Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/1/22: Burn Pits Bill, Manchin-Schumer Deal, Saudi Golf League, Biden Polling, Dem Hypocrisy, Midterm Outlook, & More!

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Krystal and Saagar break down the fight over burn pits legislation, Manchin-Schumer budget deal, Trump's LIV Golf event, Dem polling on Biden, Jan 6th hypocrisy, Dems midterm boost, Dr. Oz's political failures, & flawed polling data!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Tickets: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0E005CD6DBFF6D47 Kyle Kondik: https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/author/kyle-kondik/ https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/The+Long+Red+Thread  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. So we are 100 days out from the midterms. So we got a bunch of midterm stuff in here for you. Sagar and I are both focusing on that in our monologues. We also have Kyle Kondik on, great analyst to break down exactly where things stand today. But we have a lot of other stuff to get to in the show as well.

First of all, total insanity on the Hill last week over benefits for burn pit victims. These are veterans who were exposed to these toxic burn pits over years and years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now they have all these rare diseases. Some of them have died from rare cancers. They have been having to fight to get basic health care benefits from the VA. It looked like this was finally going to come to fruition. And then at the last minute, 30 Republicans flipped their vote. They were a yes, flipped to no. Jon Stewart absolutely lacing into them. So we'll give you all of those details. We also last week brought you the details on that new Manchin-Schumer climate bill. The biggest obstacle now seeming to emerge is Kyrsten Sinema. Surprise, surprise. So we'll tell you the latest about, you know, basically she hasn't really come out and said what she thinks about this. Manchin is trying to sort of like

massage her ego to see if this thing is actually going to come to pass. We also have a live Gulf Saudi Trump update for you. Some interesting details there. There are new polling showing just how three quarters of the American public does not want Biden to run for president again or to be president again. Pretty dire situation for him. We also have Nancy Pelosi and James Carville defending what to me is pretty indefensible in terms of their hypocrisy. Of course, Pelosi out saying January 6th is the worst thing. The Republicans are an existential threat, all of these things. And then turning around and backing people who

are some of the most deranged stop this deal conspiracists in the hope that they'll get through their Republican primaries and be easier targets for Democrats. So Carville backing her up on that, not just on the political strategy, but on the moral ethics of the issue. Yeah. I mean, there's never anything unethical about this. Before we forget, live show. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. We are coming to Atlanta, September 16th. Go ahead and buy those tickets if you haven't already. We're nearing the end of the promotion there. It's only a month and a half away. It's exciting. I know. It's going to be right around the corner.

Very exciting. As a reminder, it's going to be the first of many, but if you are in the area somewhere around there, we could help us out. It deeply will because it shows other venues that we can indeed sell tickets. It actually expands the number of venues and cities that we're able to go to. So link is down there in the description. But let's start with the burn pits. This obviously has become a massive cultural touchstone. I think it should. Jon Stewart single-handedly is the person responsible for advancing this legislation. Before that, there were thousands of people afflicted with all kinds of crazy neurological conditions, health conditions, breathing conditions, having been exposed to these toxic burn pits.

And just, you know, again, if this is your intro to what exactly a burn pit is, in Iraq and Afghanistan, throughout our 20 years of experience there, we would just simply put stuff into these pits, everything from human excrement to weapons to all kinds of just leftover stuff, and then light it on fire with jet fuel. And then, by the way, just post-US troops all around it, either guarding it or within the immediate vicinity. Nobody on earth can tell you that that's going to be good for you. And as we saw post 9-11, thousands of people years later are really suffering. And from the beginning, the Veterans Affairs Department has been terrible in appropriating funds to the toxic burn pick

victims. They haven't recognized it fully as a condition. They blame complex bureaucracy. And so Congress did what they're supposed to do, which is they need to appropriate money and they need to make sure that these victims are recognized by U.S. law and are given the care that they deserve the years after, after we put them in harm's way. Now, we had thought that this is called the PACT Act, was a done deal. It was 82 to 14 vote, had passed the Senate and went to the House. There were some small changes that were added within the House of Representatives, and it was kicked back over to the Senate for what was expected to be a routine vote. However, Republicans now, under Senator Pat Toomey, are leading a charge to actually block the bill. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. 41 Republican senators blocked that bill to expand the health

care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits. Now, the objection here, the objection is that from Senator Toomey and apparently backed by many Senate Republicans, is that a specific accounting measure within the bill would supposedly spend the same money twice. And according to Toomey, this is not actually backed up by some, several independent analyses, would enable hundreds of billions of dollars in new unrelated spending on the discretionary side of the federal budget. Mitch McConnell, Pat Toomey, and others somehow discovered this in the immediate aftermath, Crystal, of Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer finding a deal on the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.

It's actually just a climate. I think they should just call it what it is, which is an electric vehicle subsidy plus new tax credits. But that's fine. I'm completely fine with those things. So, yes, that is the important context is Republicans were in the midst of a total hissy fit temper tantrum over the fact that, remember, McConnell had come out and say, listen, if you guys are going to go forward with the reconciliation deal, I'm going to tank the CHIPS Act, which let's, by the way, take a moment to step back and think about the total insanity of that. Why does this legislation have anything to do with this legislation over here? If the CHIPS Act is a good bill that you think is good for the country, why would you hold this hostage?

But anyway, he had made that threat. So they kept it quiet. Democrats uncharacteristically actually like kept their mouths shut and had a smart strategy. Hours after the CHIPS Act passes through the Senate, then it's revealed that this Manchin-Schumer deal comes out. Republicans are irate. They're melting down. They're so mad. They're not used to actually having Democrats have three brain cells to rub together and like actually have a decent strategy. They whip against the CHIPS Act in the House. That's part of the retribution, but it still gets through the House. They still have enough Republican defectors in the Democratic caucus stays together. So lo and behold, the next thing they do is decide to block this bill. Now, let's be really clear, because to me, in fairness,

was opposed to this bill last time it came through and has always apparently been hung up on this stupid accounting thing, which it's just the difference between designating this money as mandatory versus discretionary. Well, guess what making it mandatory does? going to be able to count on it versus having to come back and continue to beg, hat in hand, as Jon Stewart ultimately puts it, to be able to access these benefits and prove that they're worthy of our support after serving our country. So this accounting piece has always been in this bill. There was an impression that Democrats had like snuck this in at the last minute and tried to pull one over on the Republicans. No, no, no. This is the very same bill that sailed through last time. What was it, 84 people voted for it?

30-some Republicans flipped their votes on the identical bill as part of their hissy fit over the Manchin-Schumer bill. I mean, that is the only logical conclusion you can come to, given the fact that it is literally the same thing that they voted for just weeks ago. Absolutely. And this is something that Jon Stewart, to his credit, has been using both his celebrity, his platform, travel to Washington. He's making sure that everybody who can is hearing about this and is drawing attention to what previously would have just been arcane Senate procedure and some ridiculous objection, and now drawing it to the center of public attention. Let's hear what he had to say. I don't even know. Honestly, I don't even know what to say. I haven't

come down here 10, 15 years. I'm used to the hypocrisy. Christina Kino will tell you from BFW. She sat in an office with Mitch McConnell and a war veteran from Kentucky, and he looked that man in the eyes and he said, we'll get it done. And he lied to him because Mitch McConnell yesterday flipped. I'm used to the lies. I'm used to the hypocrisy. Senator Pat Toomey won't take a meeting with the veterans groups. Sends out his chief of staff. I'm used to the cowardice. I've been here a long time. Senate's where accountability goes to die. These people don't care. They're never losing their jobs. They're never losing their health care. Pat Toomey didn't lose his job. He's walking away. God knows what kind of pot of gold he's stepping into to lobby this government to shit on more people.

I'm used to all of it, but I am not used to the cruelty. I mean, there's not a lot you can argue with there. Senator Toomey is retiring. He has been probably one of the number one friends of corporate America in the United States Senate, which I've always found insane because he is from the state of Pennsylvania. It's a great actually preview into how you can use culture war politics, actually economically punish your own state whenever you're a senator and actually get reelected. So it's kind of a mystifying and interesting test case. Ron Johnson is another one who fits in this category. But these two gentlemen, economic libertarians really to their core. Will it be any wonder when he leaves and he gets, you know, feted by the U.S. Chamber of

Commerce and he becomes a lobbyist for some Fortune 500 company? No, it won't. And he is exactly right in pointing that out. What I think beyond to me, though, is that, as you pointed out, this has been a part of a bill from the beginning. They didn't care when 82 to 14 of them voted for it. Right.

And then they flipped overnight. That was the thing that is Steve Daines and Ted Cruz and many others were seen fist bumping on the floor of the Senate after blocking this. And again, this is done solely as a political move that they happen to just wake up to at the 11th hour and are now saying, oh, well, unless this gets fixed, then we're not going to go through with it, effectively holding it hostage. And again, to the actual implications, I mean, do you remember all those times that they also played footsie with 9-11 health care workers funding? Why should we keep putting people through this? Making it mandatory, which we do have for many things, especially for the elderly, they'll never actually vote against that, at least on the record, they won't vote against that one. But we have this arrangement for people who we have decided that we owe.

I mean, who else could we find that we owe as much as people who were their 9-11 first responders or those who were afflicted with a terrible health condition as a result of serving their country and serving overseas in a war that they shouldn't have been in the first place. And if they are, then we sure as hell should do everything we can in order to help them. And I think there's a couple other things to say about this.

