Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/28/22: DOJ vs Trump, CHIPS Bill, Gas Prices, FTC vs Facebook, Manchin Deal, Monkeypox Facts, Economic Pain, & More!

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss the DOJ possibly indicting Trump, his plans for the future, Trump vs Fox News, recession numbers, CHIPS bill, FTC vs Facebook, Schumer-Manchin legislation agreement, Samantha Bee, Monkeypox and political correctness, Chris Cuomo, & small businesses economic misery!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Tickets: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0E005CD6DBFF6D47 Jordan Chariton: https://www.youtube.com/c/StatusCoup  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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moments in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. 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 happening. Something crazy occurred, which is Democrats actually decided they might do a few things. Took two years. Yeah, it took two years, but we've got a potential mansion deal. We've got CHIPS

Act to boost semiconductor production here in the U.S., passing the Senate. We have the Biden administration making some moves on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, things that we had actually been talking about on the show with analysts and with Ro Khanna. Yes. So very, very interesting things to break down there. We also have new indications that the Department of Justice is actively investigating the president for any crimes committed related to January 6th. So we will break all of that down there. And the possibility that he could be indicted is larger than it was in the past. We've got Jordan Sheridan on the show. He's, of course, a great partner of Breaking Points, and he has been on the road talking to business owners and regular families about inflation and its impact on their lives. So he's got some great footage there.

Samantha Bee's late night show is no more. I know you guys are devastated. We're going to walk you through that. It's going to be okay, folks. I promise you we are going to get through this together. But first, before we jump into our first story, our announcements. Two announcements. Okay. You guys already know I'm going to start with live show. Let's put this up there on the screen. We're selling tickets. We're going at a very fast rate and we're going to sell out very soon. So please go ahead and purchase your tickets. It's going to be linked down there in the description. Atlanta is first, as we said. If you buy tickets to that one, it really helps us in the future, but we are still also coming

across the country. Second, the promo of our monthly subscribers being able to upgrade to yearly is ending on August 1st. So the link is there in the description. As we said, it helps for financial planning purposes. We've got some interesting things that we're working on right now. And to all of those who did upgrade to yearly, I want you to know that it is solely because of you that we are able to do some expansion investments that we're considering right now, which is very, very helpful. So thank you all very, very much. But let's get to the show. Yes, indeed. OK, so a big bombshell report from The Washington Post, Carol Lennig and others breaking this story. Let's go ahead and put this up on the show. Yes, indeed. OK, so a big bombshell report from The Washington Post, Carol Lennig and

others breaking this story. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is the first time we have officially learned that the Justice Department is investigating Trump's actions in January 6th criminal probe. They say people familiar with the probe said investigators are examining the former president's conversations and and this is also new, have seized phone records of top aides. Let me read you a little bit of this article. The Justice Department is investigating his actions. According to four people familiar with the matter, they are questioning witnesses before a grand jury, including two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence. The sorts of questions that they're asking those top aides also significant. They've been asked in recent days about conversations with Trump, with his lawyers and others in his inner circle who sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from states Joe Biden won, according to two people familiar with the matter.

They have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021. They've also asked about his pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the election and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisors about fake electors and sending electors back to the states. Some of the questions focus directly on the extent of Trump's involvement in the fake elector effort led by his outside lawyers, including John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani. The things that are new here is the degree of prosecutors interest in Trump's actions that had not previously been reported. They also had not reported the review of senior Trump aides phone records, including Mark Meadows,

who was chief of staff and was really the sort of hub at the center of all of the insanity that they were trying to perpetrate on the country during that time. So the fact that they have Meadows phone records is a very new and significant development, Sagar. Yeah, it is interesting. And reading this, I mean, the real question is, and people are always saying, oh, January 6th, actually, this isn't actually focused on any of Trump's actions really on January 6th, that day. They really are more focused on the fake electors plot in order to replace them. And to the extent that the president was involved. So there are two possible options criminally. And this is very suspect, according to some people that I asked, was first is seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct a

government proceeding. So those are the charges that were filed against both Stuart Rhodes and Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. The issue with that is, as we've spoken about, it is so incredibly difficult to prove seditious conspiracy in a court of law. It has not been convicted by the Justice Department in decades in a U.S. court. So even, and we went over in detail the indictments of both the Oath Keepers leader and the Proud Boys leader. And, you know, they have phone records there and text messages being exchanged of, hey, we're going to, you know, be at the Capitol and let's bring weapons and let's show up

with tactical gear. I mean, they had elaborate plans there. And even those cases, analysts say, are going to be very difficult to prove. The thing with seditious conspiracy, which is kind of the like, you know, the big, the big get, you know, in terms of the furthest reaching charge you could possibly get here, you have to have, you have to show intent to overthrow the government using violence or force. So you would have to have something super direct. Trump plotting with the Proud Boys to have some sort of armed attack on the Capitol. And based on what's in the public record now, very unlikely that they have that

they meet that standard in terms of seditious conspiracy. The second one is about fraud associated with a false elector scheme or pressure that Trump and his allies put on the Justice Department to falsely claim the election was rigged and that votes were fraudulently cast. This also is, frankly, I think is another case of just like during Russiagate where they definitely would have colluded if they could have, I think, you know, if they could have easily done it. And yet in this particular one, because so many DOJ officials resigned and no actual fraud or whatever was actually done by bail bar or any of the associate attorney generals who had resigned that they might, again, this is from what I've spoken to in a criminal having to actually prove that they associated this, having the intent to do something is not in the same as actually doing something. And so with that, again, it is relatively suspect. So anyway, I'm just telling you what I've what I have asked around criminal statutes.

Let me elaborate on this, too, because I also did some digging on this. So the big issue with the charge of defrauding the U.S. government, I think, is the technical charge there is that this would be a relatively novel application of this law. Right. So it hasn't been used in quite this way. And prosecutors get very squeamish about using laws in ways they haven't really been used before. And I think that goes doubly so when you're talking about the United States. Of course. The president of the United States.

And this would also easily go to the Supreme Court if it was a novel use. Very. That is all very true. So for that is, I think, the primary reason why they may be reluctant to go forward with that charge of defrauding the U.S. government. More likely, if they were going to charge Trump, and I continue to be skeptical that they will. You'll remember under the Bush administration, I mean, George W. Bush committed crimes, could very much have been indicted, and Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats said it's time to move forward.

So I continue to be skeptical that Merrick Garland actually has the stones to indict the former president of the United States. But the probably most likely charge would be obstructing an official government proceeding. We've seen others who were involved in January 6th charged with that. The bar with that is still continues to be difficult. And frankly, based on what's in the public record, I'm not sure that they meet the standard here because you need intent. Now, there probably is enough of, you know, meetings where Trump is told that you're you know, you lost and this is all, this is all foolish what you're doing. There's enough on the record to establish sort of like corrupt intent in terms of whether he committed an act because that's the other piece. It gets kind of dicey because on the one hand, yeah, you have him sending out tweets. It's going to be wild. You have him tweeting about

Pence. You have him giving a speech saying, let's go to the Capitol. Right. But you can also argue that that is political speech, protected political speech. And so these things become very difficult to separate. Now, the Justice Department knows things that we don't know. Right. I mean, they've seized Mark Meadows phone records. They're talking to Mike Pence's aides. Those aides also testified in front of the January 6th committee. So they may have something that more clearly establishes an act than what we have in the public record. That charge, though, I mean, you know, I'm just being honest with you guys. It also is going to be difficult to prove

based on what we know thus far. The last one that they could potentially look at, which if they had the facts might be actually more clear-cut is witness tampering. January 6th committee, you know, Liz Cheney in particular, sort of put up these texts that were being received by witnesses. It was kind of a tantalizing bit of information. But again, you would need to prove that this was coming directly from Trump with the intent of either blocking them from testifying or getting them to lie in their testimony. So again, what's on the public record, we don't have that yet. But if they had access to those facts, those would in

some way be the sort of most clear cut and most easily understood. Absolutely right. And you know what we're doing here? Responsibly telling you the details of this. And I'm really starting to get some Mueller vibes. I don't know about you, Crystal, which is that so-and-so is investigating. It's like, hey, well, people investigate a lot. And then it's like, we just broke down all the charges and we're like, listen, you know, I spoke with criminal attorneys and you did research as well. From what we can see, it is an extraordinarily high bar of proof on your normal American citizen, not to mention the president of the United States. Now, Merrick Garland is also in a tough spot because the resistance liberals have been banging at his door for two years now being like, what are you going

to do? What are you going to do? So let's put this up there on the screen. NBC News, they scored an interview with him where they said that the Justice Department probe is the, quote, most wide ranging investigation in its history. And he also made comments on this on whether he would specifically look at President Trump ahead of the news breaking in this interview with Lester Holt. Let's take a listen to that. We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding January 6th, for any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another accountable.

That's what we do. We don't pay any attention to other issues with respect to that. So if Donald Trump were to become a candidate for president again, that would not change your schedule or how you move forward or don't move forward? Say again that we will hold accountable anyone who is criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer, legitimate, lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next. You read of that, what you will. I mean, once again, I'm with you, Crystal. I just find it incredibly hard to believe for a variety of reasons. Beyond, number one, you don't want to bring a case that you can't win. The only thing more disastrous than charging a former president politically is charging him,

and then he wins. I mean, can you imagine what that would look like from a political point of view? And I think that's the way. You cannot take politics out of any of this, which is that there is a reason why many presidents have not been charged in the past, the desire to, quote, move on. And it certainly would ratchet up political tensions here. Nobody is generally going to be focused on the exact specific facts of the case. It would look like a political persecution and it could certainly push things in a very bad direction domestically. I'm not saying this. Look, if you're a Democrat, you're like, what do you mean we're not going to equally apply the law? I mean,

look, we have an imperial presidency. Like whenever they are president, they generally can't be charged or tried with anything. And they're only allowed to be convicted through the political process of impeachment for a reason. I don't agree with that. I do think based on what's on the public record now, it is you don't have a slam dunk case on any of these charges. And I do think if you're going to charge the former president, you better have a pretty airtight case. I do. If if they have that case, I 100 percent think that they should indict him. I don't think he should be above the law. I think trying to I mean, clearly, whether he technically meets any of these definitions, clearly the spirit of what he was trying to do was steal an election. And I have no issue with trying to hold elites accountable in the same way that, you know, all the low level people who were showing up

on January 6th, they're certainly being charged and nobody has any reluctance there. Yes, it is a little bit different, too, from past circumstances. And by the way, I thought they should have indicted George W. Bush. So I did not support the Democrats being like, oh, let's just move forward and bygones be bygones, because what happens is then that's the precedent that's set. If they get away with it, then the next president is just going to do the same damn thing, which is exactly the situation that we're facing. But I do also think that this is a little bit of a different circumstance because you have the, you know, active possibility of him being president again.

