Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/2/22: Terrorist Killed, Pelosi Taiwan Trip, Ukraine Grain, Primary Election Watch, Social Media, Forward Party, & More!

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

Krystal and Saagar break down the Pelosi trip to Taiwan, Ukraine war developments, primary elections tonight, abortion referendum in Kansas, DeShaun Watson situation, anti-human social media, & the Forward Party freakout!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 Watson Investigation: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/sports/football/deshaun-watson.html  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to Breaking everybody today. Jam-packed show. Oh, my God. There is a lot going on in the world. There's a lot going on here at home. It is primary day in a number of key states, so we will have a deep dive into those races, including this is the first time that voters will go and actually directly vote on a ballot initiative related to abortion. This is happening in Kansas. Obviously, Kansas is a very conservative state, but this is seen as kind of like a test case for how exactly people feel about Roe being overturned and abortion and all of that. So we

will get into all of that. There is also, though, so much going on around the world. We have Nancy Pelosi headed to Taiwan amid threats from the Chinese government, amid the Biden administration saying we really don't want her to go, but our policy hasn't changed. A lot to get into there. We also have some big developments out of Ukraine where that first grain shipment after that deal was made between Ukraine and Russia on trying to alleviate the food crisis, that first grain shipment after that deal was made between Ukraine and Russia on trying to alleviate the food crisis. That first grain shipment has gone out. The U.N. is also warning of nuclear potential catastrophe. So we have those details for you as well. There's some news on the culture front. Deshaun Watson, who's been credibly accused by literally dozens of women of harassment and

sexual assault, receiving a barely a slap on the wrist by the NFL for that conduct. But we also have breaking news this morning, which is that the Biden administration and the president himself announcing that a major terrorist target has been taken out by drone strikes. Yeah, let's get to that. It's pretty amazing news, actually. So Ayman al-Zawahiri, some people may not know who he is. He was the leader of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed back in 2011. Zawahiri was the founder of al-Qaeda, basically one of the fathers of radical Islam, a disciple of Saeed Qutb. He was killed in a drone strike in Kabul, that's according to the president who spoke late last night. Let's take a listen.

He carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens, American service members, American diplomats, and American interests. And since the United States delivered justice to bin Laden 11 years ago, Zawahiri has been a leader of Al-Qaeda, the leader. From hiding, he coordinated al-Qaeda's branches and all around the world, including setting priorities for providing operational guidance that called for and inspired attacks against U.S. targets. He made videos, including the recent weeks, calling for his followers to attack the United States and our allies. Now, justice has been delivered,

and this terrorist leader is no more. Lots to say about this, Crystal. There really is. Really interesting. I mean, he was killed in downtown Kabul, so not a great look for the Taliban, who clearly were harboring him, or at least knew where he was.

However, it also does say a lot about our Afghan policy. It's August 2nd, 2022. It's been almost 21 years exactly since 9-11. Zawahiri himself was somebody who rose to prominence in al-Qaeda in the 90s and actually began his radical journey in the 70s and the 80s. I actually encourage people. We were talking before the show. A Gen Z fan had reached out to me and was like, I literally don't know who this guy is. He was born after 9-11, which is crazy.

Yeah, we take for granted these are like household names. They were household names to you and I. I mean, but The Looming Tower, which I highly recommend people go and read by Lawrence Wright, gives you a deep history into Zawahiri and kind of his intellectual foundations. There is no al-Qaeda without Ayman al-Zawahiri. There's also no 9-11 without him. A lot of the directed attacks against the United States and the ideology underpinning bin Ladenism and more is solely his responsibility. On the Afghan policy, it's very interesting. So first of all, I was told that it was impossible for the U.S. to conduct counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan without troops on the ground. Well, not only, I mean, look, from what we know about this drone strike so far, and it's not like we have a great track record in Afghanistan, this drone strike literally only

killed him and two Taliban senior operatives in a specific room in this house in Kabul. So clearly there were assets on the ground that were helping coordinate this. Again, this is an official narrative. From what I can tell, it seems to be true from pictures that were taken in the downtown area of Kabul. But also, this is being used by some neocon hawks as justification for why we should still be in Afghanistan. As if the previous status quo, where he was obviously living in Pakistan and we couldn't do anything about it, was somehow preferable. So that's just my immediate reaction to this. The Afghan part, I think, is really important. First of all, I'm going to reserve judgment if this drone strike was actually executed in the manner that the administration has said,

because they've been caught just blatantly lying before about drone strikes and what the civilian collateral damage was. So I'm not taking their word for anything on that. We'll wait for independent evidence to come out on that piece. That's number one. Number two, it really says a lot about our failed 20-year war in Afghanistan that we're actually able to take this guy out after we leave. That's kind of crazy. I mean, that actually, to your point about like,

apparently when we were there and he was in Pakistan, couldn't do anything. But now, and also, you know, under the Taliban, he clearly felt like he could live in downtown Kabul. No big deal. And it was going to be fine. So quite quite a brazen act from him. But it does call into question what exactly we were doing in Afghanistan for all of these years. Because remember, while there was massive mission creep and ultimately, you know, the mission ended up being, no one could really even explain what the mission was, but it had clearly grown from the beginning origins of why we went there. But the whole idea of going into Afghanistan was to avenge 9-11, bring the

perpetrators to justice. And so if it took us leaving Afghanistan to actually accomplish that goal, you know, again, raises some serious questions about what the hell we were doing there all of these years, not to mention it again underscores the failure of the policy that the minute we leave, the Taliban feels perfectly comfortable to harbor the very people that, you know, we told them and they had allegedly agreed not to harbor. So it shows you how little we accomplished during those years other than, you know, devastating the civilian population, our own loss of life, massive, massive spending and Biden presents this as this is the, you know, the latest innovation in the war on terror. And this is sort of a proof of concept. And he says, like Obama with Osama bin Laden, Biden did not portray Zawahiri's death as an end to the war on terror, but instead as a kind of a proof of concept. But what did it prove? And what is the concept? Because again, if the whole idea of the war on terror was to get the

guys who, you know, murdered and massacred our civilians, our citizens on 9-11, okay, you've done it. You got Osama bin Laden. Zawahiri was arguably even more responsible for 9-11 in terms of being the mastermind than Osama bin Laden. The war on terror has always been used by Republican and Democratic presidents, Bush, Obama, Trump, now Biden, to basically have carte blanche to wage war and do whatever illegal actions and drone strikes they want all over the world with no end in sight. And so this would be a clear time to say, hey, guys, we did it. The original goals have now been accomplished. Here's what we're transitioning to. But of course, that's never what they're interested in doing. Instead, this is seen as a beginning rather than

of an end. Yeah, I mean, it's really, like I said, 21 years in order to kill somebody should have been dead 21 years ago. I mean, we invaded Afghanistan, I want to say October of 2001. So two months after, or more than a month, I think a month and a half after 9-11 is when the first U.S. troops were actually on the ground there. The Battle of Tora Bora was shortly afterwards where we clearly should have gone in and risked really everything. And I'm being honest here. Like, many American soldiers would have died. Probably a lot less, though, that died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. And that was part of the reason that we didn't end up going for it.

But if we had done so, bin Laden and Zawahiri would be dead. And many of the conversations and ills that we have in our society today really would just not exist. So it is a massive failure for the war on terror that it took 21 years in order to kill Zawahiri. It also calls into a major question all of our entire 20-year experience in Afghanistan. What was the point that it took us leaving for us to be able to kill him? Everybody knew he was living in Pakistan, everyone.

Nobody wanted to risk another bin Laden situation where you go in in the dead of night and almost risk getting US troops getting shot by Pakistani fighter jets. That's the only reason we didn't kill him. We knew exactly where it was. Everybody knows that. So then it took us leaving for him to come back and then we're able to kill him in this drone strike. So anyway, you know, lots of questions about forever war, about the purpose of what the hell we've been doing for the last 20 years. I mean, look, I'm glad he's dead. I'm glad he's dead ahead of the 9-11 anniversary. I hope it gives some closure to the people who

are families. You know, KSM is the last one who's alive and he's in Guantanamo Bay. But it is, you know, a fascinating closure on our history. I was talking about the Gen Z comment. Many people have no idea who this guy is. And that's really bad because it also, they have no political intellectual buy-in because they didn't have to live with what you and I did, the growing up of, we all knew, you know, the leaders of Al-Qaeda and, you know, every time Al-Qaeda number three or whatever was captured, it was like a big piece of news. But that's long gone in our history. So waiting so long for these things to happen, it's actually very bad from a, just from a societal point of

view. I actually don't think it's a bad thing that Gen Z doesn't have this direct formative experience that we had. You as a very young person and me, this was when I was in college that all of this started. And so it's been all of my adult life. Because just like millennials have a different and fresh and less jaded and propagandized view of the Cold War. Gen Z has a sort of fresh arm's length distance perspective on the war on terror, on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on the Middle East in general. And I don't actually think that that's a bad thing because it's hard to know when you're coming up in that era how much of the media that you're consuming is actually propaganda. Like, even try as you might to have a lot of skepticism and not just sort of imbibe whatever the cultural narrative is.