Number one, I know there's probably a lot of people who look at Jon Stewart as like a partisan actor. But remember, we played, I think we played the interview he did with Dennis McDonough, who's the head of the VA. And he was very harsh with McDonough, who had no good answers on this. And it is a travesty that what it takes in America to just get the basics of what you are owed is to have a celebrity who's willing to, you know, go and do the interviews and hold people's feet to the fire and shame these legislators into doing the right thing after decades of dragging their feet. It's the exact same thing with the 9-11 survivors. It took Jon Stewart coming out and shaming the lawmakers into finally doing the right thing. And now it looked like he had been able to do the same thing effectively with toxic burn pit victims.

And there's also money in here for people who are still struggling with Agent Orange as well. All the money in this bill, just to be really clear, because I saw a lot of misinformation online about this, all of this money goes to veterans who have suffered conditions because of their service. That's it. That's the whole bill. There's not all this extra this and that and poison. No, it's just money for veterans who have served the country and who have illnesses because of it. The current system, the reason why they're not able to get health care for these rare cancers and other conditions

they've developed is because they have to prove that that condition came directly from the burn pits. How the hell are you going to do that? Okay, that's impossible. But when you look at the type of toxic chemicals that they were exposed to, it has been scientifically proven that these things are cancer causing. So this is the very, very least that we owe these people. And let's be clear, we will never be able to make it up to them. There is no making this thing right. This is the bare minimum of what we can do. And then as I always do, I have to point out the fact that people who are affiliated with the State Department came up with this Havana syndrome thing, which is thoroughly unproven, which, you know, the sound that they said was associated with it turned out to be crickets. The agency's own analysis says this is probably not any, you know, Russian brainwave like weapon or whatever they were theorizing.

I wonder what the vote was in the Senate to appropriate money for Havana syndrome sufferers. This thing, that sailed through, and yet these veterans are having to fight tooth and nail to get the basics of what they deserve. Schumer says that this is going to come back up this week. He changed his vote so that he could reintroduce it this week. I don't know if they're going to be able to figure out some deal with Republicans or if they're going to be sufficiently shamed by this whole experience. I wouldn't count on it to be able to vote the correct way. But just to show you how bad things are, here's Pat Toomey being pressed by Jake Tapper, who is really taking a hard line with him,

about why exactly they are holding up this funding. Let's take a listen. What do you say to those who find it impossible to believe that of all the multi-trillions of dollars in our federal budget, this is where you and Republicans decided to take a stand? Here's what you need to keep in mind, Jake. First of all, this is the oldest trick in Washington. People take a sympathetic group of Americans, and it could be children with an illness, it could be victims of crime, it could be veterans who've been exposed to toxic chemicals, craft a bill to address their problems, and then sneak in something completely unrelated that they know could never pass on its own and dare Republicans to do anything about it because

they know they'll unleash their allies in the media and maybe a pseudo-celebrity to make up false accusations to try to get us to just swallow what shouldn't be there. That's what's happening here, Jake. But this was in the bill. This was in the bill that passed last month. Yeah, and we were promised that we'd have an opportunity to offer an amendment to change this. And then, of course, that was reneged on. So people hadn't had a chance

to be socialized about this. Let me be very clear. Republicans are not opposed to any of the substance of the PACT Act. The honest, my honest Democratic colleagues will fully acknowledge that my objection, and if I get my way, I get my change, it will not change by one penny any spending on any veterans program. What I'm trying to do is change a government accounting methodology that is designed to allow our Democratic colleagues to go on an unrelated $400 billion spending spree that has nothing to do with veterans and that won't be in the veteran space. So that's what I'm trying to do. They could have agreed to this a month ago, and this bill would sail through at any point in time. Look, we can resolve this with an amendment

vote. Right. But some of the Democrats, we can resolve this with an amendment vote. Right. But some of the Democrats don't even want to have an amendment vote. I mean, he goes on to point out that that has been a part of the bill from the very beginning, that this whole promise and all that isn't necessary, was never really there. Pat Toomey's objections. Also, I don't, this is the other part. Why do you have to attack the character of Jon Stewart as a quote unquote pseudo celebrity? As you just pointed out, he shredded Dennis McDonough in the Biden administration

whenever he needed to. I think all of us have the confidence that he would shred anybody who was standing up in this vote. And we've already laid out right now the so-called government accounting method, which would only really make it harder for a lot of these vets to have to continue to come in before Congress to justify their – what Congress and many others have called a so-called illness. Why don't we just make it so that they don't have to do so? This is a very good view into Senate procedure brain, into the fake objections that people can reconcile themselves up for political purposes. And look, I mean, to be honest, is this really going to pay a major political price? Probably not. Most people will figure, you know, we'll just move past it. But that's why we're spending so much time on it. This is a very good view into how all broken this is. And you have to, once again, give credit to

Stewart, so-called Cesar celebrity. I mean, come on, give me a break. I mean, he's one of the most popular, at least at that time, TV shows in the political news space in the 2000s, and of course remains a household name as it is today. So denigrating his character and insinuating that this is some pork barrel, you know, is insane. I mean, we've seen many of those things sail through Congress. This is not it. And it only reveals how much of an extremist that Pat Toomey is. Yeah. That he finds one. It was the, everything he said there was so incredibly misleading. Yeah. I mean, again, none of this money is for some like boondoggle random other thing. It's all funding for these veterans who are suffering. And I really think the key, I like how Tapper frames it too, of like, this is where you're going to draw the line.

Like, all the spending, the tens of billions to Ukraine. Yeah, what about 44 billion to Ukraine? Fails through. No problem. No accountability. We don't need to know about those boondoggles, even though we're getting warnings about, oh, we're worried about weapons being traded on the black market. Now, we don't need any accountability or any questioning about that. This is the place where you're ultimately going to draw the line. And just to show you how sort of far out of step these Republicans are

ultimately with voting against the PACT Act, Jon Stewart, again, to his credit, he actually went on Newsmax to sort of rebut some of these talking points from Pat Toomey and Ted Cruz and others. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Every one of those Republicans that voted against health care for veterans voted for the slush fund for the war. They don't support the troops. They support the war machine. And that's got to stop. The value in the U.S. military isn't in the toys. It's not in the hardware. It's not in the tanks. It's in the men and women. And until they start supporting them

in the manner that they purport to online, they are hypocrites. Savage and totally accurate. And another thing that Jon Stewart was doing is pointing out every one of these senators, they pose with veterans, they proclaim their support for the men and women who serve the country. And then when they actually show up and ask for something that

they need, then it's, oh, let's find, oh, there's this technical accounting term that we don't like. So we're going to actually flip our vote on the very same bill. What's the real, I mean, the only thing that makes sense here is because they wanted to piss off the Democrats. They were throwing a hissy fit over the Manchin climate deal and they wanted some way to stick it to the Dems. And they decided to use veterans as their political playthings. It's disgusting. No, absolutely. And you even see that the Newsmax people were like, yeah, I don't they're like, I don't buy it. They're like even they agree with Jon Stewart. So this isn't landing with anybody. This is exactly the type of insane, almost like Obama era so-called Tea Party conservatism. True. Return, which really is Pat Toomey. That's where he came from.

I mean, that to him, like, in fairness to him, he is one of the ones who voted against it both times. So at least I guess he's being consistent with his absolutely terrible, like immoral ideology. These other ones, 30 of them that flipped. Why? It was literally just these like technical changes to the bill. They didn't add anything different. This accounting thing was in it from the beginning from the House. It had to go back through the Senate. They thought this was going to be a layup because it was literally the same bill.

And then here we are. Yeah. And they're all of the framing internally on the GOP side is this is a win for Biden. So let's not give it to him. That's what chips was, you know, like, oh, it's a win. Sometimes it's not about Biden. You know, sometimes it's about something way, way bigger than that. And the fact that they let this stuff poison their brains to this degree is why we are in the state that we're in. Yeah. Anyway. Disgraceful. All right. Let's give you an update on the Manchin-Schumer climate bill that is the cause of the Republican temper tantrum. Jeff Stein and others have some reporting into the days leading up to this deal being struck between

Manchin-Schumer. This is from the Washington Post. Let's put this up on the screen. So apparently, Democrats, you know, they threw everything at the wall to actually try to persuade Manchin, guilt, shame, whatever, you know, calling in Larry Summers and Bill Gates to make the case to him that now is the time to act and that if they don't act right now, you're potentially talking about, you know, decades before you'd be able to really move in a significant way on climate because there's a recognition that Democrats are not going to have the House, the Senate, and the White House for probably past November. And who knows when they may end up back in this situation? So, you know, they talked about how Chris Coons, Senator Chris Coons, of course, is close to Joe Biden, was on a trip with Manchin. And he said to him, there are folks in our party who are saying all sorts of terrible things about you who believe you were stringing us along for a year, that you were never going to come to a deal because of your state

or because of your conflicts of interest. And Coons then told Manchin, I can't think of a better way for you to prove them all wrong than to sign off on a bold climate deal, prove every credit wrong. And Manchin thought for a second and responded, it would be like hitting a homer in the bottom of the ninth. So calling in Larry Summers, calling in Bill Gates. There was a funny part, too, because just three days before this deal was announced, former Trump advisor Stephen Moore, remember that dude, profusely thanked Manchin on a call.