So it's not like you can just say, oh, bygones be bygones. Let's move forward. No, you have the active possibility of this dude being back in the office. And so not only is it setting a terrible precedent to let him get away with it scot-free, but, you know, if it's not him, if it's DeSantis, if it's anybody else, they're going to look at this and they're going to say, well, he got away with it. Why shouldn't I? So that's why I think if you do have the facts and again, we don't know what the Department of away with it. Why shouldn't I? So that's why I think if you do have the facts and again, we don't know what the Department of Justice knows fully. We don't have access to Mark

Meadows phone and text records. If you have that very solid case, I absolutely think that they should indict him. We just don't have those facts on the record. And I was going to say, that's the thing is that it's all it comes down to the facts. The reason why I'm just skeptical is that, look, at this point, every goddamn thing on the planet has leaked out of this. I mean, every email that they've sent within the White House, all the phone records at this point, if the Jan 6 committee has subpoena power, of which they have, and they've at this point, if they had something within there that implicated Trump, I think we would have heard about it many months ago, given that, look, it's possible. But I also, we all remember this story during Mueller. And I really found this out whenever I was kind of doing my reporting at the time was with Roger Stone. They would say, oh, so-and-so's investigating this. And I'd call, I'd be like, hey, man, like give me, and he would give me his flight record, his, you know, emails, all this stuff. The public record is generally there whenever there's such a high level of scrutiny. So, again, it is technically possible that the Department of Justice has something that you or I don't know about. But at this point, if anything existed in written record, in a recording or something like that,

I just generally am inclined to think that to almost 20 months since the date of all of this occurring, that it would be it would be somewhere in the press, some inkling, some reporting somewhere. Maybe, maybe not. I mean, I really am not going to hazard a guess on this one because I could see it going either way. I think you're probably right. It's much more likely he's not indicted. The way that in which it has Mueller vibes to me is what you're saying is these constant

like the walls are closing in and how's he going to get out of this jam and whatever. And then nothing happens. But unlike with Russiagate, there is much more there there. So in that way, they're not equivalent. I mean, Russiagate, a lot of the stories were just like complete fantasies or, you know, the server pings. And what if he's a Russian agent since 1987 and all this stuff was just complete nonsense. Here, there is actually some there there. He genuinely wanted to overturn the election, whether he went about it in like a competent or realistic way of pulling that off or not. The events on January 6th were

genuinely bad. And he obviously was at the heart of stoking that, instigating it, encouraging it once they're there, like delighting in it and really being very hesitant to tell them to go home. So in that way, it's different. But in terms of the Democratic resistance hopes getting up that you're going to have this white night and the silver bullet and this is going to be the end. I do kind of agree with you that, you know, I'm certainly not getting my hopes up there yet. Absolutely. Especially after I saw all of blue check, you know, Chris Hayes, it's finally happening. I'm like, is it? I'm like, hey, you guys not had the rug pulled under you. How many times do I have to watch this thing? I'm going to wait. I want to see what happens

before any of us get too far down the road here. And set expectations by actually going through charges and telling people like this, this, this and this. And here's the barrier of proof on all four. And as we were right now, it could happen. We'll see. So anyway, that's the story. Trump made his return here to Washington, D.C., spoke towards the American first America first policy institute headed by some former Rick Perry staffers. Very America first, indeed. But in the speech itself, it's noteworthy in order to look at what he's talking about. So this is kind of a follow up on the interview that we did in our last show with Jonathan Swan around the use of a schedule F known as an executive order, which would reschedule federal bureaucrats and enable Trump to fire them and replace them with personnel that he chose. So he specifically actually mentioned that executive order, personnel, and more in his speech. Now,

before we play the speech for the YouTube gods and copyright, uh, for content moderation, no, we understand here on this show that these claims are false, that Trump did win the election. He claims it. However, as a news organization, we are obliged in order to put together an accurate representation of the former president's comments who is likely to run for president. So within all of that context of the facts before you even play this video, let's take a listen to some highlights from Trump's speech. I ran a second time and I did much better. We got millions and millions more votes.

And you know what? That's going to be a story for a long time. What a disgrace it was. But we may just have to do it again. We have to straighten out our country. We have to straighten out our country. We had it there. We had it.. We had it.

We actually did it twice. We need to make it much easier to fire rogue bureaucrats who are deliberately undermining democracy or at a minimum just want to keep their jobs. They want to hold on to their jobs. Congress should pass historic reforms empowering the president to ensure that any bureaucrat who is corrupt, incompetent, or unnecessary for the job can be told, did you ever hear this? You're fired. Get out.

You're fired. Have to do it. So you can see he's making a reference there. And the reason we played that one at the top is because he clearly alludes to wanting to run again and then also talking about personnel matter. So this is all, again, in that context of replacing and firing the federal bureaucracy. It's funny, you and I were talking after the interview where Jonathan Swan was like, he could easily fire much of the intelligence community. And we were like, oh, well, I mean, what a terrible tragedy. Yeah, a true heartbreaking situation. CIA agents might lose their jobs.

I can't I can't imagine what a you't imagine what an insurrection that would be. So it's interesting. And I think that the reason it's interesting is that all of this comes in the context of who he's even speaking to, which is that, look, the America First Policy Institute, that's where Larry Kudlow works. Oh, my God. Yeah, of course. He's on the board. I did a whole thing. One of my last things at Rising was a whole expose of what this organization is. Oh, my God. I didn't even realize that. for Donald Trump. So the fact that he's making his first return speech to Washington in front of those people means that he's very likely, as Swan alluded to, hire people again who do not

agree with him whatsoever to the extent that he even cares about policy at all. And I think that that is the real interesting part of this, which is that to the extent that their personnel director, John McEntee, does have some sort of worldview. I mean, we saw the quote unquote Trumpists in the White House get rolled over and over again. I mean, I literally watched this all play out. Jared Kushner, last time I checked, is still alive and is probably going to still work for Trump. I mean, that guy has a worldview completely diametrically opposed to many of the top aides. And the aides would say, yeah, Trump is with us in spirit. Look, I mean, we have four years of evidence. He never once crossed Jared, right? Not one time. So where do

you possibly think that? Why, why is this time different? It does remind me, you know, of, it seemed like the entire time of his presidency, you constantly get these stories of like, oh, this time they've got it together and there's this, you know, this elaborate plan and they're going to be able to execute. I mean, they were never able to competently execute a single thing on their own. The only thing the biggest thing that they got passed was Paul Ryan's tax cut because that was all locked and loaded. Heritage Foundation and all of those people had crafted exactly what they had nothing to do with, like Trump or any of Trump's aides. So color me skeptical that they're going to be able to effectively execute this wide-ranging plan or that, you know, they really have a policy agenda to speak of at this point.

The things that Trump used to talk about back in 2016, you barely hear anymore. Now he leans into just like the nonsense that he was saying there about the election being stolen. The only thing that constitutes Trumpism at this point is like personal loyalty to him, subservience to him, and buying into the craziest notions on stop this deal. So I can't see that they're going to be like hardcore vetting people for their ideological commitment to whatever he pretended to stand for at one point in time.

It's just hard for me to imagine. And even, you know, we've also seen before how much he has fallings out with almost everybody that's ever in his circle. I mean, Steve Bannon was supposed to be the mastermind that was going to really, you know, sure, Trump couldn't be bothered with the details, but Bannon was going to be destroying the administrative state and bringing in all his lackeys and all this. Yeah. And then he's like, you know, did that phone call to the reporter and said whatever he said there. And that was it for him. So anyway, I'll continue to be skeptical. Now, I mean, could they fire a bunch of people?

Yeah, that's possible. I think Jonathan Swan made a good point there that it's not hard to fire a bunch of people and they might do that. Are they going to be able to really, you know, staff an administration full of thousands and thousands of people who share a commitment to an agenda that Trump doesn't even care about anymore. Don't see that coming. Yeah, I think you're right. Okay. So another interesting note on the Trump political dynamics. So we covered before the sort of brewing Trump versus Pence battle. And we asked the question whether Fox News and the Murdoch empire were potentially splitting from Trump and trying to explore other possibilities, other alternatives. Also interesting to note that it is Pence's top

aides who are cooperating with the January 6th committee and also who were just testifying to a grand jury. So with all of that as context, let's go ahead and put this next piece up. None of the major cable networks carried Trump's first speech in D.C., the one we just talked about since leaving office. And put this next piece up. What they did show on Fox is 17 minutes of Pence's speech, but no minutes of Trump's speech. So, listen, if you're wanting to buy into the idea that Murdoch is trying to move on from Trump, I think this is a little bit of evidence for you. I stand by what we said previously, which is, yeah, do I think they would rather have a nominee? I do. Do I think they have control over the Republican base at this point? Do I think they're going to make like a hard and firm stand and really like go all in for Pence or DeSantis or anyone else? No, I think

ultimately they're going to look at the ratings. They're going to follow the base because that's what they do. And if the base still wants Trump, that's ultimately the direction they'll go. I just bring it back to a point I made in our last show, which is, look, guys, the Internet exists. I mean, you don't actually need Fox to watch Trump. It's not that hard. You can literally go on YouTube and you can watch it live, which is what a lot of us did. Or you can watch it live on Twitter or whichever site that they were streaming from at the actual event in the year 2022. Whether you show a speech or not, yeah, it might matter for the boomer audience who doesn't even know how to do that. But at this point, I mean, clips of that were pumping out. The Trump war room Twitter was clipping it live and putting it out there. So I

just think it's going to be extraordinarily difficult for them to try and pretend that he doesn't exist. And this whole pick me 17 minutes of Pence. And now even today, we live in such a different media environment than 2016. So the power of Fox, I just think is so completely diminished relative to the actual brand of Trump himself. And don't forget Facebook. Trump himself may not be on Facebook, but all of the Trump organizations are. You can share the videos, Instagram, YouTube. Now Rumble exists if you want the full unedited thing. Truth Social, they have direct lines of communication in addition to their email list, which they blast out constantly. So look, I just think that this is really a fantasy, but this data point is going to continue to be interesting. The Republican elites trying to swing it away from Trump again.

