Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/12/21: Cuomo Resigns, Infrastructure Passes, Media's Covid Hysteria, Rand Paul Censored, Ron DeSantis Roasted, Climate Disaster, Media Fails, Obama, and More!

Episode Date: August 12, 2021

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Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, thanks for listening to Breaking Points with Crystal and Sagar. We're gonna be totally upfront with you. We took a big risk going independent. To make this work, we need your support to beat the corporate media.

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ad-free and uncut an hour early before everyone else. You get to hear our reactions to each other's monologues. You get to participate in weekly Ask Me Anythings, and you don't need to hear our annoying voices pitching you like I am right now. So what are you waiting for? Go to breakingpoints.com, become a premium member today, which is available in the show notes. Enjoy the show, guys. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We got a great show planned for you today. Kyle is back for his final time in the chair this week, at least. How's it been for you? So it's been great. Again, I want to thank everybody for putting up with me.

I know that the way these shows work, everybody loves Augur and everybody loves Crystal. And so when somebody sort of gets in the middle of that, it feels like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And listen, I'm not blaming them because I know for my show, too, if somebody sat in my chair, people would be like, you're not Kyle. Get out of here. That would be really weird. That would be incredibly weird. So I want to thank everybody for putting up with me.

I really tried so hard on the second show to reel it in with the cursing. Yeah. And I succeeded in rolling it back a little bit, but still, when I watched some of it back, I was like, why do I keep cursing? So I'm trying to set a hard limit. The hard limit, I'm going to cap myself at like five curses maximum.

And you can't do more than one per segment. Okay, but you don't want it to get in your head too much either. Because you just got to be like in the conversation and let it flow too. I swear to you, I was really trying. And I was only able to cut it back like a little bit. And I was trying hard. I was almost saying to myself regularly, like, don't curse, don't curse, don't curse, don't curse, don't curse. And it would just flow out.

And it's tough. I don't know why. I mean, it's, I have issues. But anyway, if you want to see the cursing and a lot more, then you guys can check out my show, Secular Talk on YouTube. I was just going to say, there's a story that broke about Hunter Biden that broke after we'd planned this show about, he says another of his laptops was stolen.

There's some other details there, rather salacious, that we're not going to be able to get to on this show. But you're going to talk about in your show. So if you guys want all of the Hunter Biden content that you crave, definitely go over to Secular Talk. Check that out. And while you're there, make sure you hit subscribe because you don't want to miss any of the things that the brilliant Kyle Kalinsky has to say. You're very sweet for saying that. We were going to and we wanted to cover it here, but like Crystal said, we already finished all the preparation. We already got all the videos ready. Everybody in the control room got all the

graphics ready. So it was a little too late, but like she just said, we're going to cover it on my show. It should be up there at some point today. So enjoy. Yeah. So in this show today, we got details on Cuomo resigned. A lot has happened, actually, since we last talked. Cuomo resigned. The infrastructure package passed. The reconciliation budget process has commenced with a vote in the Senate. Rand Paul was banned from YouTube. Media's putting out all kinds of, like, really unfortunate COVID misinformation that we want to correct the record on.

We also have some fun comments from comedian Bill Burr, who really went after Ron DeSantis in a very eye-catching way. And of course, our monologues, David Sirota is going to be in. He's got a new piece, a very thoughtful new piece on the Obama administration and their legacy in particular on climate. So in the wake of that UN climate report, we definitely want to talk to him about that. But we wanted to start with that bombshell news that Andrew Cuomo did, in fact, decide to step down as governor of New York. That's right. So Andrew Cuomo is out as New York governor. He resigned. It's effective in 14 days. So go ahead and throw that up there, guys, the first graphic here, the Ross Barkan tweets, Barkan, Barkan, however you say it. It's official. Andrew Cuomo is resigning as governor of New York.

He says his resignation is effective in 14 days. Kathy Hochul in 14 days will be New York's first female governor. Andrew Cuomo resigned ultimately because he would be impeached and convicted, removed from the government in disgrace. Now he resigns in disgrace. He joins Eliot Spitzer as the second New York governor in the last 13 years to resign from office. Yikes. When Andrew Cuomo dies, the first line of his front page New York Times obituary will mention that he resigned from office in disgrace. Andrew Cuomo will not serve a full 12 years as governor, failing to match the tenure of his father, Mario Cuomo. That's how we say it in New York, Mario, not Mario.

A lot of people say Mario. Your people. Mario Cuomo, that's how we say it in New York. You're here to defend Cuomo today based on your Italian heritage, right? I have no choice. If you're Italian-American, hey, come on. He just wanted to touch some people, no big deal. All right, so, I mean, there's a lot to say about this.

I just want to get your initial thoughts on what happened there. Obviously, this was a situation where the walls actually were closing in. That's right, yeah. Unlike the persistent, which are the walls are closing in, the next shoe is going to drop, all that stuff. He saw the writing on the wall that he was going to get impeached. And so he was going to be forced out regardless. He lost the support of literally everybody, including Joe Biden, who had been kind of a holdout and was taking a wait-and-see approach. His top aide, Melissa DeRosa, had resigned. Some of the reporting says that that was a real gut punch. I mean, she was one who was there

basically backing him up and helping him to smear the women and being the enforcer and all of that. So I think that he saw this as the best way for him to go out on his own terms. And, you know, frankly, and this is other people are speculating this too, I think he believes that maybe if he goes out this way, there's a possibility of a comeback down the road. Whether or not that's the case remains to be seen, but memories are very short, so I wouldn't rule it out. The other thing that I would say is a point Marianne Williamson made, which I think is really important, is, you know, this guy was challenged twice in a Democratic primary by Zephyr Teachout and Cynthia Nixon, who are both treated as, like, you know, hysterical and crazy and fringe lunatics, etc., etc. And there are even tweets during, you know,

when Cuomo was celebrated last year for his, quoteunquote COVID leadership, which of course turned out to be abysmal and abhorrent, tweets about like, oh, see, we're so lucky we ended up with Andrew Cuomo. We could have had Cynthia Nixon. How terrible would that have been? Hashtag experience matters or whatever. deserve a lot of credit for standing up to this guy before it was cool, you know, because we knew for a long time that he was a bad leader, an asshole, a bully, abusive, all that stuff. None of this has been a secret. It's just finally now those chickens came home to roost. That's right. So let me just say, pat myself on the back a little bit here because I voted for both of those women. Good job.

So a little bit ahead there, but it wasn't too hard to tell that Cuomo was kind of abysmal in a number of ways. And just to underline one of the points you made there, that is why he did it. The only reason he resigned is because they absolutely had the votes to impeach him and to force him to resign. So he got ahead of it. This way it's a shorter news cycle. It's not dragged out. And there's some, it looks like New York might move ahead with impeaching him anyway,

even though he's out of office, which is kind of interesting and worth mentioning. Didn't know that. So in his resignation video, he keeps going back and forth, Crystal, between like, I didn't do it. This is a witch hunt. I'm just Italian and Hansy

and this is what we do in our culture. He says that half the time, and then the other half the time he says, well, I did it, and I learned from it, and I apologize. So he's got this like contradictory message. And when you get specific, when you go, you know, case by case, what he does is like ignores or swats aside the worst allegations. And he thinks like the weaker allegations where maybe it is just old school affection, those are the ones that he sort of harps away on and hones in on. And he also said in his resignation speech, policy is done on Twitter now. And as somebody pointed out on Twitter, they said this is effectively like him blaming cancel culture for, you know, having to step down. Yeah, based on an incredibly thorough Attorney General report from a fellow Democrat.

Yes. Who was previously a supporter of yours. That's exactly right. So, yeah, it's also disingenuous. He also was pretending like he was being altruistic in his resignation speech. Like, I'm doing this for the people of New York because I care so much about the people of New York. And it's like, dude, reel it in. Everybody can see through what you're doing here.

Now, he's also going to potentially face criminal charges. That's right. From a couple of these women. And now there are more women coming out even after the fact. Yeah. Even at this late date now, there are more women coming out. So, I mean, he's in a lot of trouble. And you mentioned Biden before. I want to go ahead and show this video of Biden reacting. Ironically, one of the Democrats through the years that you spoke with about infrastructure the most was Andrew

Kohn, who is resigning, who announced he's resigning today. You had traveled to New York with him when you were vice president to the launch of the reconstruction of LaGuardia. He was someone who supported your campaign early on. No, you called on him to resign. No, you condemned the alleged behavior.

But you're someone who spends a lot of time with mayors and governors. How would you assess his 10 1⁄2 years as governor of the state? In terms of his personal behavior or what he's done as a governor? What he's done as a governor. What he's done a hell of a job. What he's done a hell of a job. Thought he's done a hell of a job. And I mean,

both on everything from access to voting, to infrastructure, to a whole range of things. That's why it's so sad. So he's done a hell of a job, Crystal. That's what he said. Now, I will say there was a point in time where you could have made that argument because he did get $15 minimum wage in New York and he did get some watered down semblance of a free college bill. Even those, after being pressured for years and resisting calls from activists to do those things, finally when it's like dramatically publicly popular and there's no risk to it, he accedes to what activists have been pushing him to do for years and then takes all the credit. So even on those ones, I give him half a

cookie. Right. And not only that, but Biden mentioned infrastructure there. And as we've learned from previous reporting, he actually did a terrible job in some ways. They changed the name of what's called the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York to the Mario Cuomo Bridge. And so people were like, hey, that's a little weird. You know, you're the governor's son. You're going to be involved in changing the name to your dad's name. So right up front, that's weird. But also there was a scandal where the bolts that they used on that bridge were failing and weren't correct. And they tried to cover it up. And so if you want to talk about infrastructure, you can't talk about infrastructure without bringing up that story. Even on infrastructure. He was a failure.

