Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/18/22: CDC Overhaul, Trump Documents, Cheney Defeated, Maddow Replacement, Railway Workers, GOP Future, & More!

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss the CDC shake up, Trump documents taken by FBI, Liz Cheney defeat, Kushner's book criticism, MSNBC Maddow replacement, Biden siding with railway bosses, GOP as the Trump party, & a panel on the midterm elections!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Tickets: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0E005CD6DBFF6D47 Ryan Grim: https://theintercept.com/staff/ryangrim/ Emily Jashinsky: https://thefederalist.com/author/emilyjashinsky/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of interesting stories that we are digging into this morning. So a major admission from the CDC about just how badly they screwed up coronavirus. They are also now screwing up monkeypox, so clearly they didn't really learn their lessons from the first time. But pretty interesting to dig into their own analysis of what went wrong and what needs to change. We'll break all of that down for you.

Also, some new details about that search at Mar-a-Lago. Some reporting indicating that this has to do with Russiagate documents. It always does, doesn't it? It always comes back to Russiagate in the end, doesn't it? All things stem from there. So we'll talk to you about that reporting and everything that's going on there. Also, as we brought you yesterday, Liz Cheney was in fact defeated, really in quite a landslide in her state there of Wyoming. She is

now floating a presidential run. And of course, we had many cringe takes from the media that we have to bring you as well. So some updates for you there. Also, Jared Kushner has a new book coming out. I know you guys are all very excited. And it is already being panned in spectacular fashion, like across the spectrum from the right to the left times. So we've got some details for you there as well. And Rachel Maddow's replacement, Alex Wagner, launched her show, official debut, had some teleprompter problems there at the front. And we have some updates for you in terms of the ratings. Also very excited, bringing back a little panel action today.

Ryan Grimm and Emily Jashinsky are going to join us remotely to break down some of the latest polls in the midterms. And we're going to check from them on everything that they are looking at and thinking about. Before we jump into the show, live show. Live show. Tickets on sale September 16th. I feel like I'm going to go mad selling these tickets. All right. Center Stage Theater, Atlanta, 16th of September, 7.30 p.m. Standard time. We will be there on Friday. It's going to be a fun time.

Everybody can come out. We'll have a great time. We'll have a great show for everybody. Go ahead and buy your tickets. Less than a month out. We are already planning travel and we're finalizing some of the plans there for the show. So go ahead and buy those tickets for the premium members. As we had discussed, we are going to be sending out those two things. Also, I'm aware of the fact that our email delivery system is not working as well as originally promised. We're working on that. Tell us today

if it doesn't come faster. We're piloting a few different programs and we're going to figure it out. Always paying attention to you guys. But let's go ahead and start with the show. And let's throw this up there on the screen from the CDC. So you guys might have seen that the CDC reversed direction. But I actually think in the context of what was announced yesterday, we are seeing a monumental self-assessment happening at our nation's major public health agency, which is that the director of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, saying that the botched pandemic response is calling for a full-scale reorganization. Now, personally, I don't think that even goes far enough, but the fact that

the public health authorities, some 26 months or so into the pandemic, are basically admitting that they dramatically screwed up both performance, messaging, so many different basic elements from the beginning all the way really up until today is remarkable. And they led an internal or a reorganization and assessment panel, Crystal, which was actually chaired by some people with the Department of Health and the CDC with interviews of over 120 people inside and outside of the agency. And it is remarkable what even these people, like the government is the most immune thing to self-criticism and self-assessment. Even they're like, yeah, we screwed this one up

pretty bad. And they're like, it's time for a major change to this agency. Some of the things that they point to is that they're going to have to undo many of their bureaucratic biases. But their second, and I think the most important, is they said, we need to have very clear messaging. I love also, though, that they kind of blame the American people when they say this. So they said, quote, this is Dr. David Dowdy. He's an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins School. He says, messaging to the general public needs to be, quote, very clear, very simple, very straightforward. Culture is changing. We need it to change faster in terms of CDC. So he's basically blaming pop culture and social media for not reacting to what the CDC said in a timely manner, as if it wasn't the initial CDC messages themselves were at fault.

But I think at a very high basic level, to have the nation's top public health agency admit to the American people, we screwed this up dramatically. I mean, they themselves are calling for a full-scale reorganization of their own agency, and we should push very, very hard to make sure that we see the correct thing. I mean, that is just – it took too long, but, I mean, it's probably better than nothing. At least they admit it. I'm pretty surprised that they had this level of self-assessment.

And, I mean, she made some pretty – Dr. Walensky made some pretty direct comments. She told the agency, to be frank, we were responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes from testing to data to communications. And we're going to go through a little reminder trip down memory lane what some of those were. But I think in the early days of the pandemic, they actually escaped a lot of scrutiny because Trump was screwing up so badly. And so there was a sense of like, oh, my God, if we just had like a different guy in charge, then our public health agencies would be able to do what they do and what they're expert at. But as time wore on, it became clear that those bureaucracies were also completely failing and in some really basic and very, very significant ways that threw off our response from the jump and also really diminished public trust. And that was as big of a problem as anything as we then moved into the vaccine phase and you had a large population say,

we're just not really sure that your guidance is accurate after the things that we heard before. So the fact that they're acknowledging it, she speaks directly to unclear communication. She speaks to the fact that they at times would have data that would be useful for making decisions on things like booster shots that they were reluctant to release to the public. And the reason that they were reluctant to put it out there sooner was because the promotion system within the CDC was based much more on like how many academic papers you had published than on really protecting the public and doing your job in terms of a public health official.

So the incentives were all screwed up. So people wanted to hold on to the data until they got their little paper published so that they could get a gold star for that rather than really having as their number one priority getting critical information out to the public. And that's one of the things that she spoke to the most, was that the orientation of the agency was more about sort of like academia and research, and that was how you were promoted, than it was directed at being super responsive,

being super fast, and serving the public. But, you know, I think one of the things that we're going to talk about monkeypox in a little bit, but one of the biggest failures was on communications. I mean, Dr. Walensky herself was criticized for her communication style and I think had to bring in a public speaking coach in media training. Which the government paid for, to be clear. Right. So, you know, this reflects on her as well. But the fact that you had public health officials and continue to have public health officials who are uncomfortable just telling the public the truth because they're worried that the public can't handle the truth, that is a massive, massive issue. It's not your job to be managing the emotions and psychoanalyzing the American public. You have to trust that people can handle the unvarnished facts about what is going on, what the risk factors are, what the risk vectors are, and how you should respond. You have to trust the public to be able to handle the basic facts.

Otherwise, you're going to end up with exactly the metal that we had in coronavirus and that we also are seeing with monkeypox. Yeah, and we put together a list. And so, look, I know everybody's got their own pet peeves, but what we wanted to try and focus on was the very, very early failures pre-vaccine. And the ones that are like totally indisputable. Indisputable, like beyond even the vaccination policies. I think first and foremost was we should all remember the very, very early days of the pandemic.

Whenever the coronavirus was ripping through China, Europe was having lockdowns, Italy, January of 2020. There was a lot of questions. It was like, what the hell is going on here? And one of the major ones on COVID was, does this spread via surfaces, via particles, aka leading to the whole wash your hands discussion, or is this an airborne transmitted virus? Now, the real questions surrounded that, and we will also remember that the Chinese lied to the WHO. Famous tweet, January of 2020, WHO says China data shows that this is not an airborne transmissible virus. I mean, who knows how many deaths that that led to in the early days, and actually misguided public

health messaging. We should remember, it took until May of 2021, mid-vaccination campaign, let's throw this up there on the screen, for the CDC to finally acknowledge airborne transmission. It took them a year and a half almost in order for them to actually update their official guidance. And the reason that I chose this one to start is that that shows us, Crystal, a 16-month backlog as to when the data is clear as day, everybody knows it, to a final official guidance revisory. And imagine the level of bureaucratic mishap and more to acknowledge the most basic fact and truth about a virus, and then to have it be known to the general public, to be known to the medical community, for hundreds of thousands of people,

not only in this country, millions across the world, to be dead, for them to finally update their guidance. That was number one. That was one of the initial screw-ups. Number two was the masks. I mean, this one we can beat to death forever. I think we have beat this one to death probably. Let's throw this up there. This is the timeline from the LA Times on mass guidance. We should remember the U.S. Surgeon General at the very beginning of the

pandemic in February of 2020 urged the U.S. public in all caps, quote, stop buying masks. This was up until May. So two months, actually really almost three, of initial spread across this nation of coronavirus. You had the CDC and public health authorities all the way up to the top of the White House basically saying masks do not work. He said specifically, quote, masks are not effective in preventing general public from catching coronavirus. If healthcare providers can't get them to care for sick patients. It puts them and our community at risk. So hold on a second. If it's not effective at stopping, but then why do healthcare providers need them? Well, we later find out through an admission from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the reason why that this message

was concocted was basically to stop Americans from buying masks and in order to keep the stock for public health. Here's what, I've always said this, which is that if they had just been honest with the American people and been like, listen, we have a shortage. Please don't buy them. We need the N95s for our hospitals. I think people would have stood by that. And actually, I always point to myself, when that happened, I was like, yeah, I don't believe you. And I bought a bunch of N95s on Amazon. If somebody had told me, don't buy an N95 because healthcare, I absolutely wouldn't have purchased it. But it was more out of distrust.

I was like, I think this is bullshit. I mean, it didn't make sense. I remember us talking about it this time. We're like, so why is it helpful in a public health setting, but it's not helpful in general? Like, this just really doesn't add up. And then I think why this one and why we do harp on this one so much is because it really demonstrates this problem of rather than just doing their job and saying, here are the facts, here are the science, here's the risks, here's the studies that back it up. They tried to massage the emotions of the American public, tried to engineer the outcomes that they wanted,

and were fearful that the public could not deal with the actual facts as they exist. And so, you know, they have no—they actually admitted that this is what they were doing, that they were lying to you because they were worried you would go out and hog up all the masks and then frontline healthcare workers who were in dire need of masks and who, you know, were screwed over by our supply chain issues and the fact that stuff all came from China, that they would have what they need. So this is, to me, such a perfect crystallization of what they have continued to fail on. And even then, once we got the acknowledgement, okay, yeah, masks do work. And then we go in the other direction of, okay, you got to have masks everywhere, inside, outside. Even if sometimes they don't work.