It never works out. Plot twist. I do think it also ties into what we were talking about, about his legal jeopardy, because the fact that you have, you know, the Mitch McConnells of the world and other Republican elites, they may not be out there broadcasting their desire to have a different candidate than Trump. But there is no doubt that they would rather have someone else, anyone else, because Trump is very uncomfortable for them. He's unpredictable. He's a mess. Right. And extraordinarily divisive, bad for the country.

All of those things, too. So the fact that you have a sort of secret cabal of Republican elites who also would like to see this guy indicted and like to see him sidelined and like to be able to move the party on, does add a little bit of weight to the idea that he may actually face some consequences in a way that elites very rarely do in American society. The other thing I was thinking about with this, you know, we covered Pence's building up his operation in this very seemingly sort of like self-delusional way because there really isn't a particular constituency for him. But I was thinking about that in the context of the fact that his top aides are being summoned to testify at a grand jury, talk in the January 6th committee, et cetera. They may also believe, whether they're right or wrong about this, that Trump might be out of the picture. And that's why what seems very self-delusional when you're considering Pence going directly up against Trump is somewhat less self-delusional, still kind of delusional, but somewhat less delusional if you are imagining that Trump might be out of the picture.

Yeah, I think you're right. All right, literally while we're filming the show, we get the official live numbers of the U.S. economy. As the recession definition game had been playing out, the Biden administration's fears have come true. So the U.S. economy shrinks for the second straight quarter as the press is saying it, quote, igniting recession fears. In other words, it is technically a recession. Now, all of these definitions just are so annoying to me. And I was talking about this yesterday. Nobody cares whether you're technically in a recession or you're technically in a boom. They care, can you afford something? And are you employed? So to that extent,

no, the definition doesn't matter. But to the extent that politically the White House is gaslighting all of us by saying, no, we're not technically in a recession. Actually, we're in the strongest job economy since World War II. Stop. Stop. That is just not comporting with the facts whatsoever. The current facts are that the US economy contracted for the second straight quarter growth falling by 1% approximately, so 0.9% annual rate in the April to June period. That matters because GDP also fell for 1.6 annualized rate in the first three months of the year. So you have two straight quarters of technical, again, technical shrinking GDP. Now, the pushback is that we have a low unemployment rate. Now, it does seem, while yes, inflation is high, that consumer spending does not be in typical recession territory. But that's the whole point as to this economic moment and the economy that

we're living in is very wonky. Arguing whether we're technically in a recession or not really honestly doesn't matter. Last time I checked, inflation is sky high on food and on gas. The Biden administration is celebrating the gas is only $4.30 a gallon nationally. The economy is not good. I just don't know why that we can't just lead with that and that be the demarcation point. But unfortunately, the White House has chosen to majorly politicize the, quote, definition of recession when it does them no good. I see no point why they would pick this fight. It's so foolish. That's a part for me is it's just sort of silly. It's like this is not helping you politically to deny the reality that people are living and feeling every day.

And it's filled with a sort of condescension towards the American people who know exactly what is going on in their own lives in real time. Even before you had these new numbers indicating that you had two straight quarters of negative GDP growth, you had 58 percent of Americans saying they thought we were already in a recession. So people have been there, whether you're, you know, parsing the words of the technical definition or not, ultimately. And also, yesterday, we did have the Fed move on. It was what we expected, 75 basis points, which I think in some ways people are like, oh, that's no big deal because they had floated possibly 100 basis points.

That would be a full percentage point interest rate hike. But we had not until last month, we had not had to fed hike interest rates by that high of a number since 1994. So to do it two months straight in a row is really quite exceptional. And I continue to see news coming out of the housing market in particular about just what a dire impact that is having on new housing starts, which, by the way, need housing to be built. That's the other piece of this that is really important to remember is that when the Fed is hiking interest rates, that's not only hitting you directly, what they call like dampening demand, which just basically means you don't have money to spend, but it's also impacting companies' ability to invest in things like

new housing construction. So it's also hurting the supply ability to invest in things like, you know, new housing construction. So it's also hurting the supply side, which is the exact opposite of what you ultimately want to do. So, again, some really disturbing numbers on the GDP growth piece. Last quarter, this was attributable a lot to the fact that companies have been struggling with what their inventory levels should be. You know, they got caught with, you know, their just-in-time practices not having enough, and they had shortages. Then they stocked up. Then they had too much, and they had surpluses. And so they've been having trouble sort of figuring out the proper inventory levels. And since they've been selling off inventory rather than acquiring more, that's a hit on GDP growth. That was a lot of the story of last quarter.

And right now, personal consumption, as I've talked about, it did grow by 1%, but it actually has decelerated significantly by a full percentage point from 1.8% in Q1. So that actually is less than what was expected for the personal consumption rate, which does mean that we are seeing a deceleration, although it is still growing. That's kind of the full picture. I don't think it damn matters. But White House doing itself no favor by trying to redefine all of this when, honestly, they're doing some good things. So let's talk about the good things. And we'll start with the CHIPS Act. So let's go and put this up there on the screen. Yesterday, the Senate passed the CHIPS Act, providing grants and other incentives to the U.S. the Senate passed the CHIPS Act, providing grants and other incentives

to the U.S. computer chip industry to better compete with China in science and technology. It is now heading to the House for final approval. Now, this is kind of a landmark piece of legislation. We're talking here about $58 billion, with a B, being pumped directly into semiconductor chip manufacturing. However, it has split the U.S. politics in some interesting ways. It was a 64 to 33 vote, but not all Democrats actually did vote for the bill. Let's put this up there. So the Republicans who voted for it are Roy Blunt, Richard Burr, Mark Capito, Cassidy, Collins, Cornyn, Daines, Graham, Haggerty, McConnell, Moran, Portman, Romney, Sass, Tillis, Wicker, and Young.

Now, in terms of the Democrats or independents who voted against the bill, actually, Senator Bernie Sanders, and then those who did not vote were Patrick Lay, Joe Manchin, and Lisa Murkowski. So the reasons behind all of this are kind of fascinating. Let's put this up there on the screen first, which is, what is this thing? Well, as I said, it is $58 billion, which is being sent directly to semiconductor manufacturing specifically, but it includes hundreds of billions of dollars more for National Science Foundation grants, which are able to be used specifically for investing in research behind cutting edge R&D as to the development of both AI, quantum computing, wireless communications, precision agriculture, and more. So it's a major grant towards funding institutions. Now, before we play Sanders's objection,

I actually found it interesting. So I reached out to some of my friends who are in the Senate, and I was like, hey, why did Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton, people who were very pro CHIPS Act, vote against this bill? Here is the reasoning that I got, which is that the current bill actually gives an incredible amount of discretion to the Commerce Department. And part of the problem is that with that $58 billion, you don't just grant it to these companies, right? It's not in the legislation. You give power to the Commerce Department, who gets to use definitions and guidance to determine who's going to get it or not. And not only just who, but what projects. And part of the fear was that there was not stringent enough stuff written into the bill that would say that Intel or whomever might say, hey, we need you to subsidize this while also being able to boost production in China.

So their objection to the bills, there was not enough guardrails on the legislation to make sure that the legislation would not be gamed by the computer chip industry in order to make sure that they still have production in China and not. But let's go ahead. Before we get to Senator Sanders objections, because they echo that in certain ways. I mean, his his concerns are more on the front of unionization. I mean, there are very few sort of requirements put on these companies who are going to be beneficiaries of a massive subsidy. So we've seen before, you know, these big corporate subsidies going to like Foxconn in Wisconsin. And it turns out to be a total boondoggle. That's a disaster for taxpayers and no jobs ultimately materialize.

So I think there are legitimate concerns here about whether we could be snookered again. And ultimately, you know, you think you're going to get this chips manufacturing facility, have this good bedrock piece of industrial policy, which is incredibly important. And then ultimately, the whole thing falls apart and is just another big corporate giveaway. I do think that those fears are really justified. However, a little bit of context on this, which we've covered and you've covered in particular on this show extensively, but I just want to remind people of why this matters so much is because something like 786 chips manufacturing facilities have gone overseas in the past several decades. And it has left us with almost no domestic manufacturing capability. This is really

critical. It's critical for you as a consumer. This is in all your electronics. This is in a lot of the new cars, especially the new electric cars, really dependent on this technology. It's also really critical for defense. And this is why part of why Republicans are so interested in it is because you have to have these chips to be able to manufacture the advanced weaponry that we depend on. So the fact that this is overwhelmingly, I mean, actually, the advanced chips are overwhelmingly being manufactured in Taiwan. Yes, correct. Not a good situation whatsoever, and something that people on both sides of the aisle have been interested in dealing with.

So the big question is whether this act has been crafted well enough to actually accomplish the goal or whether you're going to end up with corporations getting paid and no jobs being created and no new innate domestic capacity. So that's kind of the backstory. Extremely well said. And as you said, we know we already live in a massive, already we have huge blows to the U.S. economy, hundreds of billions of dollars in lost economic growth from the ship shortage of the last two years alone. Let's play Senator Sanders' objection. I'll give you my thoughts on the other side. Madam President, I do not argue with anyone who makes

the point that there is a global shortage in microchips and semiconductors, which is making it harder for manufacturers to produce the cars, the cell phones, the household appliances, and the electronic equipment that we need. This shortage is, in fact, costing American workers good-paying jobs and raising prices for families. And that is why I personally strongly support the need to expand U.S. microchip production. But the question that we should be asking is this. Should American taxpayers provide the microchip industry with a blank check, blank check, of over $76 billion at the same exact time when semiconductor companies are making tens of billions of dollars in profits and paying their CEOs exorbitant

compensation packages? That really is one of the questions that we should be asking. And I think the answer to that is a resounding no. This is an enormously profitable industry. So here's my objection to what Sanders is saying. And look, I'm not saying I enjoy corporate welfare, but we live in a free market capitalist country. You cannot force companies to manufacture here. Now, there are enough stringent restrictions in the bill, which is the most objectionable one to me would be if you could buy back your own stock. You cannot use any of this money to buy back your own stock.

So I'm like, okay. Second, it is earmarked specifically towards chip manufacturing. I also want to get to the point that he's making there. He is not wrong that they are more profitable than ever. Do you know why they became profitable? Because here's the issue. We design all of the world's best semiconductors right here in the United States, Intel and others. However, we manufacture them in Taiwan and in Asia. The reason to do so is because that was the way that chip manufacturers were able to boost profits. So in order to actually reduce profitability or at least incentivize them to go in the right direction, we are directly using this act to subsidize production.