I'm reading from the article for blocking, or this is actually from Jeff Stein's tweet, for blocking Dee's climate energy deal. Quote, I said something to the effect of, you're a hero. Thank you for what you've done. You've saved the country. And then days later, this deal is ultimately announced. David Dayen, who I spoke with last week for Crystal Kyle and Friends, his theory, which I kind of buy, is that, you know, for Manchin being, like, trashed by climate activists and stuff like that, he didn't care about that. But you were starting to have an elite consensus around him being a real villain. And he was not prepared for sort of elites at the New York Times and Washington Post editorial board

to fully turn against him in that way. And that sort of shamed him into doing something here. Yeah. I mean, look, again, I will say in terms of this bill, there is not a lot to hate if you do look at it. Pretty, look, if you think about it in terms of spending, this isn't unpaid for. This is just raising the minimum amount that 200 corporations in the United States will have to pay. It's also, here's an interesting thing. Anytime you see a corporation who's coming out and is saying that this is going to have an undue effect on their business, they're just admitting that they pay less than 15% in taxes a year. Because all this does is say, hey, no matter what, you just have to pay a minimum of 15%, which means they're gamifying the tax system and are not paying 15% a year. 15, again, which is

way lower than the rest of the industrialized world. We talk a lot here about, oh, America has the highest corporate tax. Most people never pay the corporate tax rate. And all of these people are admitting that they are paying less than many countries, some of the most business-friendly countries on earth. So just keep that in mind whenever people object, which is the main revenue raiser in that bill. So that's like $300 billion. Majority of that money is going towards tax credits, both for electric vehicles, sustainable home improvements, and energy-neutral tax credits. I just want to emphasize that again, which is that while, yes, it is very annoying to me that much of the nonprofit industrial complex is obsessed with wind and with solar, you can't

gamify carbon emissions. And when so, nuclear will finally be able to be put to the test against all the others, geothermal included, biomass, et cetera. It really will just be a game in order to prove on paper, you're like, hey, our energy source is most efficient per capacity and more. Now, of course, we should look at the criteria. And if there is a rigged criteria, you know, happily we'll call that out. But remember, this is going to be across likely bipartisan administrations and will be doled out on a basis to really just try and lower carbon across the board. On top of that, it actually, according to Rewiring America, which is a nonprofit dedicated

to electrification, from what I could tell, it's not one of those like hippie ones, says that most people will save $1,800 a year on their annual energy bill within five years. That's a lot of money. I think that that's a significant benefit towards people. And in general, look, on the EVs thing, you know, I'm a huge EV guy. I think they're awesome. And I also recognize that given lithium batteries and all that, it's never going to be, we're probably not going to live in a place where everybody can drive an electric vehicle. However, A, making it more affordable is actually a way in order to instigate our companies and our country to get our hands on the critical part of the supply chain so we can start onshoring some of that, which is really only going to be bolstered by demand. But two, as long as we do it both on the consumer side with electric vehicles and

making sure those EVs aren't powered by coal or by natural gas or some sort of high carbon emitting source and from something which is higher capacity and which is low carbon, then it's a better overall system. I mean, a 30% reduction is huge. That's what people always point to with natural gas. It was 50% from coal. Well, if we can go another 50, that's dramatically not only good in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and all of that. But bottom line, this will make better, good technology cheaper and make the electricity that goes into those cheaper and more sustainable as well, which I think these are all net positives. And again,

you're not spending one dime in deficit spending to do any of this. They're actually one of the requirements, which is, you know, it's annoying to me. But if you're not spending one dime in deficit spending to do any of this. No, they're actually one of the requirements, which is, you know, it's annoying to me. But if you were going to get a deal with Joe Manchin, there were going to be parts of it that I wasn't going to like. But it actually reduces the deficit by, I think, $300 billion. Yes, it does. That was a requirement for him in doing this deal. And I do think it's worthwhile spending a few minutes on exactly what is in this. Again, there are some things in here that I could nitpick, like the EV tax credits are means tested, which is annoying.

Why not just do it for everyone? Whatever. Okay. So that's one thing. There are some incentives in here just to, you know, for you to understand what, and we actually, we have an article about this we can put up on the screen that has some of the climate provisions here. Incentives, including rebate programs and tax credits that are meant to encourage home improvements that would increase energy efficiency and use more clean energy technologies. For example, the Homes Rebate Program would reward eligible households for energy savings. People would typically receive $2,000 if they make changes that save them 20% or more on overall energy costs, would encourage home electrification projects and efficiency upgrades, provide funding for owners or sponsors of eligible affordable housing to be able to make their properties more energy and water efficient.

So as you were pointing out, all of this together amounts to a significant rebate for sort of, your average consumer out there, which is really significant. So you have that piece, you have the revenue raiser, is this what they call the 15% minimum book tax, which means they actually look at their financial statements and base it off of what they're telling their investors they're making versus the, you know, games they play with regards to the IRS. Even that is not quite as advertised because they can still take some tax credits because they were worried about the energy efficiency tax credits being not as effective as they could if they couldn't still take this. So there's still some wiggle room there. But overall, that's going to be a significant revenue raiser. You also have increased IRS tax enforcement. And then you have

they claimed and this one is also very different from advertised, they claimed they're closing the carried interest loophole. Not really true. They're modifying, making it harder for them to profit from the carried interest loophole. This is this big tax break giveaway that benefits private equity, ghouls by and large. So they're playing a little bit of games there. They're not really closing the loophole, but ultimately, you know, this is, I guess, better than leaving it as it is. The big question mark here is whether or not now that you've got Manchin on board, who is the other person in the Senate who is a total pain in the ass on all this stuff? It's

Kyrsten Sinema. Manchin seemed to be kind of trying to appeal to her, massage her ego a little bit. He was asked about whether he thinks she is going to be able to come on board with this deal. Let's take a listen to what he has to say. Are you convinced that Senator Sinema is going to support this bill? Or if she ends up changing some parts of the tax structure because she votes with Republicans, would that impact your support of this reconciliation package? Let me say that Kyrsten Sinema is a friend of mine and we work very close together. She has a tremendous, tremendous input in this piece of legislation. This is things that everyone has worked on over the last eight months or more. And she basically insisted that no tax

increases. We've done that. She was very, very adamant about that. And I support and I agree with her. She was also very instrumental in making sure that we had drug prices that Medicare could compete on certain drugs to bring it down so that there wouldn't be an impact on individuals on Medicare across. She's done all of this. So she has a tremendous amount of input in this piece of legislation. And I would like to think she would be favorable towards it, but I respect her decision. She'll make her own decision based on the content. So you can see- Pleading with her life. Yeah, he's saying that she had a lot of input into this process, trying to make it seem like,

I mean, this was a behind closed doors deal between him and Schumer. Right. Almost no one knew about it. So he's using this language to try to, you know, try to soften things. Oh, you were very involved in this. You were very important to this process because he knows she could be a real sticking point. Oh, absolutely. And already that some seems to be indication. Let's put this up there. She's already saying she or behind closed doors and making at least some messages that she has leverage and that she may want to change some of these things.

First of all, we should remember the idea that closing the carried interest loophole is anything but a massive giveaway to a very specific subset of private equity, hundred millionaires, is one of those things where I cannot wrap my head around it. And she is on the record saying that she does not want to get rid of that loophole so that these people can continue to pay zero tax on hundreds of millions. Just so everybody is specifically aware. That's part of the reason why they gamified the so-called closing the loophole and really only extending it so that she can say, well, look, I killed it. I didn't close it 100%. I just extended it a little bit and made it slightly harder for you to write off your

gains here. The other theory that I saw is that this very weak carried interest thing was put in this bill when it's not dependent on the revenue that's gained from this because it's only $14 billion or whatever, that this was basically put in there so that Kyrsten Sinema could pretend to have a win and strike this thing out of the bill. So that's the other theory that I've seen floating around is that that provision was basically made to be killed by Kyrsten Sinema. We'll see. I mean, the other thing that Axios points to here is that she has previously said that she supported that 15% minimum book tax. That's the primary revenue driver in this bill that would subject corporations to at least 15% minimum book tax. That's the primary revenue driver in this bill

that would subject corporations to at least 15% tax rate, which is still very low. But it says Schumer never bothered to check if her position changed given the darkening economic outlook. One of the pieces with Kyrsten Sinema, which I can't really believe at this point that what her considerations are

are purely like about her political position in Arizona, because she's already done so many things that are counter to her own reelection in that state. There is a potential primary challenger from her left hanging out there, Ruben Gallego. She's already in a situation where Republicans like her in the state more than Democrats. So she's very vulnerable to a primary challenge in the state. But if she cares about that at all and isn't just looking at whatever her payday is going to be after she leaves the Senate, which is what I think she's really looking at, but if she cares about her political situation at all, you know, if she is the one who tanks this deal, she will be a true villain in terms of, I mean, in terms of the Democratic base, but I really think in terms of sort of like broadly throughout the country, because this is all very, with Manchin, this is all very centrist-y,

like nothing in this deal is outrageous or crazy or outside of the mainstream and public opinion here whatsoever. So is she prepared to be the sole like true villain of this situation? Potentially, potentially, because like I said, I think she is mostly playing at this point for whatever her way of cashing in post-Senate career is going to ultimately be. I don't know her motivation, but I do know how she's, you know, said in the past and who she's influenced by. And that overwhelmingly seems to be corporate America. Like I said, if she does tank it, it will be on economic grounds with major corporations saying that they can't afford the 15% minimum tax at this time. And again, it only impacts some 200 companies in the United States, all of which are in the Fortune 500, obviously, and are multi,

multi-billion dollar businesses which use tax loopholes in order to avoid them. So that's the grounds on which it would be opposed. Let's see if she's willing to do it. The fact that they did it behind closed doors and they didn't quote unquote check with her again is going to. Here's the thing too. You can always point to like one company which is like oh they're getting a tax write off because of their investing in something. And that's why they deserve not to pay 15 percent. And all she has to do is stand up and say I'm going to fight for that company and I'm not saying that that will be

politically viable but it will at least give her like something to stand on. So her mouth is shut. We don't know yet what it's going to be. Apparently she's annoyed

that this was foisted on her at the last minute. That alone could be and remember too Yeah, their egos are so freaking fragile. Well timing is also incredibly important.

