Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/10/23: Credit Card Debt Tops 1 Trillion, Feinstein Gives Up Power Of Attorney, FBI Raid Kills Utah Man, Fed Search Trump's Twitter, Fox Begs Trump Debate, LA Workers Rebel, Barstool Goes Independent, Ken Klippenstein Pressed On UFO Report

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Credit card debt topping 1 trillion, CNN confronting the White House on Bidenomics, Senator Dianne Feinstein falls and gives up power of attorney to daughter, Utah Man killed in FBI Raid after online threats to Biden, Feds search Trump's Twitter account, Krystal looks into LA workers rebelling over Impossible Housing prices, Saagar looks into Dave Portnoy taking Barstool independent, and we're joined in studio by Ken Klippenstein to debate the merits of his new piece on the UFO whistleblower David Grusch.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of interesting news breaking this morning. First of all, we've got some new news about Americans and the amount of credit card debt that they hold. The numbers are pretty stunning, so we'll break all of that down for you.

We also have additional information about Senator Dianne Feinstein apparently suffering a fall. We'll break that down for you, what it means for a very important, powerful person here in Washington. There was an FBI raid yesterday. We know very little about it, but a man who had been apparently making threats against Joe Biden was killed in that raid. So we'll break that down for you. We also have some new news with regard to Trump. Apparently his Twitter account was subpoenaed by Jack Smith. And also he is making some comments about whether or not he will participate in the debate that is coming up and just exactly

what that decision will look like. Also excited about a guest we're going to have in studio. This is going to be a big one. Ken Klippenstein has published a report on UFO whistleblower Dave Grush that is getting a lot of pushback and backlash. So we thought the best thing to do would be to have Ken in the studio and ask him the questions we have ourselves. But before we get to any of that, thank you all so much to those of you who have been signing up to become premium subscribers. And for those of you who are premium subscribers and you're looking to get the show full video without ads, the best place to do that at this point is on Spotify. Yes, that's right. We sent out an email to everybody yesterday about connecting your video feed to Spotify

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We've got really, really fun guests. I think next week we're going to be able to debut, Crystal, which are certainly a testament to what you guys have helped us build here. And you should continue to pay attention. I think you are definitely going to want to hear these. As a reminder, all of our big interviews that we get, candidates and big personalities, et cetera, they drop first for our premium subs. They're always the people that we think about first.

Of course, you know, we don't neglect our YouTube audience as well. They just get it a little bit later whenever we get to it, because the people who help us pay our bills, help us build everything, those are the people we're always thinking about here. So we just want to thank you again. All right, guys. So we have been really trying to dig into the state of the economy, which is a little bit complicated, the way the Biden administration portrays it, certainly not the way that Americans are experiencing it. And we have a new milestone, not a good milestone, that we have just reached. Let's put this up on the screen. So American credit card debt has officially hit $1 trillion for the first time ever. Per CNBC, this is a huge test for cardholders, which is coming. You can see credit card balances here going up, up until

2020. And then because of some of the pandemic relief era programs, some of that debt getting paid down. Well, now it has come back with a vengeance, topping that $1 trillion number. They said total credit card debt rose nearly 5% or about $45 billion in the second quarter to a new high. That is according to a new report on household debt from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Delinquency rates still continue to be relatively low by historical standards. However, there are concerns that those rising balances may present challenges. And reminder to everyone that student loan payments are starting this fall. Now,

the Biden administration has announced a few plans, an income-driven repayment plan. Biden's still trying to cancel student debt, some other relief measures for borrowers, including a 12-month on-ramp repayment to try to soften that blow. But nevertheless, the fact that you have these historic rates of credit card debt and you have student loan payments coming back into effect this fall could be a very dangerous state of affairs for a lot of Americans. Let's go ahead and put the numbers up on the screen from the New York Fed. They put up this helpful GIF on Twitter or X or whatever the hell it is now showing the levels of debt. I mean, you can see that that red that red swath there, that is student loan debt. One point five seven. I mean, that is truly astonishing.

You can see the credit card debt there. That's the orange rising to a trillion dollars. Auto loan debt, $1.58 trillion, and other at $0.53 trillion. So Americans really increasingly loaded up with debt and needing their credit cards just to be able to make ends meet. It's a huge problem. One of the things that they point to in the New York Federal Reserve report, they say, quote, compared to other debt categories this quarter, credit card balances saw the most pronounced worsening in performance following a period of extraordinary low delinquency rates during the pandemic. Now, the other problem, though, is that while credit card debt is the most pronounced, they still say auto loans rose by $20 billion in upward trajectory. The volume of newly originated auto loans and leases was $179 billion, reflecting

the high dollar value of originated loans, aka cars cost way too much money right now, and people have to take out huge loans if they want to be able to even get a car. Mortgage balances actually are unchanged from the previous quarter, but not for a good reason, like people are paying it down, but because people are just taking out way fewer mortgages and because they're slowing home prices. Because no one can buy a house. So basically, debt on almost every measure right now is a disaster. I mean, the credit card debt increase combined also with, we are going to have student loan repayments come any, what is it, any month now that they start to kick in. That's a couple hundred dollars a month, even more so that people are somewhat 20 something million Americans, maybe even more are going to have to

start having to pay down once again, reducing their overall household expenses. Then they've got what's going on in terms of inflation, wages not keeping up with that or very slightly keeping up with it as of like, I think this quarter. And so what do you do? You go with the credit card. And you know, the sad part is not just the balances. People are opening a ton of new credit cards. I mean, they say here that the number of accounts has expanded by just six, by 6 million just in the last quarter, Crystal, 6 million new credit cards taken out to a current number of 578.35 million credit cards. The aggregate limits on these cards have actually increased by 9 billion and now stand at 4.6 trillion. So people increasing their credit

limits, taking out new cards, basically to try and load up, you know, if they're not able to get what they can off of a single one. And, you know, I don't think it takes a genius financial advisor to figure out. It's like most people, whenever they do go into credit card debt, it's not, you know, one or two months. We're talking about years of their life before any of this stuff even begins to get paid down, if it does at all. And we have some statistics about exactly that. Let's put this up on the screen. This is from Yahoo News. They compiled some of the statistics about what they describe as the state of debt in America. Let's put this next piece up on the screen. So you've got 30 percent of Americans who have between $1,000 and $5,000 in credit card debt. Fifteen percent have $5,000 or more in credit card debt, and about six

percent have more than $10,000 in credit card debt. Let's put this next piece up on the screen that breaks those numbers down further. They say, although 6% could seem like a small amount, that means that based on these survey results, 14 million Americans have over $10,000 of credit card debt. They go on to find that 33% of Americans, so a third of Americans, think it will take more than two years to pay off their credit card debt. A majority of people, 55 percent, carry a credit card balance from month to month. Fifteen percent have had credit card debt stretching back decades to before 2006. And to me, the most disturbing indicator here, they say 49 percent of Americans, so very close to a majority of Americans, actually depend on credit cards now to cover essential living expenses.

Those numbers are even higher for young people. Gen Z, 61 percent of Zoomers rely on credit cards just to be able to pay their normal living expenses. Fifty three percent of millennials. On the other hand, boomers in a very different category, only 20 percent, 26 percent of boomers rely on credit cards to cover essential expenses. So, I mean, Sagar, this fits with a lot of what we've been reporting at this point for years about the financial pressure that is on younger generations, how they struggle so much just to be able to make the milestones that their parents were able to meet so much earlier in life. And you can see here, in an attempt just to, you know, obtain the living standard that perhaps their parents had,

they're having to take on significant loads of debt. What does that mean? That debt load can truly be crushing. I mean, you talk about, you think about freedom and ability to, like, pursue happiness and make your own choices in the world. If you are saddled with a huge student loan debt burden, if you're saddled with a huge credit card debt burden, that really constrains your choices of what you're able to do in the

world. That's why your rates of entrepreneurship are down among young Americans. I've seen reports that directly tie that in to the debt load, specifically the student loan debt load that young Americans are carrying at this point. It is just a totally different landscape from when their parents graduated college and were able to, you know, work a job and pay as they went in terms of their college education because it was so much more affordable. Of course. And this is downstream of everything. And this is the housing conversation. This is the debt conversations, the entrepreneurship conversation. You know, this is why a lot of my friends who go to, you know, they go to the so-called good colleges. What do they do? They

don't want to start a business. They want to go work in the Fortune 500. They want to go make 200 grand a year, which is great money because they've got 200 grand in debt. They've got nothing else to do. And I'll talk to these people. I love them, but they're so miserable. They cannot do anything else. They feel chained basically to the desk and have to work 70 hours a week. And they're like, yeah, but you know, seven years from now I'll be debt free. And then maybe I can start to look at a house. And then what's the other problem? You know, you start to get depressed. A lot of them have, you know, substance abuse, frankly. And I think the problem is because,

you know, you have to drink away your feelings, you know, in terms of not being feeling trapped. And it's not just them because, you know, we shouldn't just weep for law students who are out there. A lot of people who are working class, you know class are in the same boat. If you've got 10 grand in credit card debt at a 30% interest, I mean, the interest payment alone is making up so much of what you're paying. You feel like it's insurmountable. I mean, you have effectively got to cut your lifestyle to the bone if you actually want to make big, fat, hairy interest payments, or sorry, principal payments. And that's just not feasible for a lot of people who are out there. And especially if you have kids, the biggest problem I worry about for people who are in

this type of debt is what do you do when you're in an emergency? And I think about that all the time with a lot of my friends who, you know, $250,000, $300,000, something like that in debt. They're like, it's fine. I'm just going to keep working. I'm like, yeah, but you know, what happens? You get hit by a bus. Now what? It's like, what if you can't go to the office? What if your wife gets sick? Now what? It's like they're in a position where they have almost no leeway, and that's actually when you truly discover. I really despair when I look at some of this stuff. We've even got the car. Let's go out this map. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is really troubling. This shows you that more than one in five shoppers in Texas and Wyoming have a monthly payment over

