Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/17/23: Biden Shamed Into Hawaii Visit, Fox News Disarray As Trump Beats DeSantis, Chinese Economy Plummeting, Passport Delays Nightmare Travel, Cops Rebuked In Kansas Raid, Youtube's New Medical Censorship, Homelessness Surges

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Biden shamed into a Hawaii visit as death toll rises, Hawaiians call out real estate vultures for preying on burned lands, Fox News reveals its new "power rankings" of the GOP candidates, Was Peter Zeihan Right? As Chinese Economy goes down, extreme Passport delays screw millions of travelers, Kansas cops rebuked by Prosecutor into returning newspaper equipment from insane raid, Saagar looks into YouTube's new medical censorship regime, and Krystal looks into Homelessness surging after Safety Net ripped away.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. is irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week

early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process.

Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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

for you out of Hawaii and a lot of residents very concerned about potential disaster capitalism. I think those concerns are pretty justified. So we'll break all of that down for you. And the death toll unfortunately continues to rise. We also have some new polls, how Americans feel about the latest Trump indictments. And also Fox News is kind of a mess right now, trying to figure out what they're gonna do because they were on team Ron DeSantis, that isn't working out, they're floating some new names. It's all kind of hilarious results over there,

so we will play some of that for you. Also really dire economic numbers coming out of China. We have some reports from there that we can break down for you and see what is going on. And a story that's kind of flying under the radar, passports are taking forever to be issued by the State Department. It's really a mess. People, I mean, you might think, oh, big deal, but you've got wives who are trying to visit their husbands overseas who are deployed and

they're not getting their passports in time. So for a lot of people, this is a major issue and also speaks to broader sort of dysfunction. And we've got an update for you on that story out of Kansas that we brought you earlier this week of a small local newspaper, which was raided in incredibly aggressive fashion by the police. So we'll break all of that down for you. Before we get to any of that, though, I want to thank all of the premium subscribers out there who have been helping us to do all sorts of new and exciting things. And we've got a big interview that we are taping today. Should we go ahead and reveal the name? This is going to be an interesting one. You can tease it. I think it's still happening. We're making sure. Yeah. So Chris Matthews of former MSNBC fame is going to be here in studio.

We have lots of questions for him. We certainly do. First race questions, Biden, how's Biden doing? And also we definitely want to dig into the media with him. None of this would be possible if it wasn't for you beautiful people out there subscribing, premium subscribers. You really make all of this happen. Yes. And you guys will be getting first access to the interview. So if you want to go ahead and sign up, breakingpoints.com, all of our big interviews, they go first to our premium subs before they debut publicly on our YouTube and our podcast feed. So we're excited. We'll be releasing that one a little bit separately because I hope that we get to talk to him for a long time. Maybe get a couple of barbs in there.

I have a few questions about Chris's time there on MSNBC. I want to know if you really thought that if Bernie Sanders won, he was going to be rounded up and executed. Yeah, I'm just more curious. It's like, well, you were a fixture of cable television for 30 years. People don't trust the news. I'm like, why do you think that is? Yeah.

I'm really excited to get into that with him. It'll be a good conversation. Okay. All right. Hawaii, we have to return just absolutely continuing devastating news out of Hawaii. President Biden, clearly, you're basically shamed now into saying that he will visit on Monday after days of silence. Here he was announcing that at a recent press conference. Let's take a listen. My wife, Jill, and I are going to travel to Hawaii as soon as we can. That's what I've been talking to the governor about. I don't want to get in the way. I've been to too many disaster areas, but I want to go make sure we got everything they need. Want to be sure we

don't disrupt the ongoing recovery efforts. We're working with the state to make sure survivors have lost their homes, have a place to call home until we can rebuild. We're working with the state to make sure survivors that have lost their homes have a place to call home until we can rebuild. We're also surging federal personnel to the state to help the brave firefighters and first responders, many of whom lost their own homes, but not just our prayers. Every asset, every asset they need will be there for them. And we will be there in Maui as long as it takes. Took five days to actually open his mouth about that.

Three after this infamous no comment with a smile while he was on vacation. It's obvious that the media and national criticism and really, you know, so I guess thanks to everybody here and our shows, many others out there, kind of a cacophony of voices being like, what the hell are you doing? Crystal, the thing is about his explanation is he could have given that explanation three days earlier. There's literally no reason that he had to wait so long and then is deciding to go on Monday. I mean, look, I think it's good to go, but more importantly is like, are these people actually getting what they need? And interestingly enough, even the press corps is starting to bristle a little bit at some of the Biden administration's claims. Oh, you guys are doing everything. One reporter was like,

listen, I'm talking to people after people and say, I don't have any government resources. I don't see the feds out here doing anything. So I don't know what the hell you're talking about. The FEMA director herself was directly challenged yesterday. Let's take a listen. We keep interviewing survivor after survivor who says that either they didn't see any government personnel or assistance for days or that they still haven't. How do you explain the disconnect between what they're saying and what you're saying about all the resources that are there right now? I think you need to understand that this community is going through an amazingly traumatic event. I can tell you that we have personnel that are on the ground year round and embedded in with the state as soon as the fire started, so we could continue to understand what resources were needed and help move them in.

What do you see there, Crystal? I mean, one is reality. One is a spin, I think, from the federal government. Don't worry, they do have $700 that they're getting as a disaster relief payment, which is just so ridiculous. And same time, they want $24 billion or whatever extra for Ukraine. Note also that he's basically using the same Ukraine language now for Maui, but days later, as long as it takes, like no matter what. I'm like, hmm, interesting in terms of what gets priority and not. But clearly, they're on their heels nationally in terms of the response. Yeah, well, understandably so. They were so late to it. And look, I'm glad he's going. It's,

I think, pathetic that he had to be shamed into it, but good that he is taking time out of his Tahoe vacation to head down there. But, you know, the real question continues to be the strength and aggressiveness of the recovery on the ground, it is impossible to wrap your head around the grief and the pain and the terror that these people have experienced and continue to experience. The more that I learn about it, the more horrified that I am. And, you know, there was a hopeful story, which I think also underscores why it's important to keep the recovery and relief effort going as quickly as you possibly can. They did actually just find 60 people who were huddled together in one house, 60 survivors located there at one time.

They didn't have any electricity and communications were down, so they weren't able to alert people. They've now been returned to their families. So there may be other really hopeful stories like that that are out there. But this morning, the latest numbers are 111 people confirmed dead. There's still more than a thousand people who are missing. And it's really slow going in terms of searching this charred landscape. The latest that I saw from yesterday evening is that, you know, they've got cadaver dies is really grim stuff. Cadaver dogs who are going through painstakingly through this area where any place could contain human remains.

