating here either, as Abigail actually points out. An Oxfam study estimates that billionaires literally emit a million times more than the average person. And guess what, guys? She also walks the walk, or more accurately, flies the commercial flight, putting to shame the petty protestations of those who would have us believe it's just too much of a burden for the rich to fly with the rest of us chumps. To Rolling Stone, she specifically calls out megastars Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in Don't Look Up but still blasts around on his private jet, and Taylor Swift, who apparently tops the list of private jet travelers. Abigail Disney's commitment to being a class traitor is admirable.

It also serves as an example for the many A-list celebrities who have absented themselves from the class struggle that is happening in their own industry. Because while Abigail's actions shouldn't matter any more than those of the young climate activists who organized the protests and who she was arrested alongside, this is America. The reality is people with wealth and status have a whole lot more power and clout than your average individual. And because of this, it's been disappointing to see how few of the top actors have shown up to stand in solidarity with their underpaid brothers and sisters. A prominent SAG-AFTRA member told Variety, there's been a palpable lack of headliners. If our stars were all out there in force advocating for us, we would know it. In a sign of rank-and-file frustration in a union where your average member is pulling in about $26K annually, one picketer actually held up a sign that read, where the F is Ben Affleck. The normally

politically outspoken celeb has yet to show up for any of the pickets. Think of how much cultural cachet these people have. Golden opportunity to advocate for not only their own industry, but all workers. There have been some exceptions, though, and the power of the words of these recognizable figures shows just how important their active participation actually is, not to mention what it would mean to their union brothers and sisters. Here's Arianne Boyd, the actor who played Stewie in Succession, absolutely ripping into the studio boss's take a listen. We deserve a living wage. We deserve breaks.

We deserve to work together to make beautiful art so people can enjoy it. It's like these people haven't seen fucking Succession. What's about you? The most important thing that we can do right now as a unit, as a group, is to keep together. They're going to try to divide us. They're going to try to tell us this, that, and the other. All we can do right now is show up. Care.

Be here. Picket, post, keep posting, make stories, tell people about this. That's the only thing that we can do. United, we will beat them. I am so proud to be an actor and so proud to be in this union. Here we go. Show up and picket. Now, the reason I'm highlighting these class traitors is not because they're more important than the activists who are pushing for better at great sacrifice without the safety net of their wealth every single day. But frankly because I'm a little bit at my wits end of how change can even really come. Since the financial crash, we've had a series of working class uprisings on a fairly regular basis and the best we can really show for it is $10,000 in student debt cancellation that got killed by the Supreme Court. You want to talk about failures of democracy? The fact that Washington, regardless of who is in power, systematically thwarts the consistently demonstrated desires of the people is at the top of that list.

If the actors strike can get wealthy and influential actors to care about labor, that would be amazing. If Abigail Disney can single-handedly shame her fellow wealthy elite, maybe a handful of committed class traitors are the breakthrough we actually need to cut working people in on America's prosperity. Abigail told Rolling Stone, quote, we need to question this notion that capital only belongs to owners when we can't achieve anything without workers. We're doing capitalism wrong and we're going to kill ourselves in the process unless we rethink it. If even 1% of the 1% had that awakening, that could be a whole revolution. And it just struck me, Sagar, how it shouldn't be this way. New piece in New York Mag that caught our attention. Let's put this up on the screen. The headline here is AOC is just a regular old Democrat now charting her course from

potential revolutionary to just another member of the Democratic caucus. And the author of that piece joins us now, Freddie DeBoer. He is a writer and also author and has a new book coming out we're very excited about titled How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement that is going to be dropping this fall. Freddie, great to see you. Good to see you, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, our pleasure. So I think my first question for you is just, you know, we've sort of seen this trajectory from AOC for a while now. What was it that inspired you to write this piece right at this moment? You know, I think that for me in particular, as I try to sort of point out with the piece, people don't just sort of betray

some sort of fundamental idea like one time. I mean, certainly there can be particular moments when you sort of go mask off and show who you are. But to me, it's a steady accumulation of things that I think don't sort of fit with the rhetoric about AOC in her actual specific voting behavior. So one of the things I tried to do is just refer to very specific moments of things that she did on the floor of Congress as a legislator and say these don't sort of comport with what she sort of is portrayed as and what she has portrayed herself as um but also in a big part of the pieces the piece is less intended to be sort of aoc is a traitor and it's more supposed to be sort of saying like um i don't know what the coherent sort of ideological uh perspective