$1,000 a month just in the second quarter, largely driven by the purchases of large trucks. But if you take a look at that, you can actually see the percentage of state residents paying 1K per month. I mean, we're talking about nearly an average of, what, 15%, 16%, almost 20% in some of these states. That is not an insignificant sum. Of course, we're talking about 12 grand a year post-tax just spending on your damn car. It's like when used cars, what is the average price of a used car is up over 30%. I know only 30% or so of used cars are even below $20,000, which sounds insane to say, you know, not even 10 years ago. New car price is some like $55,000. Well, it starts to make sense, really, when you take a look at the numbers. But then we know what people are making,

and we know what they're taking out. And it's very clear that the delta there is just getting bigger every single year. And that's what causes people to break. It can break you emotionally, it can break you mentally, and it leads to some very troubling societal things. Yeah, it just leads to you feeling like you have no choice in your life. I mean, and that's sort of like best case scenario. Worst case scenario is it truly is crushing and you lose everything because you can't keep up with the payments. And when you're talking about people who are accumulating more and more debt just to be able to meet their living expenses, I mean, what are we doing to our young generations here in terms of what their life is going to look like? So, it dovetails very closely with the Biden administration and their campaign pitch for 2024. They're really trying to sell Bidenomics as a

thing and really convince Americans that their actual personal financial situation is a lot better than Americans are telling pollsters that they feel that it is. Interestingly enough, it's a little bit surprising. Karine Jean-Pierre was on CNN, and she was actually pressed on the choice of language using Bidenomics and how they're leaning into this pitch, even though Americans really aren't feeling it. Let's take a listen to that. It's approval rating for his handling of the economy is at 37 percent, 30 percent on inflation specifically. From the White House perspective, why is there disparity between the good story, the narrative

you think you have to tell, and how it's received by the American people? So a couple of things, Victor. Look, as we know, polls don't show everything. They don't tell the full story, as you just stated. And we have to remember, if you look at where we were back in the fall of 2022 during the midterm elections, when the president delivered a historic midterms for Democrats, when we think about how, as a Democratic president, he delivered a victory that we hadn't seen in decades, right? And he led that messaging throughout those months going into November. And we are in a stronger position now than we were back then in the fall. And so that is important

to note. Look, there's a lot going on in this country. And we understand that Americans are coming out of a pandemic. We're dealing with a lot when you think about the economy. But here's the thing. This is a president who has spent the last two years turning the economy around. You hear us talk about Bidenomics. You just mentioned how we're doing this West, this kind of this West Coast swing, talking directly to the American people about how wages are actually going up, about how inflation is going down over a long extended period of time, more than 12 months. That is important. Let me ask you about something here, the branding. You just used the word. We have it on screen, Bidenomics.

We know the polls show that people are pretty sour, at least half American people are sour on the economy. Isn't that just dangerous getting closer to the election if things take a downturn? If, as the CBO predicts, unemployment will get closer to 4.7% by election day, that you've got a narrative now of Bidenomics and things going in a certain way, but that can quickly turn in the opposite direction. Why literally fuse the president's name with the economics that Americans aren't very happy with? Well, here's the thing. Bidonomics is indeed working when we say that you look at the data, right? Cost is going down, right? We think about inflation. When you think about wages going up, that is binomics. Look, the president has always believed,

not just as president, but as vice president, as a senator, that we need to build an economy that is building from the bottom up, middle out. That's actually a good question. Why literally fuse his name with economics when people are like, I feel like the economy is absolutely terrible. I hate the economy, so I'm just going to go ahead

and tie myself directly to said economy. I don't know, man. I really don't understand this one, Crystal. I mean, this is one where it's an active choice to try and spin it. My only analysis can be that they seem to believe a lot of the stuff that is out there. And I mean, I just think they're fundamentally misreading the electorate. Actually, if you go and you look at a lot of the midterm data, people did say that inflation was one of their top choices. It's just that they were willing to forgive it because they

were so upset at the GOP about abortion and they were upset about stop the steal. It's not that they're like, yeah, you're doing a great job. I mean, really what you should do, I don't even know what you should call yourself. Like you should just be like, I'm going to do Roe and that that's it. That's all I'm running on. If I were Biden, that's what I would do. The economy is terrible. I don't have a particularly good foreign policy record to run on. My approval rating is second lowest except for Jimmy Carter at this point. So go again. I've got one popular thing and a super majority on my side for the ballot. It's Roe versus Wade abortion as evidenced by what's happened in Ohio. That's it. That's my whole election campaign. This is a choice. This is like a choice to shoot yourself in the foot. It's just nuts. I mean, and listen, the voters are

saying thus far that maybe you don't need an affirmative economic vision. The theory of the case from the Biden people is like the other side is so bad that they're just going to vote for us anyway. And, you know, we've had a bunch of these special elections. They all have basically gone in the Democrats' favor. They've outperformed by 10 percentage points on average partisan leaning each district that basically held in Ohio as well in this abortion related referendum. But to get back to the economic piece here, you know, for people to understand how the top line numbers can look one way and the reality for people can you know, for people to understand how the top line numbers can look one way and the reality for people can look very, very different. So the White House does have

numbers that they can point to. Unemployment is really low. There have been a lot of jobs created. I mean, of course, that came out of the COVID recession. So the expectation was that hopefully there would be a lot of new jobs created. Inflation has cooled over the past several months. And actually, we're set to get some new numbers on inflation today as well. So we'll get to see how things are looking there. But if you look at the story of what has happened over the course of the Biden term, you initially had a lot of action on the economy. And that's why when we showed you that chart of people's debt load, it actually went down quite significantly during the early years of the Biden presidency, because there was a lot of action that helped ordinary people.

The story of his presidency has been the gradual rolling back of all those protections and supports. Student loan debt coming due again this fall is exactly a case in point of exactly that. So the experience that people have had over these past few years is of their financial situation increasingly becoming more and more precarious. And of course, inflation plays into that as well. So that's why you can have some of these top line numbers that are like, oh, yeah, Karine Jean-Pierre can talk about these top line numbers and it sounds really good. But what people are actually living and experiencing is a totally different scenario where every month things are getting a little bit tougher. And Biden has chosen to try to sell what he's already done

versus try to lay out an affirmative vision of what he will do. Now, again, I'm not saying that this is going to mean he's going to lose reelection. I think he'd be in a lot better position if he did lay out that affirmative economic vision and there was actually some credibility behind getting it done. But, you know, their theory of the case thus far that all they have to say is Trump is bad and, you know, Roe versus Wade and Dobbs, et cetera. So far, that has actually worked out pretty well for them. So it's possible it continues to work out well for them. But that doesn't mean much to Americans who are continuing to struggle. Clearly, the Biden team put this next piece up on the screen, this reporting about how they're thinking about the campaign and what they're going to do to, quote, juice the economic polling.

They clearly feel like there is a messaging problem versus a reality problem. What we're trying to lay out for you here is that there is very clearly a reality problem in terms of Americans and their personal financial situation. Their theory of the case is that, no, no, no, people are actually doing better than they think. They're just not getting the message out about all the great things that we've done for them. And so the model that they're going back to intentionally or not, based on this reporting from the Washington Examiner, is they want to go back to the rollout of the vaccines, the push that they made to try to get people vaccinated. And they're going to use back to the rollout of the vaccines, the push that they made to try to get people vaccinated. And they're going to use some of the relational organizing and leaning into trusted

messengers, quote unquote, within communities or social media influencers to try to persuade the public that actually Bidenomics is good. Actually, you're doing great. Actually, the economy is really wonderful and you just don't understand. That's their theory of how they're going to pull this off. And color me skeptical, Sagar, if that's going to work out. You should be skeptical. Basically, kind of what my friend Christian Datok lays out there in the report is that they recognize the Bidenomics framing is not exactly landing, but they're not 100% sure what else to do. Like you said, they think it's a messaging issue, but messaging is not the problem. Reality is the problem. And until they really get that through their heads,

they're just going to be in the precarious situation that they don't have to be in, where Trump very easily could win again. I think he stands as good a shot as any, honestly. I would put it at 50-50 today. And yet, it didn't have to be that way. It's entirely a choice of his own making. And now, it's an affirmative choice to go with said Bidenomics, like I was saying. And if he doesn't ditch it and it doesn't look like it, I think because Crystal, he genuinely believes in his heart that it's some sort of messaging issue and or that people just don't understand how good they have it. I really think that's what it is. I think his advisors are telling him, look at these