It's August. They want to make sure that this is done before the August recess because if they don't, then there's some procedural problem through which- Reconciliation is a slow process. It's such a slow process. They have to go before the parliamentarian and argue all of this, and this presumes that she will even vote for the bill. So all eyes this week on Kyrsten Sinema. If she does tank it, it's pretty much over. It would be almost impossible to do before the November election. They could do it. There's some timeline things on the back end,

possibly, but right now, the bill's fate is solely in her hands. So Manchin pleading with her. I think today is fly-in day, so they'll all be back in the Senate sometime this afternoon. So I would look for tomorrow morning, maybe even the next day as to have a definitive answer from her on what they want. And just the last thing, two details for you to know about this bill, the minimum tax rate, she can't pull the like, oh, this hurts small businesses or whatever thing, because it only applies to corporations over a billion dollars. So it'll be hard to find like really compelling sob stories with regards to that. And also, you know, 15% taxes, not all that high. I also, you know, 15% taxes,

not all that high. I'm sure you guys out there are paying a lot more on your income taxes than these corporations are paying. And the last thing is the, I think it's hard to game out exactly how much of an emissions reduction or whatever that it ultimately is. But the analysis that I've seen says it would be about a 40% reduction in emissions, which is very significant, by 2030. So, you know, that is something that environmental groups and climate activists can really hang their hat on as a significant move in the right direction. It is a major investment. It is everything that was promised. It's even close to what Build Back Better originally was. Of course, it doesn't include almost none of the social programs that were included

in that. But it does represent significant progress. So I don't think you're going to see any problems coming from the left in terms of getting behind this deal, because it's a lot better than the essentially nothing that was on the table previously. Yeah. All right, let's go and talk about LIV golf.

Now, as I've said, I'm not a golf guy. I'm looking at this purely through geopolitics. But just so those who don't know, there has been a big controversy between the PGA, the professional golf tour, and LIV golf, which is a Saudi-backed golf event. Now, LIV has been going around and paying hundreds of millions of dollars in guaranteed money to some of the top golfers in the world, drawing them away from the PGA Tour, effectively splitting it up, and making golfers choose. Now, some golfers, high-dollar golfers, are saying, oh, this is all about how the PGA treats its workers. And, you know, from what I can tell, they actually don't treat their people that well.

They actually are skewed very much like in the stars direction. But that doesn't mean that you should be taking, you know, Saudi blood money in order to rectify that situation. However, the golfers aside, some people have sympathy for the individual golfers, like, hi, who wouldn't take their money? Well, one of the people who probably shouldn't take their money is the guy who's going to be president of the United States, already was, and may be again, and that his name is Donald Trump. First, let's start with this and put this up there on the screen, which is that Trump has been using his presidential seal at the New Jersey Golf Club. And this is a little bit of a problem because using the presidential seal

at your golf club on multiple items during the LIV golf tournament, which was at the Bedminster, New Jersey golf course, a little bit of an issue, given that it's directly funded by the Saudi Arabian government, and that by using that, you actually could convey, quote, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the government of the United States. It's actually illegal under federal law to do so. That doesn't mean necessarily this will be done, but again, you are looking here at an actual golf course with the presidential seal embedded into it at a Trump property, which is then being rented and being paid by a Saudi-backed entity. A foreign nation. A foreign nation.

Really, it's very direct. Beyond foreign nation. Saudis. This isn't Britain, even if isn't Britain, okay? Right. Even if it was, it wouldn't be good. But still, yes. This is the Saudis, which have hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons contracts that they were approved by the Trump administration. Right now, Jared Kushner and, I'm blanking, Secretary Mnuchin, his Treasury Secretary, are already on the Saudi payroll. They've already taken a lot of money from both of those government, or both of them have taken a lot of money from those governments, even though the internal assessments leaked that Jared Kushner is actually not a very good money manager for private equity. And they were basically like, yeah, we're only doing this in order to buy political influence.

And look, I think the people that we should listen to are those who lost their family members on 9-11, especially given that Trump recently was asked about this and he said, oh, it's been a long time since 9-11. Nobody ever got to the bottom. Nobody's gotten to the bottom of 9-11, unfortunately. You know, in a way, he is right that nobody has fully grasped the lengths to which the Saudis are responsible for 9-11, but that only strengthens the case of why you probably should not take their money. And a bunch of 9-11 family members actually protested outside of the Trump golf course,

called upon the former president, possibly future president, to not take these people's money. Let's take a listen. How much money does it take to turn your back on your country, on the American people? Well, according to certain individuals,

such as Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, and Donald Trump, that amount of money is just a few hundred million dollars. We 9-11 families would trade any amount of money in the world just to see our loved ones again, just to have one last hug, one conversation, one more round of golf. Mr. Trump, we now have the documents, thanks to President Biden.

Simply, you lied to our face, and you've continued your bullshit comments as recently as yesterday in your ESPN interview. It's simple. The Saudis did it. They plotted it. They funded it. And now they're trying to distract every one of those sins with a golf tournament 50 miles away from ground zero. the Saudis spent billions of dollars in 2001 on this whole, like, it's not us campaign, or actually, you know, we didn't have that much to do with it. By the way, come visit Riyadh, a great place in order to invest. They have spent untold amounts of money bolstering and making sure that they suffered no consequences post 9-11 through their connections with the Bush family. But it goes far beyond that. It's very, very multifaceted in their influence campaign. It's bipartisan. And this is the ultimate victory for them to be able to pay an entity directly being profited by the former and possibly future president of the United States. And it's really just the tip of

the iceberg. I mean, go ahead and put this up there. But, you know, this Trump approved golf event and others is all being used as part of a major image rehab by MBS. And put Jamal Khashoggi aside, because it's so much bigger than that. What MBS and others are trying to do is literally build a megacity in the middle of the desert and cast Saudi Arabia as a non-oil state, like post-oil, investing in education. By the way, just ignore that we behead people in the streets

and treat women terribly. We just let them drive recently. Did you know that? These are things that they heavily are spending on to try and obfuscate their image, build themselves as a major geopolitical entity, and make themselves the cornerstones of American foreign policy. Now, that would be fine if it was not a rogue state that funded much of the terrorism that has killed American citizens and fundamentalist Islamic extremism across the globe. But that's what they do. And they want us to ignore that, which we can't, especially whenever we consider 9-11. So that's a very long winded saying. Yeah, this is terrible. It's frankly just a continuation of his hotel policy

while he was president. Yeah. And look, I mean, you're an idiot if you think that if you're concerned about Hunter Biden and Burisma and you look past this, you're full of shit. I mean, there's just no way to say it. Well, he was asked about the money that he was making off of this, and he said that the amount was very generous, but I don't do it for that. OK. OK. Then don't take it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you do have to say, like, imagine if Hillary Clinton was doing something like this, like the right would be totally losing their minds over it., you do have to say, like, imagine if Hillary Clinton was doing something like this. Like, the right would be totally losing their minds over it. And you do also have to say that reporters should have spent a lot more time, this is something, the point Ken Klippenstein always makes,

digging into the Saudi financial connections versus the Russian financial connections. They would have probably come up with a lot more as the first country he traveled to. There is no doubt that he has been perfectly comfortable taking their money, doing business with them, and then ultimately doing their bidding as president of the United States. And you see that, like you said, with Jared Kushner and Steve Mnuchin also ultimately cashing in. It's been so disgusting. And, you know, I'm, like, forced to watch a lot of his golf stuff now because of Kyle. And he is obviously very upset about the whole situation. But it has been really disgusting to watch some of these top golfers spout these Saudi talking points.

Oh, yeah. Reiterating like, oh, the women driving thing, which is, you want to talk about virtue signaling. I mean, this is the ultimate, like, let me give you a little bit of something that everyone can hang their hat on. Like, oh, they're making progress. But listen to these guys talk about, like, oh, I visited the kingdom, and they're making progress, and the game of golf changes the world. Come on. You all are doing it for the money.