And they've gotten through about 38 percent of the area that was burned. So it is a disastrous situation. And part of what makes it so incredibly heartbreaking and heart wrenching is put this up on the screen. This is from the Wall Street Journal. You know, what happened is there were a lot of the local schools were supposed to be back in session that day, and they had to cancel that morning because the electricity went out because of the storm. And so these are working class parents here in Lahaina and Maui, and they had to leave their kids, you know, at home or with grandparents or whatever and go to their jobs, often working at the tourist resorts that were outside of the burn

zone. And so these kids oftentimes were left alone or, like I said, with elderly relatives. So there's a lot of fear that overwhelmingly the numbers of the dead may be little children. Here's a quote from the piece. They say several schools in and around Lahaina were set to open last Tuesday. Classes were canceled when the power went out that morning. Many families in the largely working class community left children home alone or with older relatives while parents went to work at businesses, including resorts, which are outside of Lahaina and were largely spared. So it gives you a sense of the heartbreak here. You know, we took a little bit of heat for criticizing Biden. I just, listen, I cannot imagine really going to the mat to say, yes, you're doing, it's already everything that needs to be done for these people who are searching for

their potentially dead children. Yes, we should rest on our laurels and I'm sure that they've gotten adequate supplies. No, we're gonna continue pushing for an aggressive relief and whatever it takes for the government to do whatever they possibly can for this community. Let's review the facts, shall we? The president took days in order to open his mouth about this national disaster. At the same time, requested billions of dollars for aid, specifically disaster aid for a foreign nation. At the same time, residents of the said disaster say,

we are not getting enough aid. We don't know where the federal government is. You're saying we don't see anyone here. We are not seeing anyone here. We have open conversation and have shown multiple reports from the people themselves here on this show, as well as elsewhere, about people who are residents saying that they were being actively blocked by the local and state authorities from even organizing separate relief efforts in order to bring supplies to said people who were affected by this disaster. So, okay, if you want to defend that, that's fine. Okay, I mean, I guess that is, you want to black so hard for the current president and overlook those facts when if you think back

to the freak out over Trump's response to Hurricane Maria or Trump's response to Hurricane Harvey or, I mean, wasn't there another big hurricane also while Trump was president or George W. Bush and Katrina? And by the way, I think scrutiny of all those things is a good thing. I think it is a very important order to hold the feet to the fire of the federal government, specifically these administrations, especially whenever we're talking about far-flung places, parts of the United States of citizens who historically do not get the best looked after by the government, getting screwed over, which we are about to get to how they're even continuing

to try and be screwed. I mean, this is just basic governance 101, a big part of the show. Today we're talking about passports, but if you combine all this stuff, the FAA is breaking down. Apparently, flying is just too difficult. We used to figure it out. Nope, 2023, it somehow has gotten worse, more expensive. The freaking government can't even issue the damn passports, the most basic form of government. And then one of the other basic forms is if some really bad stuff happens, the feds are the ones who are in charge, the state themselves. We know that these states historically have been totally unable in order to grapple with this.

So these are the most basic functions of government. Yeah, I apologize for holding our leaders to account for that, for literally one of the most basic aspects of the job. Anyway, speaking though of these people getting preyed on, getting screwed, there has been now a disgusting phenomenon where residents are reporting that realtors, speculators, and other basically agents of the rich are already hounding residents to try and buy their land for pennies on the dollar because this is one of the most desirable vacation spots for the super rich here in the United States. One resident specifically called this out. Let's take a listen.

Yes, homeowners have been reached out by investors and realtors offering to buy their land. And this is disgusting, disgusting. And we just want to make sure that people around the world understand our situation and know that Lahaina is not for sale. It is important that the multi-generational families that come from Lahaina get to continue. We've already been displaced so much. You know, the cost of living in Hawaii is so high. Your median house goes for a million dollars. So, you know, already dealing with that and having an affordable housing crisis and now this just really scares me and concerns me that there will be more Native Hawaiian displacement happening among our community. They should be scared because, you know, and this is one of those where

you look at statements like Jeff Bezos is going to donate $100 million, like Oprah is marshalling resources and all that. And I think that's great. Don't get me wrong. But you start to read about it and you're like, oh, Oprah owns like 800 acres of land on Maui. Jeff Bezos and all these other people all have vacation houses in Hawaii. And you're like, oh, well, actually, a big part of this is that a lot of super rich individuals in the U.S., billionaires, all have compounds in Hawaii. And then you're questioning here about, well, are we making sure 100% that these people are not only made whole, let's say, you know, on insurance purposes for paid out, but

then they're going to be able to repurchase or build said land without having speculators come in and be like, oh no, building materials are going to be actually like 150% more expensive in order to make sure. This is one of the most basic, again, projects of the federal government. Residents there, I think rightfully do fear this because as she pointed to, I kind of long been fascinated by the Hawaiian real estate market where it's like Honolulu is one of the most expensive places in the country. This is why, because it is such a playground for the super rich all across the U.S. It's literally a state in the U.S. It's one of the easiest places in order to purchase and buy real estate and literally like in a paradise environment.

So, you know, they're effectively being priced out of their own land and then this is the perfect opportunity for those vultures to try to swoop in and build even more vacation compounds while the native people who actually live there, and as you said, a lot of these people are going, they weren't even home because they're going and working on these damn resorts.

It's like a White Lotus episode almost come to life here. Yeah. That is so true. I mean, it is like a law of nature under capitalism when these disasters strike. You see the vultures circling immediately. And you know what? Without the government getting involved very quickly, she is 100% right. Yeah, they're going to win.

About what's going to happen here. And the reality is, let's put this up on the screen from Common Dreams. The reality is this has been happening in slow motion over decades now in Lahaina and surrounding areas. That resident we listened to there talked about how the median home price in this area is already over a million dollars. So you've already had massive displacement of the original inhabitants of this region. So now when they're looking at this state of affairs, not only do they have to deal with the grief of losing very close loved ones, of their entire way of life and their whole community basically being wiped out, being continually priced out of this area that is their, you know, that is their home and has been their home for a long time. So, you know, they talk to you in that piece for Common Dreams. They talk to a number of people who were deeply concerned about this. And there are increasing

reports of just how quickly these speculators have come in to try to turn a buck off of the backs of this horrific tragedy. And it is utterly disgusting and also sadly completely predictable. Oh yeah, absolutely. And you see some of this here where even the Hawaiian governor now is making some very odd claims. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. The governor says that the state is now looking to acquire land, which is destroyed in the fires. He says, quote, we want this to be something that we remember after the pain passes. Lahaina will rebuild. The tragedy right now is the loss of life. The buildings can be rebuilt over time. Even the Banyan tree may survive. But we don't want this to become a clear space where when people from