fake numbers about how everything is better. And he's like, yeah, I'm just going to beat these, beat this into the head of people. And that's just not how politics works. You've got to meet people where they are. It's that and it's a lack of desire to have to actually promise anything. And since he's, you know, unwilling to debate his primary competitors, that means there's not any pressure on him to promise anything in terms of actual, like, material benefit to the American people. So some of the things that, you know, they've supported in the past, like the child tax credit that was very successful, none of these have been made as anything approaching a concrete pitch for the next term. So, you know, their theory continues

to be if we can just unite the anti-Trump coalition and keep it all focused around Donald Trump and the fact that, you know, it's going to be a series of trial dates and new indictments and discovery and all of these things that are happening during the campaign season, it's very possible that that theory works out for them. I'm not saying I'm not saying that it's like doomed to fail, but that's cold comfort to people who really could use some help from the federal government, help that they were starting to get at the beginning of this administration. They've seen pulled out piece by piece over the course of the past several years. A lot of this actually relates to our next story. Let's go ahead and

put this up there on the screen, which it's difficult to talk about this. We have to try and keep empathy and also try to think about this in the public realm. Senator Dianne Feinstein, yesterday, 90 years old, fell at home and had to go to the hospital. Her office claims, quote, that the scans are clear. She has, quote, briefly went to the hospital yesterday afternoon as a precaution after a minor fall in her home. Like I said, her office says that she was clear. Senator Schumer said in a statement that he spoke with her on Wednesday morning. She says that she suffered no injuries and briefly went to there. I am glad she's back at home now and she is doing well. But this comes, Crystal, after she missed work for literally months on end. She was absent. When she did return, let's be honest, I mean, you can see that photo.

That's probably a good one compared to what it looks like as she's wheeled around the Capitol. She clearly is suffering several episodes where she forgets where she is. I did the infamous clip that we showed everyone here where they just said, just vote I, as she kind of has like a rambling episode. The thing is, is that whenever

it comes to her health and to Senator McConnell, how do we know we're being told the truth? I mean, don't forget, we were hidden from the fact, her office hid that she had actually suffered an episode on top of what had happened while she was at home during those three months, not just from recuperating, but actually suffering like a pretty serious health event that we didn't learn until reporters had to kind of dig around the people around her. We also now have a secondary indication of frankly, just how out of it Dianne Feinstein is. Let's go and put this up there on the screen, guys. She has currently ceded the power of attorney to her daughter, okay? She has ceded power of attorney to her daughter in what effectively amounts to

what is it, like an inheritance dispute? After her very rich husband passed away, basically the power of attorney is to her 66-year-old daughter, Katherine Feinstein, to help handle the legal battles over her late husband, Richard Bloom's estate. Basically, Katherine Feinstein, the only child, is at odds with the other three daughters of a previous marriage over the ownership of a luxury beach house owned by Feinstein. If only we were all so lucky, honestly, to be able to feud with our step siblings over something like this. The point, though, is that she does not have the mental capacity, it seems, to deal or to represent her own financial interest in this case and is willing to turn it over. And yet wants to represent some 40 million people, the state of California in the United States Senate. Can we think of two twin news items, which should at the very least in the eyes of what 100% of the American public just be like, you got to go. I'm sorry. You know, you can't be here anymore.

I mean, I honestly think you did the best commentary that I've seen on this whole situation, which is that it really is a failure of democracy that we have. Dianne Feinstein propped up, didn't have to debate, so people didn't really feel, you know, they weren't able to evaluate their choices whatsoever. She's still being propped up by Nancy Pelosi. I mean, I think this is utterly disgraceful. Pelosi knows exactly what's going on with Feinstein,

and I'm sure has known for quite some time exactly what's going on with Feinstein. But she's using her as a pawn in order to try to get her chosen successor, Adam Schiff, who's like one of the worst Democrats in Congress, into her Senate seat. And the backstory here, for those who haven't followed this, is Gavin Newsom has said if Dianne Feinstein were to retire and there was a Senate opening, he would appoint a black woman into that seat. That black woman very likely to be Barbara Lee, who is running in the Senate primary against Adam Schiff and against, by the way, Katie Porter. So in order to forestall that from happening,

Pelosi has tried to prop up Feinstein and keep her in place in spite of the fact that, I mean, this is an insane situation. She can't trust herself. She can't be trusted to handle her personal financial affairs. But she can cast votes on massive, multi-trillion dollar Pentagon budgets and the like. This is pure insanity. And it's not an accident that the fact that we have this incredibly aged Senate, like historically old by our country's standards, comes at a time when you have a total democratic breakdown in terms of people being able to evaluate their choices, in terms of the influence of big money in politics, in terms of this isn't relevant to the Senate, but relevant to the House, in terms of gerrymandering

and all of these other pieces that have conspired to keep power out of the hands of the people. That's how you end up with someone like this in such a position of incredible power when, you know, if you poll Californians, if you certainly poll the nation, this is not what they want to see in terms of their representation. It's not right. It's just not right in any sense of the word. You got somebody here who is clearly, you know, and this is, we've also talked about this. At this point, she is probably so far gone that it's not really on her as much as it once was. Although I do still think she has a titanic ego for hanging on and at least getting to

this point. It is now an indictment of all the people around her, of her 66-year-old daughter, of her staff who was around her, Miss Just Vote I, of all the senators who are covering this up on her behalf, of Governor Newsom, and of all these people. I mean, Ro Khanna, to his credit, is basically the only guy, an elected member of the Democratic Party, who's like, I'm sorry, you got to go. All right. We thank you for your service, but you got to walk here. It's not fair to your constituents. And I've laid it out here before, because senior senators like this are immensely powerful people, if they want to be. You can work on behalf of your constituents. There are 40 million people who effectively

have no real advocate. And everyone's like, oh, but her office can handle it. Sorry, I know how it works. Senators are on the phone all the time. California-based company needs a trade exemption or something like that. They employ, let's say, 100,000 people or whatever in the state. They've basically got to go to Padilla, who is a junior guy. He has no senator. He has no seniority. They don't have the adequate representation that they deserve, in my opinion. Every American citizen deserves that, to have somebody fighting on their behalf as an elected representative.

So I think that, to me, is what really bothers me. And like you said, this is all around so that you don't want, what is it, you don't want a progressive to be in the Senate. Yes. Like, let's be honest here. She wants her. That's why.

Toady, who is also a stooge of the deep state and was like the worst Russiagator in this whole town, has to be him. Can't be Barbaralee, can't be Katie Porter, has to be him. It is crazy. It is absolutely crazy. And, you know, the American people, the voters in California, they didn't vote for Pelosi's staffers to represent them. I mean, sorry, not Pelosi, Feinstein's staffers to represent them. I mean, sorry, not Pelosi, Feinstein's staffers to represent them. They voted because they thought it was basically hidden from them, the reality of the situation. And now they're having very much buyer's remorse, but don't have an opportunity

to do anything different. Sure. Can the office run on autopilot? Absolutely. Is this anything approaching representative democracy? Absolutely not. And when you pair it with, you know, the troubles that Mitch McConnell is having and the overall age of the Senate, it is a really sad state of affairs and a sign in a raid in connection with threats against President Biden while President Biden is in the West and traveling. This incident occurred in Provo, Utah. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Craig Robertson was shot and killed during this FBI raid that happened on early Wednesday morning as part of investigating threats against President Biden that were made on social media. This was done by the FBI in Salt Lake City and the office that they have based out of there. They said, quote, in accordance with FBI policy, the shooting incident is now under review. As it's an ongoing matter, we have no further details to provide.

He was facing actually three counts, according to the complaint, interstate threats, threats against the president of the United States, and influencing, impeding, and retaliating against federal law enforcement by threat. Some of the social media posts here by Mr. Robertson are particularly troubling. Let's go and put the next one up here on the screen. You can actually just see some evidence. I mean, look, it's not illegal to have guns, but he was posting them in a manner. He says, quote, when this government crumbles under its own evil and corruption, food, water, and arms and ammunition will be necessary to survive. Nine words you don't want to hear from a government, and we are here to help. Photos of himself in full body armor. The actual thing, though, and we're not really,

we don't think we're able to show these to you, but they are the actual threats, Crystal, that he made on Facebook. The threats themselves were pretty troubling because they included really not only threats against President Biden, but also like, hey, FBI, are you listening? If you are, let me know so I can have a gun or weapons like ready to meet you. But, you know, we do still have a lot of questions around this incident. It's like, this is an early morning raid. It's kind of an older man. I mean, was he expecting said, you know, raid? Like, what are the details here as to why like this ended up resulting in a death? And of course, this also happened while the president is traveling abroad. What exactly was going on here? So yeah, I mean, it's a sad

situation right now. He's an elderly gentleman. I mean, I'm not defending the guy. He's posting openly on Facebook being like, I want to kill the president. And then posting things with his guns and body armor and all of that. But we still have to do some scrutiny here on the official side of the story. Like, how did this all go down? Was this even necessary? You know, what exactly was the search warrant? Like, was he being arrested?

Like, what are the what's the circumstances here of this? What's going on here? Yeah. And did he I mean, was he holding a gun to shoot at you? Right. Exactly. Was it justified that? I mean, yeah. Don't make threats against the president. The threats that were made were very specific. He said, I hear Biden is coming to Utah, which is where this man was because usually for a threat to be credible, there has to be some specificity to it. So the fact that Biden was coming to Utah and he's talking specifically about, you know, threatening him in the state of Utah is probably what led them to take this action.