Like, I'd actually respect you more if you just said, listen, I couldn't pass up that paycheck, so I'm willing to look the other way. It's not great, but it is what it is, and ultimately, whether I play on this tour or not, they're going to do whatever they're going to do. I would respect it more if they were honest, but it is what it is. And ultimately, whether I play on this tour or not, they're going to do whatever they're going to do. I would respect it more

if they were honest, but they all try to cloak it in this like, oh, no, actually, we're doing something that's very noble and very good for the world. Just be like,

hey, look, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I'm an athlete. I have a limited earning potential. This is going to set me and my family up for the rest of my life. And so I'm just going

to take the bag. It'd be disgusting. Yeah, it's disgusting, but at least it's honest. All this like, oh, the game of golf would change the world. Shut up. So obnoxious. You're so right. I'd just be like, all right, man. Okay, yeah But at least it's honest. All this like, oh, the game of golf changed the world. Shut up.

So obnoxious. You're so right. I just feel like, all right, man. Okay. At least you said it. Right. Exactly. With regards to Trump, it really is.

It's hard to wrap your head around. And the Saudis are betting on what they've always bet on, which is how much money they have and how much we need their oil. And listen, you can't really say the Biden administration has ultimately, even though he said on the campaign trail we were going to make the Saudis a pariah state, now with the Ukraine war and we've decided Russian oil is bad and we can't have it, so we've got to go to these, you know, the Saudi oil, which is so much more pure and clean and great and humanitarian, even though they've committed the worst, like, been part of the worst genocide in the world with regards to Yemen. So ultimately, the Saudis bet on their money and their clout and their reputation laundering, bringing them back into the circle of

nations and back into good graces with corporate America. And so far, they've been proven right. And that article that we had up before, they said, apart from oil, Saudi Arabia is also a major arms buyer, a potential source of multi-billion dollar construction contracts to realize Salman's vision 2030 for his country's development. So you could see the Trumps getting in on that cash as well. And sadly, that bet seems to be paying off for them yet again. Oh, absolutely. It certainly will. Okay, guys, we have some new polling here that we wanted to bring to you about Biden's position in the Democratic Party, which is really quite stunning. Let's go ahead and put the CNN poll up on the screen. 75% of Democrats want someone other than Biden in 2024. Let me say that again. Three quarters of Democratic voters want someone other than Joe Biden. I mean, this is really fairly unprecedented

in terms of within your own party, you're the incumbent president and your own party is saying it's time to step aside. Like, thank you for your service. We got to move forward. Here's a little bit of the details here that they say in terms of reasons why Democrats want to move on from Biden. Twenty four percent say they want someone else because they don't think he can win. That's up from 18 percent poll conducted in January. Thirty two percent feel that way because they don't want Biden to be reelected. That was actually the largest number in terms of, you know, what they were giving as their reason. So 32% are just like,

we don't want him again. And that is up from 16%. So a significant jump there. And then 25% said they prefer Biden as the nominee. Back in January, February, that was 45%. So already, I think we covered that poll back then because it was a bare majority and we're like, holy cow, that's a lot of Democratic voters who are like, we want something else. Now it's up to 75%. Voters' top decision criteria right now is the way things are in the country. And, you know, that's in terms of the midterms. And obviously Democrats are the party in power, so not a good sign for them as well. Yeah, I mean the vast majority of the American people, and now a vast majority of the people

in the Democratic Party, don't want him to run again. And yet, he's probably the only viable one. Look also at CBS. Let's go ahead and put this on the screen. These are the battleground polls as we head into the midterm elections. People are voting for Congress based on, well, the way things are in the country. 60% what Democrats might do, which they have generally intuited is nothing. 63% what Republicans might do and 54% on feelings about a particular candidate. I think you can intuit from that, that this isn't about Biden per se. People gave him a chance. Yeah, many people think he's too old, all of that aside. But if he was old and he was doing something, a lot of people would say, okay, that's fine. But the way that things are in the country at a very basic moment, they're just saying, this is terrible for

me. And just overwhelmingly, you are watching this become just, you're watching this destroy Biden's presidency and get it to a point where he is Jimmy Carter level unpopular. And, you know, the interesting thing is you can turn that around. It is true that also back in the 1980s, many people at this point in Ronald Reagan's presidency apparently didn't want him to run again in 1984. But there was actually a brutal recession in 1982. However, climbed out of it, policy aside, whatever, he was able to project an image to the American people, which led to the overwhelming victory in 1984. So it's not like that can't happen. Also, roles reversed, George W. Bush, H. W. Bush had like a 90-something percent

approval rating at this point in his presidency, and he ended up losing in 1992. So lots can change in the interim period. And while they might be intuiting a little bit of that in terms of the CHIPS Act and this Manchin-Schumer bill, at its core, they're not doing anything about inflation, about gas, about food, and really projecting the confidence that people need to say, this guy is actually on top of this, is working on my behalf. And that's really what it comes down to for most people. Even in terms of Roe versus Wade, individual issues like that, yes, on the margins appears to have been better for Democrats. But those margins just are not going to be able to overcome the general feeling of malaise, of chaos that we

talk about in the airlines, of supply chain. It's just the general feeling that nothing works in the U.S. economy and people blame their president. And I think they should. I just don't think there's a way of looking at it. One of the things I'm going to be talking about in my monologue is Biden at this point very clearly is an albatross around the neck of midterm Democrats who are over, I mean, who are actually really outperforming him at this point. And I think the fact that he has lost that sense of, oh, this is the guy who's electable. This is we have to go with Joe because that's the way we're going to be able to win elections. That, to me, has been the most devastating blow

for him ultimately, because that's the whole reason he got elected. I mean, people were not here for the Biden agenda. There were not Biden stands. They weren't you know, they didn't have this hardcore fan base or really any sort of particular vision for what direction he wanted to take the country in. Democrats chose him because they were told he was electable. Now that you have them looking at his approval ratings and saying, I don't know if this is going to be the guy who's going to be able to best the Republicans next time around. He's in really, he's in really dire straits. I mean, his approval rating is underwater, I think, in all but six states in the country. Like, that's really, really insane. So the fact that you have his numbers so poor and people so dissatisfied with the direction of the government, listen, this poll was taken before CHIPS Act and before this new mansion, maybe it'll move the needle a little bit.

Color me skeptical. And it is a pretty extraordinary circumstance that I can't, I just can't get around the fact or pass the fact that you have two guys in Biden and Trump that most of the country is like, please not these guys. And is very likely that that's what you end up with next time around, in spite of the fact that so many people are desperate for another direction, someone else, anyone else. And yet, because of the structure of the party system and how little actual democracy happens in the country, you're likely to end up with a matchup, again, between two people that really no one ultimately wants. You've got also a University of New Hampshire poll. Let's go ahead and put this up.

Looking forward to a theoretical Democratic 2024 primary. And you've got Pete Buttigieg, gross, tied with Joe Biden in the state of New Hampshire. So this is not one of those polls. A lot of times they'll pull Biden out and say, OK, if Biden doesn't run, who will? No, they left Biden in and he's still coming in. It's a statistical tie, but technically here he's second to Pete Buttigieg in the state of New Hampshire. Below that, you have Elizabeth Warren, Gavin Newsom, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie. Kamala Harris is down. What is that? Number seven.

One, two, three, four, five. Seventh place. Kamala Harris, seventh place in New Hampshire, which perfectly illustrates the bind that they're in. Because even as you you know, you actually see some of the elite mouthpieces, the New York Times, whatever, sort of floating the idea like, oh, maybe Biden, maybe he served his time, maybe he shouldn't run again. How are you going to get around the, you know, next in line is Kamala Harris? And how are you going to be able to get past that? I think they've really put themselves in quite a predicament here that is going to be hard to get

out of. And as much as you can theorize about Gavin Newsom or Jamie Pritzker or any of these other people running, ultimately, everybody on that list has said they are not going to run for president if Joe Biden is running again. And all indications are that Joe Biden is running again. So you are not going to have any of those choices on the list. I think that the poll is very illustrative. If number one, it actually proves out what people were saying, the 75% saying they don't want Biden to run again. But it also does show you that people have a tremendous desire for something else. And it doesn't happen to be Kamala Harris, who's the vice president. Needless to say, it is extraordinary that in a University of New Hampshire poll amongst actual Democratic primary

voters, that the sitting president is not number one overwhelmingly, and even worse, that his so-called heir apparent, who is Kamala Harris, is not even able to place higher than an Amy Klobuchar or a Gavin Newsom. I mean, even Elizabeth Warren, I guess, geographic proximity, same with Bernie, but Klobuchar's from freaking Minnesota and Buttigieg is from Indiana. So how exactly did all that work out? You are still given national name ID. That's the thing. You can't claim they don't know me. Yes, they do. They actually know you quite well. They're very familiar. Most of these people are absolutely

going to know who she is. And they are consciously saying, absolutely not. And this is Democratic primary voters. So you can't even come, look, this is the person who didn't even make it to Iowa. This is the person who was being beat by, at certain points, Andrew Yang in California, state-based primaries that were happening at the time. So it's just humiliating for the administration on so many different levels. And their only game is hoping Trump runs again, which he probably will. So it is a true doom spiral

that shows us how broken everything is. Yes, indeed. Okay. All right. The fun block, Democratic hypocrisy. And this is one where- Evergreen. How much do you hear?