And the production is what matters more than anything. Both from a geostrategic point of view, I mean, look, this is part of the reason why if China invaded Taiwan, the US economy, I'm not kidding, would shut down within like six months. Like the US consumer electronic, gone. I mean, no more phone, no more televisions. Like everything that we use is over.

And that is a bad situation. You shouldn't have a single choke point that exists like that. That's why I support this legislation. I hear the concerns of Sanders, of my other like-minded friends who work in the offices. But listen, we have got to get out ahead of this. It takes 10 years in order to build some of these chip fabs and other manufacturing facilities. We need the jobs already. Intel is building. They've been waiting for this piece of legislation to pass. We need them in Ohio. We need them in Arizona. We need them in Texas, all across the country. Other chip manufacturers are already saying they're going to invest increasingly $20 to $100 billion here in the United States. We need this money. We just simply do. We cannot exist.

So listen, is it baked full of some stuff that I'm not going to like? And are some of these companies always going to do the best thing? Absolutely not. However, this thing got to 64 votes in the U.S. Senate. Hopefully, from what we see right now, it is going to pass in the House. A little more in doubt, and we'll get to that in a minute. Well, let me just say, I don't think that Senator Sanders is really wrong about anything that he's saying here. I think his concerns are entirely legitimate and justified. And the reality is, and this does suck, like, Intel is basically blackmailing the U.S. government because they were going to create this production facility in Columbus, Ohio. And then they were like, I don't know if we're going to. You're going to have to bribe us to do it.

And that's the reality of the situation. And that does totally suck. And by the way, Bernie's Bernie offered an amendment here, which should have been included and, of course, was voted down, but is entirely reasonable, which says that if chip microchip companies get this taxpayer assistance, they shouldn't be able to outsource American jobs overseas. Good addition. Repeal existing collective bargaining agreements and must remain neutral in any union organizing effort. That should have been added. It wasn't. So the bill is worse for not having provisions like that in place to make sure that you actually end up with these jobs and with this production and that it is being done by union workers. However, when you look at it on balance and you say, OK, but this is the reality we live in. And yes, you are going to have to in order to get this through, you're going to have to have Republicans on board. It is 100 percent the case that the things that get through the Senate are things that corporate America likes.

There is no doubt about that. Senator Sanders point on that is as well taken as well. He goes on to say, like, OK, you know, what's the reason why we get the corporate subsidies through but not say universal health care? He's not wrong about any of that. But when you take the reality as it exists on balance, if I was in the Senate, would I vote for this bill? I would because I it's industrial policy. That's something that has been sort of like off the table for a lot of years. Yeah, let's normalize something. Something I believe in. I wish it was done a little bit better than this, which is, you know, it does have some elements of basically like a corporate giveaway. But this is a really critical piece of bringing a critical supply line back to our shores and hopefully creating some good paying American jobs manufacturing these advanced chips,

which is critical for, again, consumer products, electric cars, advanced weaponry, all of the above. So even though I think the objections are well-founded, I can't really disagree with anything that Bernie is saying here. If this is the only bill that I have a chance to vote for, yeah, I would probably vote in favor of it. And that's why I take the concerns of the people who say it's too much power in the hands of commerce. I take the concerns of the people who say it's not it's too much power in the hands of commerce.

I take the concerns of that. But I do get annoyed when I see like Robert Reich and all those people like corporate welfare. I'm like, what are you, a Cato libertarian now? I mean, listen, like sometimes corporate welfare is good if it's good for the people who are workers, as we all found. It's like the airline bailout. I wasn't opposed to bailing out the airlines as long as you do it right. Now, it wasn't done properly. And I think that that is certainly an issue, and we should use that as a track record. But is that the reason to never bail out the airlines again? No, we need air travel. So it's the same thing when it comes to the chips. I don't think it's going to be perfect. It certainly is not. And there's some interesting legislative maneuvers we'll talk about in the Joe Manchin block, which are kind of interesting as to how all of this was kind of used to hoodwink Republicans.

But on its face, we should celebrate when people do things which are good for the country. Sometimes, yes, that aligns with corporate interests, and I'm generally okay with that. Yeah, we got to keep an eye on it and make sure we hold them accountable if they end up just taking the money and running and never creating anything. If there's cheating, who do you think will be the very first people who talk about it? It will be right here on this show, And I can promise you that. So let's go to the next part here. Again, we got to give credit where it's due. The Biden administration making some actually great moves in terms of oil. Let's put this up there on the screen so that we

had that plan of Skanda Amarnath. He's that economist over at Employ America on our show several months ago talking about how the Biden administration could use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to use fixed price contracts, which could provide flexibility to energy markets. So yesterday, the Biden administration actually did exactly that. And it seems, it seems, again, that they might be able to reduce the price of gas by up to 40 cents per gallon by doing this. So I think this is an extraordinarily good move. And what it means is that you essentially use the strategic petroleum reserve as a setter of price by intervening in markets, by buying and selling at the right rate. I'm trying not to make it as complicated as possible.

It's price smoothing. I mean, this is also sort of what Ro Khanna was talking about. It's about price stability and encouraging increase of supply to guarantee some price to the market, which will allow investors to know that they're going to continue to make the profit, which will allow the oil company to drill without fear that the rug is going to get pulled out from under them, and actually give stability to the energy market. Because part of the issue that we've had right now is because oil markets are going up and down and up and down. The investors want to have their cash as soon as possible because they've lost $500 billion over the last several years. Anyway, personally, I think it took way too long to get here. It's July 28th. Gas prices have been

high for a year. Russia invaded Ukraine several months ago. But don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I think that the fact that they have the CHIPS Act, which is very likely to pass sometime today through the House or sometime this week in the House of Representatives. And then actually doing something like this is actually the type of action which, listen, could, could boost their chances in the midterms. And we were talking. We were like, what's happening here with the Democrats? Right. CHIPS. Now we actually get some good moves on gas.

The Joe Manchin thing seemed to have happened in secret, like overnight. Out of nowhere. It was actually just happening. So maybe they lit a fire under their ass because they knew the midterms are coming. Maybe they saw some generic bounce in the polling from Roe versus Wade.

I personally still think they're going to lose, but hey, you know, you're doing something and I will always celebrate government actually doing something if it's a good action. And it seems to be in this one. This is the exact type of creative thinking the administration should have employed from day one. And while I criticize the hell out of them for doing nothing, this is still a very good move in the right direction. I think it's a good thing.

Yeah, I do, too. I mean, this is, again, what I like about this is it shows that they are listening to outside economists. You know, Ro Khanna published that op-ed in The New York Times that got a lot of attention that we talked to him about on this show. And so while the mechanics here seem a little bit complex, basically you're using the power of the government to guarantee a set price level for producers so that they feel like, OK, we can invest. We have predictability about what the price is going to be. We can sell this to the government at this set fixed rate. And it also helps to ensure because they're intervening in the markets to stabilize prices for consumers as well. There's a lot more technical details in there that I recommend if you go and look at Skanda's

Twitter thread. He lays out some of the more technical specifics. But that was the way that I could wrap my head around it. So listen, I mean, we're ones to give credit where it's due. Are there a lot more things I'd like to see him do? A hundred percent. Is this like, you know, a new FDR or anything? No, but they're at least getting back to trying to do something and not just coming up with excuses, feigning

impotence, you know, making sure just spending all their time basically saying, well, sorry, you know, I think I know things suck, but there's not really anything we can do about it. So you have chips, you have this SPR price moving, you have the Mansion Act. You also have House Democrats planning to move forward with banning all stock trading and holding stocks by members, top aides and their spouses. So I do think that this is just my theory. They kind of looked at the state of play politically. First of all, doing nothing wasn't working out very well for them

politically. But also the polls have tightened a little bit and they have more of a shot at not getting completely wiped out in the midterms. And I do think potentially that kind of lit a fire under them of like, oh, hey, maybe we should actually try to win. Maybe we should actually try to deliver for the American people and see what happens. Let's be crazy. Yeah, look, I mean, still not a great thing. The gas can be four dollars or a gallon, but 40 cents reduction. That's not terrible. Significant. That's hundreds of millions of dollars that consumers save every single day. So I'm going to support this. And I hope that this is that this is just the beginning, although I do fear it's probably, given that it took them this long just to get here, probably not going to be the harbinger of anything more to come.

Let's go ahead and move on to the FTC. Again, man, I love doing shows where we actually get to talk about stuff, which is interesting and which is real moves and not just something stupid. So let's put this up there on the screen. The FTC is suing to block Facebook, aka Meta, virtual reality deal as it is confronting big tech. So it was a three to two vote by the FTC, all of the Democrats voting against, all the Republicans voting for, in order to block the company. Other way. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, obviously. Right. Democrats voted to block the deal. Other way. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, obviously. Right. Democrats voted to block the deal. Republicans voted in favor of Facebook. To keep the deal. Correct. So the company formerly known as Facebook, from buying this virtual reality company, which was called Within. Now, Within was one of those companies that was going to operate within

the Facebook metaverse and was going to be incorporated into try and use some fitness and other applications for the VR headset, which was formerly known as Oculus. I'm just going to keep calling it Oculus because I think Oculus is an awesome name. But this is one of the first times that the FTC in the Biden administration has actually sued in order to prevent a merger by Facebook. Here's what they said. Here's what they said. They said that by doing so, they were trying to prevent a monopoly in the emerging virtual space, which I think is really interesting because Meta, aka Facebook, having changed their name and Zuckerberg going all in, he very clearly sees the metaverse, the emerging metaverse, as the sole building ground of Facebook. He's like,

it's almost like the Facebook product and all that is going to the wayside and will just become tools inside of this virtual space of which people are supposed to work, live, entertain, et cetera. Sounds terrible to me, but that's the world that they want. So by suing to prevent that, they are saying, okay, maybe that type of world will exist in the future. But if it is to exist, we don't want a single company to control all aspects of that experience. And so we'll all, if you guys have ever watched like Ready Player One or anything, it's exactly the same thing, which is that you don't want it set up so that the company owns the device that you enter in through. And then once you enter in the things

that you buy and you use, you're also buying from the same company, you kind of want it to be almost like the Apple App Store where, okay, there's a device where you can enter the space, kind of like internet. And then once you're on the internet, there's all these kinds of different services, different private companies and others that you could use. And so this is an interesting kind of flag by the US government to say in the smallest areas of tech development, because they're looking at this and they're saying, OK, Facebook, there are smart people. They think that this is going to be the future. Well, then we need to do what we didn't do with Instagram and social media and say we're going to set up the playing field from the