That's right. No, I mean, this is, and this is part of what irritates me is that there's still this narrative of like, well, he was a great governor. Totally understandable that the media lionized him, you know, during COVID and all of that. It's just, you know, it's just the sexual harassment stuff can't stand. When in fact, I mean, in some ways, all of the routine, disgusting, inexcusable harassment was in some ways like the least of the terrible things that he did. I mean, the nursing home decisions, which should be in prison, which, you know, killed a lot of elderly citizens based on his decision making. I mean, that just is what it is. And look, I do want to say, and I always say this, it was the beginning of the pandemic. People were making a lot of decisions fast. But then even after he makes this terrible

decision to put COVID positive elderly people back in nursing homes, which turned into, you know, some of the worst sites in terms of disease and ultimately death, then they covered up the numbers. And this is another thing. That report was already out there. Letitia James, AG, Democrat, who previously had been Cuomo's supporter, had already done that investigation, which showed that he dramatically undercounted overall deaths in the state of New York, passed a law that was written by industry lobbyists to protect nursing home executives from any sort of liability for any, you know, terrible or poor or negligent decision making. So to make the case on any level that this guy was a good governor outside of just the most surface, shallow, performative metrics. Like you gave a good press conference that you got an Emmy for.

Let's not forget that. That was a ridiculous event as well. Like it's just absurd. And I actually do think that this plays into why he decided to go ahead and resign. Because if he protects that narrative that it was just, oh, he's a little too handsy with people, a little old school, then that helps and everybody forgets about the nursing home desk, forgets about writing the book, the $5 million advanced book with state resources, the VIP treatment for his brother and everybody else, forgets about all of that stuff and only remembers like, oh, he was too handsy.

Then he does have a shot at a comeback, frankly. I think I differ with you a little bit on that. If you look at somebody like Al Franken, who did something not even nearly as bad as Andrew Cuomo, even he really hasn't been able to mount a political comeback. So I'm not sure if that's the case. He hasn't tried, though. It's certainly possible.

I mean, it's possible. I don't want to be definitive on this. All I'm saying is I'm agnostic on that point. But there's a couple other things I wanted to mention too. I haven't heard this ever mentioned in any of the mainstream media outlets, but during COVID, he cut Medicaid. He cut healthcare during a pandemic. So for anybody to say anything about how wonderful he's been on COVID with the nursing home stuff and this, I mean, it just makes absolutely no sense. And then also, on one of the most important issues to me, he was beyond atrocious. And that issue was corruption.

So he set up the Moreland Commission, which was supposed to look into corruption and investigate it. And then the committee started looking into his allies and him, and then he immediately disbanded. Which, I mean, that says everything right there. I mean, it's like, do it against other people, but not against me. And then Cuomo's right-hand man, his executive deputy secretary, and his campaign manager in 2014, this guy went down for $320,000 in bribes. A federal jury convicted this guy. So, I mean, that's like old school mafia style

politics. I'm allowed to say that because I'm Italian, so I shouldn't attack them on those grounds. So, yeah, Chrisley is just a mess and, you know, good riddance. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and actually there's more to- Oh, and I'll get to them in my monologue. Yeah, and you're going to talk about that more in your monologue. One thing that did give me a little bit of personal satisfaction was New York Times, I think we have this tarot sheet, dug into his book sales. And remember, this dude got $5 million to write this terrible book, American Crisis, Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic. There was a bidding war to get the rights to this book, to be his publisher. And even before all of the scandals got picked up by the mainstream media, the sales were pathetic. Fewer than 50,000 copies, which again, this book, they

put so many millions of dollars, not just in his pocket, but also to promote this thing. This dude was getting free press all over the place on his brother's show and everywhere else. And still, everyone was like, we don't really, we don't have any interest in this book. How many books did you and Sager sell? I don't know exactly the numbers, to be honest with you, but. Was it more than him? It was more than him. It was more than him. It was more than him.

I love that. That's just the perfect cherry on top for the end of this story. I did take a little personal satisfaction. Oh, my God. You and Sager should be in car wheels. That's phenomenal. Appreciate that.

But, yeah, and now there's questions of, like, I guess he got $3 million of the advance, and the other two are supposed to be forthcoming. There's a question over whether he's going to... Usually there are clauses that they can kind of, like... Yes, to hit a number. Not that you have to hit a number, but if it's something like if your actions, you know, bring shame upon the company, that's not the language, but it's something like that,

then they can not give you the rest of it. So questions over whether he's going to get that or not. And then the last piece we have for you here, as you mentioned before, we already know his executive assistant, the one who says that he reached under her blouse and grabbed her breast. She is suing, has filed a criminal complaint. And Lindsey Boylan, who was another aide, who also is the one that they went to extraordinarily lengths in cahoots with the leadership of the Human Rights Campaign and with the leadership of Time's Up, an organization that is supposed to be dedicated to supporting victims of sexual assault. So he engaged in a cover-up and an entire campaign to smear Lindsey Boylan. So she also is planning to sue him.

So not a happy future looking like for Mr. Andrew Cuomo. And meanwhile, his brother continues to be on vacation because of his birthday or so he says. I think that says it all, Crystal. I think that says it all. Another big thing that happened since we last talked to you is that the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed through the Senate with a pretty astonishing number of supporters, it passed through the Senate 69 to 30. So there were 19 Republicans that voted along with all of the Democrats to pass this thing through. I think we have a tear sheet from CNN to that effect. So $1.2 trillion bipartisan package. Now, sometimes you'll see different numbers. So it says down

there at the bottom, in total, deal includes $550 billion in new investments. The rest of the money is money that was sort of like already sitting there. Just a reminder, we've gone over this before, but it's $110 billion in roads for just a major project, $66 billion in passenger and freight rail, $65 billion in the electric grid, $65 billion in internet access, broadband internet access. I'm personally very happy about that one. $39 billion to modernize and expand transit systems, $7.5 billion to build a national network of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Also $55 billion for water infrastructure, including money to replace lead pipes, which the fact that this hasn't happened already and that we required any sort of negotiation to get that done is astonishing. But anyway, that's where we are.

The other thing that's interesting here is, you know, we brought you, Trump really came out hard against this package because he realized that this was something he tried to do and failed to do. When he didn't, and he's showing like Democrats and Republicans working together because they're all obsessed with that idea. He sees this as damaging to his prospects if he wants to run for president again. So he called this the Green New Deal and made all sorts of like insane accusations, et cetera, et cetera, and told Republicans to vote against it and didn't even come close to keeping the Republican Party in line with him. Mitch McConnell went so far as, and we have a tear sheet for this as well, as praising Joe Biden for his role here. He says, McConnell said, there's nothing to back you up like the promise of a presidential signatory if

you're in the same party as the president. And so I think the president deserves a lot of credit for getting the Democrats open to reaching a bipartisan agreement on this bill. He also said infrastructure is popular with both Republicans and Democrats, true statement. And he said the American people divided, sent us a 50-50 Senate and a narrowly divided House. I don't think the message from that was do absolutely nothing. And if you're going to find an area of potential agreement, I can't think of a better one than infrastructure, which is desperately needed. What do you make of all this, Kyle? So there's a few things here that I think are absolutely fascinating. Like you said, the vote was 69 to 30, which is absolutely overwhelming. Not in a million years would I have predicted

that you could get a vote that much in Biden's favor. So just to give everybody an idea of how weird this really is, let me give you some of the names. So we have Susan Collins of Maine is in favor of it. That's not crazy. She's viewed as probably the most moderate of the Republican senators. Then you have Lindsey Graham, who's not anybody's moderate. You have Chuck Grassley, who is super conservative. Mitch McConnell, who's the Grim Reaper himself and only represents corporations. It's amazing. Lisa Murkowski, again, one of the moderates. Rob Portman, Mitt Romney, Thurston Howell III himself. Tom Tillis, who's a hardcore right winger from North Carolina. So listen, I'm speculating now, but I'm curious your thoughts on this as well. The question is,

how was Biden able to make this happen? And my best guess is he really is an old school back slapping politician where he makes those personal connections. He calls them into his office. Now, he doesn't necessarily do the carrot or stick approach, but he might just do the carrot approach. And my guess is he said to these various senators, what do you want? Tell me whatever you want, and I'm going to try to deliver on it in this bill. If you want, you know, investment in your state in a particular industry, we're going to to try to deliver on it in this bill. If you want investment in your state in a particular industry, we're going to do our best to get it in this bill. I want to give you the opportunity for when you run for re-election,

you can say, Tom Tillis to the people of North Carolina, I got X, Y, and Z. I got X number of millions of dollars in investment in my state. And they don't even have to say, they don't even have to tie it to the infrastructure bill. They could just tell their people, don't you see all the investment I got in my state? Yeah. And so I think that's probably what happened. You had another theory, though, about... So... Go ahead. I'll let you tell your theory. I think there are, in my estimation, there are three factors here. Number one is it's a corporate-friendly bill. Corporations want

infrastructure. If you think about Amazon or other big, like, delivery service, like, they need roads and bridges and good airports and good broadband in order to conduct business. So business was dramatically in favor of this infrastructure package. So they didn't have to get crosswise with the donor class. They laid out very early on, we're not going to raise taxes on corporations. So, I mean, the pay-fors are a bunch of, like, smoke and mirrors and gimmicks, basically, which, fine, whatever. I don't think you should have to pay for infrastructure anyway. Don't they say they'll do a little bit of tax raising? Sorry to interject. Didn't Manchin say don't go over a certain amount, but they are going to raise it a

little bit? That's on reconciliation. Okay, that's on reconciliation. Yeah, so the infrastructure, the Republicans said, we're not doing anything to change the Trump corporate tax cuts. So, raising taxes on the wealthy, raising taxes on corporations for this piece was off the table. So, again, fine with their corporate donors. In fact, their corporate donors wanted them to do this. So that's one reason. Another reason is I think that, you know, it's oftentimes I think we discount in politics how much just normal human dynamics play a part.