Yeah. Look, Republican hypocrisy was the eight block. So we've got a true horseshoe going on here in the show. What do we have right now? We have a situation where Democrats and the Democratic Party, not just as a national organization but on a micro level, has spent now millions of dollars propping up Republicans in primaries who are pro-stop the steal and who support not only Trump's vision of stop the steal, but possibly trying to overturn an election in the future, something that they have claimed

is an absolute threat to American democracy. However, the millions of dollars show us that they want to try and prop these people up because they have a theory that they'll be easier to beat. We'll get to that possibly in a second. However, Nancy Pelosi, whenever she was confronted with this, something that even CNN is calling her out for, she defends it 100%. Let's take a listen. I said that we need a strong Republican party, not a cult of personality. That didn't mean we shouldn't have a strong Democratic party as well. And the political decisions that are made out there are made in furtherance of our winning the election,

because we think the contrast between Democrats and Republicans as they are now is so drastic that we have to we have to win. We have to win. That's the justification for everything. But the perfect articulation really wasn't just from Nancy. It was from James Carville, who, again, you know, credit to CNN, even they're like, hey, come on now. Like, how can you talk about all this pro-democracy stuff? But then Peter Meyer, who's a person who voted for impeachment, is now having dollars spent to prop up his Republican primary opponent, who is going after him solely for voting for Trump impeachment. And who is a total lunatic. Yeah. And he has called their rhetoric, quote, absolute bullshit, Peter Meyer. And he's like,

hey, you literally cannot square this. James Carville, of course, comes out and defends her 100 percent, not just on the tactics of it, but the morality of it. Let's take a listen. What do you think, James? I mean, is your party playing with fire? The idea of a political campaign is to win the election. It acts in its own interest. And let's take Pennsylvania. It clearly was in Josh Shapiro's interest that the Republicans nominate Doug Mastriano. I've done the same thing. I would do the same thing. I don't see any ethical or moral problem with doing this. And again, I think most of the opposition to this

is from the pontifical class, mostly located on the coast. I don't see anything wrong with this. I think a lot of ordinary Americans would have trouble understanding why you are propping up some of the worst, most deranged conspiracy theorists in the country. I don't think regular people would have a hard time understanding that or seeing that as extraordinarily gross. Peter Meyer, who we've referred to a couple of times, again, is this Republican incumbent who voted again, voted for Trump's impeachment after January 6th and who is facing, you know, a conspiracy theorist opponent in the GOP primary. And Democrats have decided to boost that dude, the crazy one, because they think it'll be easier to beat in the general election. He's out with a piece at Common Sense. And I think he makes a really great point here. He says, listen, party leaders like Sean Maloney, the head of the DCCC, that's their

campaign committee, have claimed that we are in an existential conflict between defenders of democracy and advocates of authoritarianism. Quote, it's not just about Trump, Representative Maloney said late last month on MSNBC. It's about a MAGA Republican movement that is defined by serious, serious things like attacks on our democracy. He warned it's going to be those MAGA Republicans who take away your rights, your benefits, and your freedoms. So if you are in, again, the quote, an existential conflict between defenders of democracy and advocates of authoritarianism. Why are you propping up this side? I mean, it really is gross. And listen, some of these things are more theoretical than others, but we've talked about the fact that Democrats backed Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania gives their governors broad powers. You get to pick his own secretary

of state. This is someone who worked hand in glove with Trump in his loony attempts to overturn the last election. Like, he has come up in the January 6th hearings. That's how central to the plot that he ultimately was. And this is someone who Democrats intentionally tried to put in a position to possibly win the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania. And by the way, he will not tell Pennsylvania voters who he would pick for secretary of state. Of course he won't. Of course. Because you know they would be horrified if he did come out and actually be up front with them about who he would pick. This is, it just shows you that all of the things that Democrats are saying, they don't really mean. They just don't really mean it because you can't say

the things they've been saying and then go and get behind candidates like this. Yeah, look, I mean, with Mastriano, we've laid it out. It could legitimately ignite a constitutional crisis because of the amount of deference the Supreme Court actually gives states whenever it comes to actually appointing their electors. So this would be some seriously crazy stuff. And what I have come to believe with the Stop the Steal folks is believe them. They are telling you what they want to do. They're like, we think the election was stolen. They're like, we think that we should be able to decide based upon criteria that we arbitrarily decide. We're going to fake around ballot boxes and all that. And based upon that, we're willing to literally appoint fake electors to ascend to Congress. OK, I believe you. I believe

you when you say that. And yet these people say that this is the biggest threat to democracy in the history of the world. It's going to ignite a civil war. And you're spending millions of dollars to prop these people up. Look, Mastriano, polls aren't great for him right now. Guy could still win. Oh, yeah. Very easily. I mean, this is a state where Trump lost by, what, 150,000 votes, something like that, in Pennsylvania. Biden, I have this in my monologue talking about Dr. Oz. He's at minus 25 favorability. The gas goes up by another $1.50 between now and Election Day. Yeah, I think Doug Mastriano could easily become the next governor of Pennsylvania. Now what? You have a very big role.

We've talked previously. I think that Claire McCaskill beating Todd Akin and funding him may have been one of the most overlearned lessons in the history of Democratic politics. They're like, well, it worked out this one time in 2012 in Missouri, so let's do it all the time. It's like, well, you know, sometimes Republicans win elections despite whatever they may actually think, and you're going to be in a real pickle nationally. But this is all fake because at the end of the day, it's probably better for them if some of these people do win because they can say, oh, look how crazy these people are it's like How many spend all this time talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene? It's all it's all fake

This is this whole thing that is a good point to you is that ultimately? They will be they feel like they benefit from like the more insane the Republican Party is the less they have to do to prove To voters they can just say look at those people those people are insane So it is kind of a does kind of work out for them the end, doesn't it? Yeah, it's just so disgusting. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, so just over a month ago, Democrats appeared absolutely, completely doomed for the midterms. And it was not hard to see why. The party in the White House normally loses seats in the midterms. some 80% of voters say the country's on the wrong track, and the president's approval rating has sunk to historic lows. But now, to my great surprise, the walking dead Dems are showing

a few signs of life. So here is some of the latest evidence. Morning Consult has independents swinging from Republicans to Democrats. As recently as May, Dems were losing indies by three points. Now they are winning this key group by eight points. In fact, four recent polls by GOP pollsters have found Democrats claiming a lead on the so-called generic ballot by a margin of three, four, five, and six points. Over with Nate Silver at 538, he is also out with new analyses, noting that Dems moderately improved their chances at holding the Senate, and they also have improved their positioning on that generic congressional ballot. His Senate model has shifted to give Dems a narrow edge in the odds with a 56 percent chance of holding on to the upper chamber. And his model on the congressional ballot has also moved to a tie when previously Dems were trailing by two to three points. That was just earlier this summer. Now, it is worth noting that Democrats would actually need to win on that

metric, the generic congressional ballot, by several points in order to overcome the GOP advantage in gerrymandering for them to be able to hold the House. Listen, not hard to build a narrative about why Democrats might be gaining a little bit of momentum right now. Horrific mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde focused attention on gun violence. January 6th hearings have actually proved more effective than I expected at reminding Americans just how chaotic, stressful, and disturbing Republican reign ultimately was. And even more significantly, the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade has put the craziest views of the Republican Party on full display. Now, Democrats have belatedly moved

to highlight for voters just how extreme GOP party electeds are on key social cultural issues with votes on gay marriage and also on access to contraception. Republicans have also all on their own advanced laws that would ban nearly all abortions and block interstate travel, which are, of course, wildly out of step with public opinion. Now, there's a chance that this Dem momentum could even pick up a little more speed now that the party shockingly decided to actually dabble in a little bit of legislating. They got the chipsacked through. The Biden administration has finally decided to act more aggressively on gas prices. They've got this deal with Manchin on Climo, although that is still a long way from actual passage. And House Dems are at least pretending to get more serious about banning members, their spouses, and their top aides from owning or trading stock.