overseas just come and decide that they are going to take it, the state will take it and preserve it first. I mean, that's possibly a good move, but then you also have to do the follow-up here and you're like, well, okay, I make sure that the state then resells it back to people. Like, how does that work? The devil's in the details. But I mean, if you are going to protect this area for local people, you're going to have to have government involvement here in order to do it. So, you know, like I said, it's all going to depend on how this all goes down, if it actually happens and who the land is protected and preserved for, you know, is affordable housing created for local people, local workers, et cetera, or, you know, is this a set aside that really doesn't solve any of the problems that they're

dealing with? Yeah. I mean, that's the big's the biggest question. I know this has been a problem, as you said, in Hawaii, literally now for decades, where basically over the last 50 years, all the super rich in the US and specifically the tech sector, because they're in California, it's only a five or six hour flight or whatever away. I mean, they have just cannibalized the entire state. I think there's one island, I forget which one it is, maybe Lanai, where Larry Ellison basically owns the entire island. I read an entire piece about this where he's like the landlord and the owner for every president

that is there, because for some reason it still remains private land where you can acquire almost all of it. Because he's on the board of Tesla, he built himself a Tesla supercharger on this tiny little Hawaiian island just for himself so he can rock it around. It's one of those where that obviously is an extreme situation. But out of microcosm, Zuckerberg has got a compound down there. The Job family, a long time retreating to Hawaii. We've got Oprah, who's got a big compound.

Bezos, like all these people have huge areas. I even remember reading about Zuckerberg constructing a massive privacy fence around his compound, which native population were very upset about because it was not only blocking views, but creating a disturbance. It's like the world does not exist in order to serve just the whims of the ultra wealthy.

Are you sure about that? Well, I mean, we should, the government should stop it from. It shouldn't be that way, but yeah. I mean, that's the thing is, listen, if it's just, it goes to the highest bidder, we know exactly what's gonna happen. And look, it is paradise.

It's absolutely gorgeous, spectacular there. And it's a beautiful thing for people to come and appreciate that and enjoy it, but not at the expense of the residents there, who, by the way, are the ones who are working two, three jobs to be able to serve you at the hotel or at the resort or whatever. Yeah, it really is. I really feel like I'm watching White Lotus season one. Shout out to that show, by the way. Yeah, we're going to stay on it, guys, and keep you updated there.

At the same time, we got some news for you over on the Republican side of things. We got some new polls about how Americans feel about the latest Trump indictments that we're going to break down for you. But we wanted to start with a bit of an existential crisis, I think it's fair to say, going on over at Fox News. Fox News in disarray, because obviously they want to move on from Trump. At least the leadership, Rupert Murdoch and co, want to move on from Trump. They picked DeSantis as the golden boy. Golden boy isn't working out. So now they're shopping around for like, all right, well, who else can we, you know, can we prop up and give a go at it? At the same time, they know their audience overwhelmingly still loves Trump. So one of the manifestations of this inner struggle is something they did that was utterly hilarious.

They just out of nowhere invented these like power rankings in the Republican primary based on nothing over the other than like something they pull down of their own butts. But they're selling this as if it's breaking news. And it's amazing. Take a listen. Our power ranking show former President Trump keeping a firm grip on the party. So here's what we have, Dana. He is far and away the front runner. Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott are in contention. You've got five others in the conversation and the rest are on the outside looking in. Hi, Dana and Bill. That's right. Feeling right at home here in Iowa. We can tell you that

this morning, Senator Tim Scott breaking into the top three in those Fox News power rankings that were just released. We caught up with him here on the fairgrounds, asked him why he thinks he's moving up in these polls. He said it's because of his common sense conservative policies. Listen. Do you think you are going to be able to move up in those rankings? Well, the good news is we continue to move up. More importantly, I'm not spending any time watching polls. I'm spending all my time watching people. So polls don't vote, but people do. So I'm going to spend my time getting to know the average person in the state even better. And so far, so good. I expect that our momentum will continue to increase every day. So again, this is not based on polls. This isn't based on really anything.

Yeah, they like invented it. It's just their own invention. It's like fanfic of what they want the Republican primary to be like. And it's kind of amazing. I almost respect the just audacity of making this thing up and then pretending that it's breaking news. Well, when it pairs next,

we're about to show people it makes sense. They want and are trying to suck up to Trump as much as humanly possible. And then also because they want him to come to the debate. They are desperate for him to come to the Republican debate. If he doesn't come to the debate, they're going to look like idiots. It's obviously going to be a sideshow. I'm already seeing two scenarios where Trump could either turn himself in in Georgia, which would overshadow it completely, or he just might do competing interviews. I saw a float that apparently is in

conversation with Tucker Carlson's team about doing an interview, doing a media blitz at the time just to be like, yeah, I'm actually the center of attention here. Which, you know, why shouldn't he? Did that during the White House Correspondents Dinner. I have to go back to the Tim Scott thing because, okay, just so you know, I looked up where he's at in the national average, 2.6%. Yeah, I know. It's ridiculous. It's very obvious. Vivek is actually the real number two. I was going to say, the thing that's most obvious, I mean, first of all, like, they're trying to put on a Tim Scott, like, trial balloon here.

And by the way, I saw on CNN this morning when I was in the gym, they had a similar like, oh, Iowa voters interested in Tim Scott. So there's a whole media effort right now to try to make Tim Scott a thing. That's number one. Number two, they clearly hate Vivek. Yes. Because he is the person who is actually coming up in the polls, has some momentum. I already feel about him.

Not my cup of tea. That's fine. You know, like we had a good exchange here. I hope he comes back. I hope we talk to him more. But he clearly is the one moving up in the polls and, you know, challenging DeSantis in some of these numbers. And they don't give him any sort of cred. They put up a graph later that had everybody's fundraising and they made sure to put an asterisk

in there of like how much came from him just to sort of like undercut, you know, the level of, anyway, Tim Scott, this is the new thing that they're trying. And I think it's going to work even less well than the Ron DeSantis attempts worked here. Oh yeah, absolutely. And just to, as we alluded to, this is how much they're sucking up to Trump. They're like playing up as if his big Georgia reveal where Trump promises on Monday, this time he's going to prove that the election was stolen. This is how they covered it over at Fox. So this hundred page report that's going to come out on Monday, the former president's going to drop it out at Bedminster, which is his golf resort just to the west of New York City. And the question is, what's going to be in it? Well,

apparently it was, and this is according to the New York Times this morning, compiled at least in part by a woman by the name of Liz Harrington. And she has been one of his communications staff members. And apparently the document focuses on voting anomalies in the state of Georgia. And Ms. Harrington has been on X, formerly known as Twitter, and said, kind of giving us a preview, it said, Georgia has been among the most corrupt elections in the country and they haven't gotten any better since 2020. They've gotten worse. Tune in Monday. And he said on Truth Social, Donald Trump, they never went after those that rigged the election.

They only went after those that fought to find the riggers. And in this indictment in Georgia, in all these indictments, it allows him to have discovery. So his lawyers will have discovery and will find out information. And I heard this morning, Brian, an attorney said, I think it was on Fox and Friends First, was saying the best argument he has is to tell the truth.