And Joe Biden knows a lot of those guys. Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell. He's known these dudes forever. So there is a level of rapport and a level of trust there that I do think ultimately makes a difference. And he is the quintessential like old school insider back slapping Paul, something that was very different from Obama, didn't like to do any of that and actually look down on Biden for being that sort of old school type of relational politician. So I do think that that helped. And then the other thing that I think here,

though, and this is the kind of like the cynical take, but I don't think it's wrong to be cynical where any of these people are concerned and certainly where the Republican Party is concerned is their ultimate goal is to block the larger $3.5 trillion package that Bernie Sanders has been negotiating that actually has a lot more to like about it and a lot more important programs in it. And they're hoping, not without some merit, that the fact that the moderates got their deal, the, you know, Manchin and Sinema and the others who were really obsessed with this, like, bipartisan infrastructure fetish, since they got their thing, they'll be now less willing to go along with the $3.5 trillion, which is why, you know, people like myself and you and Bernie and others on the left always thought, like, we've got to tie these things together so we can make sure get what they want and the centrists or corporatists get

what they want as well, is the House is planning to wait to pass the infrastructure bill until they do the budget reconciliation, the $3.5 trillion. Six moderates, it's being reported this morning, are saying effectively, like, we're not going to vote for that three and a half, Bernie's three and a half trillion budget reconciliation thing until we get the infrastructure package passed. So it does. Now, are they actually going to follow through on that? We'll see. But I think that was the other calculation from the Republicans is basically like if we do it this way and if we work with them on this infrastructure package, then it's going to pull the moderates away, and they're not going to want to vote for the $3.5 trillion. The last thing that I'll throw out here, too, is I think Manchin articulated this.

You're the one who flagged this for me. Manchin articulated that, like, listen, you got to do something with this, or else they are going to get rid of the filibuster, and then you'll be hosed. And so that was also a little bit of leverage that was used here. That's exactly right. So I think you may have a point there that the idea is make it such an overwhelming victory on the bipartisan bill that there's a lot of pressure that goes hand in hand with that on the House Democrats, particularly the ones who are holding out and saying, no, it's both or it's nothing. So really, we are maybe looking at a game of chicken here a little bit, which is absolutely fascinating.

As a general rule, you don't bet on the lefties to win that game of chicken, but, you know. Nor do you bet on Nancy Pelosi to hold the line. Right, exactly. Which is what we're counting on right now, this green dream or whatever. I'm surprised she even initially said it's both bills or it's nothing. Pleasant surprise, but I was surprised. A couple more facts here real quick.

There was a report released all the way back in 2017, and they said simply to update our infrastructure, it would take $4.7 trillion of investment. So even though this is a good bill, even though I would vote for it if you got both of the bills, just want everybody to understand it is wildly inadequate given the scale of what we're facing. And then I also want to say, of the Republicans who opposed it,

they presented probably the least convincing argument I've ever heard in my life. They said, oh my God, this is going to add about $250 billion to the deficit. Now, mind you, I was going to say virtually all of them, but I think it might actually be all of them voted for the 2017 Trump tax cut bill where 83% of the benefits went to the top 1%. And that added over a decade nearly $2 trillion to the deficit. So, I mean, it's just, you know, I almost like give me a better lie. Give me a better silly line as to why you oppose this. Because that is just a slap in the face and an insult to our intelligence. Well, the other silly line that they gave that we covered

the other day was like, this is Joe Biden's radical left woke agenda. Woke, right, exactly. Wait, how? Woke bridges. The real irony here too is that then the Republicans added a bunch of culture war amendments to it about defund the police and about critical race theory. So like that stuff wasn't in the bill, but then the Republicans were like, this is too woke. So I mean, it's literally just roads and bridges, guys. It's not some woke agenda, but they had to layer in the culture war themselves. And by the way, the vote was 99 to zero against defunding the police and for increasing funding for the police. Yeah. So, wait, but now flip it right back on them. So all the Republicans who said they're against this bill, wait a second.

So now you've got infrastructure plus more funding for the police, and a promise not to defund the police. So now you're going to vote for the bill? Are you going to vote for it? The answer was no. Because it's just completely partisan. And, of course, obviously, if this bill had been put forward by Donald Trump, they all would have gone along with it. Oh, my God, they would love it. And, by the way, I would have voted for it put forward by Donald Trump, they all would have gone along with it.

And, by the way, I would have voted for it if it came from Trump or Biden. It doesn't matter. But I do agree, though, that it should be both. It needs to be human infrastructure as well. And this infrastructure bill, you're right to point out, it's, like, wholly inadequate. It does still contain some privatization schemes. I saw David Dayen is writing about the broadband piece as, like, you know, continues indulging the broadband monopolists. And so not great on some of those points.

But it also, some of the worst things did get stripped out. For example, they floated the idea of a gas tax early on. Yeah. Which is, like, just, you know, completely hits the working class in a terrible and unconscionable way. So they did take out some of the worst pieces. So I agree with you. As long as you are going to actually get something approaching the three and a half trillion dollar deal, I would have also voted in favor of this. So game of chicken is where we are right now. And we'll see what happens if Nancy Pelosi holds the line for us. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was? Well, here we are again

to remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen to our constant pleas for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to breakingpoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. So Crystal, why don't you go ahead and tell me a little bit about this new round of COVID misinformation that we're seeing? Yes. Well, you flagged this. So let's throw Kyle's tweet up on the screen here. Axios, leave this up for a minute because I'm going to explain this. So Axios put out this piece that says a new preprint study found the Pfizer vaccine was only 42% effective against infection in July when Delta was dominant. Study has grabbed the admin's attention. If that's not

a wake-up call, I don't know what is, a senior Biden official told me. So leading with the most, you can continue to leave this up on the screen, leading with the most scaremongering part of this study you possibly could get. As you point out, however, the study is, number one, not peer reviewed. Number two, if you read the article, it says, oh, lo and behold, Moderna's vaccine was 92% effective against hospitalization and Pfizer's was 85%. And also from the article, no data so far has found either vaccine's protection against severe disease and death is significantly less against Delta. So this is a consistent pattern that we're seeing. Liberal media knows what their audience, what's going to freak out their audience, the type of information that's going to titillate and scare the crap out of them.

And so they are leaning into scaremongering, putting out what is really misleading, if not actual misinformation about the vaccines and how effective they actually are for clicks. And by the way, when you do that, when you are consistently saying the vaccines don't work, guess what? You're also fueling vaccine hesitancy because why would you get a vaccine and have to deal with like the couple days of symptoms or taking time off of work or whatever it requires to get that vaccine if you're consistently being told by supposedly credible sources that this thing doesn't work all that well anyway? Yeah, this is something that's annoyed me for a very long time. And now, as you see, it's just gotten worse and worse. Yeah. When you are citing how effective a vaccine is,

there are a lot of experts who argue this, but nobody in the media seems to agree, that really the only number that makes sense is to cite how much does it protect you against hospitalization, severe illness, and death. Yes. Because that's what people really want to know. Am I going to get really sick, or am I going to die?

Yeah, people aren't terrified of getting a cold. That's exactly right. But what they do is, so that 42% number, that's exactly what you just said. That includes people who get COVID but are asymptomatic. It includes people who get COVID and have the sniffles. And it's like, that's just wildly misleading. And it is totally sensationalist. They just want the clicks.

They just want the eyeballs. And the sad thing is, Crystal, I forget what the number is, but it's some preposterously high percentage of people who only read the headline when it comes. And by the way, I'm also guilty of that many times. It's just part, you're busy, you got stuff you got to do, you scroll through. Sometimes you just see something and move on and you just take it at face value. But the last thing you should do is take it at face value. And actually, one of the best pieces I've seen on this, and this isn't an outlet I usually give a lot of credit to, it's not my favorite outlet, but Vox actually produced a segment on this a while ago that I thought was phenomenal because they explained in detail how, you know, those numbers came about. There was a governor, I forget where

the governor was, but this governor said, or maybe a mayor, said, we're not going to accept the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. And everybody's like, wait, why? Why wouldn't you accept the Johnson & Johnson vaccine? He goes, it's only 66% effective or whatever the number is. Yeah, I think it was a mayor in Florida, is my recollection. And we care about our people, so I don't want to give them something that's really doesn't, that's not good enough. Yeah. Well, come to find out, as soon as the expert sat down with him and explained to him what that really meant, that actually this vaccine is, as soon as the experts sat down with him and explained to him what that really meant, that actually this vaccine is just as effective as the other vaccines,

and it's still over 95% effective against hospitalization and death. And when they did the studies, it was at different times in the pandemic. So you had, they tested the Johnson & Johnson, I believe it was in Brazil, during, you know, the peak of COVID for them, during one of the waves, and it was a new variant, they said, basically, it looks like if we had tested all of these at the exact same time in the pandemic, then we would have gotten the exact same results with all of them, which is why the Johnson & Johnson was approved alongside the Pfizer and the Moderna. And as soon as the actual science and the real information was explained to this person, and it wasn't just sensationalist headlines, he immediately flipped and came out

and said, I was wrong, and we're going to accept all the different vaccines. But this is what I'm talking about. This is the level that we're dealing with. We're dealing with a media that is sensationalist, that is misleading, and it really does a lot of damage in the real world. Because to your point, if you see that headline and it says now it's only 42% effective against the new Delta variant, I would look at that. And if I thought that was true, I'd be like, why would I get the vaccine? It doesn't even work. Right. Exactly. Exactly. It doesn't even work anymore. So why would I bother with that? And they're doing profound damage, even as they claim to care so much about protecting people and people

getting vaccinated and all of that. The other person who has been consistently pretty good on these issues is Nate Silver. And we can put his tweet up on the screen because he's flagging another instance of media misinformation on COVID in the same direction. So there was a leaked CDC document that emphasized this notion that the Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox. Chickenpox is famously extremely contagious, one of the most contagious things that we know about that's out there. And so that sounds really, really scary. And you're like, oh my God, this thing is as infectious and contagious as chickenpox.