It's impossible to escape that unless you just weren't subjected to it from the beginning. So I don't think that's a bad thing. But yeah, I mean, it's a moment to reflect on the failures of across multiple administrations of the lies that were told to the American people about what exactly we were doing in these countries. I think it's also a moment to reflect on our continued policy vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia, which has brought Biden right back to the table with them in a way that he said he wasn't going to be. So our policy with regards to the Middle East hasn't really changed over all of these many years. And perhaps most importantly, to ask, what does this mean in terms of where we're going now and what powers we continue to allow these administrations to hold to get us

into wars without even, you know, there having to be a war declared. We've covered here many times the way that this has been used to justify troops on the ground in places that you didn't vote for, there was no public debate about, that's secret, that we don't even know about. Half of the things that the military is up to around the world right now. So it's ultimately, you know, very significant in thinking about the trajectory of all of this policy and where it's going from here. I would hope it's a bookend like Spencer writes, but unfortunately, it's probably not. It's not. Okay. That's an opening, obviously, to what's happening right now, the major story across the globe, Nancy Pelosi and her visit to Taiwan. Her jet is

literally in the air as we speak, military jet flying over the South Pacific. And she apparently will be escorted by U.S. military planes into Taiwan along with Taiwan's air defense force. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen from the Financial Times, some very significant reporting. They were the first to not only officially confirm that Nancy Pelosi will visit Taiwan, but that she will be meeting with the Taiwanese president on Wednesday. Remember, they're significantly ahead of us in terms of timing, so it's a little bit off in terms of the dates and what we're referring to. Now, this is an extraordinarily significant visit. Just to lay out, Nancy Pelosi is the

most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in the last 25 years. The last time that a U.S. speaker visited Taiwan was 1997 when Newt Gingrich went over there. Now, a lot has changed in the last 25 years. China has been saying this is an extraordinarily escalatory move on behalf of the United States, and it's caused a real diplomatic, frankly, problem for the Biden administration. Because really what it is, is that, let's put this on the screen. After the Pelosi visit was announced, you'll recall shortly before Biden went ahead and got COVID, he was asked on the rope line at the White House. And he said that the military believes it's, quote, not a good idea for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit Taiwan at the moment. That also came, this is in the Financial Times piece, that Jake Sullivan and other senior U.S. military officials, along with the intel community,

actually visited Pelosi in order to try and dissuade her from visiting Taiwan, saying, listen, it's a bad time right now. What's happening is that, and I think the audience should know this as well, China is, just because it's an authoritarian country does not mean they don't have domestic politics. COVID zero was a nightmare and a disaster for a significant part of the Chinese population. Just like we had lockdown problems, they had lockdown problems. Their economy is also in turmoil. They're having literal riots in the streets over people who are rioting over the fact that their mortgages, they're trying to pay their mortgages, but buildings aren't being built.

We talked previously about Evergrande and the Chinese real estate bubble. Oh, their housing market crashed like 40% a month. It's difficult for us to comprehend just how precarious things are right now in China. They also have rolling energy blackouts. Beijing has had significant problems. So anyway, the domestic populace in China is not 100% happy with the regime of Xi Jinping. At the same time, right now is a very critical time for the CCP and for Xi specifically. We are leading up to a fall meeting in which Xi is going to declare for either historic third term or be made president

for life. So Xi has to pacify significant parts and political constituencies within the Chinese Communist Party. People here may not be able to get it, but think back to the Soviet Union. Yes, the Soviet Union was an authoritarian regime, but you still have domestic politics as how they exist of the military, the KGB, different constituencies within the Politburo. That is what the CCP is like today. Just because you're the leader doesn't mean that you answer to nobody. There are different power centers within these different regimes. So Xi has to look at and pacify those. need that you answer to nobody. There are different power centers within these different regimes. So Xi has to look at and pacify those. Now, the difference too is that, remember, this is China.

They have a different system of government. So they view this not as a visit by Nancy Pelosi in open defiance as a co-equal branch of government of the president of the United States. They view this as a clear message by the Biden administration and are saying, listen, if this was John Boehner or a GOP speaker, we would hate it, but we would maybe get it. But she's in your party. They refuse to believe that Pelosi is coming here in defiance of President Biden of the U.S. military. They simply don't, they don't believe that such a system could even exist. And actually the White House even acknowledged that yesterday. Let's put this up there on the screen. John Kirby is a Pentagon spokesperson assuming the podium saying

he quote, made clear Congress is an independent branch of government and Speaker Pelosi makes her own decisions. That was in a phone call that lasted over two and a half hours between President Xi and Biden just a couple of days ago. So major diplomatic crisis on our front. And the administration, Crystal, is reiterating over and over again. They're like, listen, this is an independent branch of government. It's up to Nancy Pelosi. Nothing about our Taiwan policy has changed. So let's go ahead and take a listen to that. than four decades of diplomatic relations. The Speaker has the right to visit Taiwan, and a Speaker of the House has visited Taiwan before, without incident, as have many members of Congress, including this year. The world has seen the United States government be very clear that nothing has changed, nothing has changed about our one China policy, which is of course

guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three joint US PRC communiques, and the six assurances. I've repeatedly said that we oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side. We have said that we do not support Taiwan independence, and we have said that we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means. So first of all, when they trot John Kirby out, they're worried because they don't want to leave it up to Korean Jean-Pierre. They want to be extremely clear in our policy. But regardless, this is being seen, and we're about to get to this, as an extraordinarily eschatory move on behalf of the CCP. And just, Chris, I just want to say,

I think the biggest problem with this is Nancy Pelosi going here to Taiwan has nothing to do with principle this is about her wanting to quote cement her legacy before the waning days of her speakership because she knows she's not going to be speaker anymore yeah and she enjoys being feted as a head of state that's why she's always abroad on a military plane going to go meet the pope in the Vatican or whatever yeah so my biggest problem with this, there's no strategy behind this. You are literally escalating tensions with a nuclear armed power and arguably the world's only other superpower for your own vanity when the president of the United States and the military don't want you to go. So it's a trip of vanity and look, it could cause some serious problems. I really, yeah, anyway, go ahead.

That's one explanation. I mean, I can't say 100% that the Chinese are wrong here because it is astonishing to see the speaker just in open defiance of the president who is the leader of the Democratic Party. So I'm not 100% sold on their narrative like, oh, Jake Sullivan won. We don't want her to go, et cetera, et cetera. Because part of the context here is you also have to remember that Biden has multiple times, not just one slip up, but multiple times said directly that the U.S. would intervene militarily if China invaded Taiwan, which is which is a different policy than the strategic ambiguity that has long been the sort of diplomatic posture for years, for decades at this point. So when I look at that, and again, he was pressed on it and he was as clear as he could be before then walking it back. The White House walked it back.

He never walked it back. So that's right. So when you hear that rhetoric from the president of the United States and then you see the speaker of the House, who is of his same party, taking this trip very intentionally and in a very provocative way, like ultimately China is responsible for Chinese actions if they were to invade Taiwan or do anything else that was escalatory. But this is a very provocative move. I don't blame them for looking at that and assuming that this is backed and sanctioned by the Biden administration. And one potential explanation is this is Nancy Pelosi on a vanity tour, and she has long been a major supporter of Taiwan and been very provocative in her actions with regards to that. But another explanation is actually the Biden administration does want this and is OK with it. I don't think it's crazy to ultimately think that either way.