But, yeah, an FBI raid for threats is one thing, but there's no indication thus far. They haven't indicated that anyone who was involved in the raid was injured. He had posted some threats, the effect of like, oh, if the FBI shows up on how my guns loaded, is that what happened? And there are just still a lot of questions about how this all went down and the circumstances that led to this man who should not have been making threats against the president, but this man ending up dead. Yeah, that's the odd thing about it is, I mean, and again, I want to be clear here. He was posting some pretty crazy stuff. Like, let me read you one. Alvin Bragg, I'm headed to New York to fulfill my dream of eradicating another George Soros two-bit political hack spelled wrong, DAs. I am be waiting in the courthouse parking garage with my suppressed Smith & Wesson MP 9mm to smoke a radical fool prosecutor that should never have been elected.

I want to stand over Bragg and put a hole in his forehead with my 9mm and watch him twitch as a drop of blood oozes from the hole as his life ebbs away to hell. Bye bye to another corrupt, I don't even know what the word is, Robertson wrote in one social media post. All right, so like, let's be real about who we're talking about. But, you know, he's an American citizen. Now you're not allowed to issue threats against the president or at the very least, like you will come under investigation for that. I do think that's I think that's within the bounds of the First Amendment and also within the bounds of protecting public officials. I mean, look, I don't know if you saw this. There was a presidential candidate just yesterday assassinated in cold blood in Ecuador.

Horrible video. So it's like, you know, these are very real incidents that we should always be reminded um can't happen it does come back to though it's like okay i mean did he break the law i mean lawful firearm owner to utah uh posting stuff is not necessarily illegal it's like so did you come in like were weapons drawn do you have body camera footage you know these are all important things i think that they're gonna have to uh come forward on and And honestly, the media is going to have to demand this. We're going to have to start. We have to issue some employee requests. Like, we've got to make sure we actually get to the bottom of this.

Like, is this all, you know, by the book, et cetera, as despicable as some of these statements are? Yeah. I mean, it appears to me that he probably broke the law. Did he deserve to die for his threats against the president? You know, again, there are a lot of questions that we had. It could be that, you know, these agents felt truly acted in self-defense, that he did come, as he indicated in some of his posts, with his weapons blazing. But, you know, the fact that there's been a real silence on the side of the government here, you know, only further heightens the questions that we have about this incident and exactly how it all went down. So, yeah, it's one to keep our eye on and see if we get any further information about exactly the circumstances here of how this all unfolded.

Yes, that's exactly right. OK, so we've got a little bit of Trump legal news here for you. Apparently, Jack Smith's team obtained a search warrant to search his Twitter account. Let's put this up on the screen. This is pretty wild development. Headline here from the AP, "'Special Counsel' got a search warrant for Twitter "'to turn over info on Trump's account,

"'according to documents.'" There was also a fine that was levied. Put this next piece up on the screen. $350,000 fine that was levied against now X. I really am sort of like resistant to using that company name because it's irritating to me. I'm not going to use it. $350,000 fine against Twitter for missing the deadline to comply with this search warrant. Details were included in a ruling from the federal appeals court in Washington over a legal battle surrounding the warrant that is

played out under seal and behind closed doors for months. The appeals court rejected Twitter's claim that it should not have been held in contempt or sanctioned. So looks like in the same way that, you know, they get search warrants to look in someone's house or whatever. They obtained a search warrant to have access to Trump's Twitter account. I presume that means D.M.'s and all the rest to try to find out anything that was relevant with regard to his actions with regards to January 6th and anything else that they're investigating. Because that's the other thing, Sagar, is we have word now that the grand jury that has been meeting in D.C. that handed down these latest indictments of Trump over January 6th, they're still meeting. And the investigation there still continues. So it's possible there are additional indictments, certainly of his co-conspirators. It's also possible there are additional indictments with regards to Trump and specifically some of the reporting indicates they're still looking into

some of his fundraising practices. And we've, of course, covered here the way that they, you know, at best really misled people about what their money was going to with regard to the stop the steal efforts, et cetera. So, you know, this is very much an ongoing investigation. Let me tell you something. Of all of the investigations, that's the one I would actually like to see because it drives me insane. I mean, you know, look, I understand First Amendment law, fundraising and all that. But watching old people who really believe this stuff get milked out of their hard-earned Social Security and savings money, you know, to go, quote, unquote, fight on behalf behalf of the president who then spends it on a bunch of legal bills

not related to that. That really pisses me off. You know, I don't care what, look, it's their money. They can do what they want. But, you know, it doesn't sit right with me, especially knowing how so many of these people not only trust him, but trust so many of the media apparatus that kind of amplifies this stuff. But I am curious.

I did not fully understand why the Twitter account needed to have a search warrant. That was the only thing I keep coming back to because I'm like, it's all public record. Are you looking for behind the scenes logins? As into who posted the tweets? Are we looking at his direct messages? Well, it could be his DM. I just assumed it's the DM. So I was wondering that, but you know, from my limited interaction and knowledge of how the presidential Twitter account, he did not really used to reply to DMs. I'm not even sure he fully even knew how to do it. I also, I mean, I can tell you, I can't go into all the details, but I have actually watched some of these presidential tweets get drafted while I was interviewing Trump, funnily enough. And

he doesn't post them. Let me just put it that way. Some of it even includes paper in terms of editing things before they are then sent out. So I just didn't understand, like, what are we trying to gleam here from said Twitter account? I'm a little confused by it, too. The timestamps are public, you know? Right. It's like, what are we looking for? Yeah. Well, and we don't have any public indication that he did go back and forth with people on DMs. I mean, that doesn't mean that it's impossible that there's nothing there, but I'm not sure what they were looking for here either. And then there's also a question about, you know, is it appropriate for the government to be

issuing search warrants and, you know, being able to look at people's social media accounts? I mean, I would say in the same way that you can get a search warrant to search someone's house or their documents or whatever, like there are situations where I do think it is appropriate. The problem comes when these search warrants become just like rubber stamps for whatever the government wants, for whatever reason, without a lot of scrutiny as to whether or not this is actually required. Does this meet the standard? It's hard for me to say at this point. I have no idea. I mean, in terms of that, I do think there should be a special consideration here. And we are talking about the president of the United States.

We are a former president of the United States and who actively only uses Twitter. You know, this is an important consideration. He only used his Twitter account while he was actually president of the United States. He used it really since then and has since been on Truth Social. What exactly, you know, were prosecutors looking for here? There's also the interesting angle here about the fine that Twitter was forced to pay, which, let's go and put this up there, please, on the screen, which says that the judge levied a $350,000 fine on the company for a delay actually in complying. So not clear yet exactly why the fine was levied, what exactly the delay was. It also kind of comes back to a recent promise by Elon Musk that they're going

to cover the legal expenses of anyone who incurred a firing or a problem from, you know, their Twitter account. Like, I'm assuming he means like normal people who were canceled because of tweets, but immediately Donald Trump Jr. was like, hey, I've got a pretty big case for you, you know, if you want to go and cover those legal bills. So it is an interesting, like, legal fight and or machination. I mean, the biggest headline from it really is just that it happened at all. Not even like we don't know what they're looking for. We don't know why and all that. Just the fact that it happened itself is, you know, really enough in order, I think, to talk about and speculate as to why. Trump has responded, of course. He says,

just found out that crooked Joe Biden's DOJ secretly attacked my Twitter account, making a point not to let me know about this major hit on my civil rights. My political opponent is going crazy trying to infringe on my campaign for president. So he is certainly seizing on that. And he's referring to the fact that prosecutors actually were able to receive permission from the judge not to tell Trump for months that his account had been taken over, basically, and was being searched by the government. So they kept it secret from him. They argued that it would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation by giving him an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, or notify Confederates.

That was the justification for keeping this action secret from Trump. So that is about everything we know about that one. All right. So that's what we got. At the same time, we have some news this morning about the rapidly approaching first Republican primary debate. It has appeared thus far like Trump is probably not going to participate in that debate. This is very, you know, I mean, listen, I think it would be good for him to participate. I think it's in the interest of democracy for all of these candidates to have to participate in debates. That includes Donald Trump. That includes Joe Biden.

But he and his advisers sort of feel like, oh, he's way ahead. Why take the risk? Why dignify these other opponents by stepping on the stage? WHY TAKE THE RISK? WHY DIGNIFY THESE OTHER OPPONENTS BY STEPPING ON THE STAGE? THE FOLKS AT FOX & FRIENDS WERE ON THEIR AIRWAVES TRYING TO IMPLORE TRUMP TO RECONSIDER WHAT APPEARS TO BE HIS MOVEMENT IN THE DIRECTION OF SKIPPING THE DEBATE. LET'S TAKE A LISTEN TO WHAT THEY

HAD TO SAY. THE CROWD WAS MIXED ON WHETHER HE SHOULD DEBATE OR NOT. PEOPLE WANT TO SEE TRUMP DEBATE. NUMBER ONE, IT'S EXTREMELY ENTERTAINING AND IT'S GOOD. AND WHAT I DID RECENTLY IS WATCH BACK THE DEBATE WITH JOE BIDEN WHERE I THOUGHT HE DID GREAT IDEA. I THINK IT'S A GREAT IDEA. I THINK IT'S A GREAT IDEA. I THINK IT'S A GREAT IDEA.