Well, that's not true. That's just not true. This leaked CDC document was inaccurate. The media didn't fact check it. They just ran with it. They framed it in the scariest possible light. Now, look, Delta is very contagious. You can see there the numbers if we leave that up on the screen. Chickenpox, they say for, how does this work? It's like for every so many people that you're in a room with, you're going to infect 10 people. And for COVID-19, it's seven people.

That's still a high number. It's still fairly contagious and more so than the original strain, which is that three people for this are not a metric that they use. But it is not, in fact, as contagious as chickenpox. And so, again, this was extremely misleading. There were other conclusions and other scaremongering reports that were written up based on this one study. And what he points out, if you read down in this thread, is he's saying, like, I really want to know how and why this document was leaked. Because people have certain interests within the administration or certain, like, they may have wanted to justify the fact that they turned on a dime on the mask, on their, you know, mask requirements and where they were there. There may have been a minority view within the CDC that wanted to, like, prove their point and get it out

there with the public. So it's always important to keep in mind that even when you're dealing with these, with the CDC or public health officials, they have their own incentives and interest to spin a narrative or convince the public of something that may or may not be true. And consistently, from the beginning of this thing, you know, the media has been very unskeptical about any claims that have been made. You saw this with, you know, the lab leak hypothesis and what was being fed to them in that. And they also have their own incentive to take whatever piece of information they have and make it as scary as they possibly can, even when it results in what is patent misinformation in this case. Yeah, with the media, we can't

overestimate the, they're just not, a lot of these people are just not experts in the field. Now, that's also coming from a non-expert myself, but I will admit to you up front, I am not an expert, and I'm giving my opinion, and you should definitely try to, whatever I'm saying, you should check it up against what other experts are saying. And sometimes experts disagree with each other, so that's where you have to rely as much as you can on your own independent judgment. But you get the sense that they will very often in the media lean towards whichever thing sounds more hyperbolic and

more sensationalist. And it's a real shame. And you made a great point recently about long COVID and about the way it's been reported with how it affects kids, where there was this fear mongering. Was it a New York Times story? It was a very fear mongering story about long COVID and kids. And then when you actually look at the data, they were really over-hyping what the problem was. And it's the mirror image, because now COVID has in some ways become a culture war issue. It's now the mirror image of the people on the right who try to downplay it at every turn. There are many people, liberal elites, who try to play it up at every turn. And that's, again, why you see the thing about even when people are vaccinated and breakthrough cases are so small, it's like, well, everybody's still wearing a mask anyway. And it's like, well, maybe, but at the same time,

don't overhype and talk about how necessary that is when it's really not nearly as necessary as unvaccinated people wearing a mask. And they go way beyond the thing with long COVID is they go way beyond where the science actually is. Yes. You know, there hasn't been a proven causal link between these lingering symptoms. There are some questions about whether this is truly a result of coronavirus. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It just hasn't been proven out yet. So to take these few instances of extreme cases and then to show you some numbers, you know, sort of cherry pick the numbers to convince you that, oh, this is a typical, this is a typical sequence of events. This is typical of what might happen to your kid too. It's just really irresponsible. And this is actually a good transition to the next segment because New York Times, you know, any of these other outlets, Axios, that are putting out their own misinformation, they never get censored or called on it.

They're allowed to put out their, like, you know, their version of the overcautious, scaremongering misinformation. But Rand Paul, who recently did a video questioning the efficacy of cloth mats, had a very different experience. Yeah. So Rand Paul has been banned from YouTube for a week, or I guess suspended is the terminology that they're using. And they're claiming it's for COVID misinformation. So guys, go ahead and throw that first graphic up. Here you see it. This is from NBC News. Justin, YouTube suspense. Senator Paul over a video falsely claiming masks are ineffective against COVID-19.

The lawmaker has described the suspension as a badge of honor. Okay, so here's some of what he said. He tweeted this. Left-wing cretins at YouTube. Kind of funny. Relax. I wish they were left-wing. Go ahead.

Liberal elites is better. Left-wing cretins at YouTube banning me for seven days for a video that quotes two peer-reviewed articles saying cloth masks don't work, he wrote, calling the suspension a badge of honor. So Paul's tweet included a link to a video. It's the original video, but he's linking to an alternate platform where it's still allowed. And YouTube indicated that examples of the offending content in the video include the line, quote, most of the masks you get over the counter don't work. They don't prevent infection. It also included the quote, trying to shape human behavior isn't the same as following the actual science, which tells us that cloth masks don't work. So before anybody jumps to any conclusions on this,

I do want to point out that Biden's former COVID advisor, the epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, and this guy, by the way, is also the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. This guy's an expert's expert. He said the same thing on CNN about a week ago. He was talking to Christian Amanpour, and he said, listen, there's a spectrum with masks, and cloth masks are the worst. And, you know, I think he said the N95s are the best. And so he said something very similar, if not exactly alike. And obviously nobody's calling for pulling down CNN

or banning Michael Osterholm. I'm fine with banning CNN, but no, just kidding. No, even CNN's rights I will protect. Right, yeah. So anyway, we're joking. But I have the video. You want to say anything, or should I jump to the video of Paul here?

I just want to say, do I think that Rand Paul's rhetoric was un-nuanced and irresponsible? Yes. And we're going to see an example of that in a second. Because he doesn't say, like the expert that you're talking about, and we're going to play that video in just a second, is clear about like the N95 masks are really good and really effective and the cloth masks are much, much, much less effective. He doesn't say they flat out don't work, and he's clear that he's just talking about this specific type of mask. And I think Rand Paul, who's a propagandist who I'm not a fan of whatsoever, as you guys know, I think he plays a little fast and loose with some of those things to give people

the that masks don't work, period, and stop. And that is not the case. So do I think his rhetoric was irresponsible? Do I think that he kind of like misled people with how he's right? Yes. Do I think he should be banned from YouTube? Absolutely not. So let's pause here because we are burying the lead a little bit. Let's just play some of his comments and then we'll talk about it. We have either had COVID, had the vaccine, or been offered the vaccine. We will make our own health choices. We will not show you a passport. We will not wear a mask.

We will not be forced into random screenings and testings so you can continue your drunk with power reign over the Capitol? President Biden, we will not accept your agency's mandates or your reported moves towards a lockdown. No one should follow the CDC's anti-science mask mandates. And if you want to shut down federal agencies again, some of which aren't even back to work yet, I will stop every bill coming through the Senate with an amendment to cut their funding if they don't come back to work in person. Yeah, so I mean a lot of that I think is silly and goes too far. Like why would you force everybody back to work in person when again studies show that a lot of these jobs can be done from home and people are actually just as productive

and more productive and they're happier. Yeah, then you're just like standing up for corporate bosses who want to have you there to control you. It's the ultimate irony of Rand Paul, who's like big against like government overreach and tyranny and getting involved in your life and oppressing you. But then he's like, you know who should be able to oppress you and get involved in your life? The corporation and the boss. They can tell you what to do for sure. You have no say.

Shut up and do it. But the government. No, not the government. The government can't. Sometimes corporations can be just as intrusive and oppressive as governments. That's the fundamental issue at the heart of Rand Paul's ideology. And also, even worse than that, in this instance, he's saying he's going to use the power of government to force corporations to force workers back into the seat because he's going to, you know, not anyway. And then the other thing that here is ridiculous is he says flat out mask mandates are anti-science. And that is way too far. And that's not anyway. And then the other thing that here is ridiculous is he says flat out,

mask mandates are anti-science. And that is way too far. And that's not true. And that doesn't include- And he says, quote, we will not wear a mask. Yeah. And that doesn't include any of the nuance about like, this type of mask is better than that type of mask. And he says, screw the CDC guidance. You're right. Yeah. So there's no, it's not like he's a responsible actor here. Let's just be clear. He's definitely overreaching. He's definitely leaning into the culture war angle of this, where like we were just discussing how on the liberal elite side, they sort of overplay everything, give the scariest version of COVID, and then on the right, they sort of downplay it at every turn,

and think everything is tyranny. You know, oh my God, it's so tyrannical if you're unvaccinated to have to wear a mask. Is it tyrannical to have to wear a seatbelt if you're driving in a car? Like that's sort of the level that we're playing at. I think that's somewhat analogous, but to your point. So yes, he's not nearly nuanced enough, but what I will say is we should stress this point to ban him from YouTube is I think sheer insanity, especially since experts are saying similar things. And by the way, just covered a story on my show, Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is now the third time she's been suspended from, I think it's Twitter. Was Twitter or YouTube? Twitter.

Okay. So third time she was suspended from Twitter. And for her, it's a similar situation. Like she, I think she's actually significantly dumber than Rand Paul. And worse than the things she says. Yeah. Yeah. So she goes way too far and does flat out like COVID denialism and says things that are untrue. So in no way, shape or form, I'm like semi defending Paul on the substance of what he said.