It's a disaster. It's an utter it's just an unnecessary provocation creating a potential crisis for literally no reason with no clear strategy behind it. I thought Michael Tracy made a good point. He says, simultaneous knife-edge brinksmanship with multiple nuclear-armed powers, anyone's idea of a rational foreign policy. Because that's the other context, is it's not like we can focus all our energy and attention on this region of the world. Personally, I think the CHIPS Act

and reshoring critical supply lines, that to me is the best China policy, not these provocative escalatory moves. And, you know, I don't support them in general, but I especially extra don't support them when we're already engaged in a proxy war with a nuclear armed superpower. So this is as foolish as it can get. The only just I have yet to see a single smart justification of this that doesn't just resort to like, we gotta be strong kind of stuff that really is utterly meaningless nonsense. The only justification for it is now that she has done such a foolish move, she can't back down as a result of Beijing policy, which is, I think, like personally, I'm going to bet on the Pelosi

ego every time. I mean, I'm not sure exactly which is worse, her being a narcissist or this being some sanctioned plan by the Biden administration. As we said- It almost doesn't matter because of how the Chinese are perceiving it. Exactly. And that's actually, look, we're not the ones ultimately who get to set the narrative. They are responsible also for their actions. We should keep in mind how they view the world, even if you think it's unjust. And that's actually part of the issue, which is that in a give and take of foreign relations, you always have to consider what does the other person think in their cultural context, in their political moment, and more. So this comes at a very bad time. Pelosi, if it is true that the administration asked her not to go and she decided to go anyway in the U.S. military, I do tend to believe that just because when is the last time you saw even the military and people in that being like, yeah, this is not so good of an idea. The intel community and

others coming out and leaking, just exactly giving the context of she is in a very precarious domestic situation right now, you know, going specifically at this moment. And it's not just you and I who are saying this. Many, you know, even mainstream people like Thomas Friedman has a column out today in the New York Times saying that this is a disastrous move, citing exactly this reason. Ukraine is already unstable. We're already embroiled in this war over there. Also, if you think the Europeans are going to step up when they can barely defend their own backyard in order to back up our policy in Taiwan, you're smoking something. They don't even have enough money in order to send to Ukraine on top of the economic damage

that they've already suffered as a result of sanctions policy. The domestic timing for Xi is also really important that you were pointing to because even people who I really disagree with on a lot of China policy are way more hawkish than I am. I've seen are like, I'm okay with this visit, but not now. Like this is like the worst possible time that you could be doing this, not only because we're embroiled in Ukraine in this proxy war with Russia, but also because of the domestic political considerations for Xi. And, you know, as potentially hawkish as he is and sort of aggressive as he is, there are other people in the party who would like him to go a lot further. So this is a great out for him as well. As you point to, there are so many domestic issues right now that he's having to

deal with. This gives him a great sort of rally around the flag distraction to distract from some of those failings on COVID, on the crashing housing market and inflation and the other economic troubles that China is facing right now. Yeah. Okay. So let's go and move on to the Chinese piece, as we've alluded to, some significant rhetoric coming out of the Chinese Communist Party. Is it real? We're not going to find out until she lands and possibly in the weeks or months afterwards. But this is a direct tweet from the U.S. ambassador or for the Chinese ambassador to the United States, Quinn Gong. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Here's what he tweets. This is the People's Liberation Army,

the guardian of the Chinese people for 95 years, who will not sit idly by when it comes to safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Let's put the next one up here. This is from a Global Times commentator. This matters. Global Times, for those who don't know, is almost like the most right-wing pro-military, pro-CCP English arm. It's a way of viewing what the most hawkish people in China are saying and what they're thinking is directly sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party. Here's what he says, quote, let her go to Taiwan, but pray before departure. Wish herself a safe journey and wish herself not to be defined by history as a sinner who starts a spiral of escalation process, expanding military frictions to a large scale war in the Taiwan Strait. So specifically making a threat there on the Taiwan Strait. I think some context here is

also necessary for people to understand. There have been three Taiwan Strait crises. The first two were in the 1950s. This was regarding the independence of Taiwan, the so-called Republic of China, at a time when there was frozen relations between the U.S. and the People's Republic of China. Well, we almost came to a nuclear confrontation in 1958 over the second Taiwan Strait crisis when there was shelling and disputes over a specific island. Many people in the Eisenhower administration actually said that's one of the closest that we ever came to the reuse of nuclear weapons after the Korean War. The third one happened in the 1990s and happened right ahead of Taiwan's first free election, where they really embraced democracy and they democratically elected a president. So that was whenever missiles were fired into the Taiwan Strait after actually kind of a similar fracas in US policy. So what happened is that at the time, the Taiwanese president

attended Cornell Law School. He was coming to the US in order to give a speech to Cornell. So anyway, he landed in Honolulu. And at the time, the Clinton administration did not want to give him a visa. So they made him actually sleep on the plane because they knew it was going to ignite a major global conflagration, possibly. Well, then what happened is that U.S. Congress stepped in and said, no, we're going to give him a visa. They compelled a resolution. The State Department also issued him a visa. It's a Republican-led Congress at the time. Yeah, but it was a unanimous vote. So it's not like anybody dissented. So anyway, this was in the 90s. Well, as a result of that change in the time? Yeah, but it was unanimous vote. So it's not like anybody dissented. So anyway, this was in the 90s.

Well, as a result of that change in the flip in policy, that is ultimately what led, in addition to the new election in Taiwan, to the shelling and the missiles that were fired directly into the Taiwan Strait. That's the last major Taiwan crisis that we've had. I would be remiss if I didn't point out the People's Liberation Army is significantly more powerful today than it was in 1994. China in general is significantly more powerful. This is why some of the comparisons drive me crazy, which is that 1997, the last time Speaker Gingrich went over there, it resulted actually in the most major display of U.S. force post-Vietnam. We put a carrier through the Taiwan Strait, all this U.S. military.

That was the unipolar moment. We were the single most powerful military entity on the globe. And it was also before Iraq. It was before Afghanistan. And it was also before the PLA had, I mean, their capabilities from today to 1997 is like comparing the US military of today to like pre-World War I. It really is that drastic in terms of their capabilities, their fifth-generation fighters, their ability to wage war, naval power,

and more. I'm not saying that they're equivalent, but they are significantly more powerful and have a lot more economic power also and leverage over the United States. So that is why the rhetoric and all of that is a lot hotter right now. Let's throw this next one up there on the screen from Politico, which is that leaving for Asia amid these Chinese threats over the Taiwan stop. And this actually gets into a little bit more of the reporting we were talking about. Again, Chris, I know that you're skeptical, but I genuinely do believe that she is such an egotist that she does disregard the warnings from the U.S. intelligence community, from the Biden administration and others. And the reason why I think this stuff matters is that, look, Nancy Pelosi at the end of the day does not have to deal with the actual consequences of her visit. If the consequences of her visit are going to fall on the president who is in charge of foreign affairs and the U.S. military.

And those people are very clear. They're like, we do not want you to go for many of the reasons that we laid out in our first block. But at this point, the trip is happening. And it is one of those things where the fallout from it, it could range from this is just China talking. That's one way of reading it, which is they have to say face domestically, ramp up the rhetoric. Maybe they will do something or the other. But the scarier is some of the options laid out by the White House. Listen specifically here to John Kirby about how a fourth Taiwan Strait crisis might play out. And again, this is being acknowledged from the White House podium. Let's take a listen.

Over the weekend, even before Speaker Pelosi arrived in the region, China conducted a live fire exercise. China appears to be positioning itself to potentially take further steps in the coming days and perhaps over longer time horizons. These potential steps from China could include military provocations, such as firing missiles in the Taiwan Strait or around Taiwan. Operations that break historical norms such as large-scale air entry into Taiwan's air defense identification zone, ADIZ, I think you all know that acronym. Air or naval activities that cross the median line. Military exercises that could be highly publicized.

So he's talking specifically about military exercises being highly publicized, about missiles being fired. Any missile that gets fired into the Taiwan Strait is a fourth Taiwan crisis. Taiwan Strait crisis, there's no way around it. And that would almost certainly precipitate some U.S. action. And even if it's not U.S., remember, we're not the only ones who live or are in Asia. I mean, the Japanese defense forces are on very high alert. The Singaporeans are very worried about what's happening right now. The South Koreans as well, they are, if you think, you know, we have hawks, you should go and listen to some Japanese rhetoric. In Japan, you know, specifically in this moment, post Shinzo Abe, Abe himself was somebody who was very pro-Taiwan and also very anti-China, pro-building up the forces. So it is a precarious situation in Asia, which is precipitated by Pelosi wanting to go over there, lacking any strategy.

And we just have to look at U.S. policy. It's not in a vacuum. It's not just about like, oh, you know, people who are heads of democracies visit each other. It's like, why right now? Why did you decide to do this? Right. Why are you casting aside advice of the commander in chief and of the U.S. military? Do you have a strategy? Because last time I checked, you're not the person who has to deal with the actual fallout from all of this. And reportedly in a direct phone call between Biden and Xi, Xi said to Biden, those who play with fire get burned.