Schools, et cetera. Then there was a reluctance to acknowledge that certain masks are kind of useless and certain masks are better. I mean, there was always just a reluctance to be straight with the American people when there was a concern that it might lead to giving, you know, skeptics a talking point or it might lead to some outcome that the public health officials were fearful about. I understand it's a natural, I guess, human instinct to try to micromanage these things, but ultimately that ain't your job. If society has a problem as a result of the accurate guidance that you give, we have to deal with that downstream. But up front, you have to trust this is a democracy.

Grownups are going to behave in an adult way and take this information in an accurate way. And I just, you know, I think back to that time saga and how scary it was for everybody. I think about how, you know, how much we were all just trying to figure out what the hell was going on and how to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. And the fact that we did not feel that we had a reliable entity here that was just giving us what they actually knew in real time made it so much more difficult to sort through what was fact and what was fiction. Absolutely. Tests is another one. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. You know, people really forget this, but we did not have reliable testing in this country

for several months. And even then, you know, it took a while for PCR. Government provided tests. There was a lot of controversy even around the PCR, around the level of cycles and, you know, what exactly they were running for, whether they were too sensitive or not. And part of the reason why is, again, total bureaucratic screw up. Essentially, what happened is that the CDC basically said, no, we're going to create our own test versus buying existing tests. So while Europe and many other countries had far better

testing, immediate testing, that was available to their general public and was able to lead to, you know, more quarantines of the right people instead of having to quarantine or ask population-wide concerns, we didn't have that for several months. And that led to what? People just risked it. People basically didn't trust it anymore. Eventually led to the fact that at one point there was US companies making rapid tests for Europe, not for America. I harped on that so much at the time because it just shows you the bureaucratic nightmare of the FDA and the CDC not using their emergency authority in order to push these things through. So look, those are three egregious ones that we pointed to. And I know there are so many more.

Lockdowns, the initial vax campaign. I could go on for the fact they covered up the obesity. You know, it's so much of the risk factors more. But like outside of the controversial realm, you cannot look at any of these three things, no matter where you fall on a spectrum of public health and not say this is a colossal mistake. Colossal. How long did it take it take us before the Biden administration. I mean, it was forever. South Korea, which reported their first test within a day of us, a week later gave permission for their commercial labs to develop tests. Within two weeks, they were shipping thousands of test kits daily. And by mid-March, they were testing at a per capita rate 40 times higher than the U.S. And by the way, I mean, South Korea, I think, has been lauded for their early coronavirus response, much more effective than ours. But there were countries around the world and not just developed nations. There were other poorer countries that were able to develop tests and get their tests to their population far faster than we were able to do.

And of all the screw-ups, I mean, that may have been the most critical because that meant in those early days we were flying blind. We had no idea how far it had spread, where it was, where the hot spots were. People were getting sick at that time, and they had no idea whether they had it or not, which, of course, was terrifying for them and also resulted in additional sickness and death. So, yeah, this was one of the most sort of critical screw-ups at the very beginning. So, listen, bottom line, good that they're doing this assessment now. This came from, you know, an external group that came in and looked at what happened and tried to do an independent evaluation. about what needs to happen here and planning on a big reorganization and a big shake-up and moving

it from this sort of like laid-back academic setting to more of a urgent, we got to get this done and it's in the interest of the public health and that's what we're focused on, posture. Now we got to see if they're actually able to pull it off. Unfortunately, we already know that's not the case with monkeypox. We're about to talk about that. And even the leading from behind strategy continues. Let's put this up there, which is that you guys might have noticed, which is exactly a week ago. The CDC actually revised all of its guidance around COVID, lifting requirements to quarantine if exposed to the virus, de-emphasize screening people with no symptoms, updating COVID-19 protocols in schools, the effective test to stay

strategy, and saying, well, you know, COVID, it's here to stay. They say that I don't really think there's many state or local jurisdictions that are even feeling they're going to need to start making mandates. So they're abandoning a mandate strategy, abandoning the test to stay strategy and saying, look, we just know that COVID is here to stay and we need to learn to live with it. I mean, look, people have been doing that for over a year. Some people in the South have been doing it for a much longer than a year. And they just come out. Well, the entire American people.

This is why this is very bad, which is that states and localities had to make individual decisions based upon unclear data and popular guidance before, months before, some cases years before, the CDC was like, yeah, this is reality now. You should have it the opposite. The CDC, I think I use this example on steak. The CDC is like, yeah, you should cook a steak, well done. And people are like, okay, thank you. I'm just not going to do that. It's like, thank you for telling me that.

They have all kinds of guidance like that. Runny eggs. By the way, runny eggs are disgusting, in my opinion. Now, some people like it. Apparently, they even order them that way. I think it's gross. You like the yolk all completely hardened? A hundred percent.

That is nasty, Bogger. Cooked to it. Almost burned on the pan. I want it sticking to the pan when I'm scraping it off. Look, I'm a weird guy. It is what it is. But more what I'm saying is, I'm actually following CDC guidance in that, but I don't go after what is like Eggs Benedict, right, where you get the yolk.

Oh, delicious. But every time you eat Eggs Benedict, you are violating CDC guidance on that, but I don't go after what is like Eggs Benedict, right? Where you get the yolk. Oh, delicious. But every time you eat Eggs Benedict, you are violating CDC guidance. Whatever. You know what is gross, though, is when the whites of the egg aren't cooked. Now, that is nasty. But a runny yolk, yeah, that's life. My point is they tell you not to do it. People say, I'm just going to do it.

There's actually a lot of guidance for pregnant ladies that also is really outdated. And other countries are like, what? You can't eat certain types of cheese? What are you talking about? Oh, really? I didn't know about that. Yeah, it's like soft cheeses. You're supposed to avoid deli meat.

I mean, listen, there are outside, outside, outside chances that this could be a problem for you. But I just want you guys to know I had three kids and I had all sorts of cheese and deli meat during the time and it all worked out okay. More is my point is give the guidance. People can live their lives. It should be directional in the way that we see what it is. Okay, we understand that and then we can live from there. Instead, people had to start living in all these disparate ways across the country. Some places have mask mandates. Some places don't have mask mandates. More based upon, frankly, the paranoia of their population than the actual science. And then the scientists take months in order to catch up with the general public. It's just a complete and total failure. So I think this is a perfect way to end that CDC story, acknowledging the failure, but at the same time,

continuing the bureaucratic failure. Yeah. Let's move on to monkeypox. Yes, because they certainly haven't learned their lessons yet. Oh, not even learned. I mean, honestly, I think this is worse than COVID. And, you know, at least fortunately, we don't have the same number of cases. But let's go and put this up there on the screen. I really encourage everybody to go and read this deep dive into monkeypox, the U.S. handling of it, the origins of the disease from Africa, how exactly it is being spread, and specifically the way that the United States and the Biden

administration are handling the public health response. And I think from the public health response perspective is really where we should start. So in May, we had one confirmed U.S. infection of monkeypox. You guys might remember those headlines that were coming out. It was an acknowledgement by the CDC and by others. Eventually, it was traced back to some gay group sex. Now, that's fine, whatever. Essentially, what it became is there became a major debate in the public health community over acknowledging the major vector of transmission, the groups in which it was being infected. And then second was really a battle over vaccination. And this is where I genuinely, Crystal, am mystified at how the administration is handling this. First and foremost, we were all told, remember after the Bush administration,

the billions of dollars that we were spending on bioterrorism efforts. So we stockpiled hundreds of millions of doses of this monkeypox vaccine. However, we're sorry, a smallpox vaccine. Well, it turns out though that it's very old. It's been losing its shelf life because the freezers capable of storing the Z only are at negative 20, while the freezers that we need for the monkeypox vaccine only need to be at minus 50 degrees Celsius. So the actual infrastructure that we have around the vaccine doesn't exist. Then in terms of actually ordering the doses, it turns out that we took months to place our doses. And then finally, this is the part where I have yet to see a correct explanation as to why we are doing this. vaccine doses in half and not administer vaccines in the way that the vaccine maker has basically prescribed their vaccine to make people immune from monkeypox once they get the vaccine.

Now, the big problem right now, the Biden administration, the CDC have not explained their strategy on this. And worse, the maker of the vaccine says that if the U.S. continues to go forward with this strategy, they will not ever sell any vaccines to the United States ever again because they don't want, I mean, listen, it's complicated around big pharma and all that. Really what it does come and jumps out from- They're saying you're not administering it in the way you agreed to. You're violating our agreement. We're not going to sell you anymore. Which, I mean, in a way, I kind of understand it from their perspective. But, A, they need to communicate to the public why they are doing this.

But I think the major thing that jumps out to me is, number one, for months, and I really do mean months, including up to this date, they did not want to acknowledge that this disease is, like, astronomically, overwhelmingly spreading amongst men who have sex with other men. The reason that they didn't want to do so is, we've talked about this endlessly here on the show, because they didn't want to increase stigma. Now, coming back to our previous block on the CDC and public messaging, you are not the nation's counselor. Leave that to the counselors. Leave that, okay, to people like us.