IT'S EXTREMELY ENTERTAINING AND IT'S GOOD. WHAT I DID RECENTLY IS WATCH BACK THE DEBATE WITH JOE BIDEN WHERE I THOUGHT HE DIDN'T DO WELL. THE MORE I REALIZED HE ACTUALLY DID WELL, MUCH BETTER THAN YOU

WOULD THINK. BUT THE MODERATOR KEPT INTERRUPTING, NUMBER ONE. AND NUMBER TWO IS JOE BIDEN JUST KEPT LYING. WELL, I THINK IF DONALD TRUMP IS POLLING THE AUDIENCE SAYING, hey, do you think I should do that debate? Because he was very clear. He was emphatic. Nope, I'm not going to do it because I'm way ahead.

And we have heard him say that, you know, my advisers are telling me I shouldn't do it. Obviously, he's having second doubts about the advice he's getting from his advisers. Because if he's polling the audience and... I just don't see... OK, the debate's in two weeks here on Fox. I JUST DON'T SEE, OKAY, THE DEBATE IS IN TWO WEEKS HERE ON FOX, I JUST DON'T SEE DONALD TRUMP SITTING AT HOME WATCHING

ALONG WITH 40 OR 50 MILLION OTHER AMERICANS WHEN HE SEES RON DESANTIS IN THAT CENTER SQUARE. THAT WOULD ABSOLUTELY DRIVE HIM CRAZY. DON'T YOU WANT HIM TO DO IT?

YEAH, OF COURSE. I KNOW HE'S ANGRY AT EVERYTHING THAT HE FEELS THIS ADMINISTRATION AND THE DEMOCRATS, THE DOJ HAVE PUT HIM THROUGH. I THINK HE'S GOING TO BE INCREDIBLE. I THINK HE'S GOING TO BE INCREDIBLE. I KNOW HE'S ANGRY AT EVERYTHING THAT HE FEELS THIS ADMINISTRATION AND THE

DEMOCRATS AND THE DOJ HAVE PUT HIM THROUGH. DON'T TAKE IT OUT ON THE REPUBLICANS. REPUBLICANS WANT TO SEE HIM UP ON STAGE. DON'T TAKE THE VOTERS FOR GRANTED.

YES, HE IS AHEAD BY A LOT. BUT TO SEE HIM UP THERE ON THE STAGE WOULD JUST BE WONDERFUL BECAUSE WE WANT TO SEE HOW THEY INTERACT. WE WANT TO HEAR THEIR POLICIES. THAT'S HOW HE BECAME DONALD TRUMP THE FIRST TIME. HE MADE IT ENTERTAINING. HE BLEW EVERYBODY AWAY. FOX NEWS IS HOSTING THE DEBATE. SO OBVIOUSLY THEY HAVE PRETTY SELF-INTERESTING. I MEAN, THEY'RE RIGHT ABOUT NOT TAKING THE VOTERS FOR GRANTED. THAT'S ALL FAIR. THE PART THAT I ACTUALLY THOUGHT WAS THE FUNNIEST WAS WHEN KILMEADE STARTED

DOING REVISION OF HIS HISTORY ON HIS FIRST DEBATE PERFORMANCE AGAINST JOE BIDEN, WHICH EVERYONE BASICALLY PAINTED BECAUSE HE WAS SO OBNOXIOUS. I THINK THAT'S THE ONE, history on his first debate performance against Joe Biden, which everyone basically because he was so obnoxious. I think that's the one, too, where it came out after the fact he like had COVID at the time. So I'm wondering if they had him hopped up on some kind of something to overcome the, you know, his mood because of COVID. Anyway, he was so obnoxious. He didn't let Joe Biden get a word. He made Joe Biden so sympathetic when all you had to do was sort of like stand back and let Joe Biden hang himself. But he really came off very grating. So I found it amusing that Kilmeade was like, actually, I watched it. You did great, sir. I'm sure you do great again. The public wants to hear from you, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, that's one of the

biggest kiss ass things. That was amazing. Just shocking. And look, let's be real. As you said, this is purely self-interested. Don't forget, the day that Trump was indicted, actually, that night, he had dinner with Fox News executives who were at Mar-a-Lago to basically beg him to show up to the debate. We do, however, have some news that just broke last night. Trump gave an interview to Newsmax's Eric Bolling, where he said two things. He'll let us know next week about the debate. OK, but two, I will not around it, too.

I will not sign the RNC debate pledge. Well, the RNC pledge, which says that you will support the eventual nominee, is a precursor to participating in the debate. So I think we have a little bit of a taste. He also recently has been going after Chris Christie, calling him a fat pig. Or no, he was told not to call him a fat pig. And he recounted that story. Classic Trumpian. Christie posted the video and just said, come say it to my face.

I'll see you at the debate. Yeah. You know, trying to challenge him. I don't think Trump's going to show up. I just think at this point, specifically because of Christie, Trump has it in his head that Christie ended Marco Rubio's campaign. Trump also doesn't want to basically validate all the other candidates by letting him take a shot. He's leading so far ahead in fundraising and the polls. And I actually thought one of the funniest tweets, truths, I guess, that he put out is,

I'll let them debate and see who I should pick as vice president. You know, just kind of putting himself above it. But of course, on a small d democratic level, it's awful. You have to debate. I mean, you really do have to. It's a terrible norm to set. It's one that we shouldn't normalize Biden and or Trump. If you want it, then you got to earn it.

I really believe in that. But people are letting it take a pass. So I don't know. I'm in the minority, apparently. It's pathetic that it's very likely that. But, you know, people are letting it go, taking a pass. So I don't know. I'm in the minority, apparently. It's pathetic that it's very likely that the two major party nominees, neither one of them is going to have to face a single, like, debate question during the primary. They're going to be able to win without having being subjected to even, like, the baseline of Democratic scrutiny. And it is, you know, we talk a lot about norms. That is a new norm.

That will be said. In the future, every frontrunner is going to be like, oh, they didn't. So I'm not going to do it either. And that that is that is incredibly disappointing. It's an incredible degradation of democracy. And, you know, it's not a surprise that these two men would be so craven. But nevertheless, it doesn't make the blow land any softer. So, listen, I will say I could see him coming out next week and being like, yeah, I'll debate, but I'm not signing the pledge and then basically kicking it to the RNC

and making them make the tough decision. So that way he has an excuse of it's not like, oh, I wanted to debate. They just wouldn't let me, you know, they wouldn't let me on the stage. And so he sort of, you know, creates the own conditions where they have to block him or call his bluff or whatever. I don't know. I could see that also playing out potentially. That's smart. I actually think you're 100% right.

You'd be like, I'm happy to do it, but I won't do that pledge. That's a very smart thing. You know, it is weird, though, that they include— I don't know if it's always been a part of it because, I mean, one of the most important moments of the first debate, 2015, is when they were like, well, everybody here. What do you say is like raise your hand if you commit to backing the eventual Republican nominee? And he didn't raise his hand.

And he's like, no, you know, I'm not going to do it. So this is clearly something that's kind of been baked in for a long time. I do think it's definitely odd that he decided that they decided to add that in there at the same time. I mean, it's not, I don't know. Do you think it's a smart move on behalf of the RNC? Because, I mean, even if he doesn't commit, that's fine enough. Like, let him debate anyways.

You know, let's just get the guy on the stage. I think Trump already blew up the stupid loyalty pledge because back in 2016, no, I don't think that there should be a loyalty pledge. I think people should be able to run and if they decide they don't like the nominee, they should be, you know, free individuals to make their own choices about it. Like handcuffing everybody ahead of time, I think is ridiculous. I think it is also anti-democratic. Um, and Trump blew this up last time around. Cause what

happened Sager is they had this loyalty pledge because there was all this question of, Oh, what will Trump do if he loses? Like, is he going to run third party? What is he going to do? And he signed the pledge and then immediately was like, nah, I'm not really going to follow this thing. So what's the point? So that's what Chris Christie has been saying, because Christie has no intention of backing Trump if Trump ends up being the nominee. So what he's been saying when he's asked about the loyalty pledge is, I will take the loyalty pledge exactly as seriously as Donald Trump did last time around. So he's technically signing it, but basically throwing out there like, yeah,

I think this is garbage and I'm not really going to abide by it in the same way that Trump got away with not abiding by it last time. So yeah, I think the loyalty pledge is BS. All right. Well, we'll see what happens. We certainly will. As Trump used to say, we'll see what happens. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, when you think of Los Angeles, many things may come to mind. Sunshine, movie stars, Hollywood are on the more negative side, visible homelessness, street crime. But this year, LA has been ground zero for something quite surprising, a working class revolt. In the latest example, 11,000 city workers actually went on strike on Tuesday of this week, bringing some city services to a complete halt, slowing others, talking about lifeguards, sanitation workers, custodians, mechanics, groundskeepers, more, all walked down over low wages and understaffing. fashion. It's more work for less money. But these L.A. workers are far from alone. Their brothers

and sisters across the city and across industries have been revolting in an extraordinary year that has seen more nationwide strike activity than almost any other year this century. Nurses, dock workers, hotel workers, they have all staged strikes or work stoppages. They are now joined by the workers at the heart of this company town, the writers and actors who make our favorite shows and movies, and the ones who are just struggling to get their foot in the door of their own Hollywood dream. They are all out on strike demanding a stake in the future of their industry. There is no city in America facing anywhere close to this level of worker rebellion. Partly it's because L.A. actually has decent union density, so workers are already organized for collective action. But if you listen to what the workers are telling reporters about why they had no choice but to strike,

there is a common thread running through each of these actions, and that common thread is housing. The total unaffordability of housing in the L.A. area has made it impossible for workers to be able to get by on their wages. It's immiserated them with multi-hour commutes, pushed them in some instances into literal homelessness. Joe Martinez, a city worker on strike this week who works servicing construction equipment at LAX, he told the LA Times that he lives 90 minutes away from his job because it is the closest place that he can possibly afford.