And if he finds out that something did happen in the election, then he would have proof. And then maybe he could exonerate himself. What he has, we don't know. We'll find out on Monday morning at 11 o'clock. We'll find out on Monday morning at 11 o'clock. Actually, you know what the funniest thing is? Report already out this morning.

Trump's lawyers are desperate for him not to do that. They're like, that's really going to complicate your legal troubles if you continue to go down this road. And they want him to cancel. And he very well may. So it's just funny to see the way that they cover it. I mean, it's hilarious that they're like credulously like, oh, maybe now we're going to get the big reveal. It only took three years to figure it out. Pump this thing up.

But yeah, it shows you that they just don't know where to land with this because they know they want him at the debate desperately, which I don't think is going to happen. They want to obviously keep their audience, which is very overwhelmingly pro-Trump. And yet they really don't want him to be the guy. So they're also trying to flirt with DeSantis, flirt with Tim Scott, flirt with whoever might have a shot at defeating him. But guess what, guys? It ain't happening. Not gonna work, yeah. All right, we've got some polls, as I alluded to before, about how people feel about this latest charges.

Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is from the AP recent poll that they did. Do you approve the Justice Department indicting Trump over his efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election? Yes, 53%. No, 47%. Will not surprise you to learn that there is a major partisan breakdown on this question. Let's put this up on the screen. So

Democrats, 85 percent approve of the criminal charges brought specifically by special counsel Jack Smith. So this isn't the Fulton County one. These are specifically asking about Jack Smith. Independence, 47 percent. So they're split pretty evenly. And Republicans at 16 percent. So really wide, obviously, partisan divide in terms of how people feel about all of this. But the other question that I have is, you know, listen, we talk a lot here about the challenges for Biden and how people feel like he's too old and they're not happy with the economy and all kinds of issues there. But, you know, Republicans may well be nominating the one dude who is almost definitely going to lose to Joe Biden. Put this up on the screen. You've got recent poll that this is from this is from the AP as well. Do you want former

President Trump to run again in 2024? Yes, 63%. This is from among Republicans. Back in April of 2022, it was only 55%. So for Republicans, they are overwhelmingly in favor of Trump running again in 2024. But the next one up on the screen, would you support Donald Trump in the 2024 election? Now, this is for everybody, not just Republicans. So looking ahead to that general election, what kind of a shot does he have? You've already got a majority of the American people, 53 percent, who say they will definitely, 100 percent, not support Donald Trump. You've got another 11 percent that say they probably won't support Trump. And then you've got 36 percent who say yes. Now, listen, the way that this could go down is he doesn't if you've got a few third party

candidates in there, he doesn't have to get to 50 percent in order to win. I mean, that's the way that he pulled it off back in 2016. So, you know, the fact that you've got a majority who are against him doesn't necessarily mean that he would be unable to pull it off. But, I mean, I have to think that the fact that this whole election cycle is going to be relitigating 2020, stop the steal. You know, he's already going out there and want to do press conferences all about this, leaning into all of this. It's going to be all the coverage is about people hate this part of him, like majority of people hate this part of him outside of the Republican Party. He may well be facing prison time by the time that the election rolls around. I do think this is a very tough hand for Republicans to overcome. I just don't ever know. I mean, it's one poll, right? We can say

that. You never know. It's one of those where he did win reelect or he did win an election in 2016, only a 30 percent approval rating. There is the quote unquote silent Trump voter phenomenon. Some people will say that they're not going to vote for him and then secretly they will vote for him. It's also a year out, more than a year out, you know, before the election is all kinds of mitigating factors. But would I, would I want to be in this position? No, but, but I'm not yet willing to count him out at the same time. Like, I just am not sure though. And as you said said, too, I mean, Hillary won, what, almost 52 percent, I think, of the popular vote. Something around there. But it wasn't actually all that close whenever you look at it.

But, you know, if you win in the right states, it all came down to 30,000, 40,000 votes last time across three states. All you have to do is switch a few more this time. Some people don't come out to vote. Some people vote third party. You can pretty easily win. I mean, Bill Clinton won the presidency in 2000, sorry, in 1992 with like 43% of the popular vote. That's not that far off from where Trump is right now. Yeah, I know. I'm really conflicted. I go back and forth on this because also, you know, it is the case that looking at the national head-to-head polls between him and Biden, he has never at this point in 2016 or 2020 was nowhere close to as strong as his numbers are right now. Exactly, right.

I mean, if you look at the head-to-head numbers, and I think that might be also why you get a little bit of a different picture in this poll because they're just asking about how you feel about Trump, basically. And when you just ask about Trump, yeah, you got a majority of people who are like, no, not doing it again. But when you're like, all right, but your alternative is Joe Biden, then suddenly it ends up really close, which is utterly pathetic that, you know, the Democrats have are tied with a dude who is, you know, facing like 91 charges and potential prison time ahead of the election. And yet we still have this state of affairs where it is very, it is impossible to say exactly what's going to happen. But, you know, I do think for Republicans who want to win, I do think that they would likely have a much better shot with a candidate who, you know, didn't have 91 charges and multiple indictments

across multiple states. On that, I don't think it's deniable, but. But, you know, it looks like we're going to go into this. So is it going to work? I saw there's a lot of triumphant, you know, people have been like, oh, well, this, you know, Trump definitely can't win. There's just no way. I'm like, how many times we all have learned this lesson, right? Like, I've seen old Donnie wriggle himself out of many situations. Maybe this is it.

Okay, it's possible. But I've seen enough where until it happens, I'm just really not ready. It's a wild situation. Let's move on to the next one with China. Some really interesting signs. Got to give credit to Peter Zaihan, who actually has long been talking about some of the strategic weaknesses inside of the Chinese economy. And we're beginning to see some things come through, even with their official data, which

does not look good for them post-COVID. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. This was just the first indication, very reminiscent of the Evergrande situation, if we'll all recall from a year or so ago, where one of the biggest shadow banks inside of China has missed dozens of payments. Many of their products, they've missed payments,

have grown to dozens of other entities. They have no current repayment schedule, and investors inside of China are freaking out. It turns out that there was all kinds of corruption that was going on inside. They told their investors that the firm will be missing payments on batches of products on August 8th, adding to delays to multiple others.

This is leading to what they say is, quote, a number of products. The company is now facing, quote, a tsunami of questions from their own investors, wealth managers. This is about billions of dollars of capital inside of China that touches all sorts of personal and industrial different investments. This is seen also, Crystal, on a bigger macro scale. Let's put this up there. There's actually got a decent chart that everybody can see. This is the Chinese stocks are actually slumping because economic gloom inside of the country

is really spreading. They had a bump in January of 2023, as you can see right there, up to 15%. That was largely reopening after their zero COVID idiocy. But things are all beginning to trend down, very much so, in the last couple of months. And actually, the fascinating thing was a new acknowledgement, actually, and this is the closest you'll ever get from Chinese leaders.