But Marjorie Taylor Greene, I'm not defending the substance at all. The one area where there's a tiny grain of truth is when she talked about how from the Wuhan lab, Fauci funded the Wuhan lab and coronavirus, she said, is his baby. She phrased it like that. Way too definitive.

But the grain of truth is, yes, there were grants from the U.S. government that went to the lab in Wuhan. So that's factual. But they banned her. This is her third time being banned. Apparently, you get five strikes. But listen, man, you can't just say this is wrong. This is a conspiracy. Or even this is a lie, so we're going to ban you because that

is the slippery, slippery slope of all time. There's a whole sub-genre, for example, of like AIDS denialism. Now, do I agree with it? Of course not. But if you're going to ban misleading stuff on health, okay, then you have to ban that. If you're going to ban misleading stuff on health, you shouldn't be allowed to discuss any alternative medicine because alternative medicine doesn't make the cut to be medicine medicine because the evidence is weak. So should we do that? Should we ban all talk of supplements? Because there were studies that supplements don't have the stuff in the pills that you buy at the store that they say is in it. It'll have like rice powder and soy powder. There was a big study on this. And also, even if it did have the stuff it says on the label, there's very little evidence that the

stuff actually works for the stuff it says it works for. So should you ban all talk of supplements, all talk of alternative medicine, because, hey, we need to protect people's health. And then what do you do when there's a conflict? What do you do in the situation where the FDA approved an Alzheimer's drug where the board was like, this doesn't really work, we shouldn't approve it. And then the FDA was like, great, we're going to approve it. So you have conflicting stuff. Should you ban people on one side or the other side of that issue? In a free society, you have to allow people to talk. Not to mention, very clear from this segment, juxtaposed with the last one that we did about COVID misinformation coming

from Axios and the New York Times, like they clearly do not apply the standards in any sort of consistent way. Because let's put Marjorie Taylor Greene to the side for a moment. What Rand Paul said is no more irresponsible and possibly less irresponsible and more fact-based than the way Axios presented their information of a not even peer-reviewed study. Now, imagine that it was Marjorie Taylor Greene Right. study. Now, imagine that it was Marjorie Taylor Greene hyping some not peer-reviewed study on hydroxychloroquine or on ivermectin or one of these things. Misinformation, banned, censored, all of that. But when it's the New York Times, when it's Axios, when they're saying it's the

same as chickenpox, when it's not the same as chickenpox and that's just flat out wrong, there's zero, zero consequence. And it's not just like we're only talking about right-wingers getting censored in this particular segment, but I know you and I both covered plenty of instances where this gets applied to the left wing as well. You're only protected if it is, in fact, that you're like a mainstream liberal elite outlet. Those are the only ones who seem to be able to get away with whatever they want to say. And in a lot of ways, too, when those mainstream outlets put out scaremongering misinformation, it's far more damaging because they have such broad reach and they're imbued with this sense of like, you know, cultural authority. So it does actually

more damage a lot of times than the type of people that they are obsessed with censoring and banning. I think you're exactly right. To your point, it was every mainstream media network that pushed for the illegal and unconstitutional war in Iraq. Yes. And the fact is, everybody who was making the case to go to war at the time was stating misinformation or disinformation. Yeah. And so in a world that made sense where you have these perfect fact checkers who can determine what goes beyond the line and what's a conspiracy, well then every mainstream network would have

been banned and there would have been like three alternative outlets left in the country. Yeah. You can't like, who will fact check the fact checkers? Who will watch the watchmen? There is no such thing as a ministry of truth that gets everything right all the time. So all the big networks push for an illegal war. MSNBC just came off of an orgy of Russiagate misinformation. Yeah.

That entire network be banned. Syria misinformation. Yeah. That entire network be banned? Syria misinformation. I remember when Brian Williams was talking about the beauty of our weapons. And this was under the Trump administration, too. They launched a strike on a, I believe it was an airport in Syria, based on total misinformation, and he's talking about the beauty of our weapons taking off and landing.

Is that glorifying violence? Because they say they ban people for glorifying violence, right? Oh, apparently when it's a state actor, when it's an official outlet, it's totally fine. Brian Williams is rather known for misinformation. That's exactly right. But even like the whole idea of even banning conspiracies, okay, but then you can't stop where you want to stop. What about 9-11? What about JFK? Over half the country thinks the story we're told on JFK is not true. Should you ban any talk of that? I'm one of those people. What happens, Sam? What happens when there's a conspiracy that turns out to be true,

like the Bay of Pigs? Epstein. The Tuskegee experiments. Epstein, COINTELPRO. What do you do? Ban it. There's just no way to enforce this that's fair, that's just, that's reasonable. The least bad thing to do is to leave it as is. And the only time you take any action, it should be after an open and clear process. And it's because there's a direct threat of violence, you know, or it's because there's doxing. But outside of that, hands off. We want freedom. Yeah. And there has to be transparency. There has to be an appeals process. And it has to be applied across the board, which is why, you know, a lot of these organizations are complete monopolies and

should be regulated as public utilities at this point. That's the exact right point. Some interesting comments on the mask wearing point from Bill Burr. You want to set this one up? Yes, I do. So Bill Burr, comedian Bill Burr, absolutely roasted Ron DeSantis in an incredible little portion of his podcast. Let's take a look at this video. DeSantis, whoever this guy is, and they have the most grumpiest looking photo ever. This guy is starting to build his stature in 2024. And he says he disagrees on mask mandates. These kids aren't wearing masks.

The amount of people who not only don't even own a microscope or even have a pair of scrubs, you know, unless they went to some Halloween party, who are literally questioning doctors. At this point, it's just hilarious. Ah, what do you know? These fucking piece of shit politicians. He knows

that that's what his fan base wants him to do, so that's what the fuck he's gonna do. Unbelievable. You know, what's interesting to me, Crystal, is whenever there's somebody who is not like the typical, you know, PC lefty going after somebody. Like, it's easy to dismiss those people. Like, you have pink hair, you're ridiculous, you know, you overreach.

But when it's Bill Burr, super politically incorrect, but also happens to lean left on a lot of things. Yeah. Like, I feel like the criticism is so much more biting. Yeah. You just feel it more. You're like, oh, like the criticism is so much more biting. Yeah. You just feel it more. You're like, oh, DeSantis is getting bodied right now. Yeah, that's really true. And it's worth providing a little bit of the context here of what he's reacting to that DeSantis actually did. Right. Yeah. Let me go ahead and dive into this. Let me show you guys this graphic here. So this is in NPR. Florida's governor says school leaders' salary may be

withheld if they require masks. And then let me read you a little bit of this. As the majority of Florida's K-12 schools prepare to reopen campuses at full capacity this week, many of them on Tuesday, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the State Board of Education could withhold pay from school leaders who implement mask mandates for students. The move to potentially punish educators follows days of controversy, during which school district superintendents and school board members are seeking to comply with the CDC. They ignored an executive order from DeSantis banning school districts from requiring students to wear face masks. So, yeah, go ahead. You jump in. So listen, my kids are back in school this week, actually, go ahead. You jump in. county and, you know, what's going on with my kids, I'm good with that decision. But what's so

ridiculous about Republicans is that they're all about like, oh, they're anti big government and freedom and all of that until some liberal locality makes a decision that they don't like. And then they pulled the full like authoritarian force of the government coming down. And this is ridiculous. These are people who consistently argue for local control and the importance of that in a republic and all of this. But then in order to make some like weird political statement, you're not only going to ban school systems for doing what their school board, which is elected and, you know, the parents in their community think is right for their children based on local conditions. But then you're going to go that extra level of like punishing them and withholding their salary and all of that. It's just completely ridiculous. And the other thing

that has always struck me as so weird is like, you know, these are the same people who are not in favor of any kind of vaccine mandate or really like pushing people to get the vaccine and they're skeptical of COVID. Like if you want to make sure you don't have lockdowns and keep things open and allow these schools to be able to function, then you should be in favor of the type of protective measures like masking that can make sure that you don't have to go back

into lockdown because there's like a breakthrough surge in one of these communities. Now, if you leave it up to the individual schools in Florida, my guess is most of them actually would do what DeSantis wants, which is just, you know, they're not going to wear masks and that's fine. They have the authority to do that. But remember, DeSantis is purposefully going out there to say this so that you don't listen to the CDC guidance at the moment because the CDC is saying it's probably a good idea if you guys want to do it. So, yes, I mean, it's just another clear example of when the decision,

when he thinks the decision is not going to line up with his own politics, then he imposes. And Burr hits the nail on the head, which is that he's not doing this because he really cares about masks or any of that. He's doing it because it's a political stunt. He wants to run for president. He thinks the base will eat this up. And this is the culture war issue, right? This is the culture war issue. And he's very good at this. He's done this a number of times. He did it with his tech censorship thing, which had a gigantic carve out for Disney, by the way. His protesting bill, too. Made a big show of that.

His protesting bill is another great example of banning certain types of protests. And also making it effectively illegal for you to run protesters over with your car. And making it a felony. Making it legal for you to run protesters over with your car. You said illegal. Oh, sorry. Making it legal. Everybody got it.