Be like, yeah, it's a disease that very unfortunately spreads amongst men who have sex with other men. And I just want Americans to be healthy of no matter who you are. Let's acknowledge the truth. And by the way, you know, local health authorities who are, aside from all this woke idiocy, are making a vaccine requirement. You have to have had sex with other men, multiple other male partners to even qualify for the vaccines. But on the same side, they are insisting over and over again that to prevent, quote, stigma, that they should emphasize that, oh, well, monkeypox could also, you know, in very, very limited cases spread amongst skin to skin contact. Just yesterday, actually, we don't even have an

element because it came out so recently, there's a new study that came out, and it shows definitively that the major transmission vector of monkeypox is not skin-to-skin contact, and it is intercourse between men who have sex with other men. And this is not any sort of social commentary on anybody's lifestyle. It is acknowledging a basic biological reality. And then what it really should is inform not only vaccination, but our CDC public health guidance. And to date, right now, Crystal, the CDC continues to lie to the American public and say monkeypox can spread through two different ways, men who have sex with other men, and then also skin-to-skin contact without ever emphasizing to people what the actual absolute risk on one versus another it's a disservice and i honestly think it is uh very i think it is d it is like treating gay men like children as if i mean it's treating the whole country like yeah i mean we can't handle treat people like adults tell them the truth i don't think that they would have any problem with being told the truth because given, you know, so much of the

historic, actually real stigma that has caused a lot of death in the community. And we could just move forward and not have this be a thing. Now, instead, it is now becoming a culture war for no reason. Right. And by ignoring biological reality. And this is just shows you the similar failure of the CDC trying to micromanage U.S. public opinion. Yeah. And you just shows you the similar failure of the CDC trying to micromanage U.S. public opinion. Yeah, and you end up with exactly the result that they didn't want to have, which it does become this weird culture war and people who, you know, do have are acting in bad faith, you know, pick up on this fact. And so, yeah, this really does remind me of like the masking guidance early on. It's trying to micromanage, trying to, you know, protect the American people from the truth. And they apparently care more about a theoretical harm and stigma to the gay community than they do the health of the gay community. And that's not your job. have an issue with stigma based on accurate information about how this disease overwhelmingly

spreads, then we deal with that downstream. We deal with it as a nation. We deal with it, you know, in the culture. We deal with it, you know, with activists and gay community leaders. But it is not your job to worry about that. It is your job to be clear about the facts. And, you know, all of this, then you get to the conversation about, like, well, why don't people trust the government? And why don't people trust the CDC? And why don't they just do, like, what they're told and what the guidance says that they should do? All of these things, which, you know, some of which seem gigantic at the time, some of which may seem small at the time, they all contribute to the sense that I really, these

people aren't really being straight with me. And so I got to do my own research and, you know, doing your own research can go very awry as well, can lead you to some bad places as well. I do not enjoy being like, I don't know about this. And then having to go online and find out three months before the U.S. public authorities can, I can easily tell from data from other countries, it's very clear what's happening. How does monkeypox spread? Okay, I figured it out. It wasn't hard. And all I had to do was go do my own research. I shouldn't have to go do my own research. Neither should millions of other people. We should just look to the CDC. They're like, oh yeah, this stuff spreads. I'm like, oh, okay. All right. I'll make sure, you know, to have a gay friend be like, hey man,

I'm not sure if you saw this. Check it out. You know, live your life. What's wrong with that? I don't think there's anything wrong with that whatsoever. And yet, unfortunately, that is the place that they have put us in. And you know, look, and I always say this, which is that COVID, we got lucky. Like COVID, I'm not diminishing any of the millions of people who were killed from COVID, but at the end of the day, it only killed like 0.1% or whatever of the people who got it. If we have a disease that's like a 1% mortality rate, something like Spanish flu, I think it was like 2%. That is hundreds of millions of people dead. And, or in this case, let's say we have a disease that has a 5% mortality rate. I mean, again,

I'm talking about significant parts of the US population dead. And if that comes in our lifetime, which look, we are at one and, you know, things we keep having hundred year floods. So why shouldn't we have more hundred year pandemics? We should consider that we will be in a situation where and I personally will be in that camp. I'm not sure I'm going to trust the initial information coming out of the CDC. Yeah. As a result of that. Yeah. That's bad. I think that is honestly a really logical response. And then, you know, and then the other thing that we have is worth pointing out is when it was the CDC and other mainstream media outlets spreading misinformation. I didn't see them getting the warning signs or, you know, getting taken down off Twitter, being banned from YouTube or whatever.

Our Spotify feed is covered in COVID. We don't even talk about COVID that much. My monkey box monologues have COVID warnings on them. Do they? I don't understand it. Yeah. So, I mean, there's also just like very disparate treatment depending on if your misinformation is in service of like the sanctioned regime talking points, then no problem. If your misinformation goes against that, then, you know, you're going to get banned, you're going to get

censored, et cetera. Even when sometimes in the end, oh, you turned out to be right as in the, you know, the lab leak theory, at least being a very plausible theory. Yes. Okay, guys. So we have some new reporting about what documents potentially Trump was holding onto. And, you know, I just, I kind of want to warn everybody that there's a lot of reports, you know, it's hard to know exactly what's going on here. It's going to take a while if we ever figure out exactly what documents and why they went in and all of these things. But I thought this was interesting enough to bring it to you. So let's go ahead and put this Newsweek report up on the screen. According to this reporter, he says that

the FBI sought documents from Trump that he hoarded for years, including about Russiagate. And I'll read you a little bit of this story and then we can break it down for you. So they say, according to this report, the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago last Monday was specifically intended to recover Trump's personal stash of hidden documents to high-level U.S. intel officials tell Newsweek. To justify the unprecedented raid on a former president's residence and protect the source who revealed the existence of this private hoard of documents, agents went into Trump's residence on the pretext that they were seeking all government documents, says one official who's been involved in the investigation. But the true target was this private stash, which Justice Department officials feared Donald Trump might weaponize.

And in particular, one former Trump official tells them that he was particularly interested in matters related to the Russia hoax and the wrongdoings of the deep state. This is someone allied with Trump. And they say, I think he felt, and I agree, that these are facts that the American people need to know. So effectively what they're trying to say here is that, you know, the government said, we're going in to get all of these documents that the National Archives has been after, that you haven't turned all of them over, that, you know, some of which continue to have classified markings and may in fact continue to be highly classified. But the thing they were really worried about were these, this private stash of documents, which had mostly to do with Russiagate and his own theories of like, we were spied on and that he sees as vindicating and they felt like he may use these, which, you know, again,

technically he's not supposed to be holding on to. He may weaponize them in some fashion. He may use them during his campaign. So there was, I mean, honestly, when you look at those motivations, it's hard to come away with any other conclusion that there were a lot of political considerations here. Now, again, a lot of this is like single sourced. Some of it is two sources. So take it for what it's worth. But I did think that this was a kind of interesting new detail and wrinkle to what we know about this search. The one that stuck out to me was this quote. The two U.S. officials with direct knowledge say that some of the intel might

have dealt with nukes, but that was not the main focus. Trump kept documents that interested him, sometimes Iranian or North Korean, sometimes Ukraine or Russia, some foreign leaders. It wasn't subject matter per se that was of interest to the Justice Department. It was fear that Trump might, quote, weaponize the information, including for personal gain. Trump was particularly So it actually makes a hell of a lot of sense that he would hang on to any of these so-called classified documents. Yeah, he's obsessed with this crap. He's obsessed with Russiagate that he would think would exonerate him, but maybe, you know, whatever, in terms of that. And first of all, the intelligence community, the CIA, what I remember, a lot of the initial Russiagate reporting where they were like, Putin directly ordered US election interference was based on

some like Kremlin source. And they started actually getting worried in the press that they were leaking so much information from the CIA that it might have given away the identity. So it would make sense that that might exist in the Trump archives. I mean, I can tell you from personal experience, I've interviewed the guy, he is obsessed with North Korea, like obsessed with his interview with, or his meeting with Kim Jong-un. And it would also make sense that, I mean, Kim Jong-un and the North Korean nuclear program. And when I say obsessed, I genuinely mean it, Like, brought up, unprompted. What do you attribute that to? I have no idea.

I think probably the novelty of it. I mean, look, it's pretty crazy, right? It was the first U.S. president to meet a North Korean leader ever. I mean, we forget how landmark. I think it's a landmark thing. From a fascination perspective, like, to meet somebody like the most reclusive leader on planet Earth from like the hermit regime. It's kind of interesting. Also, I mean, they did create

a nuclear weapon basically from nothing and sacrificed so much of their world GDP in order to do so. So actually the blueprints for how the North Koreans made their nukes is the real nightmare scenario because that is how any bootstrap nation on Earth could do so. So intel around how exactly all of that worked, that's kind of interesting. So Iranians, of course, he's obsessed with his strike on Qasem Soleimani and like appearing strong, so it would make sense that he also had documents on that. This fits so much more with the Trump that I knew and covered and interviewed several times, which is just narcissism and a genuine obsession with

proving himself correct and then just wanting to hang on the documents for the sake of it in order to prove it to anybody that he wanted to. There was a weird incident. You probably remember more of the details of this because you're more plucked into that world than I was. But there was all this like wrangling over making these documents unclassified at the time. And there was at some point in this back when Trump had a Twitter account and not just a stupid truth account. He tweeted like, I hereby declassify all of the Russiagate documents. So, of course, reporters were immediately like, all right, let's spoil them. Let's get after it. Let's see what this says.

And his administration, led by Mark Meadows, actually successfully argued in court that no, no, no, the fact that he tweeted this doesn't actually make it so, which is also an interesting wrinkle in terms of their argument that if he even declassifies something in his mind, then it's totally declassified because what they argued during his administration was, no, just the tweet isn't enough. We've got to go through the formal process, and we haven't done that. And they won in court on that question. So there has long been a deep interest and a lot of drama around whatever this like stash of Russiagate documents ultimately is that he feels is, you know, should be exonerating to him and, you know, maybe has some of the details about the wilder out there theories of them that like the Obama minister was directly spying on him that went sort of above and beyond what even the actual facts of Russiagate ultimately were. I would just view this as one potential theory of the case,

given that this is the only reporter that has sort of gotten any information about this. But it is interesting. And, you know, it might dovetail with like the reporting that they went in his private safe. And it would make sense that they go into the storage room where all the random documents that the National Archives are interested in. They grab that as almost like pretextual. But what they're really after is this stash of whatever was in his private safe that they went in and retrieved also. So I don't know. Putting it out there, keep it in mind. One potential theory.