So it's not just, you know, an editorial in this paper or state media commentary or whatever. The warnings and the threats are coming directly from the top in terms of, you know, whether it's Pelosi's vanity or whether she, you know, has sort of tacit endorsement from the Biden administration, even as they publicly protest. I do think it's noteworthy that Biden himself did not call her. If this is really critical to you and you really think it's important that she not go and that this is precipitating a potential crisis as it is, and it's brinksmanship and provocation and it flies in the face of what your actual policy is, if she's not listening to Jake Sullivan and the military or whoever else is calling her, you got to get on the phone with her as president of the United States. And so the fact that he is unwilling and the reason why is politics, because he doesn't want the Republicans to have this talking point of everything is done

to avoid a freaking talking point. He doesn't want them to have a talking point of everything is done sort of to avoid a freaking talking point. He doesn't want them to have a talking point of Biden being directly rebuffed by Pelosi as if that's not already what's happening here. So if you don't want her to go, get your hands dirty and get in there. You're supposed to be the great negotiator with all these incredible relationships who can get things done and try to directly persuade her not to do this. He didn't do that. So again, I look at that and say, you know, I don't blame whether they're correct or not. I don't blame the Chinese for looking at the state of affairs and saying, you're not mad that she's going. You're good with this because this is consistent with some of the other rhetoric that has come directly from the president of the United

States. So as I said before, you know, with regards to the U.S. and our policy, it does matter whether this was coming from the president or whether it's Pelosi just totally freelancing and totally rebuffing the leader of her party and the president of the United States and freelancing in foreign affairs. But, you know, for the Chinese looking at this, it really doesn't matter that much because their perception is that this is the new policy of the United States and that it is an intentional provocation and they have their own domestic politics to look after and they are not going to want to look weak in this situation. It's just, it is so foolish, especially, oh, just in general, but especially, especially in this moment. I just cannot wrap my head around it at all.

Yeah, and right now the People's Liberation Army, again, escalating their rhetoric. They posted a message that said, quote, get ready for war on the official account of the 80th Army of the PLA on Weibo, which is the largest social network in China. So look, we've also seen reports that they're canceling flights in certain areas because that would lead, may make way for the possible deployment of military aircraft. There was a direct, I mean, there was a direct comment from a Chinese state media commentator threatening Pelosi's plane directly. Now, do I think that will actually, that they would actually be crazy enough to do that? No. But you are playing with fire here. The point is that take it seriously. And

we can say, oh, they're just talking, this, this, and that. This is an authoritarian regime. Nothing gets posted without approval. Everything that is public is within the bounds of accepted conversation by Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. They are extraordinarily neurotic around their messaging. In terms of policy, I also think people should remember this. Our Taiwan policy is governed by the Taiwan Relations Act, I think of 1995, which effectively declares like we will have quasi-diplomatic relations with China, but we have a one China policy. Recognize the People's Republic of China. The problem on the Chinese side and on the Taiwanese side is really radical departures from a lot of this. So in 2019, Xi Jinping proposed a one country, two systems policy where he effectively said, hey, Taiwan, reunification is inevitable. There is no choice. Thus, you should enter the fray of the People's

Republic of China like Hong Kong. Not that it worked out for Hong Kong. You can have one country, two systems. You can continue to be a democracy. But at the end of the day, the major political entity will be the CCP. At the same time, the current president of Taiwan is pretty outwardly pro-Taiwanese independence, saying our country is democratically elected, we are a republic in our own right, we do not recognize one country, two systems, and we want to be our own country. Again, they are a democracy. It's certainly true. And I don't think it is deniable that the Taiwanese people themselves do not want to be a part of China. So the problem is that Xi Jinping believes at its

core, not just him, but the entire CCP in the reunification of Taiwan. They look at it as a massive sore leftover from the 1945, 1949 civil war, and have always looked at it as a diplomatic thumb in the face on behalf of the US as to who cares about it more. I mean, there's no question that the Chinese care about it a lot more. So then the question is, well, what is the reunification timeline? And current reporting, again, reporting, it is very difficult to know whether any of this is true. Intel community, they got it right on Ukraine. They also got it a lot wrong in some parts of Ukraine. So you take it for what it will. They say that Xi Jinping has moved up his timeline for reunification of Taiwan to

possibly within the next 18 months, specifically in order to coincide not only with the 100th year anniversary of the CCP's rule over China, or the CCP's founding, I believe, over China, but also in order to coincide with his third term. So keep in mind what the domestic political situation is in China and why that may matter. So, you know, there were also, there was a lot of talk here about we have to defend Ukraine so we can show that, so because then the Chinese won't invade Taiwan. And if they do, yeah, it's going to be real good that we wasted $40 billion in political capital. How did that work out? How did that position us? Well, we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. How well did that position us? Yeah. And I

think the last thing to point out here is that, you know, with Russia and the economic sanctions that we and the Europeans all levied against them, the really all out economic warfare that we. I mean, the hunger crisis around the world that has been, that predated the Russia, Russia's war in Ukraine, but has been exacerbated by it is just, it is gut-wrenchingly horrific situation. But in terms of the U.S. domestic situation, our economic entanglements with Russia are obviously nothing compared to our economic entanglements and really dependence on China. Not just China, but Taiwan. TSMC makes 92% of the world's most manufactured. 92%. Exactly.

Like I said, that literally would fold the U.S. economy overnight. And we are just beginning to scratch the surface of thinking about reshoring some of those capabilities. And it takes 10 years. I mean, it is going to take a long time, and it will take consistent political will of a type that we have never seen in terms of economic industrial policy and getting both parties on board and all of those things. So, yeah, it is an utter catastrophe, a totally unnecessary potential

crisis provocation at the worst possible moment. We'll see how it works out. So let's talk about Ukraine, speaking of great news. Well, this is somewhat interesting. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Ukraine's first grain shipment actually departed for the first time since the Russian invasion. There have been mines and blockades in the Black Sea. Also, some parts on the Ukrainians, which was causing absolute havoc in wheat markets across the globe, leading to warnings of a global famine and a food crisis. This was specifically in Africa, where a large portion of this grain ultimately was heading towards. However, people are still saying that just the four to six month disruption already in the wheat market is going to cause havoc in 2022 alone. And that this,

if anything, this will help the situation in 2023. Regardless, it is good for the Ukrainian economy that this began to flow because the Ukrainian economy has contracted by almost a third of their GDP since the Russian invasion. Grain is one of the most significant exports from Ukraine, like I've said, is known previously as the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, part of the reason why it was so strategically important to them, and was defended very heavily and fought over, actually, with the Nazis back in the 1940s. Now, farming currently, farming before the war, was 40% of Ukrainian export and employed 14% of that population. We've seen previously Russian specific targeting of grain infrastructure around Ukraine, also within the

port of Odessa, as we saw the immediate kind of shelling of that area after signing this agreement. But they did let this ultimately go through. I'm not sure what it means diplomatically. I wouldn't view it as a sign that things are moving necessarily in a better direction. If anything, it just kind of shows you we're in this frozen war of attrition. Yes, there's some movement. However, there's a counterattack, which we're about to get to, which is being planned by the Ukrainians. But it seems to be working slightly, but not all that well. Russian ground has been gained. The Donbass region is almost being completely evacuated by the Ukrainians. And

it just looks like this is going to go on for years to come. And so this isn't an opening to any larger diplomatic agreement. But that doesn't mean that it's not a good thing. It could be a precursor, perhaps in the future, to saying, okay, let's hammer this thing out and you can exist and we'll have our territory over here. But I think still think we're very, very long way away. Very far away from that. Yeah. I mean, that would be the hope. I don't know if it's a justified hope, but that would be the hope that at least being able to hammer out this deal and have it be respected by both sides and move forward and actually have a grain shipment go out, that that's the very early phases of restarting the diplomatic talks that, frankly, you know, the West was opposed to when

they were happening before and that Boris Johnson in particular went and made sure they ultimately were blown up and didn't move forward. Not that the Russians have really created any opportunities or any olive branches here to bring the Ukrainians back to the table. In terms of the hunger crisis, which is, you know, the worst that it has been in quite a long time, as many as 820 million people, that's one-tenth of the world population, was undernourished last year. That is, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization, that is the highest figure in decades. So the problem in terms of, you know, these grain shipments really easing the crisis, first of all, this is just grain that goes on the world market. So it might help to start to bring prices down and make grain and foodstuffs more affordable and accessible for

poor nations in particular. But there are so many other factors undergirding this crisis than just the war that analysts are saying this is really, unfortunately, a drop in the bucket. You have climate crises that have particularly struck, droughts have struck the Horn of Africa that have created a massive refugee crisis. You have, of course, political instability, which has exacerbated all of that. And then you add on top of that COVID, which crushed a lot of people's incomes and crushed the economies of everywhere around the world. But, of course, poor developing nations were the hardest hit. So the reporting out of these regions, the kids who are literally starving to death for one of $100 of high nutrition course, it's absolutely horrific and heartbreaking.