Yeah. And then the last one was, this was really entertaining to see unfold, made it a felony to block a roadway with a protest. And then Getsu just blocked multiple roadways, including like interstates, I think. What their protest was the pro, you know, the Cuba protesters in the recent uprisings there. So the law wasn't applied to them. But anyway, the point is he's very good at seizing on these cultural issues, putting out a big press release, getting a bunch of media attention over it. He put out, he also, this didn't even like come across my radar,

but this was apparently a big story across all of the cable news networks. He put out this merchandise that says, Don't Fauci my Florida. And this got coverage. What does that even mean? Right. This got coverage on all three, significant coverage on all three of the cable news networks. Jesus Christ. Because I was doing research to see, you know, what they had been covering instead of covering like the coal miner strike. Right. And there was another big labor story that hadn't that wasn't getting, I think the Frito-Lay strike that didn't get any coverage either.

And so I was like, okay, well, what were they covering? And all three of them had done like multiple segments on this don't Fauci my Florida merchandise. So he is kind of the king of like seizing on these stupid cultural issues and making a big show of it for a national base. I did see some poll numbers that say in the state of Florida,

his approval rating is tanking. Is it? But nationwide, if Trump doesn't run. Yeah, he's leading by a lot. He's leading in terms of the Republican primary. So politically, it's working for him. Yeah. And I guess the final point I want to make is that, listen, there's plenty of examples of like the experts and the doctors at every step of this pandemic being wrong. And so that needs to be said. But at the same time, if you're, give me a hundred decisions made by doctors and experts and medical advisors. Give me a hundred of those and then medical people over Ron DeSantis, a Republican politician. And that's Burr's point. And Burr actually made this point.

Listen, I love Joe Rogan. He's a friend of mine. He's great. But Burr actually made this point to Joe Rogan in a podcast with Joe Rogan when Rogan wanted to talk about COVID and he brought some stuff up. And Burr's like, really? We're going to do this again? Listen, Joe, you're not a doctor. I'm not a doctor.

We're done with this. And Joe was giggling because he sort of, Joe knew. Joe's contrary to what a lot of people believe. Joe's actually a really smart guy. And so you could see in his eyes that he was like, like, of course I know that I'm being silly and I don't know what I'm talking about. But Bill Burr was basically like, then let's nip this in the bud. We're done here.

I don't want to talk about this. I don't know anything about this. Let's do a fart joke instead. Yeah. I do a terrible Bill Burr impression. I thought that was pretty good, actually. You liked it? Yeah.

It was better than what I could pull off. Wow. You guys must really like listening to our voices. While I know this is annoying, instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial, when you're done, check out the other podcast I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American society.

You always need more Crystal and Saga in your daily lives. Take care, guys. So Crystal, why don't you go ahead and tell us what you're looking at today? As we've been discussing here, Democrats this week voted to advance a budget resolution that officially launches that reconciliation process. Now, the top line price tag is $3.5 trillion, and the budget instructions will now go to all of the Senate committees for a bunch of additional haggling. In September, sometime thereabouts, legislation will likely, less than $3.5 trillion, will emerge to be considered and further haggled over. The Senate version will then be reconciled

with the House version, and we will all be here to see what remains after Manchin, Sinema, the so-called Problem Solvers Caucus, and the Senate Parliamentarian have had their say. In other words, this process is just beginning, and there's some pretty good reason to be concerned. A lot of not just nice to have or important to have, but absolutely critical pieces of the bill might just be left on the cutting room floor. For example, Senator Manchin has already threatened not just to extract his pound of flesh here from the $3.5 trillion bill, but to potentially blow up the whole thing entirely. But this isn't another monologue worrying about Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema or the problem solvers, terrible politics, or even the complete mania of letting the Senate parliamentarian dictate what can and can't make it through.

For one moment, let's assume the very best case scenario, that we actually end up with the full reconciliation package. That would include the Renewable Energy Standard, Universal Pre-K, Free Community College, lowering the Medicare age, and all of the other truly laudatory things that Senator Sanders fought to get included. And by the way, I do think he deserves a tremendous amount of credit for making the starting bid here as good as it actually is. So in the very best case scenario, how should we think about this bill? Now, when Kyle and I spoke with Professor Richard Wolff on Tuesday, he put it into perspective. If this were to pass as is, which is a big if,

but if it were to pass as is, would it be the biggest fundamental transformation of the American economy since the New Deal? Yes, it would be since the New Deal. But that's the crucial caveat that you've given there. We are in a crisis that is much worse in ways I'll mention in a minute than the New Deal, but we're proposing something which is the best since the New Deal, but is modest compared to the New Deal if you understand the scope. In the New Deal, we fundamentally changed the economy. We created Social Security, unemployment compensation, the first minimum wage, a federal jobs program employing millions. That was a staggering transformation. Compared to that, this one, which is the biggest since then, is still, relative to the economy, modest.

And that's the problem. So FDR's genius was recognizing that the U.S. didn't just need to plug some holes or shore up some existing programs, that an entire reorganization and rethinking of the economy at that point was necessary. He famously wrote at the time that it was, quote, time for the country to become fairly radical for a generation. He recognized that if he didn't make the economy work for working people, then an actual revolution might happen, bringing to power communists or fascists or someone else. So don't let, right now, Joe Manchin or anyone else convince you that all is going well for working people in America. Would a nation in which all is well have elected Donald Trump, and by the way, be contemplating electing him again? Of course not.

Inequality has never been higher. Addiction and overdose deaths have never been higher. Suicide rates have never been higher. And life expectancy has been declining for years now. Last year, it dropped to the lowest level since 2003. So do we need a new deal? Yes, we do. Is this program, as conceived, a new, new deal?

No, it's not. Even at its very best, it doesn't even catch us up to where the rest of the developed world is in terms of a social safety net, let alone lead the way in rethinking what a new economic model might look like. But there's another consideration here which comes into increasing focus with each passing day. A new

economic model must include a radical change in our approach to the climate. It is absolutely clear. The climate is warming, the consequences have arrived, and they are even worse than we thought. The planet has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius and the resulting fires, have arrived, and they are even worse than we thought. The planet has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius, and the resulting fires, droughts, and floods are going to get worse for the next 30 years. That's no matter what we do. We're also on track to quickly blow past the 1.5 degrees Celsius increase that scientists have long identified as a crucial tipping point for the future of the planet. The track we are currently on would have us warming the planet by between 5.5 and 11 degrees,

that's Fahrenheit, over the next 80 years. However catastrophic you think that would be, it would be worse. Constant natural catastrophes, massive instability and war due to resource scarcity and refugee flows,rop failures, famine, Miami underwater, the Middle East uninhabitable, mass extinctions, true dystopian nightmare stuff. Now, we should have acted 30 years ago, or 20 years ago, or in the Obama years, and if we had the kind of gentle changes that are being contemplated by the Biden administration, might approach being sufficient. But we didn't do that. And so even the best case scenario for reconciliation, untouched by Joe Manchin's meddling, is not even close to enough. Ryan Cooper of The Week laid out that inadequacy of what's being contemplated quite well in a rather alarming piece titled,

American Government is Heading for a Climate-Induced Legituced legitimacy crisis. So he writes there, Democrats are hoping to pass a separate reconciliation bill with about $3.5 trillion in additional spending over 10 years. That's roughly 1% of GDP, a modest bill. But even if that was entirely climate stuff, and only a small part actually is, it is maybe a fifth the size of what a serious attack on climate change would be. Progress is being made, but it just is not anywhere near the scale of the problem. Then,

because Democrats will likely lose control of the House of Representatives at least next year, and Republicans don't believe in doing anything about the climate problem, that will probably be it for climate policy for the rest of the decade, if not longer. He then makes the case that such monumental failures of government and elites to respond to clear and present dangers are precisely the sort of stuff that revolutions are made of. This argument, frankly, is rather compelling. Now look, it might today be the college-educated and the young who are primarily concerned about the climate, but there is no doubt that it will be the poor and the working class who are bearing the brunt of the catastrophe. Frankly, they already are. After all, who will be left

without the resources to adapt? Who will be forced to work outside in unlivable heat? Who will bear the brunt of resource shortages and be unable to rebuild after their lives are turned upside down by extreme weather events? And who will correctly blame the elites that were more interested in the next campaign check from ExxonMobil than they were in averting disaster. So look, I am cheering for the $3.5 trillion to get through. Let me be clear about that. And to survive as close to intact as possible, I do not want to downplay the significance of the child tax credit, the investments in care and housing and health. But we also can't close our eyes to that bigger picture. The carbon dioxide in the air does not care about political realities or midterm elections.

This scientific certainty carries on with the ultimate version of F your feelings. Even in the best case scenario, that bigger picture ends in catastrophe. And so, listen, I've been thinking a lot about how to think about. One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle and Friends,

where we do long form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or you can subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. All right, Kyle, what are you looking at? So I have the worst example of the media failing for you this week. This really is something else.

Brian Stelter went on Colbert's late night show where he proceeded to make a fool of himself discussing the Cuomo brothers and the network's conflict of interest. He, the New York Times, has just reported, a report just dropped, because it had been alleged that he was helping his brother with his communications team. New York Times is reporting that that's true. Chris was helping his brother. What's, has that created any conflict over at CNN behind closed doors? Are people mad at him, or is he, is he in trouble?

Some people are mad at him. By the way, I can confirm the New York Times report. I'll confirm it for your viewers. I also have a source that says Chris was on the phone with his brother this week. Is your source Chris Cuomo? He is not. He is not. You gotta have boundaries. You gotta draw lines. Why? He doesn't.

I think he does, actually. Really? I think Chris does. I don't know about the governor. What are the boundaries? I think Chris does. What are the boundaries? The boundary that CNN management presented to him in May when they admitted he screwed up. They said, you know, what you did was inappropriate. You were on the phone with your brother's aides advising them on what to do. And that was inappropriate. But they said, of course, you're going to talk to your brother.