We'll see ultimately if anything comes of it. Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting. And that case you're referring to actually does bear a little bit more explanation. The New York Times tried to sue the U.S. government for FOIAing those documents. And they won that case in a court where the judge agreed that simply saying documents are declassified is not enough to go through the process. That is going to forego a lot of his defense in the future in the court, given that his own administration successfully argued that. They argued in court, no, no, no, just him saying it, that's not how it works.

Now they want to say, not only does he, he doesn't even have to say it. If he just thinks it in his mind, if it just happens to be brought home with him as people bring their work home, that's enough to declassify it when during their administration they had the polar opposite stance in court. So that is interesting. Also interesting is, you know, in the wake of the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, there were a lot of people on the right who jumped out and were immediately like, defund the FBI. And then as more details came out and, you know, some sort of cooler, somewhat cooler heads prevailed, started to be a lot of discomfort with the defund the FBI rhetoric, because it obviously echoes very directly the defund the police rhetoric, which they have been attacking and using to beat Democrats over the head with. So the latest person to kind of back away from the defund the FBI rhetoric is Mike Pence. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. So he says, calls to defund the FBI are just as wrong as calls to defund the police, but Attorney General Garland and the GOJ must give a full accounting to the American people as to why the unprecedented search of the

personal residence of President Trump was taken, and he must do so now. So, Pence trying to kind of have it both ways here. Signal that he's a little different, he's a little more serious-minded, et cetera, et cetera. But still, ultimately, backing up the Trump talking points, as we've brought you before, like every single one of the theoretical competitors to Trump immediately bent the knee and was on his talking points like that night. They were right on top of it. The other thing that bears mentioning here with regards to Pence, he made these comments at a speech in New Hampshire, which, of course, you know, anytime anyone travels to New Hampshire, that is eyebrow raising, in terms of presidential ambitions. And the other thing that he said that made news is he floated the idea that he might be open to testifying in front of the January 6th committee. Some of the initial headlines there were a little bit more definitive when you read or listen to the entire context of his comments. It's very clear

he's sort of like, well, maybe I would, but not a definitive answer as to whether he would do that or not. Yeah, and it's very interesting. And Pence is already being – Tucker apparently went on Laura Ingraham's show last night. He said, quote, Pence should fire anyone who is telling him to go to New Hampshire and run for president and give dumb speeches about the FBI when he has no idea what he's talking about. So drawing the ire, I think, of some of the MAGA people in the party for doing this. I also just think it reveals with Pence, it's like, what are you doing here, man? Like, what of the MAGA people in the party for doing this. I also just think it reveals with Pence, it's like, what are you doing here, man? Like, what is the point of this? First of all, the idea that you have any credibility with any of the people who would be wanting to defund

the FBI as a result of the raid is preposterous. Like, all the people who have followed Pence are, you know, people who are not MAGA, quote unquote, probably much more traditional conservatives. But second, it's like he's still trying to square the circle and still try to be competitive in a GOP primary. It's like, what are you doing here? I think there were people who looked at how Glenn Youngkin was able to win for governor. And we talked about this a little bit yesterday with regards to Liz Cheney, who looked at that model and were like, oh, this is how to do it. Because he didn't go all the way in.

He kind of kept his foot in both. Did enough to appease the MAGA base and not have them totally come after him, saying some things like, we need election reform, wink, wink, nod, nod, but not go all the way in. But Glenn Youngkin was not on a ballot and up directly against Donald Trump. So it's just a totally different situation. And also, as we talked about yesterday, they had to basically rig that primary and give it to him. Number one, he was getting ranked choice voting at a primary, at the convention, not at the primary.

At a convention. They didn't have a regular primary. Virginia has weird rules about the party is able to pick from this array of options of how they want to run the primary and say they did it in the way that was the most elite centric to essentially protect him from having to go all the way in on stop the steal and whatever other Trump nonsense was going on at the time. So Glenn Youngkin is not the model for how you're going to defeat Trump in a head-to-head race. You know, I think that Pence is actually a really good example of this case that we both have been making, that the Republican Party is all about where you stand on Trump. Pence was with Trump every single step of the way without fail for his entire four years of his presidency. Never could you get an inch of space. Every time, remember when they would do those weird meetings and Trump would like make everybody around the table say something nice about him. Like Pence was the most disgusting bootlicker, complete

fealty to him. And then the minute that he does one thing that is, you know, goes against Trump's wishes, that's it. He's dead to them and they're running around, you know, saying, hang Mike Pence. So he is the perfect example of how there is no middle ground on this. Not in the Republican Party. Not now. You're either all the way in with him or you are all the way out and you are Liz Cheney. And he's still trying to kind of have a foot in both camps. Good luck.

It's not going to work. Yeah. It's just not going to work. That's my entire monologue today. It's not going to work. Yeah. It's just not going to work. That's my entire monologue today. It's completely delusional. I really don't understand where these people seem to think that they can have any, like, credibility overall with the MAGA base. But listen, I mean, they'll find out the hard—I guess it'll be fun to cover.

I'll enjoy watching him lose— You think he's going to actually run in the primary against them? I don't know if he's that delusional. It's possible. I mean, you know, he thinks he's sent here, like, on a mission from God. Yeah. So, like, if anybody was going to do it, it'd probably be him. So yeah, I don't know. Liz Cheney. So we alluded to this in our live reaction yesterday, but we just had to play the

clip for everybody. Liz Cheney in her lost speech, likening herself to Abraham Lincoln and opening up the door to a future presidential run. Let's take a listen. The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all. Lincoln ultimately prevailed. He saved our union.

And he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history. Yeah, you're the same as Abraham Lincoln. And when she was pressed as to what exactly that meant, why is she dropping all these hints, Savannah Guthrie on the Today Show tried to get an answer out of her. Let's take a listen to that. You didn't say yes or no, and that's fine if you're thinking about it, but are you thinking about it? Are you thinking about running for president? That's a decision that I'm going to make in the coming months, Savannah. I'm not going to make any announcements here this morning, but it is something that I'm thinking about. So she's thinking about it, Crystal. She's thinking about it. She might be running for it.

I know a lot of people are very excited about that. She's got billionaire money behind her. I mean, I don't know. I mean, you and I were talking about this yesterday, but I honestly think she would fare better in a Democratic primary, just amongst the Russiagate, like, not saying that she's aligned with Russiagate, but amongst that type of vote, the Nicole Wallace-obsessed, like, Rachel Maddow figure. She's a hero to all of them, because, this gets back to what we just talked about with Pence, all that matters is where you stand on Trump, which is nuts. You know, It is nuts, but it's true. That basically defines American politics.

I mean, this is a woman who voted 93 percent of the time with Donald Trump, who was there reliably on basically every issue. I mean, she campaigned for him this last time around. People feel like she's been resistance forever. But this is a very, very new development. And, you know, I applaud her for doing the right thing on impeachment. I really do. But that doesn't erase all of the years of truly terrible ideology. I mean, justifying torture, all the worst abuses of her dad in the Bush administration. She was there to just reliably defend and carry water for and continues to hold that ideology to this day. So anyone who is a Democrat or who considers themselves remotely left of center, like Liz Cheney is not your friend. She is not your ally. But you're 100% correct if you just look at her approval ratings today,

much higher with Democrats than with any other group. So there's, you know, she's not going to run in the Democratic primary because her whole thing is like just defeating Trump. That's her whole thing. And so she doesn't want to run, I to run in the Democratic primary because her whole thing is like just defeating Trump. That's her whole thing. And so she doesn't want to run, I think, in the Democratic primary. The other two options are running as an independent. You know how resistance liberals feel about third-party runs. They freak the F out, okay?

And that's why Savannah Guthrie, I think, is so like touchy there with her of like, are you or aren't you? And pushing her aggressively. Not that Savannah doesn't do that in other instances as well, but because there is so much sensitivity around this idea of having, oh, my God, what if we have other choices and there's more democracy and, you know, voters might do the wrong thing and back the wrong candidate and the spoiler effect, all of that. So anyway, I think resistance liberals would freak out if she ran as an independent, and that ultimately is her strongest base. So that doesn't make a lot of sense. The only thing that makes any sense to me is her trying to run in the Republican primary directly against Trump. And the case for that, which I think Rod Brownstein laid out in The Atlantic, is basically like, look, she's not delusional and the Reid Hoffmans of the world aren't delusional enough to think she could beat Trump in a head-to-head race. The goal would be for her to get in there, for her to be, you know, going after him,

digging him up in terms of weakening him for the general election. So there's a couple of problems with that. First of all, look, you all know, because we've been arguing it here and I've been debating with Kyle about it. I think Trump has the Republican nomination. Like, I mean, I wouldn't say it's a complete lock because God knows what could ultimately happen, but very hard to imagine someone actually being able to defeat him in the Republican primary. But if you're someone who believes that Ron DeSantis could take him out, Liz Cheney in the Republican primary is kind of a problem for you. Yeah, she's a spoiler. Yeah, exactly.

Right, because she is a spoiler. Because, listen, you have to assume there's some percent of the Republican electorate that is either actively anti-Trump, that's a relatively small percentage, some percentage, or could potentially be swayed to another candidate. Well, if you have Liz Cheney in there, she's going to suck up some of that vote. She's going to divide the potential theoretical anti-Trump vote, and then you're not left with anything close to sufficient margins to be able to defeat him. Now, again, I think it's a fantasy that you could do that in the first place. But if you're someone who thinks that's possible, then Liz Cheney is a problem for you in the primary.