is that underlines her actual voting behavior and the way that she acts in Congress um if there's anything that I think for me represents a thing that really turned my own stomach about her um it's when she voted um to forbid Railway Rikers Railway workers excuse me from the right to strike because that is uh, to me, you know, sort of black letter socialist slash lefty slash radical stuff is that you simply do not forbid workers their right to strike. We just saw UPS workers get a much better deal than what they had initially been offered because they had a credible right to strike that would have cost their company billions of dollars. And so that to me, if there's any one thing, but for me, it's just more a steady sort of

accumulation of noticing that there just aren't a lot of behaviors that reflect any kind of coherent plan going on. And then appearing on Pod Save America to endorse Joe Biden, number one, you don't have to endorse at all. Your endorsement is not going to change any votes, probably. That means the number of people who are saying, I'm going to vote for RFK, but then AOC endorsed Biden, so I'm going to switch my vote is minimal. If you have to endorse, you can send out a one-sentence press release and do it that way, right? Just a few days before AOC made that appearance, the Pod Save America bros had a moment where they were actively laughing. I mean literally like convulsing in laughter at the idea that they should have to appeal to left voters, that persuasion with left voters is necessary. And so for me, that kind of crystallizes this sense that AOC is part of a perspective where

however benevolent many of our impulses may be, the left is owned by the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party never has to offer us anything for our votes. And that if we don't vote for the Democratic Party, it must be because we love Trump. So, Freddie, what are some of the jump off points that you can point to both in the piece and throughout the career where we started to see, like you said, mask off? You referenced the rail strike. Does it predate that? What do you think? Yeah, I mean, for me, just in terms of just not knowing what she's doing, the vote about the Israeli Iron Dome funding, which is Israel's missile defense shield that the United States

pays for as the United States pays for a huge portion of Israel's military machine. It to me that that's a problem, not just because she didn't vote the way that I wanted to, but because I have just no idea what she's doing with her vote. So for those who don't know, when that vote came up, there were a couple of people who had been talking about voting against it. She cried on the floor of Congress in solidarity with Palestinian people. And then when the up or down, yes or no vote came up to vote for or against funding the Iron Dome, she voted present. Now, for one thing, right, I don't like that because I want her to vote no because I support the Palestinian solidarity and I don't want her to support the Israeli war machine.

The fact that she was going to lose that vote is irrelevant. You still vote with your conscience. But let's suppose that she wanted to do it for some sort of strategic reason. The first thing to say is anyone who's a hardcore supporter of Israel is never going to support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, right? If she was doing this to try to court, you know, Zionist voters, that's very strange because I don't think they're ever going to be in her corner anyway. But also, if you were going to do that, if you were just going to say, you know what, I just I want to stand for for defending Israel against sort of Palestinian solidarity, then you vote yes. Right. Voting present is nothing. It is literally the worst of all worlds. You're not expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people. You're also not getting whatever meager political benefit you might have gotten up for voting in favor of Israel. It's just

just sort of seems like a very aimless act. And so this is the point, sort of the broader point with this piece is that I'm not so much interested in like castigating an individual member of the sort of left Democrat caucus. I am saying, you know, look, the Bernie Sanders primary campaign, which is where so much of this coalesced and we started to get this momentum. It was seven years ago. I don't have the slightest idea what left Democrats think their approach to politics is. Some people sort of some of the critics of the piece were like, oh, you're expecting her to be able to will legislation out of nowhere. I know she can't pass legislation on her own. But what I would really love to see,

right, is like some coherent sense of what she thinks her role as a legislator is and, you know, a sense that these people are sort of working in tandem to say, okay, the way that we grow is this or the way we move forward in this. And all I see in so many of the things that she's done is a complete lack of sort of direction. Let me just ask you, though. And all I see in so many of the things that she's done is a complete lack of sort of direction. Let me just ask you, though. So, I mean, I understand why you focus on AOC. And I wrote a similar, not a similar piece. Yours was much better than mine. But I also had some reflections after she endorsed Biden in the Pod Save thing, because it's just like, oh, really? This is how low we've stooped. But I don't think anyone is under the illusion now that AOC is going to lead us to the socialist promised land.

However, do you think it's better that she be there than Joe Crowley or any of the many other myriad of Democrats? I'm thinking of Josh Gottheimer, right? Gottheimer runs around accusing everybody who, you know, says anything critical ever of Israel being an anti-Semite, you know, pushes these resolutions, which by the way, AOC voted against. That's like, we stand with Israel always and forever, no matter what. He also pushes things that are also really odious economically in terms of assault, lifting the assault tax cap, which is basically a giveaway to the wealthy. So no, they're not going to lead us to the promised land. But do you think it's still better to have AOC and the rest of the squad members than another set of more right wing Democrats? If I was voting for the House of Representatives tomorrow and my choices were between Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Joe Crowley, I would certainly choose AOC. But I also think it's important to say, like, one of the things I've been trying to put out into the universe with people is, OK, what fundamentally would have been different had Joe Crowley kept