very beginning to try and be independent and to allow small businesses to thrive there. So very interesting move, I think, by the government. It absolutely is. And this is Lina Khan and the antitrust movement really flexing their muscles here. Because for a long time, the way that antitrust law was applied, it was really scaled back so that you had these very narrow definitions of what constituted a monopoly, almost nothing qualified. And so there were very few actions like this to prevent major acquisitions and mergers. And so the fact that they're saying, you may not be a monopoly in this space today, but we see how this space is going and we see where the direction this is heading in. And we're going to we're going to

step in on the front end and make sure that a bedrock principle of this new space is free and open competition. That is really quite new in the modern era. I mean, it's really quite new, period. And it does seek to learn from what is seen as previous mistakes and what I would agree are previous mistakes of not anticipating the direction that things are going in, like with Facebook's acquisition of Instagram, which correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that happened while Kamala Harris was attorney general of California. A lot of those big deals, big tech deals that allowed them to consolidate the space happened while she was attorney general of California. So I also want to give a lot of credit to, I mean, this is a relatively new movement

that has been extraordinarily effective in getting their people in places of power and then actually taking significant actions like this, landmark actions that could really change the way that we handle increasing corporate consolidation, which, as you know, I mean, this has huge implications for every facet of society, has implications. We're seeing it right now in terms of inflation. Part of why you have high inflation right now is because you have so much consolidation across industries. They know they can get away with charging you whatever you want, and there are very few competitors out there that you could ultimately go to. It has huge implications when it comes to labor as well, because again, if there's only one company in

town that you can work for, then you don't have a lot of options and a lot of ability to use your sort of power of solidarity and collective action as a worker in order to achieve a better deal for yourself. At every level, monopolies have consolidated power in a way that is detrimental to society. And so this is a truly landmark move to try to anticipate what that sort of like hellish dystopian future is going to look like and try to cut it off at the pass. And this is a real crossroads for Facebook. Let's go ahead and skip ahead, guys, to C5, please. Go ahead and put this up there, the Washington Post tear sheet. The reason that this matters is that Facebook right now is at a real crossroads. currently fearing job cuts because there are major warnings from Mark Zuckerberg and other leaders

who are saying, listen, we're in a time of struggle. We're betting the house on the metaverse. And if it doesn't work out, we're going to have some problems. And the core product is not necessarily going to be a guarantor of your job prosperity in the future. And just like that, another reason that this matters is that the FTC announcement came on the very same day that Facebook was required to tell its earnings to Wall Street. This is something I talked about in Monday on my monologue. Lo and behold, let's put this up there. For the first time in company history as a public company, Facebook has seen a quarterly revenue decline. And the outlook for the next quarter is also

not looking good. Revenue is shrinking dramatically at the company. Now look, the company continues to print money like nobody's business. So it's not like they're going to go out anytime soon. Their revenue for the second quarter was $28.82 billion, down from $29 billion a year earlier. And the profit was still $7 billion. However, that's 36% down from the previous year. So it's not like they still aren't printing money. However, they can see the writing on the wall. They're already under attack, really, by TikTok. This explains, for those of you, we have a whole segment coming out this weekend about how much we hate the new Instagram update. Well, maybe this explains it because they're seeing revenue decline.

They're seeing engagement go down. They know the future is with teens. They know the teens are absolutely not using Instagram to the way that they are using TikTok. They're trying to force people in that direction and at the same time betting the future on VR. But if VR is allowed to be emerging as a more competitive space than Facebook's initial acquisition of Instagram and all that, it will blunt the Zuckerberg playbook and could put Facebook in a very precarious situation 10 years from now. I don't want to say that it's going to just disappear, but who knows where they are in 10 or 15 years. So I think it's very interesting. And the idea here from Lena K lena khan and her allies

is basically like okay compete in the space like if you want to be and you know that is your new thing you're all in on this build some stuff of your own build your own fitness app yeah build some stuff of your own that's innovative and that people like you can't just because you have this massive you know market position buy up everything good that's sort of burgeoning in the space and come in as this behemoth. You have to be able to build it yourself. So I think that's really important. There's also a political point.

We can put the third element here, C3, up on the screen. This was, as we mentioned, a 3-2 vote, and this is from Matt Stoller. He says the GOP talks a big game. This is about Zuckerberg being named. Go to the I think it's C3. There it is. Yeah, there you go. This was a three to two vote, a C4. The GOP talks a big game about big tech. But when there's an actual Facebook merger on deck, the two Republican commissioners voted to help Zuckerberg. Glenn Greenwald echoed that point, which I thought was really interesting.

He says a lot of Republicans manipulate and deceive their voters by going on cable and ranting about big tech. They fundraise off ranting against big tech. But then when nobody's looking, when it counts, they act to protect big tech from any attempt to limit their massive power. So I thought that, I mean, kind of undeniable point at this point is a partisan vote. Democrats voted to, you know, stick it to big tech. Meanwhile, Republicans are talking a lot of a big game on cable news. but their people on their team voted in favor of Mark Zuckerberg here. You're absolutely right. All right, let's talk about Manchin.

Let's talk about Manchin. Well, this was a surprise. We actually might have a deal with Joe Manchin, and it's kind of significant. There's a fairly large, fairly large deal to be passed through reconciliation with just the 50 Democratic votes. Assuming we can get everybody on board and we'll get to that in a minute. Let's go ahead and throw this first piece up on the screen. This really came out of nowhere. They say Manchin announces support for the Inflation Reduction Act, a.k.a. the reconciliation bill formerly known as Build Back Better. His quote in this piece is, Build Back Better is dead. And instead, we have the opportunity to make our country stronger by bringing Americans together. And he outlines the detail in the statement. I mean, read through the statement, it's classic Manchin. He takes a lot of shots

at Democrats and progressives and the Biden administration and makes it clear that his priority is dealing with inflation and that he went through and made sure all of the pieces of this deal are ultimately going to combat inflation. And he does, you know, some deficit hawk language here as well, which is part of this bill, too. But and we're going to get into the details in a moment. You know, everybody really thought that this was all dead, done, gone, that Manchin was not negotiating in anything approaching good faith. And now, truly, at the last minute, we have a possible fairly significant deal. So let's talk about what policies are in this from our friend Jeff Stein over at The Washington Post. Among policies Manchin talks about in announcing deal with Schumer, prescription drug reform. So this would be the Medicare drug

pricing negotiation, which Democrats have been running on for like decades now. 15% minimum tax on corporations who earn over a billion dollars. Significant dollars for renewables, including hydrogen, nuclear, Sager, fossil fuels and energy storage. And then he says a separate deal to do permitting reform in the fall. Let me pause on that part for a minute. It's a kind of a side note. But one of the things that Manchin required in order to be involved in this deal is that the Biden administration is going to green light some new fossil fuel projects. That's when when they say permitting reform. That's what that means.

Now, as we're learning the details of this, and we can go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. This is more from Jeff Stein. Here are some of the specific dollar amounts. So in terms of raising revenue through tax hikes, you'd have about $313 billion on that 15% corporate minimum tax, which, again, only applies to large corporations. You'd gain about $288 billion through that prescription drug pricing reform, Medicare being able to negotiate, something that is a complete no-brainer.

$124 billion on IRS tax enforcement, and $14 billion on closing the carried interest loophole that benefits private equity ghouls. On the spending side, the big pieces are $369 billion for energy and for climate change and $64 billion on ACA extension. So overall, the analyses that I've read have said that the spending on climate here, even though obviously it's not ideal to green light new fossil fuel projects when you're focusing on just the climate, the spending here goes way beyond the cut emissions significantly, way beyond the increase that would be caused by this permitting reform that's going to happen in the future. Let me also tell you why I'm very happy with the... Look, my credit to Joe

Manchin. He specifically fought against the ideologues who tried to make this a non-technology neutral tax credit, which means that a tax credit will be allowed to go to wind, solar, biomass, and nuclear, which for the past we have specifically blocked nuclear and other power sources out of these tech credits. This is one of my biggest critiques of climate policy is they specifically subsidize solar and wind to the detriment of nuclear power. Now, with technology neutral, it all comes down to carbon emissions, baby. And with that one, I think that we all know, especially not only carbon, but in terms of good capacity. Of course, the devil's in the details.

And if they do do this, spend this on boondoggle solar projects and wind projects, I will be the first. But to have that written into a law is actually a big win for nuclear power proponents like myself. Let's go and put the next one up there on the screen from David Dayen. This shows you, again, the specifics on the actual revenue raise. And let's spend a little bit of time here. The biggest revenue raiser is called the 15% corporate minimum tax, called a book min tax. That tax is a very interesting one. Has not really been talked a lot in Washington and was originally a proposal by Senator Elizabeth Warren, which kind of came out of nowhere. The reason why is it doesn't piss off

Joe Manchin, who is for raising corporate taxes. It also doesn't piss off corporate Kristen Sinema, who is against raising individual taxes. So in that environment, it's actually pretty hard to raise revenue. The way this would work is that many corporations technically do not pay any corporate taxes whatsoever. What they do is they use energy tax credits and other write-offs in order to make sure that their corporate tax rate is often 2%. In some cases, they actually get paid money by the government. This would make it so that even if you have energy tax credits, even if you do so, you still have to pay 15% corporate tax on that. And again, this would only apply to corporations in the United States.

And it does raise a pretty significant amount of money. The other way that it's quote unquote raising revenue, it's not really though because it's more about savings, prescription drug pricing reform, IRS tax enforcement, something I'm massively in favor of. As we've talked about here before, you are three times more likely to get audited as a person who makes less than $25,000 than you are if you are a billionaire. Don't tell me how that makes any sense. The current IRS mechanism is to go after poor people, steal their money, and because it's so complicated to go after the super rich, they don't do anything. It's always been total and complete bullshit. And as long as they don't use this money to go after people's Venmo transactions, I'll be in favor of it.

The carried interest loophole also is just outrageous. I'm actually very suspect it will only raise $14 billion, so I have some questions on the details. On the investment side, as I said, listen, I mean, as long as it's technology neutral, I really don't care. I think you should throw even more money at these things. And the Affordable Care Act extension credits as well. I mean, we're talking here about old people mostly. It's seniors who would have been hit with a massive increase in their- And it was going to happen like right before the election too. I mean, it was it was a moral catastrophe.