And yet, he actually considers himself lucky, because a lot of his fellow workers, they have even longer commutes. This, of course, takes them away from their family, their communities, drains their wallets and their souls, by the way, as they sit in mind-numbing traffic. According to Martinez, quote, we want to get respect from the city to go back to the bargaining table. Our biggest thing is cost of living. In a report on the hotel workers' strike, Alex Press documents how automated management apps are being weaponized to bring in unwitting scabs in an attempt to break that hotel workers' strike. One of those who was summoned by app to

break the strike was a man named Thomas Bradley. He immediately dropped his shift and joined the picket line the moment he realized he was being used like a pawn to try to hurt other workers. Joining the striking workers was no small thing for Bradley either, who had struggled to find employment in the hospitality industry in spite of him being trained and credentialed for the work. It's a complaint that's shared by many Black workers who are trying to get a foothold in the hotel industry. Bradley's joblessness had pushed him from precarity into actual homelessness. And when he showed up for that shift, he was living out of his car. Unite Here Local 11 co-president Ada Briseño explained that this precarity is shared even by many of her members who do have a job. Quote, there's no thing that I'm hearing from my workers. They are share. There's a new thing that I'm hearing from my workers. They are sharing by

shift rooms in a house. If you work in the PM, you get to sleep there in the AM. And if you work in the AM, you get to sleep in the PM. They actually you get to sleep there in the a.m. And if you work in the a.m., you get to sleep in the p.m. They actually rent a room by shift. It is incredible that we are in this crisis in this country. The union has now since helped Bradley get a job as a banquet runner at the one hotel which was able to come to terms before the contract deadline. The housing crisis has also taken center stage in the Hollywood shutdown as well. An anonymous studio executive said the quiet part out loud when he told reporters that he and his fellow execs wanted to weaponize this housing affordability crisis to force writers to accept a bad deal. The end game is to allow

things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses, a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. One insider called it a cruel but necessary evil. LA is at or near the top of every list that I looked at of the least affordable cities in the country. This, of course, is thanks to a combination of astronomical housing prices and comparatively low wages. When you add the sprawl, traffic congestion, and poor public transit, you can easily understand why the entire workforce is at its wit's end. L.A. is also among the worst cities in the country for income inequality, as superstars and executives live lives of incredible luxury.

And the workers who make the whole place go commute four hours just to barely scrape by. Could also, guys, be a canary in the coal mine. It's not like the rest of the country is doing so great on housing prices. Nearly two-thirds of major metros just saw their housing prices hit record highs. Meanwhile, mortgage rates are at a near 23-year high as the Fed has pushed interest rates up at breakneck speed.

These two factors together, housing prices and mortgage rates, have made housing the least affordable that it has ever been. And while the news has somewhat improved in recent months, it is not like wages have come anywhere close to keeping up with these ever-escalating housing prices. In other words, don't be surprised if the L.A. workers' revolt is coming to a city near you. And so I was reading all these stories, and I was thinking, what is the connective tissue here? And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com.

All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, two announcements on Tuesday evening absolutely rocked the sports entertainment world. One, Penn Gaming is partnering up with Disney sports juggernaut ESPN to launch an ESPN betting app, pushing the Disney property fully into the world of online gambling. But two, Penn Gaming is divesting entirely its ownership of Barstool Sports into the hands of Dave Portnoy, making him the sole owner of the company. Both announcements in their own right are titanic.

Together, they tell us a lot about the state of the media business today and what the future looks like. Let's start with Barstool, a brand that I've always loved and continue to admire. Portnoy revealed some of the reason for why Penn has decided to part ways with Barstool. Let's take a listen to that interview. We did this deal about three years ago, and I think both parties are like, we're going to take this thing to the moon. And we underestimated just how tough it is for myself and Barstool to operate in a regulated world where gambling regulators, the New York Times, Business Insider, Hit Pieces, fucking with the stock price every time we did something.

It was one step forward, two steps back. We got denied licenses because of me. You name it. So the regulated industry, probably not the best place for Barstool Sports and the type of content we make. Okay, so basically Barstool's controversy, aka the reason why it is popular, is the reason that Penn Gaming had to divest itself from Barstool. And to be clear, when I say divest, I really mean it, not a sale. The details of the transaction released so far indicate Portnoy did not have to pay more than $1 to get his brand back after being paid some $500 million three years for the brand previously. In fact, the only stipulations are some non-compete elements to the future of the brand and that if he should sell it in the future, they would get some of the proceeds.

He quickly put that to rest, saying he would never sell it, even should he die. He will just get the brand over to one of his trusted associates. There is a whole other monologue to give about what an incredible deal that is to make, but I want to focus on the actual substance of it. What we're really learning here is a profound lesson in freedom and what it takes to be a good media company in 2023. Barstool was a liability to Penn Gaming because of the controversy it generated. Thus, the contrary was used as evidence for why gambling licenses

and other regulatory hurdles for the company couldn't be cleared and was worth nearly half a billion dollar loss just to rid themselves of the problem. And as I immediately reacted to the Portnoy comments, any truly free media brand cannot be connected to a larger entity. It must have a funding model immune from attack And as I immediately reacted to the Portnoy comments, any truly free media brand cannot be connected to a larger entity.

It must have a funding model immune from attack. And while I think Barstool may miss out on some sweet gambling revenue, I believe that this move will actually make them bigger than ever before. The most valuable commodity in the public sphere in 2023 is to be able to speak your mind. It's why Barstool is as popular as it is today. The more popular it gets, the more it represents millions of people, mostly men, who despise political correctness. And the more of a vector of attack, then, it will be for the

mainstream. I believe with no connection to the outside, save for their advertising business, they will likely be bigger than ever before. But there's actually a second part of the announcement that we haven't gotten to yet, which also relates to a monologue I've done previously. While Penn Gaming did divest itself from Barstool, they announced their new partnership with ESPN. Now, per the deal, Penn Gaming is going to pay some $1.5 to $2 billion to ESPN, who will then promote the new ESP betting app across all of its franchise. This is welcome news for ESPN, which once was the king of cable bundle, but now is openly being floated as an area for strategic

partnership of Bob Iger as they lose the fundamental value that the brand once commanded within media. Immediately, however, I had a different view, perhaps in others, because one of our other favorite broadcasters in the independent sports world, Pat McAfee, he recently signed a deal with ESPN. As I covered at that time, McAfee's show is going to be simulcast on the ESPN channel as well as on ESPN's YouTube channel. And at the time, I actually hailed it as a victory for McAfee and for YouTube to be able to get a licensing deal where content is not exclusive to the channel itself. But I, of course, flagged one big concern. One of the reasons that people love McAfee and the boys is that they speak their mind. Now, as you saw during the Brett Favre situation when he literally got sued for libel, he just brushed it off. McAfee promised

when he announced he was going to ESPN he would continue to keep it real and let's recall that promise. Nothing would change except that they were going to say the f-word less. Here's the issue however. Think about the sequence of events that we just went through. Penn Gaming divested Barstool for being too controversial and then signed with ESPN. McAfee's now part of the ESPN umbrella for the foreseeable future for a colossal sum of money. But can he really continue to keep it real?

Obviously, time is gonna tell, but it certainly doesn't bode well for that promise, regardless of what I believe are his very good intentions. It reveals the exact reason why this show is independent, because we had to learn the hard way. Corporate control, what it looks like, how enemies won't target you, they'll just go after the larger entity that employs you to try and compel your behavior. In no way am I saying he's a sellout or that he will curtail his future comments. Only just, it's a Gordian knot of

problems that Barstool was specifically consumed by, and it ultimately led to it have to going independent. Ultimately, I believe the sequence of events truly defines what the future of all entertainment will look like. Those who are attached to larger brands and regulated industries will always have to tow at least somewhat the establishment line. They will be sanitized involuntarily, but they get paid big bucks for sanitization. Then, swashbucklers will remain on the outside, kind of scooping up millions of people who want that authenticity.

And then the crossroad will always come when someone comes along and they want to co-op that audience in exchange for a lot of money. What we've learned from the barstool deal and its eventual collapse is if you want to be truly free and to speak your mind, it's probably a bad trade to take the money in the long run.