his seat? Right. Like think of major moments in recent American political history. What has sort of happened because of AOC that would not have happened with Joe Crowley or vice versa, that something that Joe Crowley would have done that AOC would not have. And I think that it's much harder to sort of come up with a version of how that hypothetical America is different than, you know, if if Joe Crowley just kept his seat and the machine Democrat sort of kept his seat. One thing I think people don't realize is AOC's district is notorious for bad turnout. So even though she's in the biggest city in the country, in her first 2018 primary campaign against Joe Crowley, she won that primary with less than 18,000 votes, right? Like there are

small towns in Connecticut where the mayor gets more than 18,000 votes for, you know, to get that office, right? So you're talking about a figure who's sort of been advanced into this national stage based on very little in the way of sort of public support. I would like for the sort of the vision of AOC to sort of match the reality. I mean, one of the things that I've been asking everybody to do is allow me to consider this person as a legislator like any other. I got some some very sharp and interesting criticism about the piece. But the large majority of the response has been just really sort of irrational, angry.

How could you betray this person sort of thing? And she's in Congress, right? Like she is a representative of the people and you criticize them when they aren't doing things that are consonant with your values. If I had written that piece about some backbench Democrat who had an identical voting record to AOC, the people who got so angry at me wouldn't have batted an eye. And I think if there's anything that's going to happen, if she is going to be a long-term politician, I'm asking people

if maybe we can dissolve the cult of AOC, look at her as a legislator like any other, evaluate her votes, evaluate her endorsements, and make our judgments from there. So let me ask you this, which dovetails with what you're saying. You close the piece saying Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was once a symbol of what American politics might become. Now she's a message to the rest of us. It's going to take more than symbols. Is the issue here with AOC personally, or is it more of a structural critique?

Like was it always going to be impossible that no matter her radical intentions, we would end up in the same place? Or do you think a different person or a different group of people might have been able to muster more power? Because I look, for example, at the, you know, some examples in the Republican caucus. The Tea Party was able to use a minority of the caucus to great effect, to get their wishes. You just had the House Freedom Caucus, which has used, you know, a small group of legislators who were willing to band together and kind of be assholes and throw some sand in the gears. And they were able to also accomplish some key priorities. So is the problem with the strategy? Is the problem with individuals? And what is sort of your diagnosis of what a better direction would be?

I mean, it's a little bit of both. Look, I like, again, to respond to the most common criticism, I'm not unaware of how sort of structurally disadvantaged, you know, leftist and socialist politicians are in the United States. This is a country with, I don't know, 70 years of red scare tactics when the Soviet Union exists and, you know, now, you know, just as long of an effort to crush labor unions, which is the rational evaluation of the far left and the far right in this country, you would have to acknowledge that the far right gets more of what it wants, despite the fact that in many cases they themselves don't have anything like numerical majorities than the far left gets. And I think that this is structural and baked into the nature of the Democratic Party. It's simply a fact that, I mean, this was the story of Obama, right, which is you had congressional Republicans during his administration who just relentlessly moved the center. And Obama constantly chased that moved center to try to be the more sort of rational person, the more sort of adult in the room person,

which, again, was another big part of the response to this piece, which is this is not how politics actually is. Grown up politics is like this. Those definitions are exactly what people on the far right have never done. So, you know, I look at the end of Roe v. Wade, which for me is a nightmare. But you look at the people who made that happen. When Roe v. Wade, when that decision came down, even a large majority of Republicans supported a woman's right to choose. It was one of the things that made Roe v. Wade a landmark case

was that it was public policy finally being brought into line with public opinion in terms of a woman's right to choose. Those people never stopped to say, those anti-choice people, those anti-abortion people, never said, let's get serious. Let's be responsible. Oh, we, you know, politics is about compromise. We need to, we need to moderate our opinion. If you look at the history of their movement, all they did was ruthlessly pursue that outcome, which they got, which is the end of Roe v. Wade over the course of decades.

And it's just a perpetual frustration of mine that you just have these examples of people on the right just sort of going to absolutely any lengths that they need to to get their agenda, while people on the left fret and worry and want to appear reasonable and need to sort of care about compromise when the other side isn't doing that and they're empowered because they don't do it. I think that is all very well said. And, you know, the piece is really, really well written and I think brings out some key points that people who care about left progress

need to pay attention to. Freddie, as always, great to chat with you. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. Good to see you, man. Thanks for having me. We'll see you guys later. Thank you so much for watching. It was a big week here. Thanks to all our premium subscribers. BreakingPoints.com if you can, and we'll see you next week. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi.

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