And it also does remind me that while our nation has been so focused on Ukraine, which I understand the Ukrainian cause is incredibly just and the suffering of those people is incredibly important and significant, as of Monday, a UN appeal for $2.2 billion in humanitarian aid for Ukraine has been 93% filled. But similarly large appeals for countries like Sudan, Afghanistan, where we are denying the Taliban regime and the Afghan people their own money, and the Democratic Republic of Congo received only 21 to 45% of requested funds. And I fully blame the media for that state of affairs because it all depends on, you know, where they decide to go and which heartwarming stories they decide to show, whose humanity they choose to ultimately put on display. And so, you know, the American people and I think the global population, a lot of people have rallied to

the Ukrainian cause. And that's a beautiful thing. But it's, you know, a lot of crises that go unnoticed and a lot of humanity that goes unseen in their incredibly selective coverage of global catastrophes. Well, it's more just, look, all policy has a reaction, and it's all about tradeoffs, like we were talking about with Taiwan. Yeah, technically, anybody can go to Taiwan. If they're Speaker of the House, you're the co-equal branch of government. Now, should you? Should you maybe think about why? Same with sanctions. I mean, we have at this point, the U.S. consumers paid hundreds of billions of dollars as a result of our sanctions policy against Russia. So should that not be then weighed against what we have gotten for it? Well, this is

another issue from the U.N. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. They say we are, quote, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation. This is from the UN chief, citing specifically the war that's happening in Ukraine. And as I was speaking about the battlefield, because again, I think this is very important. Remember, our policy there is to justify what is happening and supporting the Ukrainian military. So then we need to very critically assess, well, is it worth it relative to what we're watching? Let's put this on the screen here from the BBC. So Ukrainian military is trying to mount a counteroffensive in the region of Kherson. And Ukrainian forces signaled their intention to recapture it as this counteroffensive has begun in the south. However, a control of it, which fell to Russia earlier this year, and why it matters is because of its proximity to Crimea and the establishment of a land bridge.

But no tactical gains have yet been made on the ground. The offensive itself is gaining pace in terms of military equipment. The US just yesterday greenlit another $8 billion of military equipment. The U.S. just yesterday greenlit another $8 billion of military equipment sent over to Ukraine in order to try and bolster this counteroffensive. So we need to watch this very critically. Like, if this does not work, it is a clear and resounding message to us that despite the billions of dollars, despite all the support, not only in military equipment, but describe the economic and political support on behalf of the United States and the European Union that, look, it is not within a feasible realm that the Ukrainian military is going to achieve any sort of battlefield offensive capability. And that means that it's time to negotiate

and it's time to talk. Maybe the Ukrainians will get there, but the situation in the Ukrainian government right now is not so good. So I think we'll talk about this tomorrow, but Tom Friedman buried in his piece about Taiwan. I noticed that too. This is very shocking saying, and I'm just teasing it for the audience. He said specifically that relations between the US and between the White House and Zelensky are actually not very good right now, specifically because Zelensky, for reasons that are completely mystifying, fired two of the most senior intel officials and law officials in the Ukrainian government. And there are perhaps allegations of corruption surrounding that action. The cool and the mistrust between Washington and Kiev at this moment, you know, I mean, very significant. It hasn't yet broken out into the public view,

but it just, again, shows you that there is fractures in our Ukraine policy and that many of the warnings about wholeheartedly just backing this without any sort of checks or, you know, discussion ahead of time may have been a folly and a problem. Yeah. And that the media clamped down of any saying like, you know, this government had some problems before we got involved. That was like, how could you say that? Zelensky's a hero and he's perfect and that's all there is to say about it. I'll read you the section from this Friedman op-ed, which was about Taiwan, but he brings up Ukraine as a way of pointing to like, hey, guys, this is really not the time to be doing this Taiwan thing. He says there is funny business going on in Kyiv. On July 17th, Zelensky fired his country's

prosecutor general and the leader of his domestic intelligence agency. The most significant shakeup in his government since the Russian invasion in February be the equivalent of Biden firing Merrick Garland and Bill Burns on the same day. But I still haven't seen any reporting that convincingly explains what that was all about. Be nice if the media got on top of that one. It is as if we don't want to look too closely under the hood in Kiev for fear of what corruption or antics we might see when we have invested so much there. And he says more on the dangers of that another day. as you point out, directly says that, quote, there is deep mistrust between the White House and Ukrainian President Zelensky considerably more than has been reported. So really important.

I mean, Friedman is as insidery as it gets. The reason you should believe it is because Biden talks to him literally all the time and hosts him at the White House. So you take that for what you Yes, exactly. I just want to go back for a moment because I think it is so important to what the Secretary General of the UN is saying about being one misunderstanding or miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation, because this is something that is really important to keep in the front of your mind, even as this conflict and this war grinds on and on and on. These are the stakes that we're talking about in this proxy war that we have chosen to be all in with against Russia. Those are the stakes. One miscalculation, one misunderstanding away from

nuclear annihilation. And by the way, it is not just in our proxy war with Russia where those are the stakes. We also have decided, partly because of our policy vis-a-vis Russia, to get all the way back in bed with the Saudis. That has effectively gone to completely kill the possibility of re-entering the Iranian nuclear deal. And so that also creates another potential source of misunderstanding, miscalculation, and risks for global peril. Now, when you layer on top of that, Pelosi's dumbass trip to Taiwan, this is a really scary moment that we're living through right now that frankly, I think people, you and I and people of our generation growing up post-Cold War

have really not had to reckon with and sit with for, we never have. Past generations have had this looming threat hanging over them in a very tangible way that we have never experienced. And now here we are right back in that place. Yeah, I think that's right. All right, why don't we talk about the elections? Okay, that's all the foreign stuff. Lots of stuff in this show.

There is a lot going on here as well because there are some quite significant midterm elections happening right now today. Let's go ahead and put this Bolts Magazine piece up. Daniel Nishanian, who we've had on the show numerous times, he has a left perspective. He shares my perspective. But I do want to say the work that he does, just the level of detail that he goes into these races is so invaluable. Really shout out to Bolts Magazine and the work that they're doing. Every midterm day, they put out one of these pieces that details all the races in all the states that have sort of the key information of who the players are and what the stakes are. So let me give you the big picture overview. Today, you have primaries in Arizona, in Kansas, in Michigan, in Missouri, and in Washington. We're going to dig into a few of these states specifically, their governor races, their Senate races, and some of the high-level things that are going on. But a couple other notes I wanted to make here, you have a couple of squad

members, Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush in particular, who are facing primaries. To my knowledge, you know, it's expected that those squad members will prevail, but that's something to keep an eye on. You also have a lot of Secretary of State contests. Ordinarily, those are sort of sleepy affairs and no one really cares that much. But now that you have an active movement that is saying, hey, we wouldn't have certified Biden's election and we're going to go our own way next time, those become really significant. And you have a lot of candidates out there who are on the whole stop the steal train. You've got governor's races in Arizona and Michigan. You've got Senate races in Arizona, Missouri and Washington. Washington has become newly relevant because of what you were talking about

yesterday, Sagar. Dr. Oz is performing so poorly in his Senate race against John Fetterman in Pennsylvania that a Senate seat that I think Republicans originally were kind of thinking was a layup in terms of it's not even a pickup for them. It's actually holding the seat because this is Pat Toomey retiring. They're now looking to expand their map and go to other places and say, maybe we can pick up that Senate seat in Washington to try to win the Senate. So they're looking more closely at Washington. It would be Patty Murray, Senator Patty Murray, that whoever comes out of that contest is up against. Another little notable here is Chris Kobach. Remember that guy? He's back. He's running once again for Kansas Secretary of State. Another sort of, you know, character from the past who I don't think you could really

trust very well in the Secretary of State position to just uphold free and fair elections. That's not really his thing. So those are kind of the high level look at what's going on today, Sagar. Yeah, that's right. It's pretty interesting. I mean, in terms of the Harbingers, we're going to do a major one on abortion in a second. That's probably one of the most politically significant ones. I mean, Arizona, other places that we're going to discuss, really all just discussions of stop this deal and what the impact of Trump and his endorsement,

his policy, what he cares about on elections is going to dictate for the future. I think this is almost why the obsession with Jan 6th and the media just belays most of the point. It's like, yeah, we know. But I would much rather focus on, like, Doug Mastriano, this new Secretary of State candidate in Arizona, many others who are outright saying, I won't concede the election, and I will appoint alternative slate of electors if I can. Last time I checked, Arizona, battleground straight, Crystal. So that's why it's very important.