I'm curious what you think of all this, Crystal. Kind of wild, right? So you got basically... And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Accusations are flying as journalist Ken Klippenstein has published a new report for The Intercept saying UFO whistleblower Dave Grush, who recently testified before the House Oversight Committee, was at one point referred to a mental health institution following two 911 calls from his wife in what Grush says is a PTSD-related alcoholic incident. Grush and his associates initially accused the intelligence community of leaking non-public health records to Klippenstein, who has since revealed he in fact retained access to this information by Freedom of Information Act requests. Resulting dramas got both sides. They're accusing the other of not telling the truth to the

public about the situation. So we've got Ken Klippisi himself in the studio now. Join us, defending his story. It's good to see you, Ken. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for coming in, Ken. Great to be back with you guys. All right, Ken. So let's get into the nitty gritty, I guess, of the story itself. Let's start broad strokes. What is the story about? What is it? Well, so he's kind of the star witness of the subcommittee that's looking at the UFO allegations, not just him, but there are two pilots as well.

And so in the reporting on it, I noticed a phrase popping up again and again, a decorated war hero, decorated war hero, decorated war hero. And I'm not disputing that he is, but when I hear that, it's kind of like, okay, well, where's the critique? Where's the negative side or where's the vetting? And I didn't see any of that by any of the media. So I thought,

well, I'm going to go and look and see what I can find. And so I know people both in DOD and the intelligence community. And I did a call for tips to try to broaden the picture. Really, this came from a mosaic of different sources that gave me ideas of what was going on. We can talk about that more. But really, my motive was just it didn't feel like anybody was vetting this guy. So lay out the specifics of the story and what you found through your FOIA request. So under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, you can request police records. They're called detailed records, CADs, obscure things that aren't kind of like the typical police report that journalists tend to ask for.

And maybe that's how they didn't know it existed. I have some practice with FOIA. I've been doing this a long time. So when I got these back, it was two different incidents reported by his wife and previous wife in which he had gone, in the second case that was in 2018, I think, he had gone into a,

it's described as like an angry, drunken rage where he was suicidal, asked his wife to kill him. She called police, said that the guns were locked up, and then he was placed in a mental facility after he was assessed and then released, I think, a day later. Got it. And this happened 2014, 2018? Both, yeah. Okay. So there's been a day later. Got it. And this happened 2014, 2018? Both, yeah.

Okay. So there's been a lot of back and forth. Grush accused you of getting these things leaked by the intelligence community. You revealed it came from the Freedom of Information Act. You did a Twitter space last night. You indicated you were tipped off by this. So were you tipped off by members of the intelligence community? It was both the Defense Department. I mean, again, it's a mosaic.

You talk to as many people as you can because you don't want to be dependent on any one individual who might have a grudge or whatever it is. But yes, I did talk to both DOD people and intelligence. So in terms of the substance of the tip here, the accusation, I mean, aren't they fundamentally correct that you are publishing dirt that was tipped to you by intelligence community?

Well, the thing is, when I put out my call for tips, I said, if you have anything positive or negative, because at the end of the day, I don't want to, you know, he's a human being. To be candid with you guys, so people can account for where I'm coming from, I don't believe in the UFO stuff. I think he's incorrect about it. However, I don't want to just punch at him. I would have included anything positive that I had gotten. Unfortunately, I didn't get anything. Now, that doesn't mean that he doesn't have redeeming qualities. Everybody does, even me. But I just didn't happen to hear any of that. And so I had to go with what I was told.

And to give you guys a sense too, I can speak to the characteristics of the sources because I understand why people are concerned about that because most of the reporting that you read is planted. When you go to the New York Times, most of those stories are planted by committee chairs, by the White House, whatever it is. That's not how I roll.

I know I tend to talk to mid-level people, people kind of like Grush, GS-14s, GS-15s, people who are experienced but didn't quite have the political chops generally to make it to the top. So those are the types of people I was talking to. Just full disclosure, if you want to ask anything else about Sosay, I'm happy to talk about that. Yeah. So I mean, basically you're being accused of like, this is a smear job. You're trying to undermine his credibility. What did you see as the value of this information? Do you think that the fact that he has a PTSD diagnosis makes him more likely to lie, make things up, and less credible in general?

No, absolutely not PTSD. But, you know, in the police reports, his wife called him an alcoholic and said that this happened repeatedly. That, I think, is a concern. I think that if someone's an alcoholic, yeah, that should be factored into your assessment of what their credibility is. Right. But if it's alcohol related to PTSD, I mean, let's be serious. I mean, he didn't sworn testimony. He admits he had a problem with PTSD. He says it was, I mean, I'm assuming he's related to these alcoholic incidents. He got treatment per your own reporting. And all of the incidences now testified to, sworn testimony, as well as the whistleblowers post-treatment. So I'm just trying to understand what is the value of this information being put

forward? And to be clear, you didn't do anything wrong. You're doing your job. We get crazy tips from people all the time here. So I have no issue with the Freedom of Information Act, even if you did report it, even if you did get a tip from the intel community. I guess it comes down to the framing and the substance of what are we supposed to do with this information? Well, I included in this story an example of the dozens of White House staffers who had their clearances revoked for smoking weed including in in in States where it was legal right places where it's legal. So like this is part of the clearance process And so again this whole focus on PTSD and if it makes him not credible, that

was never something I said. That was a focus that he made trying to get ahead of the story and the statement that he put out. My interest was always the alcoholism. And I mean, I guess just to, I feel as though there's some kind of grandstanding around this stuff, because the reality is if you're going to say, get a medical procedure, go see a surgeon, you find out he's an alcoholic, that's probably going to factor in and you're deciding to, say, get a medical procedure, go see a surgeon, you find out he's an alcoholic, that's probably going to factor in your deciding somewhat, right? Right. Well, I mean, is he an active alcoholic? Do you know that?

We know that from the reports his wife said he was. Okay. In 2018? Yes. But we don't know anything since then? No. Right. So can you speak a little bit, too?

Because part of the piece you talk about how, you know, in those instances you had White House staffers fired, that there is this, you know, very onerous procedure to get and maintain your security clearances. In this instance, you know, they they knew about these police interactions and what had happened with regard to his his wife at the time. They knew about the allegations of alcohol abuse, all of this stuff. And yet he was able to maintain his clearances. Do you read something nefarious into that, or is that an indication in his direction that, listen, they knew everything, and they still thought that I was trustworthy enough to maintain these very high-level secret clearances? That's what he said, and I think there's something to that,

but there's also something of a boys' club. I don't mean in a gender way. I mean in, like, senior-level people tend to look out for each other. I quoted someone as saying that, and that was the general frustration of multiple people that I talked to, was feeling like they described this guy as unreliable, and they were frustrated that this stuff that they knew about was not being accounted for.

They were seeing the descriptions I was describing before, decorated hero, decorated hero. They didn't feel like that was the whole story. I guess what I'm confused by is you're telling me this, but you don't quote any of these people in the story. Everything, the only facts that you can really attest to in the story are FOIA and obviously the tip. And again, zero issue with that. But don't you think that's the actual relevant part? I mean, why aren't you quoting people on background and people who work for

him who said he's unreliable? You're saying it here. I think that's fine. I mean, obviously, it's a public forum, but the way that it's being read, and I have to be honest with you, I respect your work, but the assemblage of the facts here, it does kind of read as a smear job. You're basically like, he had a PTSD incident, or he says it's a PTSD incident. He had two alcoholics. You quote two people who basically say he's full of it. You only quote one expert who says that the UFO hearing is a travesty. And I mean, one of the things I really don't understand is, how many conversations have we had about Pentagon spinning us? But you're credulously citing the explanation,

the 1990s explanation on Roswell, and credulously quoting Susan Goh, who's the Pentagon spokesperson who said that he's full of it. I mean, why should we believe these people? Do you understand what I'm saying? The assemblage of the facts in your story are taking it as like, this guy's a liar.

That's what you're saying. I think that's a good instinct. You don't want to side with the institutions, but I think you also don't want to reflexively oppose them. I'm not saying that you're doing that. I think that, you know, I have that tendency, too. But, again, these are not monoliths. The DOD, I'm not talking to the public affairs officer.

I'm not talking to the senior executives. I generally try to go out and get a sense of, like, the mid-level kind of, like, rank-and-file people because I think they tend to tell a more honest story. You talk to the politicals and it's just- I agree with you. I think you're doing the right thing. And you always, and I've always, you know,

I've stood by a lot of your work, but I'm like, why aren't any of these people quoted then? Why aren't you quoting these people? Well, essentially the reason that I did the FOIA was because they're kind of described as unreliable. I'm thinking, well, do I want to just use this sort of innuendo? Can I try to substantiate it?

And if you look at the FOIA request, you can FOIA my FOIA, I think I posted it too. You did. I asked for a whole range of things things so this idea that I was being pointed at one specific event that's just not true people were describing things to me it sounds like there's certain themes I go on nexus which journalists have and so you can find their home address home address was not furnished to me and then you can just file a FOIA and I did it for like seven years and so that was what came back so So there's no sort of like, so I guess my answer to your question, I'm not trying to be evasive. Like I did talk to intelligence and DOD people,

but the way in which that influences the reporting is a little bit more subtle than I think that the discourse gives credit to. It's not like they're pointing you at one specific event. They give you a sense and then you use that to go and use other methods to try to substantiate. I don't want to belabor the point, but just so I'm clear in my head of kind of the timeline, you were seeing the coverage of this hearing. Yes. You took issue with the fact that, you know, he made extraordinary claims, right?