But there's another problem, too, which is, are Republicans going to let Liz Cheney on a debate stage? Because I have my doubts about that. And there's a very easy way, and Ron Brownstein does point this out in his article, that they could keep her off the stage, which is to institute the same party loyalty pledge that they made the candidates in 2016 sign when they were worried that Trump wouldn't ultimately back their nominee. So all you'd have to say is, OK, Liz Cheney, then you have to sign an agreement that you are going to back the nominee no matter who it is. And we already know, of course, she wouldn't back the nominee if it's Trump. And she's also said she wouldn't back the nominee if it's DeSantis. So that effectively keeps her off of the debate stage and protects him from having to face any of the critiques that she would have. So, you know, I like maybe that would work out. I think it actually would be interesting to

see Liz Cheney debate Trump and go after him on this. At least she has something to say, as I was saying yesterday, at least she has a case that she can make and a critique that is a real critique. But it's hard for me to imagine the RNC, which is now stacked with Trump lackeys and whose fundraising is tied up with the Trump fundraising machine, actually letting her on the stage to do that. Oh, absolutely. I mean, look, it happened in 2020. Remember, there were all those like Mark Sanford or other figures who were trying to run against Trump. And the GOP was just like, no, it's not going to happen. I kind of forgot about that.

They were like, no, we's not going to happen. I kind of forgot about that, actually. They were like, no, we're not going to have any debates. They affirmed a resolution which was like Trump is the 2020 nominee and there is no discussion about that. They're just going to do the exact same thing again. I mean, it's so obvious. And it's just funny because Trump right now is raking in cash. I forgot to mention this in our Trump block. He is making a million dollars a day in fundraising after the FBI raid. So congrats also to everybody.

Well, and that's also a problem for the Republican Party writ large because he sucks up all of the donations. And so all these Senate candidates are out there flailing around, like running the terrible campaigns. They're struggling for online cash because he is like picking it all up. And if he decides to launch his presidential campaign before the midterms, which he may well do, that's going to be even more of an issue for them as we look forward. Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's give you a little bit of an update on Jared Kushner. A lot of people have a lot of feelings about this man. It's kind of a little horseshoe moment, actually.

He has a new book coming out. It's called of a little horseshoe moment, actually. He has a new book coming out. It's called Breaking History. And I've got a couple of reviews for you here that are not too impressed with this memoir of Mr. Kushner and his time in the White House. So first one is from the New York Times, which has some amazing language in here. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. Okay, so the New York Times, this majestically written paragraph says, This book is like a tour of a once majestic 18th century wooden house, now burned to its foundations, that focuses solely on and rejoices in what's left amid the ashes, the two singed bathtubs, the gravel driveway, and the mailbox. Kushner's fealty to Trump remains absolute. Reading this book reminded me of watching a cat lick a dog's eye goo.

Which is kind of amazing. I have a cat and a dog. I've never seen that. You've never seen that happen? I've never seen that happen. They don't have that kind of relationship? No. They do eat each other's food, though, which drives me nuts. I'm not sure who's eating what and whether they've had enough. It's crazy.

So you've got the liberals not impressed with Kushner, and I think for good reason. As a representative of the left, I will say we are also none too impressed with Kushner. In particular, I mean, of all the shameless cashing in and grifting off the Trump administration, he really takes the cake. The $2 billion that he got into his investment fund from Saudi Arabia is truly, truly grotesque and disgusting and raises a lot of questions about if there was another Trump White House, who they would serve, whose interests they really would be serving, and also raises a lot of questions about what exactly they were doing last time they were in when they were giving Saudi Arabia absolutely everything that that country could possibly want, up to and including, you know, carrying water and covering for them with regards to Jamal Khashoggi. So we've got the Libs, we've got the left. We also have Peter Navarro, representative of the right, who also despises Jared Kushner and his new book. Let's go and put this one up. He titles his review, The Clown Prince of Pennsylvania Avenue. He says, Jared Kushner did more damage to the presidency and the Trump agenda during his four-year reign of error at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue than anyone. Now, Peter Navarro and I do not agree on many things, but his biggest beef with Jared is the way that he was one of these people that thought he could sort of undermine what Trump ran on.

That's true. Yes. Some of this, of course, has always been cope because it's like, well, ultimately, though, Trump is still Trump. Correct. Like he could have done what he wanted. But in Navarro's view, Jared was, he says his neuter the boss role quickly became a source of friction between us. He believed that I, more than anyone inside the West Wing, could rile up the president to take actions that were, in fact, totally consistent with Trump's central campaign promises.

But as this particular Wall Street transactionist liked to say, and it always made me cringe, that was the campaign, this is reality. My favorite part of this is he did a little, what he describes as a tongue-in-cheek sample day in the life of Kushner. He says that daybreak back-channel his Chinese Communist Party handlers on the latest in trade negotiations and thereby weaken the bargaining position of U.S. Trade Rep. Bob Lighthizer. Mid-morning, help Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman evade any responsibility for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and thereby and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo into yet another paroxysm of rage. At noon, ping Israeli

Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu on the latest in these peace talks and thereby keep NSA advisor Robert O'Brien like a mushroom in the dark heaped in Jared's excrement. Mid-afternoon, meet with the staff to discuss the latest developments in mismanaging the pandemic and see what else they can screw up. At sunset, he calls the Vice President's Chief of Staff Mark Short to see what data they can manipulate and make it look like the pandemic is getting better. Afterward, he drops in the Oval Office for the fifth Mark Short, to see what data they can manipulate and make it look like the pandemic is getting better. Afterward, he drops in the Oval Office for the fifth time that day to see the boss and tell him how great his polls look. Sounds right, based on everything that I've seen.

Just a lot of bipartisan feelings about Mr. Kushner here. Kushner may be the single most mediocre and yet powerful figure in modern American politics in a long time. It's kind of extraordinary, right? I was trying to think back. There's a long history of screw-up aides, and I'm saying that nicely, who had major impact on U.S. foreign policy. And he's up there. Colonel House, some Woodrow Wilson figures, Harry Vaughn from the Harry Truman administration,

Jimmy Carter. Anyway, there's a lot of people like Jared. They never really even reached the same heights of power as he did. Untold damage, not even on what Trump claimed he ran on, but I mean on the tax bill, Saudi Arabia, one of the most shameless grifters in modern memory to ever like come to Washington. And one of the most egotistical figures who writes these shameless books celebrating his fake achievements. And, you know, ultimately it's on Trump. Like this is, as you're saying, this is the cope that drives me nuts when Trump people are like, yeah, it's all on Jared Kushner. I'm like, yeah, well, Trump listened to him. Okay. And he left, left him in the White House for four years.

I went to Jared Kushner's office. It's right by the Oval. All right. So at the end of the day, he cared more about Jared than he did about Bannon. And a lot of people like Bannon can't really deal with that because they want it. They want to project things onto Trump of which he doesn't actually care all that much about. Like he's just a vessel for whatever everybody wants to project. Yeah. Kushner ends up being a perfect excuse for them. Yeah, exactly. Why it didn't live up to whatever they want. If he wasn't there, the same thing would have happened. Gary Cohn would have done the same thing.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And the fact that, you know, Trump ultimately is president. He did what he wanted to do in the administration, and the buck stops with him, as they say. Do you expect if Trump were to make it back into the White House, I mean, Kushner would be right back in, right? No question. Jared has such a high sense of his ego, of his ability. I mean, that sample day, that's real. That actually is what he used to do every day. It's such a high regard for himself and his ability to, quote, solve problems and the amount of, yeah, just he has an enormous ego. And look, Trump at the end

of the day enabled him, never talked down to him, never really yelled at him. He was never really in the doghouse. He manipulated the media to his effect and got all of his aides fired. I mean, if you think about it, all of the chief opponents, Navarro, I mean, part of this is frankly cope on Peter Navarro's part, which is that Navarro was outcast from the White House for like 18 months because of Jared and because of Gary Cohn and others who very easily kept him out. So look, they ran it. They probably will run it again. I don't see any evidence to tell me that it just wouldn't be a redux of Trump 2.0. Yeah. I am a little bit fascinated by Kushner just because, like you said, his mediocrity is

so extraordinarily mediocre. And then to end up with so much influence, like, I don't, it's mind boggling. It's hard to wrap your head around. All right, we have one last little update we wanted to bring to you here, which is, as we have been talking about, Rachel Maddow no longer hosting a regular nightly show, which is a really, and how do we feel about her, end of an era in terms of cable news. I really maintain there are basically two figures in cable news that have true loyal audiences. That would be Tucker Carlson and Rachel Maddow. They're in some ways two sides of the same coin. She even spoke very favorably of him in a recent interview. So I mean, it is very interesting. So she stepped down, and she's the only person at MSNBC that can really drive ratings.

They put in her place Alex Wagner, who, interesting, I mean, she was there when I was there. She was fired when I was fired, and like a massive, you know, they let go a bunch of people at that time. But Alex is very sort of well-connected, and she went on to do Showtime Circus. She was over at, I don't know, CBS or something like that as well. Manages to get brought back in as a guest host, and then kind of out of nowhere, they hand her this most coveted slot in the entire lineup. So she launched her show this week, and they had a little bit of technical difficulties at the very beginning. Let's take a look at that. So with that, let's get

started. Tonight, the FBI warrant used to search Mar-a-Lago is unsealed. The three potential crimes laid out in that document. We'll dive into what it means and what could happen with one of the Wall Street Journal reporters who was first to report on the contents of that warrant. Then we'll talk with... We're going to go right... We are actually going to go right to the top story tonight. So, I would make fun... I've been there.

But I've been there. It sucks. That's also why we don't do the show live, specifically for that reason. So that's really hard. But, yeah, I mean, I guess you would think that they would probably do a better job. They would have the teleprompter up and running. You would think that these places are like well-oiled machines.