They say, quote, there are new difficulties and challenges whenever it comes to China's economy. That was from the actual readout of the latest Politburo meeting just three weeks ago. And inside, all that people are pointing to is the index of Chinese stocks traded in Hong Kong down 9% on the month. The benchmark for stocks traded in Hong Kong is down a similar amount. Amongst the actual members, the Chinese real estate firm is losing half of its value. That's Country Gardens, one of the biggest companies inside of China. The actual stock index for Shanghai and Shenzhen is down by 5%.

All of this is indicating that even the real data that they can't spin, which let's be real, it's one of the most opaque countries on planet Earth in terms of the giant economies. You never know whether you're being lied to or not. No indications are good. Also, if you think our real estate market is bad, home prices have fallen in 49 out of 70 of the major cities in all of China. The thing is that, and this really came through to me from the Wall Street Journal piece that we'll put up here, it was an op-ed, but I actually thought it was really interesting, is that the economic and the social contract is really fraying.

We pointed to this in the Evergrande situation. One of the biggest, the deal with the CCP inside of China is they're like, listen, you know, we're going to put you under surveillance. You're going to have facial recognition, all of that. We're going to do what we do. Our party bosses and everybody, everybody's going to get filthy rich, but you're going to get rich too. So don't worry about it.

And that mostly worked. You know, no more chaos, no more cultural revolution. We're working through this. Everything's great. It worked in the 80s. It worked in the 90s. it worked in the 90s, worked all the way to the 2010s. But now that social contract

is really beginning to fall apart, largely actually because of housing, which is a populist issue over there too, where a lot of people are unable in order to keep up with housing market or seeing their home equity go down. Then at the same time, you put their social problems

in terms of the male-female mismatch. You put it together, an unemployment rate there, which seems very high. Nobody knows really exactly what the actual number is. There's enough social strife that this is causing real problems inside the Chinese economy. So another kind of tick, I think, in some of Peter Zaihan's analysis over the last couple of years on where China could be headed. Yeah, I thought this was really revealing. Youth unemployment just hit, according to their numbers, a record high of 21.3 percent, which is a disaster. And the response was, we're just not going to release this data anymore from the Chinese government. They're like, you know enough about that. You don't need to know any more about that. So I think that's an indication whether 21.3

percent is the accurate number or not. I think that's an indication whether 21.3% is the accurate number or not. I think it's an indication that, you know, obviously things are really dire. And when you have a young population that isn't participating in the new prosperity of the country and has long had, you know, similar issues to what young people here are facing, which is over the past number of years, they have really propped up the real estate market and made it so that prices were ever escalating, ever escalating, ever escalating. Which, obviously, if you're already a homeowner, that's great for you. Your value of your assets is going up and up and up.

If you're someone who hasn't yet been able to buy into the market, this looks like a complete disaster. And so big picture, what has happened in China, I was listening to Martin Wolf of the Financial Times give some of this analysis. You know, initially, the just astronomical growth that they experienced there was obviously led by exports. They're, you know, building out their manufacturing base and all of the factories that they're famous for. That created this incredible growth. As that starts to wane and they sort of like went as far with that as possible, then they invested massively in infrastructure, huge spending there, which also continued to, you know, build out the economy. And once they took that effectively as far as they could, then the next piece was building up what is effectively now this gigantic real estate

bubble. And so when we were covering Evergrande and also when we were covering Country Garden, effectively, they realized, OK, this is unsustainable. We can't just continue in this direction forever. And we are pricing out so much of our population from ever becoming homeowners. So they started to try to let the air out of that market. And they've been doing it, but obviously it is kind of coming crashing down. They had a good line in that Wall Street Journal op-ed as well that described the housing situation. They said, ever since they started propping up this market,

housing has functioned for many families as a combination of retirement plan, insurance policy, and stock portfolio. Endlessly rising housing prices and wealth have been a headache for young buyers and a driver of indebtedness, but also helped paper over gaps in the social safety net for middle-aged savers. There's another piece of this as well, which is obviously, you know, they had massive COVID lockdowns. That was really devastating for the economy. And so the expectation was when they opened back up that they would restart this huge growth. And that's just the opposite of what we've seen. They're actually in danger of slipping into a deflationary cycle because residents there are consumers are worried about the future, worried about the economic future, worried about their finances. So they are saving. They're not

spending money. And so where we've had, you know, massive inflation, which is starting to come under control, they're actually worried about the opposite impact, which is potential deflation, which can be really devastating. Now, the big question is, is this a blip? China's obituary has been written many times in the past. So let's be really clear about that. This could be a blip. They could, it's very hard to tell exactly what's going on there. They could move forward and get back to, you know, they're never going to get back to like 10% GDP growth, but get back to some level of, you know, significant sustainable growth. Or this could be, you know, the start of a different trajectory that's very difficult for them to pull themselves out of. There's also an alternative explanation,

which is they have, it's like a time of choosing inside of China. Because the U.S., at least the U.S., much of the like Anglosphere, the U. UK, Australia have decided like, look, we're not going to necessarily economically decouple with China, but we're going to try to do our best. I don't think we've done even close to enough, but it is starting to make its effect. Net exports and all that have decided to drop out of China overall to the West, which is hurting their economy. A lot of their economy was built effectively on exporting to the countries, which they directly, you know, not necessarily at war with, but they use that rhetoric with those people. They see them as direct challengers.

The thing is is that, and the reason why I'm not yet willing to count them out entirely, they have got what we don't have. They have hard assets. So outside of oil, which they do have to still dramatically import, they've got an industrial workforce, they've got actual factories,

they've got real stuff that comes out of their ground that they make stuff with, that they supply to the rest of the world. And as we found out with Russia, yeah, a financialized economy and all that, you can take the hit. They're having problems right now with their central bank, but they can still produce weapons. They can still produce stuff. We don't really produce stuff. So they have some structural advantages on their side, just inherently by being a more recently industrialized economy than we do, because we are much more of a service and a financialized economy than China. So I'm not yet ready to count them out. But I do think that some of the structural things that Zai Han talked about on our show and has been talking about and pointing

there for a long time, which is very counter to the narrative that you will often hear about China, a lot of that is being vindicated, I think, in recent months. His population thesis, absolutely correct. And now here on the economics, it's very clear that, look, I don't know if China's going to collapse like he says, but if they have problems, that can still lead to, I've talked here about the Howe Brands essay around China, where one of the things is that a state, when it's on its way down, and it sees that it near is its apex of its power, that's actually when it becomes the most dangerous because that's when they're like, okay, well now if we're going to move, we have to move now when

we have the most advantage kind of on our side. You can think of Japan striking at the United States at Pearl Harbor. They're like, look, we've only got 18 months before we can, we're gonna run out of oil. We should strike them now so they can't strike us later on in the future. You can see very much how that type of calculus also could come in. So it's not necessarily good news, you know,

if you're hoping for peace and security around the globe. Yeah, I mean, like economic turmoil is usually not good news. Yeah, it's bad. For global peace and prosperity. There's a lot more we can say about this and we'll continue to look at it in the future. But the last thing I would say is even if China doesn't continue to grow at the pace that it has, even if this truly is like an economic turning point for them, which again is really up in the air, whether this is a blip or this is a

longer term trend, I think the movement towards a multipolar world is going to continue apace because you're still going to have a huge power center in Asia, not just with China, but with other Asian nations. India is overtaking China in terms of population. Already did. Yeah, huge growth there and huge possibility for them that has not been exhausted yet.