You know, there's nothing more important. But he didn't talk about his brother once the trouble started. He said, I'm not going to talk about my brother. And that was also a management ruling. But why didn't they rule that way when his brother was on the show pretty much every night during the COVID crisis? Yeah, I think it's really complicated. That seems like an odd conflict of rules. It is an odd conflict, but I don't think if we open up the journalism ethics book, there's no page for this.

It's the craziest set of circumstances you can imagine, right? A governor and a brother, both in these high-profile jobs. This was definitely awkward for CNN, though. It's awkward for CNN because it exposes it for what it is, a propaganda network for the corporate Democrats. It really isn't really complicated, as Brian Stelter says. It's simple. And on the contrary, there is a page for this in the journalism ethics book. In fact, it's the point of the entire book. That's the entire book. Look at the sections on conflict of interest and rank bias. Chris was advising his brother on how to respond to allegations of sexual

harassment and assault. That's hardly objective, which a news anchor is supposed to be. That's hardly neutral, which one could argue a news anchor is supposed to be, that's hardly neutral, which one could argue a news anchor is supposed to be. Brian was saying that Chris was advising Andrew to step down as governor there. I don't buy it. I highly doubt it. And what's really happening here is Brian Stelter is trying to save whatever tiny scraps of his reputation, of Chris Cuomo's reputation, remains. And Stelter is helping him launder his image back into polite society. And my guess is he's sitting there crossing his fingers, hoping that he doesn't get axed. So Brian said, quote, I think Chris does have standards and

boundaries he won't cross. A claim so preposterous, it even made liberal elite ally Stephen Colbert recoil in disgust. That's really something. CNN said, what you did was inappropriate to Chris. This is what we're told. But they 100% signed off on it. CNN banned Cuomo from talking about his brother, so understand that he was allowed to do propaganda for him, but he can't accurately report against him. The fact of the matter is, it's not just Brian Stelter. The entire media built a false narrative around Cuomo. Watch this. David, we're standing by for Governor Cuomo's press conference, his daily briefing. How would you contrast Cuomo and President Trump's handling of the crisis?

Truth versus mendacity. Governor Cuomo out there day after day after day. Everything Trump isn't honest, direct, brave. Real leadership of the kind the president of the United States should have provided. Governor Cuomo is clearly living in a totally different reality, the actual one, than the president of the United States. Governor Cuomo has become a national leader. For a lot of people, Andrew Cuomo has become the leader of the Democratic Party.

He is conveying incredible strength. You spoke to National Guard troops today in a stirring speech that, if I wasn't listening carefully, I thought you were sending soldiers off to war. This has been a remarkable show of leadership by Governor Cuomo in recent days. He's providing hope, but not false hope. Governor Cuomo, I think, is one of the heroes on the front lines. With all of this adulation that you're getting for doing your job, are you thinking about running for president? Andrew Cuomo, who has a daily television show now and has become in some ways the shadow president. Maybe Trump is just a little bit mad that Governor Cuomo has become a kind of acting president.

Dealing with hardship actually makes you stronger. That's what Governor Cuomo said earlier today. That's what I'm going to go teach my kids right now at home. Speaking about the delicacy of the nose. And that's what you know what I understand. This is the normal swab I'm holding up here now and for everybody at home, a very valuable object. There's only one company in the entire country that makes these up in Maine. All right. Here's the swap. Is it true that this was the swab that the nurse was actually using on you and that at first it went into your nose and disappeared so that in scale

this was the actual swab that was being used to fit up that double barrel shotgun that you have mounted on the front of your pretty face face. See? So funny. And this is just a little sample of what really went on. I could have picked a thousand more clips. Like for example, when they talked about, hey, our Sunday dinners, we have the spaghetti and meatballs and Ma talks to us and it's wonderful. This was on CNN, supposed to be the number one name in news. So why did they do this? They did this for two reasons. Number one, quite simple, they're partisan hacks. They defend the corporate Democrats all day and night. But number two, they wanted an anti-Trump hero. And so they fell for the theater and pushed the theater on everybody else. They built this narrative on vague character traits

that they projected onto Andrew Cuomo. But I'm here to give you his real record. His real record is as follows. He made the executive decision to send COVID-positive patients back to nursing homes, leading to countless deaths. He lied and covered up the true death toll from COVID in all of New York State. He gave immunity to nursing home executives so they couldn't be sued, and he allowed the industry to write the law. He made $5 million from a book about how he led New York through COVID when New

York was actually hit hardest in the nation at the time. He gave his family and allies VIP treatment and access to COVID tests when they were really hard to get. He created the Moreland Commission to investigate corruption. Then he disbanded it when it looked into his allies and by extension, him. A federal jury convicted Cuomo's right-hand man, Executive Deputy Secretary and Campaign Manager Joseph Percoco. They found him guilty of accepting more than $320,000 in bribes. He cut Medicaid, Andrew Cuomo did, during the pandemic. Cut health care during a pandemic. These are the facts. Some of these things were even known

while the media was lionizing him as a great man and a great leader. The perpetual failure of the media is a reminder that just because they have billions of dollars and name recognition and the veneer of respectability does not make them good at their job. In fact, much smaller independent YouTube shows like Breaking Points and like my show, Secular Talk, can run circles around them. And guess what? That's not because we're so good. It's because they are just that bad. So, Crystal. I think we're also that good. But anyway, go on. Oh, you think we're also that good? I'm a silly man who makes part. So joining us now, we've got the founder of The Daily Poster, great friend of the show, David Cerato. Great to see you, David.

Great to see you. Thanks for having me. Of course. So we were just chatting about Governor Cuomo. I know one of your personal favorites. You've been a longtime admirer of his leadership in New York. No, I mean, seriously, David, you get a lot of credit because before anyone was covering this guy's actual record during COVID, you were highlighting in particular the corruption with the liability shield that he lifted directly from industry language in order to protect nursing home executives. Why do you think it is that this time he actually got taken out and ends up resigning? And also, why do you think it is that this time he actually got taken out and ends up resigning? And also, why do you think it is that those scandals with regards to the nursing home and hiding the deaths and corruption and all of that, why that wasn't sufficient to take him out to start with? Well, that's the

disturbing thing is that there was a lot that came out about his actual record on economic policy, on healthcare policy and the like, corruption, a lot came out before the details of him being a sexual predator came out. And the law enforcement apparatus really did not move against him, and the political apparatus really did not move against him until the sexual harassment stuff all came out after the other stuff. So the question is, have we actually normalized all of the other stuff? I mean, have we actually sent the message as the political system and the governmental law enforcement system sent the message that, hey, you know, if you bury the data on nursing home deaths, if you give corporate liability shields to your nursing home industry donors,

all to get a $5 million book deal for yourself, is that all okay? Right? I mean, I think when we walk away from this and we look at this, I think the answer is that the political and law enforcement system basically said, yeah, that stuff is fine. Being a sexual predator is not fine. Now, look, it's good news that Andrew Cuomo is being forced from office because of those, the details of him being a sexual predator.

Like, that stuff is what he did was really, really bad. But I think the question is, why was the other stuff okay? And I would suggest the part of it has to do with the fact that if you go after Andrew Cuomo for what he did on nursing home issues and corruption, doing favors for his donors, then the political system itself is essentially scandalizing and criminalizing a lot of stuff that the system itself has been involved in. In other words, a lot of those members of the legislature, for instance, who might want

to impeach him or would consider impeaching him over the nursing home issue, in some ways they were complicit too, right? I mean, the Democrats in the New York Assembly, they got a lot of money from the same health care interests that were given a legal liability shield for what they did in the COVID disaster. So to go after that would be to potentially open up other scrutiny of other people in New York politics. And so it was kind of swept under the rug. So, David, this is a pretty simple question, but do you think he would have gotten away with everything else in the long run if there wasn't the sexual harassment stuff? Because I was reading last night, and you actually wrote a lot of the stuff that I was reading, but there was an investigation, or is an investigation, ongoing into what used to be called the Tappan Zee Bridge, and now it's called the Cuomo Bridge, because they used the incorrect bolts, and the bolts were breaking for the bridge, and they tried to bury that. So could he potentially have gone down for something like that? Could he have gone down for the fact that his right-hand man and

former campaign manager went down for over $300,000 in bribes? Could he have gone down for the nursing home thing? What's your take on that? Well, look, there's a lot of scandals in Andrew Cuomo's past, and he's managed to basically just muscle through them. And I think we live in an era where politicians have realized that if they just don't say anything and they just stay put, they can essentially power through scandals that used to take down other politicians. Now, I don't know what would have come out in a federal prosecution investigation with subpoena power. It's not clear what would have come out in a full impeachment inquiry and an impeachment process. So it's hard to say whether he would have survived. the COVID, the last surge of the pandemic of last year, that he was considered a rising star and

portrayed as a great hero in the media as that nursing home situation was unfolding. And as whistleblowers in the New York legislature, people like Assemblyman Ron Kim were blowing the whistle and essentially the political system, the media system didn't really care about those alarms. It just continued forward, portraying him, Cuomo, as a great hero. So I kind of think that what we've done is we've normalized a level of corruption that really defines politics in America today. And to be clear, look, Chris Christie proved this before right across the bridge in New Jersey, right? Chris Christie had that huge scandal. Now, granted, it hurt his favorability rating, but Chris Christie remained in office through that entire scandal and just kind of muscled through it.