It was also an electoral, looming electoral catastrophe for the Democrats. So shows you they at least have like three brain cells to rub together to figure out that this was a bad idea moving forward. Now, the carried interest loophole, this is something I believe Trump claimed he was going to close it. I mean, this is that against, just a private equity goal, total giveaway in the tax code for a very small subset of very wealthy Americans. However, it does call into question whether Kyrsten Sinema is going to sign on to this. And again, this has got to go through reconciliation. You have to get every single Democrat on board in order to accomplish this. She has said in the past that she does not want to close

the carried interest loophole. So we'll see. And, you know, since it is a small amount of the revenue, is that the thing that they toss aside to say, oh, we're negotiating and whatever? Very possible that the private equity ghouls ultimately keep their little goody bag. Let me tell you, Crystal, I don't think Sinema is the biggest obstacle to this. It is going to be Josh Gottheimer and Bob Menendez, who have already come out. And guess everybody what they're so pissed off about? The SALT tax. So basically, as we've really out before, state and local deductions, it used to be that you could deduct all of the taxes that you paid in state and local taxes from your federal income tax burden.

Now, under the Trump administration, you were not able to do so. So they put a cap on it, basically, at $10,000. Now, removing the cap, which is what New Jersey and California and other high-income tax states want, would effectively be a massive boon only, again, only to millionaires and billionaires in the United States. 90% of the benefit of lifting the SALT cap goes to people who make over $1 million per year. So it's kind of a hilarious thing that they are going to the mat right now to try and include the salt cap removal. And Manchin explicitly trashes them in his long statement that he wrote and says, you know, we're not going to do these tax cut giveaways to red states and blue states in this way. So are they going to get on? How hardcore are they about what would no salt, no deal? Will they take the deal over a multimillionaire tax giveaway? Let's see. Let's see. I would love to see that. The other question is, are you going to have, you know,

all the progressives on board? I think you likely are, because this is a much more significant deal than, we hadn't even been following this closely anymore, guys, because frankly, it was just so pathetic. The negotiations were so frustrating. Nobody really thought this was going to ultimately come together. And what the deal had collapsed to is like, maybe we're going to do the ACA subsidies and the prescription drug pricing reform. And that was basically it. So the fact that now you're getting really significant money towards climate priorities and, you know, hiking taxes on the rich in a significant way, I suspect the Congressional Progressive Caucus is going to get on board with this and be, you know, uniform lockstep. So even if you have a few people like Gottheimer who are

want to vote, you know, against it, you still have at least a few votes you could give away to the, you know, idiots over on the SALT caucus. But the politics of this are also very interesting. And I have to say, a very rare kind of a gangster move from Democrats here. Yeah, I'm kind of shocked they move from Democrats here because they kept this thing so close to the vest. I mean, and that it didn't leak that they were this far along in negotiations. And the reason why this matters, go ahead and put this last piece up on the screen, D5. McConnell and Republicans said they were not going to pass that CHIPS Act that we talked about if a reconciliation deal like this was still alive. So they passed CHIPS.

And that very day, hours later, Democrats announced this deal. So they really were able to keep any of the details leaking out, keep the Republicans from getting suspicious at all, because McConnell said he's going to tank the CHIPS deal if Democrats are going to go forward with a reconciliation deal. And now you have Republicans because this thing, the Chips Act, still has to pass in the House. So you have Republicans actually whipping against the chips deal in the House now because they're pissed off about the reconciliation bill, which to me is really stupid. You either support the legislation or you don't. I don't get it. But that's their strategy is basically like we want to punish you for doing something that, you know, your voters find to be a

priority. Anyway, I don't think that that's going to be successful in the House, but they are signaling their displeasure by doing that. And also and this is really just horrendous and stupid and wrong. They're also trying to hold up the funding for sufferers from toxic burn pits is their other thing that they're doing to express their displeasure. They're going to make veterans suffer in order to express their displeasure over this deal with Manchin. Yeah, I think what's also really interesting about, by the way, on the CHIPS Act, I just checked. People are saying that the whip count, basically 20 Republicans are still going to vote for it. So it's very likely to pass, even if people do vote against it. We'll see, though. It's possible that they turn this into a much bigger thing. Anyway, it's fascinating. Let's

see how it plays out. I just want to do the caution. We're still a long way away from this thing becoming law. So in terms of what the next steps are, number one, this still has to go through the parliamentarian. They have to decide every single one on whether it's revenue neutral or not, as in if it balances out, because otherwise it doesn't comport with the rules of reconciliation. Number two, the two parties have to go back and forth in like a quasi-legal argument over every single piece of the bill. That takes a long time. Is that what they call the birdbath? Yeah, it's called birdbath. Yeah, I know. Welcome to Washington. What a town. Then we also have to do voterama, which means that during a reconciliation process,

Republicans and Democrats get hours and hours on the floor time, and they try to add thousands of amendments to the bill, and they give speeches, and it can take days and days and days. So we don't know when that process is going to start. And as we said, the damn bill is still not out. As in, devil's always in the details. It's in the text. There are still many things that could be thrown at this. And it's still, I personally think, what, maybe 70% chance that it becomes law?

So that's actually not that high if you consider the consequences. There are still many ways they could screw this up. Just have no doubt about it. Or the mansion could suddenly once again be like, oh, no. And now I don't like this part of it that you wrote into it. Or Kyrsten Sinema could be, you know, play the spoiler this time. Who knows? Josh Gottheimer. There's still a lot of obstacles to cross here. But because this came from mansion explicitly and wasn't like, you know, Biden Schumer bringing something to Manchin and say, hey, do you like it? And what do you think that it came directly from Manchin?

I think it's giving people a little bit more confidence that it may actually come to pass. And, you know, on the theme of like Democrats actually doing a few things here, shockingly, they also the House Dems are also preparing to pass a stock ban. Yeah. That includes members. They can't hold or trade stock, which is quite. I mean, that's awesome. Members, their spouses and top aides. So something lit a fire under their ass again. Listen, is it everything that I know?

Are they at least doing something and trying to deliver for people in some way and thinking strategically about the future of the country? Yeah, they're actually dipping their toe in those waters. And it's pretty shocking to behold. Yeah, I don't disagree. Like I said, a massive victory to get technology neutral and to not, you know, try and close down anything on gas in the middle of a gas crisis. I mean, I'm amazed that they actually were able to get this. Okay, fun block. We've been waiting for this one. Let's go ahead and put this on the screen. Samantha Bee, the television host Samantha Bee revealed on Monday that her series Full Frontal with Samantha Bee will not move forward with the TBS network. Now, just for context, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee was consistently the lowest rated, again, lowest of all of the late night shows.

I'm amazed that anybody still watches late night personally. And, you know, Crystal, you had a lot to say on this. I'll just say my piece. Yeah. I was always very sad on what happened with Full Frontal with Samantha Bee because I actually thought she was really funny when she was on with Jon Stewart. Yeah. She was a, you know, she was comedian. She would often poke. Yeah. She was clearly like a liberal and a Democrat, but I thought that she was biting and sarcastic

in a hilarious way, but she became a complete partisan, like almost like a crude Sheryl Sandberg, lean in feminist, which is like the worst of all comedy and feminism that was put together. It showed always in the ratings and I'm not going to miss the show whatsoever. I think it was always terrible to the extent that she ever made headlines. It was like by calling Ivanka Trump, if you recall, yeah, the C word. I was, I was like, what did we say for that one? By calling her? And I was like, wow, so edgy, you know, on television. And basically since that time, she hasn't really made news for, oh no, she did falsely accuse somebody who had cancer of being a neo-Nazi.

But again, that was like 2017. So I've always viewed her decline as actually deeply sad because I thought she actually used to be funny. Her husband also was hilariously funny. So anyway, no tears shed for Samantha Bee. I thought about doing a monologue on this. Yeah. Because I was thinking about like her show launched in 2016.

The expectation was you're going to have Hillary Clinton as president. And, you know, it came at the time of this very like girl boss, Lehman feminism moment. And then it lands and it's kind of she I think it had maybe some early success, although I'm not even really sure about that. Certainly enough for them to keep her around for seven years. But that moment in feminism has really sort of passed. I was going to do a whole thing on that. But then, honestly, I went and I watched some of the show and I was like, the truth is, it's just not a good show. Like there's just nothing more

to say about it than it's not funny. It's, um, it's, it's genuinely like anti-funny. Um, it's very preachy. It's that thing of trying to be, uh, the kind of most aggressive MSNBC commentator, but then throw in a like snarky aside every once in a while and call it comedy. It's just not a good show. So I ultimately was like, I don't really want to write a whole monologue about this because I don't think there's anything really deeper to say than it wasn't funny and people didn't want to watch it. That's the bottom line. I mean, it was, and I think this is, this is the case we've been talking about, like Keith Olbermann, you know, a lot of late night decline, a cable news decline, et cetera.

It's really just as simple as it's really predictable. You all are saying the same thing about the same topics. We know exactly where you're going to go and what your take on it is going to be. I was thinking about Jon Stewart, who I think is still can be really funny, like some of his best moments were when he was tearing apart the like sort of liberal consensus on like lab leak versus. Yeah. Versus the zoonotic origin. And I mean, that was like a hilarious bit where, again, he's going somewhere that is uncomfortable. That's what makes comedy interesting. And I also think that there's something to be said with it.

If you're going to be a comedy show, the funny has to come first. And then if you're able to make like your political points around that, but the humor is there and solid first. She clearly lost the lost the thread on that. I think the same thing happened to John Oliver. I used to love that guy's show back in 2015 because he was funny first and he would do substance. And then Trump happened and then it was like make Donald Drumpf again and I was like, oh my God.

You know, what he does better than Samantha Bee is he has these like, he hired investigative reporters. Right. So he'll do actually really good reporting.

I honestly wish he would, the comedy part of it is not funny. Like just put it, just do like, if you want to do a news show, do that and do it well. So at least he adds something to the conversation. Like he did it, just do like, if you want to do a news show, do that and do it well. So at least he adds something to the conversation. Like he did a deep dive on private equity,

buying up trailer home community, trailer park communities and stuff like that. But yeah, it's not funny, but at least he adds something sometimes to the conversation. This was just sad. What are you looking at? Well, something COVID taught all of us for a generation is to be hyper attuned to the risk of a pandemic. Given that the United States and the world really did not suffer a bad one for nearly 100 years, a lot of institutional knowledge and even fear around such an event was lost. Obviously, we all paid a big price for that when COVID came. Where the policies enacted clearly reflected more the politics of the time and political idiocy than any plan based in science. It's been two years now, obviously, so you would think that with that lesson so fresh in our mind that we'd be better. And yet, all current evidence regarding the latest so-called public health emergency

indicates that, in fact, our political leadership in our public health establishment has become more captured by woke politics in absence of science than anything else. I'm writing, of course, about monkeypox, a disease which you can be forgiven for not knowing that much about, given that the way that the media has covered it. And can also be forgiven for being dramatically alarmed about since the World Health Organization, for the first time since COVID, has declared officially this week a global public health emergency. First of all, let's start with the facts. What is monkeypox? It is a virus in the same family as smallpox, with familiar symptoms, but somewhat more mild. It is rarely fatal, but illness normally lasts two to four weeks, and it is very unpleasant to get. So far, with 14,000 recorded cases across the globe, only five deaths are attributable to a monkeypox.