Overall, no doubt about it, your bets should still be on the Republicans because Dems would need to overcome weighty historical and political trends in order to pull off a win in either the House or in the Senate. 58% of Americans in a recent poll said that we are in a recession right now. Inflation continues to bite. Voters name the economy as their top issue, and they say by a sizable margin that they trust Republicans more on that issue. That set of facts should be thoroughly damning for the party in power. President Biden is also clearly a giant albatross around the party's neck. He is massively underwater

in every swing state and in every key Senate battleground. In Georgia, his approval rating is minus 13. In Pennsylvania, he's underwater by 19 points. In Arizona, he's minus 20. That is a gigantic mountain for Democratic candidates in those states to try to overcome. Is Mark Kelly really going to be able to outperform Biden by 20 points in Arizona? Is John Fetterman and his epic trolling enough to overcome a 19-point disadvantage in the state of Pennsylvania? History would say this presidential approval drag is way too much to overcome, especially in an era when partisan views are hard and candidate performance as a factor is pretty low. But

Republicans, they seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. With a huge assist from Trump, they have lined up behind some truly astonishingly dreadful candidates. Sagar is breaking down today the Pennsylvania race, where Dr. Oz is spending more time in Palm Beach and Europe than in Pennsylvania. Over in Georgia, Herschel Walker is being trashed by his own aides as a pathological liar who is totally unable to articulate a coherent policy position and even accurately relate basic details of his bio. Even in Ohio, J.D. Vance is proving a remarkably poor candidate with low fundraising numbers and high negatives who prioritized a trip to a conservative conference in Israel over persuading voters on the ground in his own state. Now, all three candidates won their nominations because of Trump's backing. Ohio's a red state now, so Vance would have to do a lot more than run an apathetic

and disconnected campaign in order to lose. But his fundraising struggles are actually echoed throughout the party. Typically, fundraising totals ramp up as you get closer and closer to Election Day. But Republicans, they're seeing a collapse in their grassroots fundraising. According to analysis of contributions via the major Republican donation platform WinRed, GOP donations have actually dropped more than 12 percent in the second quarter versus the first quarter. Over the same period, online contributions to Democrats jumped 21 percent. out that a single embattled Democratic incumbent, Raphael Warnock, he raised more online than GOP candidates in Georgia, Wisconsin, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania combined. Now, even though big GOP donors are pouring money in to fill that gap, this might be one of the clearest signs of an increasing GOP malaise and Democratic resurgence. Republicans had enjoyed a

significant enthusiasm gap. These numbers are one possible indicator that Roe has lit a bit of a fire under the Democratic base. Now, tomorrow brings a slew of new tests and indicators as to what the fall may actually hold. Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington voters all head to the polls and primaries to pick their candidates for the fall. Will Trump back Blake Masters prevail in Arizona? Not only does he want a federal abortion ban, but his website, it actually says he will only support judges who support overturning the Supreme Court decision that guarantees access to contraception. Will Eric Greitens win the GOP nomination in Missouri after being accused of domestic violence, handing Dems an outside chance

in a deep red state? Ross, the most closely watched Tuesday result is actually a Kansas ballot measure. Kansans are set to decide whether they want to retain the right to abortion that is currently in their state's constitution. The measure could be an indicator of just how much Roe has changed the game, just how far outside of the mainstream Republicans have shifted, even in a state like Kansas. Or it could be an indicator of nothing really at all, given the unique dynamics of that ballot initiative. Just like the election overall, the picture is very murky. But for Dems at this point, murky is a hell of a lot better than the clear destruction that they faced just weeks ago. I think there has been a moderate improvement in Dems' position.

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, everyone, it's time for me to admit that I'm dead wrong again, something I know my biggest haters always enjoy. Done monologues like these in the past, inflation, Russia. Today, it's time for me to eat some crow about one of my predictions, that Dr. Oz would be a political powerhouse. I know it sounds ridiculous, but at least let me explain before I get to why he's floundering. I've always thought something basic. Politicians today truly suck. Now, they probably always did, but in the modern age with the internet and other methods of content, it's easier than ever to see

what somebody who is real is speaking like and somebody who is fake. Sometimes when I see these cable news interviews of politicians, I just feel like I'm going to vomit. It's such obvious BS. Combine that feeling with the growing trend that these politicians refuse to accept it and they just want to be stars. Think about it. Do any of these people actually want to govern anymore? No, they just want to be famous. They want to be podcasters. They want their tweets to go viral. They want to be celebrities. So my thinking is this. If we're going to have the celebritization of politics, let's just have at least some decent celebrities who know how to communicate, who are at least good on TV.

When they're inauthentic, they are at least talented at it. Hence, when Dr. Oz announced, I was like, hey, this guy's going to be a powerhouse for this reason. If you can make it on daytime TV as a star, you have what it takes. Counter to what we always want, to be very good at politics, you have to be able to simply communicate in an effective and short period what you care about to the most amount of people possible. Daytime TV, while yes, cringe, is watched by literally millions of people, most of them older, who are way more likely to vote. Oz himself is probably one of the biggest daytime TV stars of the modern era. Only Dr. Phil, Oprah, Judge Judy, and a few others in the U.S. even come close. Oz,

while caught in some very cringy weight loss scams, at the end of the day held a tremendously popular hit TV show and fostered a deep connection with millions of people who felt genuine warmth towards him. That sunny disposition, combined with undeniable charisma, should have clicked. That's why Trump endorsed him, who literally said in his statement, Oz had fostered a deep relationship with women throughout his time on TV. Makes sense, right? So what went wrong? Well, a couple of things. People in PA had a point that he, you know, isn't really from there. And throughout the GOP primary, the same reason I thought he would be successful in politics is what dogged him. Oz clearly does not believe anything. He's not MAGA.

He's not really anything at all. And frankly, I think that's a skill. Trump's greatest skill is that whatever he said was MAGA. It just wasn't rooted in any principle or ideology. Ideological flexibility is how Trump had divergent views on trade, on gay marriage, on healthcare, other issues that actually made him far more electable than any Republican previously. Now, that actually works for Trump because he is Trump behind Trumpism. But clearly, Trump voters found something phony about Dr. Oz that didn't sit well. That's how coming out of the primary, Oz felt himself deeply bruised. He had massive negatives across the state.

First, Democrats did not like Oz because he was a Republican. He was just never going to win them. But independents also intuited a general sense that Oz was a carpetbagger. All while GOP voters also had a negative view of Oz coming out of a brutal primary. Combine those three things, you end up in a situation where Oz has massive negative favorabilities right after the primary. So the response is obvious. It's time to work your ass off. It's time to spend a ton of money. It's time to tie Joe Biden to John Fetterman and just simply run a nationalized campaign. Yet the opposite has happened. Oz has simply disappeared. He went dark. Despite having a professional net worth of nearly

$400 million, Oz is nowhere to be seen. Wasn't up on TV with ads. His tweets against John Fetterman were cringe and lame. In general, he has not really been working hard at all. We now know via Puck News' Tara Palmieri, Oz wasn't just not working in his mansion in New Jersey, he was on vacation. Oz, it seems, while the Pennsylvania recount was going on, was literally at one of his mansions in Palm Beach, Florida, fundraising until at least June 9th. And then, after winning the primary, he didn't immediately hit the ground running. He got on a plane to go visit some of his family in Ireland. Look, if you're a private citizen, that's fine. But dude, you need to get to work. What are you doing? What's especially terrible about this is at the same time he was abroad, he was not on the air with TV. And that is exactly when John Fetterman started his brutal

campaign to paint Oz as a carpetbagging, out-of-touch multimillionaire, which, you know, kind of true. In fact, the vacation was so bad, Mitch McConnell's NRSC organization, which is meant to help Senate Republicans, was really upset with him and wanted him to come back to, you know, get to work. And what's insane is that Oz is not even the guy who's just suffered a massive stroke and was combined to his hospital bed or house for weeks. He had a huge leg up on Fetterman. And yet right now, even Fox News has him down by 11 points across the entire state. Now, look, you should remember the Kristol and Sager rule of polling always add like five points for a Republican. But with these polls, that still puts them down by six. That's in a state that Trump only lost by 150,000 votes. Now consider,

Joe Biden has a minus 25 point favorability rating in the state of Pennsylvania right now. It's pathetic to find Oz in this situation. Furthermore, the limited ads that Oz is running throughout Pennsylvania are fake and cringe. They're trying to paint John Fetterman as some far-left Democrat. And look, Bernie Sanders' support and all of that aside, Fetterman codes as authentic to PA because he's from there and he's already won a statewide race. That's simply not how people feel about him. But take a look at this ad. Sanctuary cities, weak prosecutors, crime skyrocketing, failed liberal policies are making us less safe. Yet John Fetterman wants to release one third of prisoners and eliminate life sentences for murderers. Emptying our prisons means

more hardened criminals on the streets. Incredibly, Fetterman says, get as many folks out as we can. Crazy, dangerous ideas are hurting our communities. We need a change. I'm Dr. Oz and I approve this message. Here's the thing. Why talk about John Fetterman at all? Talk about Joe Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden. Send Dr. Oz to the U.S. Senate to block Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

How hard is that? What's becoming clear is Oz was not ready for this. Yes, he has star power, but it seems that power, sadly, does not translate at all to any actual political instinct. Worse, it seems that Mitch McConnell crew is now running his campaign and his ads. They're talking about how John Fetterman is a socialist. That's the same message that you've seen from a Republican for the last 30 years. Just talk about gas, Dr. Oz. Talk about food. Blame Biden. Say Fetterman supports Biden, which he does. Run a picture of them together. The reason I was excited about Oz was I thought somebody who can make it on TV, become a star like this, should have the ability to positively deliver a message that is not the same old bullshit. Yet, that's what Oz

is apparently going with, even when he does show up to work. Nothing beats hard work. Nothing beats something new, fresh. Odd is sadly abandoning what made him great in the first place in lieu of a cookie cutter campaign that is indistinguishable from national GOP messaging in an election that should be a slam dunk. Worse, he is dealt now with an opponent who is legitimately talented, as evidenced by all of the brutal tying of Dr. Oz to the state of New Jersey. So this is a long way of saying that yes, Oz can and should still turn it around. His start, yes, has been a disaster. But it's time for me again to say the words, I was really wrong about this one. And Crystal, I mean, it's kind of fascinating. It's just that-

And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, with our little midterm madness or midterms road to nowhere, whatever we decided to call it, we have Kyle Kondik rejoining the show. He, of course, is the great managing editor over at Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball

at UVA Center for Politics. No relation, although I did attend the school. Great to see you, Kyle, as always. Good to see you, man. Good to be with you guys. Okay, so we have some new numbers from CBS News and YouGov that we can put up on the screen here. They have done their big battleground tracker poll. They find the Republicans, in terms of the race for the House, having a lead of about 25 seats in that U.S. House race. Their estimate as of today is that Republicans would end up with about 230 seats. Democrats would end up with about 205. Does that comport with roughly how you all are seeing the election at this point? You know, it's our best guess right now is Republican gain is

somewhere in the 20s. That's a little bit higher than that CBS News estimate, but it's pretty similar. And so, you know, one thing you got to remember is that, you know, the Republicans are already starting with 213 seats. They won in 2020. And so expecting them to replicate 1994 or 2010, you know, they picked up. I think it was 54 and 94 and 64 in 2010. Expecting them to do that is unrealistic given the high point they're starting with. I think both of those elections only went in with a little less than 180 seats in both of those elections. So, you know, obviously, look, any House majority is a good House majority. Now, you know, I think sometimes corralling your members, I think particularly on the Republican side, they've had some trouble with that in the past.