And you've got a prime minister who is very determined to increase their industrial capacity. So there's a lot there as well. Obviously, you have Russia doing whatever Russia is doing and forming this new alliance. You already see the makings

of a multipolar world. And I don't think whatever happens with China and their future economic growth, I don't think there's any putting that toothpaste back in the tube. No question at all. All right, let's go on to passport. Everyone should get a passport if we're going to be living in a multipolar world because it means we got to go understand what the hell else is

going on out there. The problem is it's nearly impossible to get a passport right now. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. It turns out while our government is shipping billions of dollars to Ukraine and our secretary of state is always worried about what, like social issues and all this, that the very basics of his job not working very well. There is a massive backlog of passport applications, quote, creating summer travel nightmares for Americans who are finding getting a new passport or renewing an expired one is taking months on end, forcing them now into panicked races against planned travel dates and an often bewildering bureaucratic maze. The thing is, is that this is a bipartisan issue. Senators and congressmen are sounding the alarm because they are getting bombarded with constituent complaints

of I can't get a goddamn passport. And it's amazing because the State Department current guidance right now is that you should apply for a renewed passport for nine to 12 weeks ahead of your travel date. That is four months of the processing time. It used to be that routine was six to eight weeks for renewing your passport. The crazy thing is, is that it used to be six to eight weeks. They haven't been able to fulfill that deadline. So people who were promised their passports not getting their passports and are now, they're like, oh, no, no, no.

It's going to take weeks and weeks and more. And we have no update for you. If you have the privilege to pay like $200 or whatever for expedited service, well, even that is now returned to what the original promise was. So it's outrageously expensive in order to get a passport. I remember I had to get, I had a passport nightmare situation too. I got really lucky because it was before the big surge. I was able to get one of those emergency appointments here in Washington, DC. It cost like $250. And I remember thinking about that and being like, wait, if you have a family of four or a family of five,

that's like a thousand bucks in order to get your patent. That's not- That's like a plane ticket overseas right there. Well, I wish it was a plane ticket overseas. Nowadays, I'm close to an overseas plane ticket. Yeah. Try 3,000 if you're going to Asia like I was. The thing is, is that when you think about it, one of the most basic functions here of government is just breaking down in a touch point where millions of Americans are finding themselves fed up. That is actually where states begin to lose the population. It's not always some of the big stuff that we talk about here. It's like getting your driver's license renewed.

Always a pain in the ass, but usually you can get it in semi-routine fashion. The thing is with the passport is when it breaks down like that and millions of people have to cancel their plans, that is when people really start to understand the state functions at a most basic level when those are going away. That's what declining states look like. And I'm not exaggerating. Put this up there. This is from just a few weeks ago that other media organizations are talking about. Canceled trips with no refunds. Passport delays are derailing travelers. People are out thousands of dollars on these trips because they are not able to get their passport in time. It's not like the airline is going to give you a good excuse for that when they're like, oh, yeah, we got you. Also, millions of people

were locked in their inside for years. That's part of the reason why travel prices are so high because people put off travel and a lot of people didn't renew their passport then at the time. So we have a record amount of Americans, which I think is great, who do wanna travel. They wanna get out of the country and are unable to.

We've got some 22 million passports that were issued last year. That's a record high. 24 million right now that are currently going through. That's a record high. 24 million right now that are currently going through. The State Department says it's getting about 400,000 applications a week from Americans in order to renew their passport. But the fact that they are unable to keep up with it just shows you that, again, the basic functions of government are just falling apart. It's like the FAA, and it's like others. And for some reason, it's not getting the attention that it really deserves. Well, no one should be surprised when we've had 40 years

of both parties attacking government and stripping government capacity. I mean, this has been the ideology since Ronald Reagan. So yeah, after 40 years, things are going to fall apart. Just to give you a sense of, I know this can seem like a first world problem, and in some ways it is, right, having the luxury and the ability to travel overseas. But in that piece from NPR, they talked to this woman, Dakota Hendricks from Virginia Beach, Virginia. She says she did everything right in order to try to visit her husband who's deployed overseas this summer. This is like her only opportunity to see him.

She filed an application for a new passport months in advance, paid for expedited processing to make sure. She spent hours on the phone with the passport hotline, sought help from her local congressman. Four months later, she had no choice but to miss her flight. She told NPR, I applied for this with enough cushion room for there to be delays, but that didn't matter. So she was unable to make that trip to go see her husband who is deployed overseas. So there's a lot of heartbreak that comes along with this, not to mention just the sign of a government that's falling apart. There was this line in the, you know, the initial report that we had up on the screen from Senator Mark Warner, who was blaming hiring freezes during the Trump administration for helping to create this situation. And I sort

of assumed that was probably cope from Democrats. But I actually looked into it and there is something to this. So Trump had this, you know, sort of like vendetta against the State Department. This is where Hillary Clinton was part of the deep state, et cetera, et cetera. And so you not only had the pandemic, which led to all sorts of issues, led to this huge backlog, led to this huge surge, record-breaking numbers of Americans who wanted to be able to get passports. You also had under Trump a 16-month hiring freeze that, according to Government Executive Magazine, which is the thing that I was reading to try to get information on this, told its inspector general in 2019 that it created critical understaffing for passport services. In 2017, you're going to love this, Augur. You're going to enjoy this. In 2017, when passport applications started to spike, the State Department implemented a number of resiliency initiatives to help workers deal with the added strain,

including management meet and greets and casual dress days. Oh, good. Officials also deployed Passport Pete, a stuffed porcupine mascot, to regional offices for photo opportunities and activities. Unfortunately, those efforts failed to reverse the workforce trend. Yeah. So staffing was sort of stripped down during the Trump years. Then they had this huge surge post-pandemic of Americans wanting to get passports, record-breaking numbers. They've been trying to staff up, but it's just, you know, they haven't been able to get it together. Passport Pete couldn't rescue them. I just saw a guy yesterday. He said he had