Yeah, I mean, that was the closest state, I think, last time around. I think Georgia was closer, but yeah. Extraordinarily close. Arizona and Georgia, which also, you know, there are issues there. Before we jump into, I want to dive into Arizona. But, you know, Sagar, I was thinking last night as I was going through these elections, I was thinking about the conversation we had with Kyle Kondik as well. It's like when you look at the big picture, you're like, oh, Republicans are going to romp. Like the further you pull out and you look at inflation and you look at the recession and you

look at, you know, the Fed is continuing to tighten and things are only likely to get worse. And you look at the president's approval rating and all of these things, you're like, oh, this is like a total easy romp for Republicans. And it's like the more that you zoom in to the individual specifics, the more of a mess it is for them. Because, you know, in previous years, we've had one or two candidates like back in the Tea Party years. You'd have one or two candidates that are total nut jobs, totally crazy that voters are like, listen on Stop the Steal, but they're for, you know, complete abortion bans and really outside of the mainstream on that stuff. Blake Masters in Arizona, who is saying he's not going to vote for any judges who support the right to contraception. I mean, you just have people who are in state after state after state

have embraced some of the looniest parts of the kind of online far right. So with that being said, let's dive into Arizona, which is great case in point for this, where President Trump's candidates are doing extraordinarily well, according to the polls. We'll see what happens today, but let's go ahead and put this tear sheet up on the screen. This is a state where you've got, you know, governor, Senate, attorney general, secretary of state. They say days before this Arizona primary election, a new poll shows Republican candidates backed by former President Trump are dominating over their rivals in several key races. Carrie Lake for governor, who has outright said that she would not have certified the Biden electors. So she would have if she was governor last time around, she

would have falsely overturned that election. She, in this latest poll, leads her closest opponent 51 to 33. Her opponent, Karen Taylor Robson, is backed by a lot of establishment figures, including Mike Pence. So this was kind of like the Pence versus Trump thing. So far, looking pretty good for Trump and Kerry Lake. You've got a couple others. I mentioned Blake Masters before. You also have Mark Fincham running for Arizona Secretary of State and Abe Hamada, who's running for state attorney general. And every single one of the candidates that I just mentioned is stop the steal. Masters, I just mentioned some of the positions that are outside of the mainstream for Arizona.

And this was an eminently, this is, continues to be an eminently winnable seat for Republicans. Mark Kelly is up for reelection. So we'll see how this all works out for them, Sagar. I don't think Mark Kelly is gonna, it's gonna work out so well for him. Although it's possible.

He's actually quite popular in Arizona. He was known as a like astronaut hero before he, he was, no, no. You're right. That really is how he built himself. But he never really opens his mouth. At the same time, he, look, I think. Keeps it close to the vest. Yeah. It's also like Masters. He's an interesting guy. He has a lot of theories, like you said, about legislation. The contraception one is more according to him, is more about judicial precedent. Same in terms of privatizing social security, which I genuinely could not believe that he said. Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. I was like, dude, are you serious? This is like mid-2000s George W. Bush stuff. But that's what happens when you have libertarian Peter Thiel brain left over from the 2000s.

He used to work for Peter Thiel, co-wrote a book with him, which actually is quite a good book on business. The Arizona secretary of state race, though, is the one which is genuinely terrifying because that is just one where this person gets to decide the state of electors, the administration of elections, and the frontrunner is a guy who not only said that he wouldn't concede if he lost, but that he would – he emphatically backed the alternative state of electors, the audits, many of these things that have not panned out so well for the Trump movement. So to me, that's the single most important one beyond even the Senate race. These Senate races, I think, will probably be decided more on the national issues, but the people who are actually in charge of administering these elections, especially in a state which was so damn close in 2020 and the center of all of this controversy with the Fox call, this is going to be one of those. As we found out in 2000, the hanging chads thing, who the Florida Secretary of State was and her connections to the Bush family and why that stuff mattered. This is exactly going

to come back to really bite people and why we're paying so much attention to it. Yeah. And I mean, Carrie Lake, the lady who's probably going to win for the gubernatorial nomination tonight, is backed by Trump. And by the way, I mean, the article is correct. Like the Trump-backed candidates have done incredibly well. Yes. His record overall has been a little bit mixed. But in Arizona, they're they're all about it. The Arizona GOP is still in love with Donald Trump. Yes. In fact, the Arizona GOP censured. Yes. Speaker Rusty Bowers, because he cooperated with the January 6th committee. He is also on the ballot tonight. He's running for a state Senate seat. So that's like a little bit of a side note to watch there. But that shows you how much the party has gone in with Trump and stopped the steal. And you can see the base is very motivated by this. Kerry Lake is all in on 2,000 mules and all, I mean, all of that stuff.

And again, you put this person in position of power, Secretary of State, Attorney General, and they're all buying into this insanity from the last time around. These are not the people that you want to just, you know, have a sort of neutral, unbiased commitment to democracy and not just doing whatever it takes to ultimately effectuate the outcome that they desire. One thing I was thinking about with all of this, Sagar, is especially with this dude who is like, I might not concede if I lose, I'm not going to really believe it this time around. Do you think that any of this will have the impact that it had in Georgia, which is the elections are rigged conspiracies, deterred some Republican voters from thinking that it was worthwhile going to cast their ballot because they felt, oh, well, if it's rigged anyway, why bother?

It's simply it's possible. It's a different state. That being said, the reason Arizona went blue is specifically because Maricopa County traditional GOP stronghold actually didn't end up voting for Biden. So it's not like it isn't full of like middle class, upper middle class suburbanites who don't like Trump. But because this is a party primary, the people who are left over, the party faithful, they are all in. I'm just wondering about for the general election, though, if it if it is, you know, sort of depresses the vote. I genuinely don't know. It's just something I was thinking about last night because it did seem to have that effect in Georgia. I mean, it can't not. Right. Which is that the same specific demographic type of

population which was turned off by this in Georgia, you would presume that given that the same political condition which led to Biden winning the state would probably have the same impact. At the same time, Arizona, I think the gas is much more expensive there than it is in the state of Georgia. So macroeconomically, it could have more of an impact. The Trump GOP also is a bit more Trumpy in Arizona than it is in, I mean, remember, this is the place of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Yeah, so immigration's a hotter issue there. Right, way hotter in Arizona. So it's probably more of a hotbed of Trumpism. So I would guess that probably not as much as an impact as an old time GOP stronghold like Georgia. But again, there's literally no way to know. Most people thought it was crazy that Biden even won the

state in the first place. So, yeah. We'll see. All right. I want to move on to Michigan because this one is it's really quite fascinating. There's kind of a weird showdown going on between Betsy DeVos and her family, which have long been these massive GOP funders in the state of Michigan in particular, also nationally. But in particular, they have been like the political kingmakers in the state of Michigan in particular, also nationally. But in particular, they have been like the political kingmakers in the state. They have shaped the party in their image, all of this stuff. So DeVos, I don't know if you remember this. I honestly didn't remember it. But after January 6th, she resigned because she'd been education secretary. And then it came out that she was one of the people who went to Pence and was like, hey, what do you think about

removing him through the 25th Amendment? So this came out through reporting. So that, of course, has created this giant schism, not only between her and Trump, but now there's this sort of like divide in the Republican Party within Michigan. Let's go and put this New York Times article up on the screen. So they are trying to nominate a Republican candidate who can take out Gretchen Whitmer, who, of course, Republicans came to really hate during COVID because of her lockdown procedures. Now, she has proved to be more popular, I think, than they thought. The latest approval ratings have her above water at 55 percent. But, you know, in this year and given some of the controversies, this certainly seemed like a prime pickup opportunity. So not only do you have this weird schism going on between the DeVos family and Trump, but we covered here as well. There was this crazy situation where actually the top two leading contenders to be the Republicans gubernatorial nominee, they both were kicked off the ballot because they had insufficient signatures.