And so it leaves us with the idea that if you're a politician who does really, really awful, scandalous things, in a lot of ways, you can just sit there and essentially muscle through it. Yeah. And still to this day, to the point that, you know, when President Biden has asked, well, putting aside the sexual harassment stuff, did he do a good job? Hell of a job as a government. That's what Biden said. That's right. I wanted to ask you, David, to lay out a little bit more of this latest piece you wrote about Obama and climate. We've been covering here a lot this week, the UN climate report that came out that really laid out just how dire the situation truly is, how far we've already gone down a very ugly path, some of the damage irreversible, the floods and the droughts and the wildfires we're experiencing now, going

to continue no matter what we do for the next 30 years, the ice that's melting, all of those things going to continue for even longer. That's not to say we can't act and forestall the worst possible outcomes, however. And you're talking about how, look, we had another era of democratic control and we had a chance at that point to act earlier and get a handle on these things. And not only did we not act, but we did the opposite of that under the Obama administration. Just make the case for us. Yeah, I mean, I think this is something we really have to remember right now because there aren't going to be that many moments. This may be the last moment where you have Democratic control

of Washington. So actually a chance to pass real things on climate, because when the Republicans are in control, I mean, that is a party of climate, a full, explicit climate denialism. But we have to remember that during the Obama era, there was one way you could look at the policy of the Obama era was another form of climate denial. I mean, there is a clip of Barack Obama only three years ago demanding an audience thank him. He said, that was me, people. That's the quote. When talking about record oil production, record fossil fuel production during the Obama era. He gave a speech in 2012 in Oklahoma touting all sorts of drilling records that were being broken, all sorts of pipeline infrastructure construction levels that were unprecedented, that he was

presiding over and that he was supporting during his presidency. And there wasn't much democratic pushback, at least not pushback, to change that policy. So the point is that if you actually look at the Obama administration record on fossil fuels flooding into the world market, lifting the crude oil export ban and the like, it was a record that if we repeat at this point of democratic control of Washington, we're essentially doomed. And the scary thing is, the really scary thing is, is that even in the last 24 hours, you've seen a kind of echoes of what's gone on, what went on in the Obama era. You know, Obama, great rhetoric on climate, acknowledged it explicitly. And look, he wasn't all bad. I mean, he did solidify or add America

as a participant in the Paris Accords. So it wasn't all bad, certainly better than Donald Trump. But the point is, is that if you look at even what happened the last 24 hours, same thing, right? Joe Biden has tweeted out, you know, climate is an emergency, we can't wait. And then within the same 24-hour window, he goes out and he calls for OPEC to increase the production of oil. Now, look, we have a serious problem with the world market and oil production. And if it's not produced in the United States, it'll be produced elsewhere. And how do we actually deal with that? Those are all legitimate questions. But there's obviously a fundamental contradiction when a

president is saying, take climate change seriously and then pushing for more oil production. That's what happened in the Obama era, and it was a disaster. If that happens again in this era, it will be an even worse disaster. Now, all of that is a bummer, but here's the silver lining, is that I think that politics has changed a bit since the Obama era. And you do have a handful of legislators who are now saying they are not going to pass the infrastructure bill unless a serious climate bill passes along with it. That kind of dynamic in democratic politics really did not exist before. And so those legislators who are saying they're going to hold out, whether or not they actually follow through, and that's a big if, if they follow through or not, that is a huge thing. It could be a game changer.

So, David, how do we overcome? This is a point that Crystal's made over and over. I think Manchin is the head of one of the committees that's going to be in charge of stripping out a lot of these provisions on climate. And so I guess my question is, how do we overcome that? Is it like a bottom up thing? Do we need bodies in the streets immediately to have any chance at all? Or is it if these lawmakers that you just described, the left flank, if they hold the line, is that going to be enough to get something done? How do we get from point A to point B? Well, I think it's all of the above. I think legislatively, I think that the, and you know, there's a lot of process being thrown here, the reconciliation bill and the infrastructure bill, but it's, it's the basics are this. Joe Manchin and, and Kyrsten Sinema and conservative Democrats really want that infrastructure bill, that smaller bipartisan infrastructure bill, which doesn't have much climate stuff in it at all. They really,

really want that. So the strategy here is that, and this is the so-called no climate, no deal strategy. The strategy is basically, we will not pass that bill until the bill with the climate stuff, the reconciliation bill, also passes. And it's kind of a game of chicken. And the idea is that the best leverage that you have on Joe Manchin is, if he wants that infrastructure bill, then he will have to accept the reconciliation bill. And that, to me, that seems like just within this legislative battle here, this specific battle, that's what the no climate, no deal crew has to hold out for, and is saying they will hold out for. Now, look, we've been down this road before. I mean, the same crew of progressive legislators did not hold out for a $15 minimum wage back in the first big Biden spending bill.

So again, whether or not they hold out is actually the big question. And whether or not they're really willing to play a game of chicken with Manchin is the question. And here's the thing, is that if they are willing to hold out, the best they can hope for, I think, is that it would mobilize the full force of the White House to put the screws on Manchin. In other words, the White House wants all these bills as well. So the way to actually mobilize the White House's apparatus is to say to the White House, if you don't fulfill our demands for that reconciliation bill, you're not getting any of this. And that mobilizes the White House to actually put the pressure on the moderate part, the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. Last question I wanted to ask you, David, I saw this conversation popping up on Twitter

after Nina Turner lost in the Democratic primaries, basically like, you silly lefties, like, of course you're not going to win when you all are running around criticizing Barack Obama, who's wildly popular in the Democratic base. Don't you know this isn't the way to get ahead in terms of politics? So I wonder if you could explain what you make of that criticism to start with and why you think it's important to set the record straight about the reality, nuance, good, bad, and ugly, all of that of the former president's actual legacy? Well, look, I certainly think we live in the era of identity politics. And the biggest and most powerful political identity has become party affiliation and party loyalty. That is the world we live in. It is lamentable. It is a product of decades of propaganda, corporate media propaganda, saying that the main Party brand, not who is better on the issues, not who is going to fight for a $15 minimum wage or a Green New Deal, but literally who is more

loyal, rhetorically speaking, to the Democratic Party establishment. And it's a kind of a tragedy that that's the way races are run. They're not really about issues anymore, and that that's trickled down to the voters. And again, that's a product of that propaganda. And as it relates to former presidents, I mean, that's the ultimate loyalty test. Have you ever criticized a Democratic president, a former Democratic president? And my take is that there's a lot of education that needs to be done through media, through public information about the records of, we just talked about Barack Obama's record on climate. I mean, that is not really in the public consciousness of what actually happened. It's not really in even the consciousness, the mass consciousness of the Democratic primary electorate.

And I don't think it's necessarily a good political strategy for a candidate running for office to necessarily, that's not really the candidate's job to criticize former presidents, but it is the job of outside groups, of honest media critics to do that public education. So that when a candidate says, listen, I think we need to have a better climate policy than we have under Barack Obama, that that makes a whole lot of sense. I mean, that empirically makes a whole lot of sense, but politically it should make a whole lot of sense to be able to say that. But right now we're living in an environment where even if you say something like that, or as Nina Turner said, vis-a-vis Joe Biden, I will be a congressperson who will push him to deliver more. That was portrayed as apostasy, as blasphemy, as unacceptable. But we need to get to a politics

where that's the kind of thing that we need from members of Congress. Yeah, I think that's really well said. Again, I just want to tell everybody, David was out front and Daily Poster was out front, breaking news on Cuomo, always following the money in terms of corruption, breaking stories at the Daily Poster all the time. So if you guys are able, go over and subscribe to dailyposter.com,

doing great work there. If you believe in independent media, David is one of the people you should definitely be supporting. Always grateful for your time and your insights, David. Thank you so much. Thank you both. Thank you for having me. Always. And thank you guys for watching this week. As always, if you also want to support us, $10 a month, become a premium subscriber. You get the videos an hour early. You get to help us say screw you to mainstream media. And actually this week, you get a premium member-only interview with Kyle Kalinsky. Ask you some questions about how the week went and your process and all that good stuff.

All the things that you guys want to need to know. Normally we do an Ask Me Anything with myself and Sagar that premium subscribers get. But since Sagar's not here, we're doing that instead. Thank you for doing this this week. It's been fun. So it's my pleasure. Again, I want to thank everybody out there for putting up with me. I know that people are fiercely loyal to the content creators that they support.

So when somebody sits in the chair, it's always controversial. So again, thanks to everybody for putting up with me. I apologize if I cursed way too much. I tried so hard to reel it in. Maybe I was a little bit successful. You guys will be the ultimate judge of that. But if you don't mind, just real quick, a shameless plug for myself while I'm here. If you like me cursing like a sailor, please check out Secular Talk on YouTube.

That's my channel. Where we also, by the way, we post clips from Crystal Kylan Friends as well, which is my podcast with the brilliant and lovely, Crystal Ball. And so, you know, you'll see me cursing in every video, and you'll see me and Crystal Ball talking to, you know, amazing people like Noam Chomsky and Cornel West and Bernie Sanders, who you just had an awesome interview with, and many others. So, again, thanks, everybody. I really appreciate it, and it's my pleasure to fill in for Sagar whenever he wants to go and have a little getaway. Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, go subscribe at Secular Talk. We've got Steven Donziger on Crystal Collins Friends for a long interview to talk about the way he's being smeared and attempted to be destroyed by Chevron. So you don't want to miss that. Appreciate you guys. Love you guys. Enjoy the weekend. We'll have some great content posting over the weekend as well. And we will see you next week.

And assuming all goes well, Saga will be back next week as well. Enjoy, guys. Thanks for listening to the show, guys. We really appreciate it. To help other people find the show, go ahead and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It really help other people find the show go ahead and leave us a five star rating on apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast really helps other people find the show as always special thank you to supercast for powering our premium membership if you want to find out more go to crystal and saga.com dna test proves he is not the father now i'm taking the

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