MSNBC is not a well-oiled machine, I can assure you. Wouldn't you think, though, for your very first show, for the top-rated program, that you would have everything ready to go? Locked and loaded. Teleprompter locked and loaded. I mean, also, I mean, look, I don't want to criticize it too much but it's also one of those things where you kind of do have to roll with it we've had our pill prompter breakdown do several times yeah I'm rising and if it's total if it's a monologue that's different you can't really go with it

but there's a certain level of ad lib I've seen it happen before live in studio at Fox and others when the teleprompter goes down people actually pretty good I mean part of the reason they'll just start reading off of their computer or, you know, try and ad-lib, throw to something. Some anchors will always keep their scripts in front of them. Yeah. So that if that, and they're, like, actually flipping through their script as the teleprompter is rolling just in case the teleprompter breaks down,

that they have it there for them. That always seemed like too much trouble for me. I just figured I'd just live on the edge and see what happens. Yeah, I'm the same. But, yeah, I mean, listen, I have it there for them. That always seemed like too much trouble for me. I just figured I'd live on the edge and see what happens. I'm the same. But, yeah, I mean, listen, I have been there. It is not an easy thing to manage, I'm sure, especially when it's your first night and you're probably a little nervous and jittery about how it's all going to go. The ratings are in for how it did go, and let's put this up on the screen.

I like the deadline kind of spins this in her favor. They say Alex Wagner draws solid 2 million viewers to debut of MSNBC primetime show Hannity Tops, The Time Slot. But if you dig into some of the details here, she was down. So Rachel did actually record an episode on Monday. And Alex's ratings were already down 27% from what Rachel did. So in her debut show, when you would think there would be some interest, excitement, or whatever, already you've got 27% of the audience that's like, nah, I'm good. Well, yeah, go ahead. And you also had, you know, they always love to talk about the top line, like, oh, 2 million people watched. But inside the cable news industry, no one cares about the total audience numbers. The only thing that matters is the demo because the rest of the audience is actually literally worthless because you don't sell ads based on

that total number. You sell ads based on who is watching in the key 25 to 54 demographic. And in that key demo, she had 183,000 viewers, which is a lot fewer than I thought. That's insane. Yeah, people need to really – so, okay, there are 2 million people who are watching it, but only 183,000 of them were between the age of 25. It shows you how old these audiences are, too. And this is across the board.

Fox, CNN, MSNBC, their audiences are so old. Yeah, CNN was 176,000. Hannity, shockingly, is 400,000. But I guess he has so many more viewers that it probably is relatively proportional. That's a perfect example, right, of, listen, I mean, again, I don't want to dunk too much, but like here on Breaking Points, every single person who watches this show is in the key demo. And, you know, we'll often have single clips with 180,000 viewers. Like that, it's just so obvious to see that. If you start including the podcast numbers, which again, same demographic, like the disconnect in the people who consume media and the general biography is just insane whenever you really consider it.

And look, it's a dying industry in that way. The last people who are watching it won't be people who are. MSNBC is just going to turn into Fox where all of the ads are like, buy gold now. You know, buy insulin resistance medication. It's all like pharmaceutical ads. So it's like 90% pharma, which is insane too, that it's even allowed, which actually tells you a lot about media, what's allowed.

I think, what are we, one of the only two countries on earth that even allows direct pharmaceutical advertising? Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Anytime people from other countries come, they're like, what the hell is this? Ask your doctor. What are you talking about? Yeah, we get used to it. We come to, you know, feel like it's natural, but it really is very disturbing, the sorts of pharmaceutical ads we're subjected to. So anyway, early indications of how that's all going to go.

I think, you know, MSNBC really has a problem here, especially heading into whatever the next presidential era is going to be. Because now she, Rachel, is going to come back, I guess, for big events. Yeah, it's like a... Debate nights and election nights and all that sort of stuff. But they just really didn't cultivate any sort of an internal bench. The fact that they had to sort of reach back and grab someone from a past era and slaughter in tells you a lot about what they have up and coming. Of course, they would never think of,

hey, maybe in this new era, we should go for someone who, you know, is an independent. He has some... No, they wouldn't. That's definitely off the table because those people might have a little bit of a mind of their own. Oh, yeah. All right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? So President Biden has jumped into a major battle between labor and capital that has a bit of a chance to blow up into a national crisis. So after years of attempted negotiations, we could

be headed for a national rail strike. Let me give you some of the background and the details here. So for years now, railroad workers have been trying to negotiate a better contract with railroad bosses, one that would provide them with a pay raise, something they haven't seen in years, and crucially, better working conditions. Now, railroads, obviously vital to our supply chain. 29% of all freight is moved by rail. Part of the supply chain issues we are suffering from now is because the railroad companies slashed their workforce during the pandemic, leaving the industry massively short staffed. In order to compensate for their own foolish short-sightedness, these companies have

forced a grueling and inhumane schedule on their remaining workers. So as one example here, Warren Buffett owned BNSF. They instituted a draconian new scheduling policy only allowing workers two days off per month total. So no weekends, no room for unexpected emergencies, or anything else. At the same time, the railroad business, well, they're booming. They're doing great. Profits breaking records. Rather than invest in workers or equipment, however, they have fattened the wallets of company executives and wealthy investors. Since 2010, the railroads have spent $46 billion more in stock buybacks and dividends than they

have in maintaining their own rail and equipment. Workers who were pushed to the brink during the pandemic, they were disgusted by the greed and the unfairness, and so they authorized a strike. Railway labor relations, however, are governed by a special set of laws in order to try to prevent a work stoppage that could, in fact, grind commerce to a halt. And after other attempts at legally mandated mediation failed, Biden impaled a three-person board to put together a proposal in an attempt to bridge the divide and resolve this conflict. That board has now just put out their recommendations, called the Presidential Emergency Board, or PEB, report. And it is a decidedly mixed bag at best. Here's the assessment of one Labor Notes journalist. The decent, he says,

24% compounded wage increases over the deal on its face, one of the better wage deals that rail unions will have gotten in the past about 30 years. The not good or unresolved, the recommendations don't do anything about sick leave or the terrible scheduling policies. Railroad workers have zero sick days. The PEB rejected the union's proposal for sick leave, leaving workers with none. The draconian scheduling policies, like the one that led the BLET and Smart TD to threaten a strike at BNSF, that's that Warren Buffett Railroad, they are not even touched. The PEB tells them to go back and negotiate it, sidestepping one of the most important recent issues around working conditions. Now, the railroad titans, they are very pleased with this result. They put out a statement saying they're prepared to meet with union leaders based on this agreement and to reach an agreement based on the settlement. Less clear is how the unions and their members are

going to respond. So far, the response from some of the rank and file has been absolutely scathing. One worker raged, Biden and his administration is not labor-friendly. His PEB is unacceptable. Dems will lose hundreds of thousands of voters for decades. This worker specifically cites the increased healthcare costs, wage increases that don't keep pace

with other parts of the industry, and perhaps most importantly, the complete dodge on dealing with any of the significant quality of life and safety issues, which really were what pushed these workers to the brink to begin with. Another wrote to us that the increased health care costs would eat up a large portion of the purported wage hike. Quote, I really don't see a single win. Now, pretty unclear what's going to happen next. The 115,000 or so workers who are involved, especially in the more Democratic unions, they will have a say on whether this is sufficient. And given its massive shortcomings, quite possible that this deal is voted down. But even if they reject the deal,

the law then authorizes Congress to step in and directly legislate a contract, forcing this contract on the workers and stripping them of all leverage. Now, you might think that since this is a Democratic Congress, they wouldn't want to step in and undercut the workers like that. But honestly, who are we kidding? Democratic elites, they care way more about big money and the looming midterm elections than they do about the lives of these workers. One worker told us, what's most likely to happen is that Congress will cram an agreement down workers' throats and the slow bleed of resignations

coupled with an inability to hire will continue. So remember, next time some boss complains about how hard it is to hire workers, just recall this whole chain of events. The railroads gutted their own workforce and refused to treat them decently in spite of record profits. Corporate greed is at the root of why our supply chains are so fragile. And just like the airlines, corporate greed is why nothing in our damn country seems to work. They would rather give themselves dividends and do stock

buybacks than give their workers a single day off. And after feasting like vampires, sucking the life out of their own companies, they then turn around and have the nerve to blame workers for their own failings. It is truly disgusting. But make no mistake, this does continue to be an extremely volatile and unpredictable situation. If it did come to a strike, it would not be the first time that a national rail strike completely upended our politics. Way back in 1877, a rail worker strike that began in Martinsburg, West Virginia, spread across the country until it affected half of all rail. That was called the Great Upheaval, and it was actually a pretty bloody affair. An estimated 100 people were ultimately killed. Workers destroyed rail lines, they burned trains to block scabs and break the power of big money.

Ultimately, the strike did not end until the government was forced to call in the military to break it up because sympathetic National Guardsmen, they had refused to break the strike. Now, there was no union for the workers in that era, but the massive display of militant worker solidarity helped to jumpstart a wave of strikes and the growth of official organized labor. It was just a decade later that Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor. Now, obviously, things have already jumped off in the world of organized labor and grassroots militancy. Starbucks workers continue to organize, unionizing fast food in what is truly

an unprecedented fashion. Another Amazon warehouse, this one in Albany, New York, they just filed for a union election as a wave of organizing sweeps Amazon buildings across the country. The pandemic made visible all of the human beings who are at the core of making our economy and our nation function, and they are only just beginning to flex their muscles. So Sagar, this has all been kind of under the radar as usual. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, everyone, as predicted, Liz Cheney, scion of Dick Cheney, the last remaining Cheney in office in the United States, resoundingly lost her congressional primary on Tuesday night,

predictable fashion. The result of the primary is less fascinating to me than the degree of her loss and the national media's reaction to it. And it leads me to attack one of my biggest pet peeves, lack of honesty with oneself. As for Cheney, I don't have much to say. I think anyone who was connected with and continues to defend the war in Iraq should be marooned out on an island. Do I think that criticizing Trump for January 6th makes up for that? No. So good riddance. Just to reiterate the results that Crystal and I dug into yesterday, it was a resounding and overwhelming defeat. Cheney lost almost every single county in Wyoming, except for those which were dominated by millionaires.