They hired this consultant who was a total scam artist and used people that just blatantly, I mean, it was so obvious, blatantly forged signatures. So they ended up with not enough signatures to get on the ballot, and they both get kicked off the ballot. So then you end up with this sort of total free-for-all of a lot of more political neophytes, unknown folks. And ultimately, DeVos gets behind a woman named Tudor Dixon, who's a conservative media personality, and puts millions of dollars behind her in terms of a super PAC. She starts to rise in the polls. And then DeVos actually writes a letter to Trump and is like, please, sir, Tudor Dixon is the only one who can defeat that woman or whatever Trump normally calls Gretchen Whitmer. Trump, seeing the polls, I guess buries the DeVos hatchet and decides to also get in at the last minute for Tudor Dixon. So it looks like she has the edge to become the nominee. And again, this is someone who's, you know, dabbled in all sorts of like conspiracy theories

and fringe ideas and in her forays into conservative media. And it looks like she's in the sort of, what do they call it, the pole position to win the gubernatorial nod tonight. Yeah, that is the crazy part, which is that she's both a scion of the DeVosses and there's been a bearing of the hatchet, but it hasn't stopped her from indulging.

Stop the steal. The chaos, though, is just bad for the GOP in general because this, again, was supposed to be a state where, look, Trump won Michigan in 2016. It was close in 2020 as well. And it was supposed to be a situation where Governor Whitmer is tight with the Biden administration. She was almost made vice president. If Black Lives Matter hadn't happened, that certainly could have been. She was the poster face of lockdowns, of COVID procedure, which of course there's been a backlash on and she's tried to walk away from that. There was all that stuff going on with her husband and

she was a national figure. Wasn't actually that popular in Michigan, but the chaos has now led to the situation where she is not nearly as beatable as what was previously thought. But the chaos has now led to the situation where she is not nearly as beatable as what was previously thought. And the last July approval poll, look, has her up by five points. You know, even with the corrective, that essentially has her tied. Yeah. It was not supposed to be tied. Way more popular than Biden. Yeah, way more popular than Biden. Frankly, because she's buried her head in the sand probably for the last year, tries to make people forget that she was ever doing any of that stuff. But listen, that's the strategy. And the Republican strategy was to tie her to the lockdowns and to the National Democratic Party, run against her as hard as possible, and show that the GOP can contest

Michigan in the Trump era, which they have proven time and time again. So this is a major problem for the Michigan GOP. The chaos that has been unleashed within this has really put a damper on the down ballot problem or on the enthusiasm and more and unleashing this all the way to the last moment has made it so that many of the voters themselves don't really like, they're like, can we trust this lady? But Trump is kind of behind her. And then that of course is going to bleed into the overall election, especially if this person is endorsing Stop the Steal. So a common theme. Yeah. And she also, she has extreme views on abortion.

She favors, she doesn't favor exceptions for rape or incest only when the mother's life is at risk. And I think she's also just another one of these candidates. And something Kyle Condick talked about yesterday is very unproven. I mean, she's never done this before. And so you have no idea how that type of person is going to ultimately. It could be a good thing because they don't have a voting record. It's an outsider. People like that.

And it can also end up going off the rails if they don't handle themselves in an effective way. Like, you know, Dr. Oz has not performed particularly well in Pennsylvania. There's just a couple other races. There's actually a lot in Michigan. I won't go through all of them, but I just want to mention a couple. We've been talking about Peter Meyer, who's that Republican who voted for Trump's impeachment. He's an incumbent. He is facing a primary challenge from his right that Democrats have been backing, which is bananas and hypocritical and all of those things.

You have two Democratic incumbents who have been drawn into the same district. Haley Stevens, who is more of sort of like, you know, moderate corporate standard issue Democrat. Andy Levin, who's more progressive, who's backed by Bernie Sanders. And AIPAC, the American-Israeli PAC, has been playing significantly in this race, trying to boost Haley Stevens against Levin,

even though Levin is number one Jewish and number two, I guess, is a sponsor of the two-state solution bill in Congress. So they're going to the mat to defeat him, which is, you know, insane. There's a lot that could be said about that as well. And then the last thing that I'll say about Michigan is that they also have a redrawn state Senate map that has been gerrymandered to Democrats' advantage. And there is a chance that if Democrats not only hold on to the governor's mansion, which has been made more possible, both by sort of the fading of those COVID lockdown concerns and the GOP and disarray situation, they have a decent chance to actually win control of the state Senate, which would be very significant and obviously a key swing state.

Yeah. So the Peter Meyer race obviously is the one with the democracies being attacked. And yet, you know, I was reading yesterday, Crystal, the Democrats have spent more backing him than the entire budget of his campaign. That is how much his primary opponent, who's attacking Peter Meyer on Stop the Steal and for voting to impeach Trump. That is how much of a lift he's gotten from the National Democratic Party. Amazing. Insane. Amazing.

All right, we got to get to this. Okay, this is the best. We save the best for last. Missouri. Okay, we've covered Missouri a few times, but just to remind you, the big race we've been focused on there is the Senate race. On the Democratic side, you have Lucas Kuntz and you have this woman whose name I forget,

but she's like an heiress, billionaire type. And very hard to say who's going to prevail ultimately in that primary. The Republican side, very interesting. You have two Erics

who are contesting this, Eric Schmidt and Eric Greitens. There's another woman as well, but Trump weeks ago had said she's not MAGA enough or whatever he said, and I'm not endorsing her. And I think that has kind of hurt her chances in terms of pulling off the GOP nominations here. Greitens, you may recall, is the former governor of the state who had to resign in disgrace, Grace, not only over allegations that he blackmailed his mistress with naked photos that she did not want taken. If this, you know, you say anything about this, I'm going to release these.

That's the allegations, which he denies. But there was also a corruption scandal that is actually, I think, the real reason he resigned to sort of head off the investigation that Republicans, including Josh Hawley at the time, were sort of— Him and Hawley hate each other. They hate each other, right. And he backed—Hawley backed the woman who Trump specifically did not endorse. Okay, since Greitens started running for Senate, his ex-wife has come out and also accused him in court proceedings of domestic abuse, which he also denies. So not the greatest potential candidate to put up in the fall.

And in fact, Democrats are a little bit hopeful that if he was the nominee, they would have some outside, outside chance of potentially winning the seat if they run a really effective campaign. Then you have Eric Schmidt, who has also, of course, been vying for Trump's endorsement and trying to signal he's MAG as much as he can and that he would not vote for Mitch McConnell as majority leader and all of this. So Trump puts out this missive at the last minute that's like, I'm going to endorse in the Missouri Senate. And we were like, wow, it's happening. Here we go.

Whoa, that's crazy. It looked like before we were kind of like, I think he might go with Greitens, but then the polls were shifting in Schmidt's favor because there was a bunch of established money that came in to basically trash Greitens on the airwaves, and that seems to be effective. He had dropped in the polls significantly. So then we're like, oh, well, he's probably going to come in behind Schmidt because he wants the winner, right? So let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. You cannot believe this. Okay, I'm going to read this whole thing, so leave this up here. He says, Missouri Senate endorsement. There is a big election in the great state of Missouri, and we must send a MAGA champion and true warrior to the U.S. Senate, someone who will fight for our border security, election integrity, our military, great veterans, together with having

a powerful toughness on crime in the border. We need a person who will not back down to the radical left lunatics who are destroying our country. I trust the great people of Missouri on this one to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 elections. And I'm therefore proud to announce that Eric, in all caps, has my complete and total endorsement. Again, both Schmitt and Greitens are named Eric. So which Eric? Nobody knows. So they go, both of them, shamelessly, Greitens first and then Schmidt follows. Right. Claim the endorsement as their own. They're like, I'm proud to be endorsed by President Trump. Which Eric? Is it all Eric's? Shout out to Eric's who are out there. This is a top 10 Trump. He obviously just

meant to sort of cop out. I mean, it is an incredible troll. You have to give him credit for that. Oh, it's hilarious. I mean, this is genuinely one of the funniest things he's ever done in politics. He's like, I am hereby endorsing Eric. And everybody's like, wait, which one? And then both Erics, because they have no shame, are like, no, no, no, guys, it's me. Apparently, there's actually another Eric who's on the ballot.

Oh, really? Yeah, like seventh or whatever. Oh, God. He's in the race. So we'll see what happens. Producer James was like, because Greitens was the first out with the, like, it's me. I'm endorsed. Then he pulled a Buttigieg.