How does it spread? Here's where the world politics comes in. So far, in the latest study, detailed study of the 500 cases that had developed outside of Africa, 98% occurred amongst men who had sex with other men. In those cases, 95% of them had transmission route positively identified as sexual contact. And apparently what I just said is deeply controversial, with so-called activist groups saying that, and merely acknowledging this basic fact, they say is homophobic and it targets gay people for discrimination. Just so you don't think that I'm exaggerating, on the CDC website that I just showed you, there is not one single acknowledgement of this fact. It does not once mention the type of

sexual transmission through which monkeypox is occurring. And because it's 2022, let me state this clearly. If you're a man who has sex with other men, you do you. I do not care. However, in my opinion, obfuscating that fact from you, that you are much more at risk of a highly infectious smallpox variant, is deeply insulting to you. It is also deeply insulting to the American public who are trying to get this information, but cannot from official sources nor in the media.

It's not just me who is saying this. Actual virologists and even gay activists are outraged by the current messaging. Benjamin Ryan, who himself is an LGBTQ health journalist and a member of the gay community, writes this in the Washington Post. The current CDC message and those by public health authorities, including the media, saying anyone can get monkeypox is so egregiously misleading it amounts to misinformation. He continues, quote, by reducing monkeypox risk to a simplistic binary equation, public health leaders are prioritizing fighting stigma over their duty to directly inform the public about true contours and drivers of this global

outbreak. Ryan breaks down the overwhelming current amount of data, which demonstrates worldwide and here at home that nearly all monkeypox cases have occurred currently between men who have sex with other men. But he also notes that state and local health departments are currently not collecting vital demographic data about people diagnosed with monkeypox in the United States, specifically because they are afraid of being labeled as homophobic. In fact, one of the reasons that we even have any good data at all on monkeypox is because in other countries, their brains are not as rotted by woke politics. Britain keeps robust data on transmission and demography of monkeypox patients,

and their data has been a godsend for those who actually care about stopping this disease. Again, I reiterate a line from Ryan's op-ed. Public health officials cannot be expected to police the public's reaction to epidemiological facts. Gay men deserve to hear the unvarnished truth about monkeypox so we can take action accordingly. We are adults. Please be honest with us. I agree. Equality to me means treating everybody equally. The idea that public cannot be told the truth about monkeypox transmission because it might make them homophobic is in fact homophobic. Do they really think that people are such children that's immediately what they're going to jump to? Furthermore,

as Ryan writes, this is deeply infantilizing to gay men. We just went through an entire pandemic. All citizens were asked to make behavioral changes. People stayed at home. Children were pulled out of school. Every American was told at one point to wear a mask when leaving their house. Yet, now when it comes to monkeypox, it is somehow homophobic to say, hey gay men, there is a disease that is spreading amongst you. To avoid getting it, be mindful when selecting sexual partners. If you do, wear a condom to prevent transmission. Yet, that is exactly what public health authorities refuse to say. In fact, the New York Times reports that when an epidemiologist wanted to advise gay men to reduce the number of sexual partners in New York State temporarily, he was shut down by his own department, who said in a statement that it was homophobic

to dissect gay men's sex lives. In fact, in the days since they've rejected this sound medical advice for the public, here's what New York City authorities are now focusing on. They want the WHO to change the name of monkeypox because, quote, of growing concern for the potentially stigmatizing effects that the messaging around monkeypox can have on vulnerable communities. For God's sake, what about the people who are getting sick? Isn't that what we should all care about? This is insanity. It reminds me of when people said we shouldn't vaccinate old people first for COVID because they're disproportionately more white. Unfortunately, the so-called gay advocacy organizations

aren't helping anyone. As Josh Barrow, who himself is a gay man, points out, GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is releasing guidance for reporters, encouraging them to lie and not say that men who have sex with other men are most likely to contract this disease. In fact, they incorrectly state in their guidance that, quote, a person's sexual orientation or gender identity does not put them at higher risk of infection. And that is the supposed gay advocacy group.

Once again, that is a disservice. Let me tell you this. If I was a gay man, I sure as hell would want to know what the facts were. Acknowledging biological truths around disease is not homophobic, nor is it racist. Everyone knows black people are more susceptible to sickle cell. That's not racist. Tay-Sachs is a genetic disease that afflicts mostly the Jewish community, not anti-Semitic. Or myself, as an Indian man, I'm actually much more susceptible to diabetes and to gum disease, both of which I am combating right now. That's just how it is. Telling the truth is always the best strategy given health conditions. Failure to do so can only cost lives. Right now, there have been very limited incidents of household transmission of monkeypox to children. What's even more scary is that if public health authorities don't tell people the truth, people will not take precautions. We could

have had, or we could have, a full-fledged monkeypox outbreak. As we have learned with COVID, it could then mutate with so many other human hosts, and then everyone could be put at risk, where we could nip it in the bud right now. So, Crystal, I mean, look, I get it's uncomfortable for people to talk about. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, after being fired from CNN for shamelessly advising his brother, the governor of New York, and lying about it, Chris Cuomo has reemerged.

In an interview with News Nation, he professed his high integrity and refused to admit that he did a single thing wrong. He claimed CNN knew exactly the extent of his role advising his powerful brother as he faced multiple scandals. That claim actually could be true. And he professed a newfound commitment to independent media, bashing the duopoly, and posturing as a rogue truth teller. Okay. Folks, there is a lot to unpack here. First of all, let's listen to Mr. Cuomo spin Gaslight and Deflect on the scandal that led to his firing.

Everything I know about this situation tells me that of course there's a conflict of interest, but people got that. Nobody thought I was interviewing my brother the way I interview other people. That wasn't the point of purpose of those things. And I even said at the time, and people are like, you don't need to say that. The time will come when he can't come on this show anymore.

There will be a time for accountability. There always is in crisis. And I can't cover him about that. People got that. He can characterize it however he wants. He can say, oh, it's just about getting information out there. The bottom line is his brother was the governor of New York. He's a Democrat.

He's a politician. And he's coming on a program that's supposed to be doing journalism. And that was the argument. It's a good argument. I think on the written test, you get an A. But life isn't a written test. It's a practical test. And you have to take the circumstances as they are. When I said I didn't make press calls, I meant to manipulate the story. That would be the overstep. That would be the conflict in extremists. That's what I meant to manipulate the story. That would be the overstep. That would be the conflict in extremists. That's what I meant. The idea that I never spoke to anybody in the media about my brother, it's an impossibility. Most of my friends are in the media.

But you were calling, but there were specific conversations. I mean, and I'm reading here, Melissa DeRosa, rumor going around from Politico, one to two more people coming out tomorrow. Can you check your sources? You write back, on it. No one has heard that yet. And then you say, I called a fellow journalist who works with Ronan a lot. I didn't want to contact Ronan directly. I know him. He's been good to me. He's been on my show, but I didn't want to. I didn't want to push up on him like that. It's not right. I mean, you were obviously

doing recon to find out what was out there. I'm not saying to influence. I think, look, I'm telling you what my attempt is. The truth is in the language. I could have contacted Ronan. I could have contacted anybody who was working in the media. I got a lot of relationships and I probably could have justified it by just saying, I just want to make sure that you're straight on the facts. I don't want to influence you. I never did that. And I think it's a distinction with a difference. And it's something that we'll figure out in litigation. Chasing down leads on the women who were speaking out, repeatedly advising his brother's team, working his sources to find out what was dropping and when, only covering his

brother when times were good, lying to his audience about pretty much all of it. Cuomo still believes all of this is totally above board and sound journalistically, even as he really can't directly defend it. I mean, it's an amazing moment when he tells his interviewer there, and close friend, by the way, Dan Abrams, that if you are choosing the correct answer on the written exam of journalistic ethics, then yeah, his handling was inappropriate. But that, quote, life isn't a written test, it's a practical test. This is shamelessly meaningless spin and total bullshit. Look, I could say a lot more about this. He claims the media treated him unfairly somehow, applying what he describes as a purity test, when in fact the media looked the other way

and even celebrated a lot of his conduct until his lies and ethical failings just became completely undeniable. But the bottom line of this whole section of the interview is that he thinks he acted impeccably, that it was a perfect phone call, so to speak. And in fact, that if anything, his failing was in being too selfless, caring too much about his family and the good of the American people over his own career interests. And that's what led to his downfall. That's what he really thinks. And it's kind of unbelievable.

And the truly amazing thing is I actually think he believes this. A stunning feat of self-delusion, narcissism, and personal victimhood from the rich scion of one of the most connected families in all of America. Yeah, we feel real bad for you,

buddy. But the part of the interview that I find even more amusing is his cope on landing at the well-funded but low-rated NewsNation. Some context here. So NewsNation is owned by Nexstar. They also actually now own Sager and Mice, former employer over at The Hill. NewsNation is an attempt to fill the centrist role CNN used to fill before CNN became resistance lib bait and has collected a catalog of cast-off news anchors from the big three cable networks. Cuomo will be joining his former CNN colleague Ashley Banfield, former Fox News host Leland Vittert, former NBC News host Adrienne Bankert. And so far, this venture has gone exactly as well as you would expect. Obscurity and very low ratings. The Daily Beast reports NewsNation typically generates about 10,000 viewers in the key demo. He'd be better off on CNN+.