to wait two and a half hours to process customs at Dulles. Two and a half hours because the TSA had like two passport booths or whatever that was open. I had the same thing. I landed in JFK. I think it took me an hour and 45 minutes in order to clear customs. I mean, it's just ridiculous. And there was only, what, three planes or whatever at the tarmac? I landed at like 6 a.m. in the morning, maybe 700 people. I've moved through lines like that years ago. You'll get through in maybe five, 10 minutes, something like that. This was just over and over again. You're seeing complete breakdowns of the most basic government functions whenever it comes to travel. And like you said, it can sound like a first world problem, but, you know, a lot of middle class people, I mean, I grew up in Texas. You don't have to be rich to go to Mexico. You need

a passport. Or people from New York, I mean, they're going to Canada all the time. Or, you know, like you said, it's like you got this woman whose husband is deployed overseas. He apparently, the way his schedule works, only had one break. That was the only time in Oregon. That's terrible. It's just terrible. And there's a lot. Let me tell you, one of the biggest, one of the worst places on earth you want to go to

is an emergency passport center. Everybody there is weeping because everybody there, basically the only way to get one of those is you've got a dead relative. It's really sad. People are weeping there like, oh, I've been trying to get my passport. My grandma just died in Africa or whatever. I got to get this back. I got to get on a plane tomorrow. I need this thing right now. Real life here is actually affecting people. And I just can't get away from what it really shows about the government right now.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, these are things like, I know it's easy to just deride like I'm a bureaucrat or it feels like it doesn't really impact your life. But this is a place where it really matters to have enough skilled professionals in place and a system in place and to take it seriously to be able to deliver on basic services for the American people. wild story about a local Kansas newspaper that was raided by the entirety of the local police department over some weird beef of a local restaurant owner who thought and accused them of getting her DUI record under suspicious or illegal circumstances. Normally, there are First Amendment protections for journalists that require, if you're going to subpoena materials, you subpoena specific materials, not this broad search and seizure, which is exactly what they did, taking computers, taking cell phones, even raiding the owner of the

newspaper's house. One of the elderly co-owners died days later out of distress. Crazy, crazy story. Okay, we have an update for you. Let's put this up on the screen. So the prosecutor in this small town, Marion County, has now withdrawn the search warrant that was executed at that small town Kansas newspaper that police raided on Friday. The paper's lawyer said on Wednesday, which the Kansas Bureau of Investigation soon confirmed, all electronic devices seized by police will be returned to the Marion County record, said Bernie Rhodes. He's a Kansas City-based attorney that is representing the Kansas City Star and also represents the Marion County record.

Let's put this quote up on the screen. So this lawyer said, we have stopped the hemorrhaging, but it does nothing about taking care of the damage that has already occurred from the violation of the First Amendment in the first place. The KBI investigation, you know, Kansas Bureau of Investigations, remains open, but the probe will proceed without review or examination of any of the evidence that was seized. Friday, they said they will present their findings to the prosecutor once the investigation is complete. In a statement, Marion County Attorney Joel Enzi said he concluded that insufficient evidence existed to establish a legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the item seized. So there's two pieces here. First of all, you've got this beef with this local, well, politically connected restaurant owner. who was involved directly in this search. He was under investigation by the newspaper for

the circumstances surrounding his departure from a different police department, apparently amid some issues with sexual improprieties. So very convenient for him that he gets to seize all the materials of their investigation into him as well. But now we have another layer here that I was just reading about, Sagar. So one of the questions was this local judge who signed off on this thing, which many experts are saying was completely illegal, this search warrant to start with. So this judge, Laura Villar, she had her own multiple DUIs, which were apparently completely covered up and swept under the rug. Let me read you from the news report. The first arrest in Coffey County, about an hour and 15 minutes southeast of her home, hasn't been reported. The second came amid an unopposed reelection bid for Morris County attorney.

She wasn't supposed to be driving at all because her driver's license was suspended in that county. She reportedly drove off road and crashed into a school building next to a high school football field while driving then eighth district magistrate judges, Thomas Ball is his name, his vehicle. So she was driving a judge's vehicle, drunk, not supposed to be driving at all and crashed into a school building. None of this came out. And they have no record, actually, of there even being any sort of like case involved. It looks like it was just completely swept under the rug by this local cabal of whatever is going on there. She was never sanctioned by the state's attorney discipline

board, won reelection multiple times as a Republican candidate for Morris County attorney because the public had no idea what was going on. And she is, by the way, up for a retention vote during the 2024 general election. So we'll see if the people take a very different view of what's going on here. This is as good as it gets for the whole small town corruption cop force story. It's almost, oh my gosh, I can't even. Well, the fact that she had DUIs too is like, oh, that's why you were sympathetic to this lady whose DUIs are being made public. And just the seizure of all of it. I'm glad it actually captured the nation's attention. And, you know, we saw a tremendous amount of interest in it as well.

And I think that people just understand, like, this is just so fundamentally corrupt and unfair. So glad to see some of it rectified and we'll continue to get the details out there. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, doing this job for a while, now I've lived through some pretty dumb content moderation policies. We started rising in the height of the era of YouTube demonetization,

where for some reason or another, never could quite figure out why, certain videos are simply deemed not suitable for advertisers. Usually they have the title Epstein in them. On the one hand, I do get it. On the other, as I've told them directly, you're kind of incentivizing people who do cover the news to not cover controversial topics.

Luckily for us, we have a premium subscription program, but many people are not so lucky. Little did I know, though, at the time that worrying about whether Epstein videos are getting demonetized is the least of our problems, especially when COVID began to hit. All of a sudden, we're in the midst of one of the most intense censorship regimes the internet has ever seen. And navigating it was not only a total nightmare, it is now clear in retrospect, the regime itself was totally wrong on so many things. The most obvious is LabLeak hypothesis. Several content creators banned from various social media websites. But I remember many other ones that probably memory hold. Sky News Australia YouTube channel, that was banned for questioning the effectiveness of masks and lockdowns because they broke COVID misinformation rules. Or when doctors were testifying before

Congress about the efficacy of treatments, or even those at the time that were discussing claims around the COVID vaccine. It is pretty clear now that allowing questions to surface was correct. In many cases, allowing dissenting views to the medical establishment would have provided Americans and really everyone with proper understandings of medical guidelines. The problem is it would have made people less compliant. We simply can't have that, can we? In fact, COVID really proved once and for all that trying to navigate any sense of what is true and what is not medically in the sense of a fraught situation like a pandemic is nearly impossible. The only way to know is to see

results in the real world at scale and then adjust accordingly, allowing all kinds of debates, seeing who was right and who was wrong. Unfortunately, many people are now learning the opposite lesson. They think the censorship regime under COVID not only worked, but is now a model for the future. That is very evident in some policies YouTube announced yesterday. Let's actually dig in. YouTube writes that going forward, it will streamline all medical misinformation guidelines into three categories, prevention, treatment, and denial.