Cheney is just the latest member of the GOP caucus in the House who voted to impeach Trump to either lose her primary or announce her retirement, bringing it to a full 80%. Now, this isn't just a one-off. It's a pattern. And the statement is clear. The only thing that matters in American politics today is Trump. And as much as that sucks, you need to make peace with it and understand it will be that way until the day he dies. This was inspired by a monologue, the tweet from Ambassador John Bolton. He wrote, quote, Liz Cheney's loss diminishes our party. By putting her constitutional responsibilities about partisanship and political future, she deserves the highest possible praise. Attacks against Republicans based merely on disagreements about Trump must end. Note, Bolton used the phrase, quote, our party, and also noted

also that attacks on Republicans based merely on disagreements about Trump must end. So who wants to tell them? It's over, John. The Republican Party you were a member of died in November of 2016. As for attacks on Republicans based merely on disagreements on Trump, that is literally all that matters in these primaries. Do any of you even know the name of the woman who beat Liz Cheney in Wyoming? My guess is probably not, because honestly, it doesn't matter. She will probably have the exact same voting record.

The difference is she has the MAGA imprimatur, and Cheney does not. I believe in democracy. GOP primary voters are making it clear. They love Trump. And if you are vocally opposed to him, well, then they don't love you. And they don't love you enough to vote your ass out of office. Listen to them. Also listen to the man who they have put their trust in, Trump.

Trump, while in office, at times pretended to care about policy. But after January 6th, basically made it clear he cares about only one thing. If you think the election was stolen and are willing to, quote, fight for him, then you're good. If you don't, then you're bad. My favorite example of this is Elise Stefanik. In before times, Elise Stefanik in Trump's circles was kind of persona non grata. She was a neocon. She voted for the Equality Act. While Trump was president, she was one of just 14 Republicans to try and overturn the declaration of a national emergency at the southern border. She supported DACA, tax cuts, etc. In effect, she was everything

the so-called Trump movement was against. And yet, she, quote, fights for cuts, etc. In effect, she was everything the so-called Trump movement was against. And yet, she, quote, fights for Trump now. And by that, I mean she goes on TV and opposes impeachment on January 6th and has transformed herself into a Fox News MAGA warrior. What this has led to is that in January, at his Palm Beach resort, Trump lavished so much praise on her that to date, she is one of the only people that I can find so far who Trump has said definitively could be his own successor, saying she could be president in 2028. So again, I reiterate, the only thing that matters both to him, to Stefanik, to the legions of MAGA people who are donating to her is support for Trump. None of the policy I laid out will matter at all in her primary, as long as she

vocally defends him. Now you could say, but Sager, how is it possible then when someone like Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger still win these primaries in Georgia? I would say, hey, that's a pretty good point. But guess what the critical difference is? Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger didn't say one bad word about Trump. In fact, when they ran, they emphasized that while they understood Trump was upset at them, they still actually had implemented a MAGA agenda and committed to do so. Kemp, you may forget, while yes, he did not go along with Trump's plan to steal the election, still passed, endorsed, and defended the GOP voting law that was put into place in reaction to the election. He also said he would, quote, absolutely back Trump in 2024.

Voters backed him because at the end of the day, they did not see him or Raffensperger as oppositional to Trump in the same way as someone who literally voted to remove him from office or who has repeatedly appeared on cable television to bash him. Sadly, it only further confirms my thesis. If you're a Republican and you want to remain in office, you cannot say anything bad about Trump. This delusion about what it means to be a Republican or not does not just pervade neocons like Bolton, but a new breed of Republicans, of whom I am actually very sympathetic to. Those who hate the left, were disillusioned with authorities during the pandemic,

and are repulsed by wokeness that pervades society all the way down to the school level. That person is best typified by an Elon Musk. Musk has said that he voted for Biden. He's become disillusioned by the left. He says he supports a candidate like Ron DeSantis, but he wants Trump to, quote, hang up his hat because he's too divisive and he wouldn't commit to voting for Trump again.

Despite this, Musk is even speaking this weekend at the House GOP retreat. Now, I got some bad news for Musk and many of these other so-called I'm pro-DeSantis but anti-Trump folks. This is cope, the bellicosity, the tweets, the flags, the force of personality about Trump that you may hate, that is what the primary voters love the most. Again, I say, just listen to them. Being a Republican is not a lifestyle brand. It is to align yourself with the predominant

positions and dominant force of one of the two parties in American politics. Today, the force behind that is not post-9-11 terrorism. It is not tax cuts. It is not small government. It is Donald John Trump. And I know this is very painful to reconcile yourself to. Most people want to believe there is more, but let me tell you, there isn't. I made my peace with that a long time ago. Honestly, it's much more freeing and interesting to live a life not aligned with any so-called national movement. And perhaps a time will come when a real third party or some non-two-party aligned force can make a dent. But today is not that day. And in fact, while Trump is on the ballot, either way, that day is unlikely to come. Trump is the duct tape that holds the GOP together and the Democratic Party.

He's the only force on earth which can quite literally trump things like the economy or social change and make the election about him. Either get with it or get out. It's fine to get out, but don't delude yourself anymore. This is, it drives me crazy. John Bolton, our party. Dude, it's over. You're right on the ride. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue,

become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, guys, to break down the very latest in terms of the midterm election landscape, we turn to two great old friends of the show for a little panel action here. We've got Ryan Grimm and Emily Jashinsky in the house to break it all down. Great to see you guys. Good to see you, friends. The panel back in effect. Yes. Yeah, we haven't been doing the panels lately.

I can't say I missed it, but with these two, I did miss them. Yeah. You know, people really like it, especially as you get close to elections and there's, like, poll data to dive into, which is exactly what we're going to do today. So let me give you two of the latest polls, both of which I think are a bit outliers, but are interesting nonetheless. Let's go ahead and put the first one up on the screen here. So this is in Wisconsin, where you have Evers, the governor, up over, slightly over the Republican, this is like the Trump-backed guy,

I don't even know how you say his last name, Michels, Michaels, anyway. While you have Mandela Barnes, the Democrat, in the Senate race, up 51-44 over Ron Johnson. So that would be a potential pickup for Democrats in Wisconsin. That is not something anyone really expected to be talking about at this point in the election cycle. And then the other one, which we've been talking about relentlessly because it's just so damn much fun, is over in Pennsylvania. Let's go ahead and put this next one up on the screen. New poll with huge margins for both of the Democrats in the governor's race and in the Senate race. You've got Fetterman up 18 points over Oz, and you have Shapiro up 15 points over Mastriano. Now, again, I think both of these polls, guys, are outliers, but certainly Fetterman in the average of polls, Ryan, has been up roughly 10 points, somewhere around there.

He's been, you know, cracking 50%, so he looks like he's in pretty decent shape at this point. We haven't checked in with you guys for a while. So Ryan, if you could just start by kind of giving your high level view of how you think the midterms stand right now. Well, there's been a massive swing in, say, the last month or so, like the period after the Dobbs decision where Democrats spent something, you know, they spent something like, what, two months from the time the decision was leaked until they finally put out what they were going to do in response to the decision. And in that gap, Democratic voters felt like the sucking vacuum of an empty Democratic party. And you could just see people just kind of slowly backing away into the bush, to use that like Homer Simpson, like, you know what? We fought so hard for this party.

We got Trump out of office. We put this we put these Democrats in and they're just not going to do anything. And I think actually Kansas really changed the game for for Democrats across the board because, you know, they're flat on their back in Brooklyn and they see people in Kansas kind of standing up for their up for their own reproductive rights. And Kansas holds a really kind of symbolic place in the heart of America for both parties. And I think to see that started giving them energy. And then at the same time, you get Manchin back on board and they sign off and they do their,

whatever they're calling it now, the Inflation Reduction Act. And so finally, it looks like they're doing something. And so I think that that has brought back a lot of those kind of resistance Democrats who were walking away and being like, I'm done. Now I think they're back phone banking, they're back donating, they're definitely going to vote, you know, they're fired up. And what happens with the fallout from the raid, I think, you know, heavily influences whether you see that same energy on the right. So I wasn't terribly surprised to see these poll numbers. And I bet Mark Kelly is probably looking pretty strong in Arizona, too. I think that's right. Emily, how about you? How

are you viewing things? Well, and the difference there is that Mark Kelly, I think, is up against a really strong candidate, whereas you could not possibly ask for a better foil to John Fetterman, who is a great candidate, maybe one of the best candidates the Dems fielded this cycle, than Dr. Oz. He is just an absolutely atrocious candidate across the board. And interestingly enough, that speaks to how the right is sort of reacting to this new era, because Donald Trump got behind Oz specifically with the reasoning that he was electable, that he was electable, that Dr. Oz was most electable. And it's just a complete misunderstanding from Trump himself of why Trump was successful.