And they're secondhand claims, and he hasn't produced publicly any evidence outside of his own testimony, which was being backed up by his personal reputation and credibility. You're frustrated by the fact that there doesn't seem to be a vet on the other side. And then you reach out to your sources or do they come to help us understand the topic? All of the above.

So there are people that I know in DOD and in Air Force that I figure probably know this guy. So I started asking them, they're telling me he's unreliable. And I think, okay, well, how can I find more? Because people have bits and pieces it's not really enough to run with. So then I do a call out for tips.

And in the tweet, I said, if you have positive or negative, because I don't, to the extent that I, there's always going to be a bias towards negative. Because I used to work at Target as a cashier and I remember the suggestion box and I thought, man, those have all got to be negative comments. There's not going to be a single positive suggestion. So, you know. Just read our YouTube section. So there's not going to be, you know, there's gonna be that bias. But it's like, to the extent that I can, I'm trying to cast as wide of a net as I can to get different, so that's not just reflective of the circle that I have and the friends that I have. And

the people that reached out, they told me largely similar, like in theme, stuff that the people that I knew were saying. Right. And I mean, the problem, though, it's like you're kind of saying there's a selection bias here. And one of the things Grush is a lead is that he was retaliated against and is being actively retaliated against by the intel. And there's strong evidence for that. Right. I take him at his word for that. Yes.

Well, but how do you know that you're not part of that, right? That the people who are reaching out to you aren't basically like, yeah, I mean, look, they're basically violating their job by talking to you in the first place and pointing to you towards the direction. Let's be honest. I mean, he's correct. And that this is probably made known to his authorities. They probably took a look at his file and they gave you towards his direction, let's be honest, I mean, he's correct. And then that this is probably made known to his authorities. They probably took a look at his file and they gave you a call whenever they saw your number.

Nothing wrong with that. You did nothing wrong. They're the ones who are doing it. But I mean, do you not feel though, as if you're part of a little bit of a campaign here? No, that's a fair question. Again, that's why I try in my reporting to find them as opposed to them like coming to me independently you know

and they're uh and again these things are complicated these are not monoliths there's the senior executive class there's appointees those guys are the demons that you really want to watch out for and so i mean the people that i talked to clearly didn't like him and they didn't believe him about the ufo stuff and so insofar as that is a motive that's true sure you know i want to be very frank about yeah right but it's a little different than, like, a Biden administration appointee being like, this is embarrassing, we have to destroy this guy. So the concerns are fair,

but I just want to point out that it's different. So do you think that he's lying? Do you think he was misled? Do you think that, you know, there's some sort of motive for him? Because, you know, with whistleblowers, this comes at great personal risk. I'm sure this is not a of motive for him to, because, you know, with whistleblowers, this comes at great personal risk. I'm sure this is not a fun experience for him.

I'm sure it's not fun to have these things in the press and this type of personal scrutiny in some of the worst moments of his life dragged out in front of the public. So what sort of a motive would he have for not being honest, indirect with the public? I mean, around these issues, it's probably just embarrassing. I don't necessarily even fault him for not being

more forthcoming about it. I blame the media. But I'm talking about why would he come forward with inaccurate claims to start with the sort of things that he testified to? What would he stand to gain from that? There's a range of claims he makes. And I think a lot of them are probably true.

Where we depart is when he says that it's space aliens or that we've recovered. But the idea, I know from my sources, and I think parts of this are public, there is a UAV recovery, crash recovery program. There is constantly retaliation against whistleblowers. I know that because I work with them and there's data on this. It happens when you report something to the inspector general, there's a target on your back. So I totally take him at his word on that. And his lawyer was a former inspector general of the IC, very respected person. I know people that know him.

All I've heard was good things. So the whole retaliation thing, I assume that's true. They don't like people going to Congress and reporting things. Again, where we depart is the specifics. I also think it's true that there is a UAV crash recovery program. I just think just because you don't know and can't recognize what the technology is, that doesn't necessarily mean it's extraterrestrial.

Right, but why don't you present evidence to that fact then? How do you believe it? Like, if you say you don't believe him, I mean, listen, I don't know whether I believe him or not. To me, it's just extraordinary whenever you're like, you're before Congress, you're telling this undersworn testimony. I'm like, okay, well, I want to hear it from the other guy. Sean Kirkpatrick says it's not true. To me, that's great. We've got two people undersworn testimony.

They say it's not true. Why don't you put forward a story then being like, yeah, he's wrong, you know, the people are lying. Or, you know, I mean, I used to do this for a living. You can quote these people and be like, Grush colleagues say he's a liar. Grush colleagues say that he's completely not true. I mean, this is where I just don't understand.

Well, I'm in a different position because it's like, I don't want to, I mean, again, I disagree with him, but it's like, I don't wanna, I wanna rely on stuff that is really easy to substantiate. Like FOIA. Documents, and his wife too, current wife, not just ex-wife.

If I'm just going off of stuff that people don't like him said verbally, it feels kind of like a smear, you know? Like kind of unfair. And so it's like, I get where you're coming from, but it's like, put yourself in my shoes. Like, how would you navigate these kind of vague descriptions, you know?

Yeah, I don't know, to be honest with you. I guess, so I'll come back to this. But on the alcoholism point, you keep talking about that. I mean, so is it not a mental health issue then? Like, is it disqualifying in your mind? I mean, first of all, we don't know if he's an alcoholic. Right. Who knows what people say on 9-1-1.

He says he's recovered from PTSD. He says he's recovered from PTSD. His best friend killed himself, according to him. I know for a fact he served in Afghanistan. These are pretty traumatic events. Millions of veterans kind of suffer the same thing. So, I mean, are you saying that's disqualifying for the entire story? Like, that's what I think a lot of people are upset about.

I don't think it necessarily is disqualifying. I think it might be. I mean, that's kind of why I put it out. People can look at it and decide what they think. I certainly don't want to have like, it's crazy to have a blanket rule. Anyone who has a substance abuse issue should not be, that's clearly false.

You're right. And look, this man is asking us to believe something. He's asking us to believe the understated testament. And crucially, as you said, his reputation is what he said. It's a totally legit question. I'm more like, well, what are we supposed to believe here? And what's the implication?

I mean, I, you know, again. Well, I just think it's more, I mean, people want to paint, not saying you're doing this, but this broad brush of it's false. And there are specific components to his claim. There's specific parts to his claims. And his own lawyer, who I mentioned before, that law firm that's representing him has said that the reporting around the contents of his disclosure has been inaccurate. And I've never seen a lawyer do that in relation to, you know, stuff about a client. And so I think there's clearly something that's a little bit off here in as to, you know, people disagree about what those details might be, but it's a spectrum of claims that he's making, you know. Last question from me, at least for you, Ken, is are you working on additional,

are there additional reporting pieces you're fleshing out right now? What should we be expecting? Yes, I'm interested in industries, interesting, these kind of things, because you talked about the Pentagon's interests, which those are reasonable questions to ask. Like, what are Ken's and why are they telling him these things? But there's a whole nother interest group, which is aerospace, which has its own set of interests in making the public think certain things about not just UFOs, but aerospace phenomena in general. And so my hope is that that can, and a lot of these representatives in Congress that staff the committees get money from these aerospace firms. So are you saying that this is like a PSYOP by the defense contractors? I'm just trying to make clear what you're out.

I mean, so Crystal asked me before. If I had to guess, I bet he believes it. I bet it's sincere. People tend to believe what they're saying. They tend to, I don't think it's. And you know, I mean, it's not untrue. He was a decorated war hero. That's not, you know.

So I assume he believes what he's saying. I'm not someone, I hate this word grifter. People throw this word around so loosely. It's like, how do you know someone's heart? You can't. No, you can't. I think it's fine to present the facts. Like I said, I mean, I'm just reading this story.

And you're like, you only quote two people, Jack Murphy and then this other guy. You're citing Roswell credulously. No offense, but like, that's crazy. That's like citing the JFK record and saying that that's the definitive norm here. I mean, when I'm reading this, all I'm supposed to take away is like, all right, you know, alcoholic, PTSD, guy's got mental health, two experts.

You didn't present the other side. So do you see why people took an issue with it? I understand. Yeah. To some extent, I'm in a position where it's like, everyone is doing the decorated warrior, all this stuff. And it's kind of like, well, now my job is I have to try to give people stuff they haven't gotten.

Okay. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I'm just trying to be totally candid. You're not talking. Maybe that's bad, but that's... I'm just trying to give you an they haven't gotten. Okay. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I'm just trying to be totally candid. Maybe that's bad, but I'm just trying to give you an insight in my thought process of what it is. Well, I think people can take away from this what they will. And at the very least, I think it helped me understand

kind of where you're coming from. A lot of other people, like I said, have questions. People watch this show. And I appreciate you coming on. I know it's not the easiest thing to take questions like this. So thank you. We appreciate it. My pleasure, guys.

Thanks, Ken. Good to see you. We'll see you guys later. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there.

Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7. Because our stories deserve to be heard.

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