These apply to any specific health condition, treatment, or substance where content, quote, I can't be the only one who sees a glaring hole in this policy. What if the World Health Organization is wrong? Luckily, that's never happened before, right? Well, how about this? For the first several months of the pandemic, the WHO said masks didn't prevent the spread of COVID. Then in June of 2020, they changed their mind. And then this year, they changed it again. So which is it? At any which point, was it true or not true? And then liable to be taken now off the YouTube platform. The last few years have been extraordinary in the context of what we really know and don't know. For years, for example, they told us depression was a chemical imbalance, that

they had the proof. That's why you have to take this multi-billion dollar SSRI drug, a treatment regimen still recommended by the WHO. And yet, what did we learn? A large meta study showed the chemical imbalance thesis is likely bunk for depression. SSRIs, they do kind of work, but we don't really know why. And that's a myriad of other treatments, though, that may actually be far more beneficial because they have no side effects. Or who can forget the bombshell study around Alzheimer's, where a central study which guided research for 16 straight years may have been straight up fabricated. Or recall one of my more recent monologues about mammograms,

and it showed that much of our medical guidance, including from the WHO, even in the prevention realm, is really not that well thought out and that a rigorous debate around recommendations, especially when money is involved, is vital and essential. I say all of this because I actually care about YouTube. Obviously, it's where we built our careers, but more so, I recognize it as one of the most powerful forces on earth. Somewhere around three quarters of the entire US population uses YouTube. If you want to fix something, you have to look it up on YouTube. I can tell you, as I continue on health journey, there is nothing I love more than going on YouTube and watching debates around diets or exercise protocols or nutrition. COVID should have been a lesson to all of us that the medical

establishment doesn't know nearly as much as they claim to, and it should have been a lesson to all of us that the medical establishment doesn't know nearly as much as they claim to, and it should have been a lesson to the censors. The regime really doesn't work. Instead, they have decided to expand it, further showing us that what was promised as a temporary measure has simply become a new normal. And this will make getting good information only harder in the years to come as we navigate who the hell knows what comes next in our public health discourse. I only know that things today are not that different from the way that things have always been. Free and open debate is always better than the alternative. I thought it was crazy,

Crystal, that they basically reversed. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, I've got some devastating new numbers on homelessness to share with you this morning, but contained within them is maybe a little bit of hope or at least somewhat of a possible answer. Can't be any real silver lining to this level of human carnage, but at the very least, we can begin to chart a path forward and regain some confidence that solving big intractable problems is still something our nation is actually capable of doing. So first, the numbers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. is experiencing a record increase in homelessness. The number of homeless people has risen a full 11 percent year over year. That is the largest single spike recorded since that metric started being tracked prior to the

Great Recession. So to put that in context, even during the worst of the housing crisis, we did not see numbers jumping up this dramatically. Now, if you watch this show, you'll not be surprised by the causes, even as the numbers do continue to shock. Housing has never been more unaffordable. Addiction continues to ravage millions. The pandemic aid that was a lifeline to so many expired. It's a disgrace that as a nation, we choose to continue to allow this suffering. And make no mistake, it is a choice. How do I know? Well, just take a look at this chart. Just look at how much we actually reduced homelessness in a single year back in 2021 when policymakers decided to make it a priority. As COVID was rampaging before

there was a vaccine and during the worst of the crisis, lawmakers were worried enough about the spread of the disease that they actually took some aggressive measures to house people who needed help. Maybe it should be obvious that getting people housing will dramatically reduce homelessness, but that is not the way that policymakers often look at this issue. But look at this. They made real progress on a seemingly intractable, complex issue. And guys, they could do it again. It's not just homelessness, though. I have plenty of critiques of how we did COVID relief, who we helped most, how we structured the program, who got bailouts, who got jack shit. But even imperfectly designed as it was, the unbelievable possibilities of a government to do good for the American people are really clear when you look at the data.

All measures of debt, including debt in collections and overall consumer debt, plummeted. Credit card debt actually dropped the largest amount in history. You see, just like when you get people housing, it reduces homelessness. Turns out, when you give people money, it reduces debt. The COVID relief checks were a godsend to millions, from those who were desperate, were out of work, needed it just to get by, to those who were able to finally get a little bit of breathing room from the creditors who had been breathing down their necks. Same with the so-called Superdoll, which took regular unemployment and pumped it up to keep people going while businesses were shuttered during the

pandemic. Many also, as part of that, went through some really dramatic lifestyle changes that had them at home with their support systems instead of papering over their psychic wounds with retail therapy, which also forced them to eat at home, saving money on restaurant meals and gas with no commutes. Thanks to the short-lived child tax credit, we also dropped child poverty to a 50-year low.

Just look at that chart. It is actually stunning, and once again, provides an ingenious insight, which is that giving money to families with kids can dramatically reduce the number of poor children. And research has shown that that money was largely spent on the kids in incredibly beneficial ways. School supplies, after school activities, nutritious food and the like. I will never get over the fact that we provided such a wildly successful program for our nation's kids and then cruelly ripped it away.

And these economic supports, which materially improved the lives of many Americans, did not just stay in the realm of bank accounts. Suicides actually dropped during the pandemic quite significantly. This was counter to the predictions of basically every expert, plenty of pundits too, myself included. The pandemic, after all, was really stressful. People were isolated. Many measures of mental health deteriorated. But when the numbers came back, suicide rates actually dropped around 3%

during the height of COVID. Experts attribute this to a number of factors. Being forced home wasn't a bad thing for all people after all. If you were being bullied at school or your soul was being crushed by your boss, you were plenty happy to be at home with your family. Telehealth was also expanded during the pandemic, giving more people easier access to a range of healthcare. And of course, for many, pandemic aid programs loosened

the financial noose that had been around their necks. Now, of course, we're back to normal and suicides have returned to their ever upward ascent. Now, I am not trying to say every aspect of the response was puppies and rainbows. Far from it. Lawmakers obviously screwed up a lot, too. School closures being the most obvious example. Plenty of people also fell through the cracks of pandemic programs or were the essential workers who were forced to keep working

and risk their lives without getting much more than a patronizing pat on the back. But you can see really clearly that even as feckless as our government sometimes seems, it can genuinely do good. There is no charity or financial planning app or individual

bootstrapping that can come close to matching the mass impact of the federal government. And the numbers tell us clearly, we do not have to accept this pain. The government helped the people once and it could do it again. Don't let anyone gaslight you into thinking otherwise. And Sagar, basically we had- And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com. All right, guys, we had a great show for all of you today. The Chris Matthews interview should have gone out first.

So we apologize for this coming late, but we promise it was definitely worth it. Thanks to all the premium subscribers. I can't wait to see what people have to say about it. It was wild. Yeah, let us know. Let us know what you think. We'll see you guys later. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? We'll be money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars?

Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame

one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.