A look at their YouTube channel shows you just how much demand there is for their brand of bloodless, elite-friendly content. Their big bombshell interview here with their new huge get, Chris Cuomo, has so far generated about 6,000 views on YouTube. That's admittedly better than most of their content, which notches views in the hundreds rather than the thousands. Some of their videos do not even crack a hundred views. Meanwhile, they've apparently shelled out massive cash for a fancy studio and mediocre but expensive talent. This channel will last as long as its funders are willing to lose millions and no longer. So Cuomo professes to be thrilled at the chance to, quote,

build something special at NewsNation, claiming he is done with the big game of media. Let's take a listen. I want to help. I want to find a way to help people. I'm going to come to NewsNation and I want to build something special here, work with Dan, work with the team here. They've got great people who are really hungry to make a difference in ways that I think matter. I had decided that I can't go back to what people see

as the big game. I don't think I can make a difference there. I think we need insurgent media. I think we need outlets that aren't fringe and just trying to fill their pockets. Don't listen to anybody else. Only listen to me. Don't trust that when you hear it. I'm going to do the job. I'm going to go where the news is. And I'm going to try very hard to be fair. And I want to do it here. I want to make a difference. And I'm really hoping that it makes a difference for you. And I thank NewsNation very much for the opportunity. He just wants to help guys. Now, it's hilarious to imagine Chris Cuomo could ever be truly independent. His entire existence is shaped by being a Cuomo and serving the power interests of his family.

That's who he is. His brother might not be governor right at the moment, but he is already planning his political comeback as well. The Cuomos are one of the most elite connected families in all of New York and really the country. Do you really think he's going to buck the system, which is the only reason he ever ended up with any relevance and status to start with? Of course not. After all, none of us would ever have heard of Chris Cuomo if his last name was not Cuomo. He likely knows he can't hack it independent. He launched a podcast of his own recently, so he knows exactly how well all of that is going for him. And he's obviously been tossed from the heights of cable news. So a doomed but moneyed venture like News Nation really is only option here. And while he

wants to put a triumphant spin on it, his comments earlier in the interview give away the fact that he is still a man of, by, and for the mainstream press. Transparent is different than honest. I am not indicting the media. That is done gratuitously and for personal gain. It's the fringes I worry about, not the mainstream media. We have the best media I've ever been around in the world. The resources, the men and women, the resolve, they are honest. Now, is everybody honest? No. Any place you find a system, you're going to find a range of personal accountability and, you know, aptitude in whatever the business is. So that's not a fair basis. Our media is good. It is strong. There are problems. The problems are getting worse. But the public doesn't trust it. But look, the public doesn't trust anything. And that has often

been true in this country. It is more true now. But I think you have to look at it holistically. Everybody has to want to have some responsibility if you're going to point at anybody else. And I do not blame the media for where we are today. So even after they turfed him and broke his heart, he scarcely has a word of criticism for the media. And to show you just how much he's broken with his previous ways at CNN, his very first podcast offered a completely conventional and DC elite approved view of the Ukraine war, including an interview with Sean Penn. None of these people, not Cuomo, not the now canceled Sam Bee or Keith Olbermann, who's launching a new podcast, or the many low-rated so-called stars of cable news,

can understand why no one trusts them. Why, outside of the rigged cable news ecosystem, they cannot get any traction. Why, even within that ecosystem, their ratings just continue to slip lower and lower and lower. It's really pretty simple. They're boring. Everything they say has been forged and vetted by elite consensus designed to hide certain key truths. And there's a thousand other well-connected mediocre climbers who can be plugged into that slot to say exactly the same thing. Throughout this interview, Cuomo keeps talking about how he wants to be back on the air so he can help out. It's hilarious to think that anyone missed anything or the country suffered in even the tiniest, most inconsequential way by his absence from the airwaves. A complete delusion of grandeur that he probably in his heart of hearts doesn't even really believe.

The cancellation of a show was as profound a wound to the nation as the instant collapse of CNN Plus. And seeing as how he's clearly learned absolutely nothing and changed not even a smidge, his return will be just as insignificant. There was a lot in this interview and it was kind of... And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Breaking Points partner, founder of StatusQ, Jordan Cheridan, is just back from a lengthy road trip where he did what so few reporters actually do and went to talk to the American people about what is going on in their lives and came back with some completely astonishing material. Jordan, it's great to see you. Good to see you. Hey, thanks for having me. There were a lot of stories that you focused on, a lot of pain. You talked to a lot of people

struggling with their housing, but you also talked to a lot of folks who were dealing with, you know, major price increases with inflation that was making life very difficult for them. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what you heard on this trip. The pandemic, that was crushing. And then on top of that, you have inflation. I'm sure your costs are through the roof. The inflation is one thing. The other thing, too, is the productivity of things that were available. There's a lot of things that we relied on and we weren't able to get them. So some of these big companies who were having problems getting their products delivered to their main companies and then distributing, they were going to purchase from the big box stores where purchase at first and then everybody else was coming second. So it was more of a domino effect.

The top guy always gets everything and everybody else gets what's left over. Did the increase in overhead in terms of, you know, products you had to get, did that contribute to having to close down? That contributed to it. The other thing that contributed to it was the shortage of the products themselves. Trust me, there's a lot of, there's still today, right now, I can't get certain products that we sold lots of. So what happens is it hurts me, and those people can't purchase that product, so they're going to have to go somewhere else.

So they say, oh, well, I can't get this product here, so I may as well go to the big box store and not even bother coming in here. There's a lot of people that do that. And I can understand if you're coming 20 minutes away to come here to get a certain product and I don't have it, it's upsetting. Plus the cost of fuel and everything else. So this is a business that's closing down. You made stops in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.

Just tell us a little bit more, Jordan, about the people that you met. Yeah. I mean, borrowing from your technical recession years, now is closing down in Pittsburgh. One illuminating part was he actually said, yeah, I mean, the last year I've been working half days, 12 hours. That's his definition of a half day. But from the supply chain shortage he was talking about, I spoke with, you know, parents who are just looking around their home for change to fill the gas tank. Other folks that, you know, are rationing medicine now for their mental health are trying to wean themselves off. They could afford the medication. They can't afford the doctor who has to refill it. Going to the doctor a couple of times a year to get certain medications refilled. I mean, I've spoken with parents who, you know, had to take their kids out of sports,

you know, Little League, you know, kind of doesn't sound like a huge hardship, but obviously that affects children. Spoke with younger people, you know, in their 20s who the thought of even having children is a no-go at this point because of costs on top of that climate change we were on the road during this heat wave. So, I mean, stories, you know, across the gamut and definitely housing too, you know, there is definitely an increase in terms of homelessness. There's definitely an increase in terms of people who are now being pushed out of their communities due to gentrification. And

normally, okay, they look outside the city to try to find another place, but costs are up everywhere, even in rural America. Yeah, that's what I want to get to. Young people, you were talking about that, not just with kids, but like cost of life, early life. What does it mean for people who are young whenever things are very expensive in terms of inhibiting their opportunities in the future? Yeah. I mean, some of the people I spoke with just said, honestly, right now, it's just trying to survive. They kind of cut out any hobbies they had. One woman said, I feel alone. I feel like I don't even have a president, which is pretty illuminating.

You know, they are essentially doing a lot more free things, which some folks I talked to said were driving longer distance for like parks and free things. But then the problem is the gas. So it's like you're trying to do more free things outdoors. But how do you afford the gas? I actually asked one woman, this was really striking, what happens? Obviously, politicians aren't doing much about this. Should there be more protests? And she said, I can't fill up my car to go to the protest. So it's really illuminating. You see the corporate media coverage. When I went back to the hotel every day, it was like either a pregame show on CNN for the January 6th hearing or a postgame show of the January 6th hearing. But very little, like, in-depth talking to the people. And people between the gas, the food, electricity.

I was in West Virginia where President Manchin, through some of his shenanigans, directly hiked rates of electricity for his constituents through his coal plant. People are getting it all across the board, and it's sad. I mean, between that food market that's closing down, I spoke with another bar owner in Philadelphia who, crushed by the pandemic, then the city dropped construction right on his corner, which is affecting business. Inflation, he just put his house on the market because that's the only way he could keep the business open. Geez. Wow. Jordan, elaborate a little bit more on what they are telling you about how they feel about the politicians, about the Biden administration, about, you know,

what sorts of things, what sorts of action they feel like Washington could take and isn't taking? Yeah, I've always found that talking to real people, they're a lot smarter than the pundits. Most of them know that a certain element of this is price gouging. I got that a lot from folks who said, you know, these gas prices do not need to be this high. Several of them wanted Biden to take more aggressive actions, including pulling the federal subsidies we give to fossil fuel companies, which is about 15 billion a year. Several of them said, you know, Republicans, they don't have these excuses why they can't do things. They just act and worry about it later, where the Democrats, you know, several of them mentioned the parliamentarian to me. Wow.

And one of them said, one young person said, I don't know, all I heard during the primary was Biden was the only one who could bridge the divide within the Democratic Party, work with Republicans. But in practice, he's basically said he can't do anything. So most people I spoke with felt that essentially, whether it's Democrats, Republicans, it's all one big kind of corporate cabal. A lot of them on the local level have had experiences with their local politicians doing nothing other than taking money from real estate developers who are then gentrifying their neighborhoods. So most of them are not, not, you know, happy with the Democratic Party. Certainly, obviously see threats for the Republican Party, but several of them even told me they don't even know if they're going to vote in the midterms.

Wow. Yeah, I think that's the real fear. Well, I mean, the work you're doing is absolutely essential. Guys, go if you can and support Status Quo because they are on the ground. Jordan is out there talking to real people, actually, you know, not trying to gaslight them about whether they're not there in a recession. They know exactly what they're feeling in their real lives. It's the type of work that mainstream media, even though they have all the resources in the world to do it, very rarely actually do go and engage with these sorts of folks. And, you know, in this segment, we really just scratched the surface of the type of content that you got from this trip. I recommend people go and check everything out,

including apartment complex in Huntington, West Virginia, black mold and the landlord is a horrific situation. So everybody go support Status Quo if you can and watch those videos. Jordan, it's always great to see you. Thank you, Jordan.

Appreciate it, man. Thanks. Absolutely. Our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. Really appreciate it. It was a fun show. We got to do a lot of policy in the show. Almost never get to do that. Washington actually doing something. We get to actually put some of our expertise to the test. It's a lot of fun. You get to study up and tell everybody. So that's why we

love doing it. Thank you to everybody who's bought tickets to the live show or upgraded premium. It helps us pay people like Jordan to support the work that he's doing. So it means a lot for all of you who are helping us very much. And we have great content for you all over the weekend. And we'll see you back on Monday. See y'all soon. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane

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This your main man, Memphis Bleak, right here, host of Rock Solid Podcast. June is Black Music Month, so what better way to celebrate than listening to my exclusive conversation with my bro, Ja Rule. The one thing that can't stop you or take away from you is knowledge. So whatever I went

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