Somebody who doesn't like run away from the fact that he's made tons and tons of money. Whereas Dr. Oz, you see him pretending he's at a Wegmans that he didn't even get the name correct. It was the most hilarious clip I've ever seen. He doesn't even know where he is. He's in a grocery store trying to just pretending when he's looking for crudita that he's just your regular Pennsylvanian. I mean, it's just outrageous. And so I think it's pretty clear. We'll start to see after August when the money starts getting spent. We saw in Kansas, I think the messaging get tested and that brought in a lot of people who are not just reliable Democratic voters, but people in the middle, independent swing voters. And when you have an opportunity to test the messaging like that and you see it

be successful and then you start putting money behind it when you get into the fall, September and October, I would expect that we see those numbers pretty similar through Election Day with Fetterman and Oz. Wisconsin is another story. I think Ron Johnson is a very different kind of candidate because he's actually been he's sort of Trumpy, but he's been in office for a while now and he has a record to run on. So I would expect that one to be a little tighter. And those Marquette polls are outliers. Emily, you're from Wisconsin. I'm sure the audience probably knows that. But, you know, Johnson, maybe you can explain kind of what's going on there, which I think is interesting, because you just had this lieutenant governor candidate actually lose the primary of the

Scott Walker era. Johnson actually won during that time. Yet he's also kind of transformed himself into a MAGA warrior, but doesn't really change on policy. So how does he maintain his popularity in the state? And will he be able to, you know, he pulled an talking through some of the stuff. And I think his MAGA transformation has been entirely authentic. I think he's been one of those people in the country who actually, you know, especially older Americans who have seen the direction of the country and have sort of gone into that wing of the party because of it. And so I think he's one of those people who can actually run on something that he, at this point, really believes. And he's been on the, I think, Senate Intel for a long time and has made a lot of decisions. He has his name on a lot of different investigations, especially as it relates to the Russia hoax and the Intel community, which I don't think people really vote on. But I do think it's like an example of something you can say you've been doing in Congress, which again, is different than Dr. Oz and different than other candidates that Republicans have fielded this cycle. So I think one advantage he really has

going for him is honestly that he's running on stuff he believes in and he is sincere about it and he's actually done work in that direction. And voters like that. They like that they feel like they can trust people. So I think it's a more difficult landscape than Republicans expected it to be. You have a built in advantage if you're a Republican and gas prices continue to be, I mean, north of, you know, 350 even. That's not great. And a less than stellar economy. So we'll see with with inflation. it's a built-in advantage. But he's an interesting candidate. What do you think about the Wisconsin piece, Ryan? Because, I mean, Ron Johnson has gone in on some Stop the Steal stuff. I mean, this is a state that is very much a swing state. And he seems to have positioned himself on the fringe in terms of especially some of the election conspiracies. Yeah. And I'd be curious if Emily

agrees with this. But I think he got radicalized in 2016 when the Koch brothers and Mitch McConnell all kind of publicly abandoned his race. And they pulled their ads from him and they said, you know, he's going to lose to Russ Feingold. You know, we need to put money elsewhere. At the time, a lot of polls had him down double digits. Like that was a race that Democrats had kind of checked the box on and said, all right, Ron Johnson's gone. Russ Feingold is coming back. And Johnson stormed back and ended up obviously winning that race, which is why he's still in office. And when he came back to the Senate after that, he was kind of a changed man. And that coincided with Trump's election. So his fury at the Republican establishment that had betrayed him in the election now had a vehicle that he could

kind of ride with. And I think he has really very genuinely, it seems like, ridden in that vehicle. Like you said, on podcasts, on radio shows, like he will just he'll just go wherever. Like he's he's become a just kind of wild, loose cannon. And I think that there is a there is a genuine base for that definitely within the Republican Party. But to your point about it being a swing state, I'm not sure that there's necessarily enough when it comes to independence. And that's what that poll showed, that Barnes had a double-digit lead among independents, whereas Evers only had a slight lead among independents. And that was the entire gap. So we'll see.

Now, Barnes, though, is not well-known, even though he's a lieutenant governor. And so I would think he needs at least a seven- point lead going into the last couple of months because, you know, they're you know, Johnson's going to have millions of dollars to to to paint him as radical and defunding the police. And, you know, we'll have, you know, all all those sorts of things. So I do think you're going to see that lead a road. And I think you can't count Johnson out because of his major shocking comeback just six years ago. Yeah, I was just going to say, yeah, that, no, that that independent number is really important because that's who's exactly going to be attacked in the Johnson ads trying to tie Barnes to radical elements of the Democratic Party. And so that's the vulnerability. And to the extent that that's where he is now, that's where people should focus when they're looking at this race going into the fall, for

sure. You know, Emily, something I was curious about is, Chris and I talk about this all the time. If you zoom out, you're like, obviously, Republicans are going to win. You start to zoom in more, candidate quality, it's one of those things that gets debated as ad nauseum. We have reams of data over the last decade or so that tell us the candidate quality has declined. But yet, candidate quality for Dr. Oz, for Herschel Walker, for many of these key races does seem to matter. So how are you thinking about that in the individual characteristics versus the macro environment?

Curious for Emily's sake, my quick take is that when they were studying this, you didn't have this massive divergence of candidate quality. You didn't have Dr. Oz. Hersch. You didn't have Dr. Rosenberg. Herschel Walker wasn't running that. He wasn't. But yeah, Emily, what's your read on that? That's true. What do you think, Emily? Well, so both, here's where it's really kind of interesting. Both Mitch McConnell's camp and the Trump camp would be extremely frustrated about candidate quality as they see it in the Republican field this election cycle. Because for the McConnells, you have the Herschel Walkers, you have those guys. And from the Trump perspective,

you still have some establishment folks. And so I think it's the standard of what makes a quality candidate for the Republican Party. It's just completely different on two leading sides, whether you're at the RNC or you're in the camp of the head of the party, Donald Trump, you have a completely different take. And that's where you ended up electing people in primaries like Herschel Walker, because that sort of Trump litmus test, it's not always a perfect, as you can imagine, it's not always a perfect way to decide who's the quality candidate in any given race. And so that broader confusion, I think, has led, Sagar, to what you're saying on this micro level, a map that's really not as good as Republicans thought it would be.

Ryan, you really do directly have Trump to blame in a lot of these cases. And I mean, Herschel Walker, totally clear. They cleared the field for this guy. And then it was like, whoa, this is an issue. That should be a seat that's a layup for them. Pennsylvania should be a layup for them. And S and I were both shocked at what a terrible. I would I would go so far as to say Dr. Oz is actually a worse candidate than Herschel Walker, because you're not just like, whoa, this guy's out of his depth. You're like, I hate this guy. I can like he's terrible. You have a visceral reaction to him. But even like Emily mentioned Blake Masters before, who was the sort of Trump, Trump kind of cleared the field for him in Arizona as well. He has some positions that are very out of the mainstream. He wants to, he talked about privatizing social security.

He wants a federal ban on abortions. These are things that make it very difficult for him to win in a state that is now a swing state. And I would still say is huge red, but Mark Kelly is a strong candidate, has his own profile there, and, you know, has a much better chance at winning because of some of these positions that have been taken. Even J.D. Vance is underperforming in Ohio now.

Do I think J.D. Vance is going to win? Yes, but they're having to focus on this race and think about it and spend more money there than they ultimately expected. So, yeah, the MAGA base may like some of these candidates, but just in terms of the numbers and how they're performing, this has created a very difficult situation for Republicans where not only are they now at a disadvantage to win the Senate, they're in a position they may actually, Democrats could theoretically even gain ground in the Senate.

Yeah, I think you're right that, you know, J.D. Vance is probably fine in Ohio, but there have been polls that have been showing that race pretty close. Now, structurally, Ohio is so tough for Democrats, it's very hard to see. But your point is an excellent one, and it shows that there are multiple ways to be a bad candidate. There's the Herschel Walker way, there's the Dr. Oz way, and then there's the kind of Blake and J.D. Vance way where you're smart, you're articulate, you have a roughly coherent ideology that you're presenting to voters. But it's anathema to a lot of swing voters. Like you said, some of the positions that he has taken at Blake Masters in Arizona, I think Mark Kelly is just going to absolutely wail away on in the same way that kind of Ron Johnson is going to hammer away at some of Barnes' links to the kind of progressive left in Wisconsin. The difference

will probably be that Kelly will be able to find a lot of, you know, just video of Masters just saying these things out loud, where Johnson's going to have to show pictures of Barnes at a Black Lives Matter rally or, you know, otherwise kind of make these kind of bank shot connections. But, yeah, I think Masters, while he's obviously a smart, articulate candidate with a coherent philosophy, is not is not a good candidate. It is not. And I think like Mitch McConnell, in other words, like would agree with that. He'd be like, this isn't this isn't the person I would put up if I'm trying to win a swing state like Arizona. It depends what Masters shows up.

It depends what Masters shows up, right? Which is that sometimes he's talking about family policy and he's critiquing the fact that there's no childcare subsidies and the Inflation Reduction Act. Then sometimes he's talking about a national ban on abortion. It's like, well, I don't know. I don't know what's going on.

Cancels each other out. You know which one Mark Kelly's gonna run ads on. Yeah, well, already are running ads on. Just final thoughts, Emily, on that. It's like, well, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Cancels each other out. You know which one Mark Kelly's going to run ads on. Yeah, well, I already are running ads on. Yeah. Just final thoughts, Emily, on that. What do you think? Yeah, it's a really interesting point. And it's also to Democrats, national Democrats struggle with too, people who flirted with unpopular policies, whether it's like sex and gender, CRT, whatever it is, Republicans can use that. I don't know if that's something that will successfully work against Mark Kelly. But in other races, Ohio, certainly, Wisconsin, certainly, you'll definitely see that played. And it's just a good example of

how both parties just are not serving constituents right now because of the distractions and because of the ways that people are forced to sort of float towards those polls. And we see that come out in general election season really clearly. The last thing that I just have to note is, you know, in the Pennsylvania race, you had on the Democratic side, the Democratic establishment thought Conor Lamb was the more electable one. They were worried Fetterman was, you know, too. And Fetterman, as you said, Emily, I think is running one of the best campaigns in the country

in spite of the fact that he's been hobbled by, you know, a serious health event. And then on the Republican side, they thought Dr. Oz was going to be the most electable one. So it can be hard to predict this whole electability thing, especially when your brain is rotted by Beltway conventional wisdom. Guys, great to see you both.

Thank you so much. We'll be doing more of this. We missed you guys. Thank you. We missed you guys too. Absolutely. All right, thank you so much for watching. We really appreciate it.

Had an amazing show for everybody today. I actually really, really enjoyed today's show. It was fun to bring back the panel. So I guess my thoughts have changed. I do miss it deeply. Thank you guys so much for supporting us. As we said, premium subscribers. Watch out for the email.

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