So, you know, the bigger it is, obviously, the easier it is to govern or to pass what you want. And I do think there's there's still more upside potential for Republicans in the House. But that CBS News, you know, you go best. It seems relatively reasonable to me. It is, you know, it's pretty similar to what I'm seeing. Yeah. And so, Kyle, what are the structural, you know, underlying factors that belie an estimate like that? So how do you factor in both the overall polling environment, generic ballots, also the polling misses that we saw in the past? What's your general like thesis on forecasting this stuff?

Look, the generic ballot, I think it sometimes underestimates Republicans, particularly at this point in the cycle. If we look back eight years ago today, roughly, the Democrats, I think, actually had a narrow lead on the generic ballot in the Rooker politics average. It was very close. And of course, that's an election where Republicans won 247 House seats, which was their biggest House majority since the Great Depression. And there are other instances, 2020, the House generic ballot underestimated Republicans, too. And that underestimated them basically the whole way through. The Democratic lead was something like six, seven, eight points in averages.

And Democrats won the National House popular vote by only three and ended up losing about a dozen seats in that election. And so sometimes, for whatever reason, the generic ballot seems to pick up on Democratic leads that are real, that they will pick up on them early. But the Republican leads sometimes break late. 2016 is another example of that, where Republicans narrowly won the House popular vote, but the generic ballot didn't really reflect that until right at the end. So I'm waiting to see, you know, after Labor Day, a lot of these polls are going to switch their likely voter models. A lot of the polls now are just registered voters, and so it's not necessarily trying to, you know,

figure out precisely what the electorate is. And you've got to remember these surveys, I still think they do a pretty good job, but you can't expect them to be perfect. So that's a part of it, too. There's a lot of science here, but there's a lot of art too. Yeah, well, I actually want to stay on this topic

because after 2016, there was a real sort of like pollster reckoning and there was a theory of why the polls missed some of what was going on. It was like, oh, we weren't looking at, you know, the class divide and we weren't factoring in enough people who just had a high school education. So we fixed that and we're going forward. We've got it this time.

And then 2020 was, if anything, an even bigger miss. Have there been has there been any like figuring out of what went wrong and why polls seem to consistently underestimate the performance of Republicans in particular? You know, the American Association of Public Opinion Research did this, they, they, they'll do this, or they often do this post-mortem of polls, you know, after, after elections. And the report in 2016 did, did suggest, as you mentioned, it suggests some, some fixes. And then I think a lot of pollsters did those fixes and there were still some problems. I guess I personally think that there is some sort of subset of people who are likely to vote Republican who are harder to capture in polls for whatever reason. There's some indication that some of these folks have basically pretty low levels of social trust. And so it's just hard for them. It's hard to get them to or members of that group to sort

of like pick up the phone or to respond to know, respond to an online poll or whatnot. And so I think that there are still, again, a lot of challenges with the surveys. And, you know, I think it's also easy, like I said before, it's easy to sort of like dump on the pollsters. But I, you know, I don't think we ought to do that. Again, I still think they do a decent job. And for someone like me, who is in large part kind of reliant on the survey work that other people pay for, I find it to be kind of poor form to just be sort of dumping on them all the time, which I try not to do, even though I think there are reasonable critiques you can make of certain polls. And I as I sort of interpret the landscape, I try to take it with a grain of salt. Like you could make an argument that the Democrats have, in fact, gained ground since the Dobbs decision in late June. And it does show up in the generic ballot a little bit. The Senate polling is not bad at all, really, for Democrats, given that,

you know, the people don't feel bad about the economy and Joe Biden's approvals in the 30s. But I'm just being a little cautious about it because I don't necessarily know if the environment has dramatically changed. And just in talking to people, you know, who are involved in campaigns on both sides here, I don't necessarily know if they're seeing that either. Although, you know, I think Democrats are pointing to a few hopeful signs here and there. I think it's a little too early to say, though, that the basic structure of this election has changed, though. Yeah, I think that that is the best way in order to put the framework. So, OK, we've got, you know, 99 days, I think, to go until this thing happens. In that period,

what should we look for that are going to be the most important in shaping the election? Should it be the economic indicators, Joe Biden's overall approval rating? What are you going to look at which could adjust your overall forecast? Typically, if people's perceptions of the economy are basically baked at this point. And that's why second quarter GDP is sometimes used as a factor in like forecasting models. This is more for like presidential races. And obviously, second quarter GDP reflects a time that is a couple of months in the past now, because that's April, May, and June.

And I also think that this sort of inflation and gas price indicators, like, I don't know, I just feel like even if there are big changes in sort of the facts on the ground, that people's opinions on that are, again, sort of sort of baked. So I'm sort of looking at sort of enthusiasm measures, I think, with Democrats and to sort of see if they, in fact, are enthusiastic to vote. I think that, you know, again, the Senate, I think it's easier for Senate gubernatorial candidates to kind of, you know, I think what Democrats are trying to do is to point to the sort of extremism and inexperience of a lot of the Republican nominees this year.

And they've got a lot of fodder to work with. We'll see if that's actually, that actually is, you know, works. And, you know, I typically think that, like, candidate debates generally don't matter much at all, like, you know, gubernatorial or Senate debates in the fall or whatever. But I'm really curious to see how the abortion issue comes up in debates, because if you remember back in 2012, when Richard Murdoch kicked away the Indiana Senate race against Joe Donnelly that year, Murdoch made these kind of idiotic comments about abortion.

And I mean, you know, it's not hard for me to imagine there being some big headlines that come out of debates because of kind of callous answers about abortion. And so that's something I think Democrats are hoping for, too. You know, for Republicans, I think a lot of their playbook here is pretty clear. Like Biden's unpopular. People are upset about the economy. Tie the Democrats to Biden. Nationalize the election that way.

And that's to be the more proven electoral path. But the Democrats have some things they can do, too. Yeah. So how much do you think that that candidate quality matters? Because, yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about Herschel Walker in a debate. I mean, he has struggled even in friendly interviews. He's said things that were basically every facet of his bio. He's said things that were just

blamed lies about. He had all these kids that he wasn't admitting to. And meanwhile, he's out there saying like, oh, you have to be a father in their kids' lives and all this stuff. So Republicans have, partly with Trump's backing, nominated some very poor candidates and very extreme candidates in key swing states like Georgia and Pennsylvania and elsewhere. How much do you think that that does ultimately matter? Or is it just sort of the national wins at this point? Look, I think it could matter a lot. And I mean, frankly, Hershel Walker is one of the candidates I was thinking about in terms of debates. And there's actually been this back and forth between Raphael Warnock,

Democratic incumbent there, and Walker about whether they're going to have debates or not. And I don't know at this point if anything is actually scheduled. And I can sort of understand it, particularly from Walker's side, if they maybe didn't want to put their candidate in that sort of position. But I also think about, like, if you think back to 2014 when the Republicans last flipped the Senate from Democratic. And they ended up picking up nine seats that year. A lot of them were sort of like states that were Republican that really had no business electing Democratic senators these days, like Arkansas and Louisiana. But you look at the candidates that the Republicans had that year, you know, it was like former governors or sitting members of the House, or it was like, you know, state level officials, that sort of thing. You know, a lot of the candidates this year don't really have any political experience at all.

You mentioned Hersha Walker, Mehmet Oz, the TV doctor in Pennsylvania. The two likeliest nominees are probably Blake Masters in Arizona. That primary is tomorrow. J.D. Vance in Ohio. I could go on here, but it really is reflective of a party that is really elevating a lot of people who don't have political experience. And sometimes, you know, being an outsider, not having a voting record, that can be good. But also, sometimes those candidates end up making more mistakes because they just haven't been through

it before. Yeah, that's such a good point. Anyway, these are all the things we'll be watching because we trust Kyle over here on Breaking Points. Thank you so much for joining us, sir. We really appreciate it. Great to see you, Kyle. Always. Enjoy. Absolutely, man. Thank you guys so much for watching. Appreciate it as always. Go ahead and buy those tickets to the live show. Thank you to all the premium members who we've ended the promotion, but over the last month who upgraded to the yearly. It has helped us out tremendously. We're making big plans with that money. So thank you all very much. There's a link down there in the description if you're able to help us out. Become a premium member today. Otherwise, we will see you all

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