Right. So I'm just, like, claiming the victory before anyone could deny it. I'm the Eric. I'm the first. Look, it's just totally ridiculous. It's also such a cowardly move by Trump. If you're going to step in, cowardly move by trump if you're gonna step in then step in and if you don't want nobody force you to you don't have to endorse anyone

why do it in the first place messing with people it's all a game to him he really doesn't care like he has he enjoys watching him dance and that's really what this is they're both gonna dance for him that's exactly right neither will say a word right if they do win they'll be like i'm and he'll even claim be like, I endorse the guy. This is the Eric that I meant. Oh, 100%. It's been 12 hours since the statement came out and he hasn't clarified,

which means it was an intentional move, which is just amazing. Truly amazing. Yeah, I mean, he says, I trust the people of Missouri to figure it out. That's why I'm endorsing Eric. So I guess, you know, the other woman who,

what's her name, Vicky Hartzler or something like that? Yeah, Vicky Hartzler. He ruled her out, I think it was two weeks ago. Yeah, so I guess it's clear who he's not endorsing, but not totally clear who he is endorsing. So throws a little bit of a wrench into the whole situation going into election day. Again, Republican establishment figures have sort of,

with a lot of money, have coalesced behind not Eric Greitens because they see him as potentially vulnerable in the fall. Listen, it's still Missouri. The national headwinds are what they are. It's a very red state at this point, even though not that long ago it really wasn't. You know, I talked to Jason Kander about his new book. He came very close in that race against Hawley to defeating him. And that was not very long ago. Claire McCaskill, obviously, represented the state.

You had a whole Carnahan dynasty of Democrats. But, you know, it has shifted dramatically to the right in the recent era. And so it still would be a really outside shot, even if it is Greitens that gets the nomination. But some classic, classic Trump moves here. Yeah, absolutely. All right. We wanted to get to this ballot initiative, spend a little bit of time on this in Kansas. Let's go and put this up on the screen. So Kansas primary voters, they are also choosing their nominees for a number of races. But the one we wanted to focus on here is a ballot initiative because they'll be the first state in the country to decide statewide on the right to abortion since the Supreme Court's June decision overturning Roe versus Wade. I'm

reading from this USA Today article. They say putting abortion access at risk in one of the few Midwestern states that allows the procedure. A state constitutional amendment on the primary ballot asked voters whether they want to preserve the right to an abortion in Kansas, a right protected in a 2019 state Supreme Court ruling. So basically what happened here is there's language in the state's constitution that that state Supreme Court interpreted as guaranteeing a right to abortion in that 2019 state Supreme Court ruling. The ballot initiative is to take that clause out of the, to amend the Constitution to get rid of that right to an abortion. And then that opens up the Kansas state legislature, which is, has a super majority of Republicans in it to do whatever they want to do with regards to abortion. And, you know, you could expect they're going to go through with some

very stringent ban of the type that we've seen in other super red states as well. So if you vote yes, that means that you want the Republican legislature to be able to pass these sorts of bans. If you vote no, you want to keep the Constitution as is and protect the right as it exists. The polling has been relatively scarce. Obviously, again, Kansas, very conservative state. But, you know, what we've seen from the polling is that even conservative places are not on board with the most stringent restrictions and bans that have been passed through a lot of Republican legislators, legislatures. So that puts the outcome very much in doubt here. and other outlets indicates that this has been hotly contested, that there is a lot of attention, focus, energy on the ground around this issue that, you know, you go, especially through the suburbs, everybody's got a yard sign, either vote yes or vote no, that people are extremely energized around this. And polling has been scant, but it seems to suggest that this is going to be

ultimately a very close contest. Now, what some election observers are saying is that this could be a little bit of a bellwether of how much this issue matters to voters and how people feel about it and all of those things. So that's why this is being very closely watched. I'm watching the turnout like crazy. No matter even – I mean, I don't know how it's going to work out. I simply have no idea. I mean, Kansas is a red state, so it wouldn't be a surprise if the referendum did pass. But I actually think it's a cool way in order to do this. Put it to a referendum for the people of the state and actually make it like a direct one. Direct democracy. and their capture, this is the best way as a barometer to say, okay, how is this going to work out? It's directly to the people. They can campaign. It has become, as you said, a hot button

issue in the state. So we're watching a couple of things. Democratic turnout, is that going to influence the overall election? Two, will new people actually come out and vote based upon this? Three, will the pro-lifers come out to defend their position or to try and enshrine it into law. So a lot of questions about activated political constituencies. And the reason it matters even more is it's not like Kansas is a very contested state. So this is on its merits, abortion alone, not a lot of confounding variables and could tell us a lot about how the entire country is going to feel about this in the future and not necessarily in 2022 or even 2024, but when other major ballot initiatives like this come up to vote. The one thing that I think gives Republicans and

conservatives a bit of an advantage here, although even, I mean, there are probably even Republican voters who would vote no in the sort of pro-choice position on this amendment, but Republicans have a lot more at stake in the other primaries today. I mean, they're deciding for Secretary of State, they're deciding for Attorney General. And because it is such a Republican stronghold state, you're likely to have more Republicans energized to go and vote in those primaries. This is just me guessing what the landscape might ultimately look like. But it's definitely one that is interesting and fascinating to watch here. And I did think it was noteworthy the way that the people who want the amendment, who are, you know, in the pro-life or anti-abortion position,

the way that they're making the case, to me, is actually pretty revealing. Because they're not going all in on, like, we got to save the babies and we got to pass the ban and we got to, you know, make sure that there's no abortions in the state. They're saying this is abortion neutral. This actually, we're just, we just want to change this part of the constitution and then we'll let legislators decide what's appropriate for the state. But they are not actually leaning into the changes that they want to make. In fact, one person who claimed to be a spokesperson for like the coalition who's backing the amendment was caught saying we've got the ban ready to go the minute that this happens. And the larger coalition distanced themselves from that individual. even in a state like Kansas, they feel they need to frame their messaging around like,

this is actually abortion neutral and doesn't, and are not pushing that this would lead directly to a ban or the sorts of restrictions that we all know inevitably. Yeah, I think it's really interesting. We're going to watch it all very closely and see how it works out, not only in the results, but the turnout. It's going to tell us a lot, possibly about the future. Also could be a wash. Yeah, who knows? That's the fun part about watching politics, isn't it? All right, let's talk about Deshaun Watson. Don't usually talk about sports. We all had to do a lot of research for this one. But whenever you look at this case, it tells you a lot about the NFL, a lot about the media, a lot about who suffers and who doesn't suffers, how much money is at stake. And so we did our best in order to try

and represent. We know a lot of you guys care about it as well. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, which I think actually sums it up quite well. For those who don't know, Deshaun Watson has been accused by dozens of women for sexually assaulting them during massage therapy appointments. To be clear, he was not criminally charged, though some allegations were presented to the grand jury. However, a lot of evidence now shows you that the team helped cover up, the Houston Texans at the time, helped cover up some of those allegations and really got him off the hook and tried to get him past all of this. He was eventually then signed by another team. But he has now been suspended by the NFL after a resurgence of allegations against him by the

New York Times for only six games. And as that tweet sums up, for guys like Deshaun Watson, Adrian Peterson, Ray Rice, Ezekiel Elliott, and DeAndre Hopkins, these guys have been all suspended for six games for various violations, ranging from felony child abuse to punching your, I think it was your girlfriend, in the face, on camera, to now sexual assault allegations. But, and I think we covered your girlfriend in the face on camera to now sexual assault allegations. But, and I think we covered this case previously, Calvin Ridley, this guy bets on a game that he didn't even play in and he is suspended for an entire year. And as we commented on the time, the reason why he's being suspended more for 17 games is because the NFL and sports media and all of them are making money hand over fist in sports gambling. So screwing with their money and the integrity of all of their new deals with these sports gambling companies is not nearly as objectionable as being

very credibly accused of sexual assault by dozens and dozens of women. And also, he's not even losing that much money. Barstool points to that. Let's put this up there on the screen. The way that his deal is structured, he will only lose $300K of his $230 million deal due to the way the contract was structured because his lawyers knew that this could indeed be a problem. That's right. And the Browns knew that this could indeed be a problem. That's right. And the Browns knew that this could indeed be a problem. Once I started reading about this case, I honestly couldn't stop. That's crazy.

Because there is so much, there are so many layers to this. First of all, the Browns acquire this guy when he is under shadow of investigation. After all of these allegations have come out. They hired this guy. They signed him to, this is a record breaking historic amount of money in this contract that they have signed him for. Here's the comment from their general manager, Andrew Barry. He said at a news conference in March, we felt good about Deshaun as a person. We felt good about what we learned about the cases to a point where we felt comfortable pursuing the trade, bringing him into the building. And if we didn't in terms of what happened or moving forward, we would not have made the trade.

I do want to give you a few specifics because it is so gross what he's accused of doing to these women. And when you've got dozens of women coming out with very, very similar stories and also there are text messages exchanged. I mean, there is a lot of evidence here that he was engaged in all sort of harassment and outright sexual assault, repeatedly, like aggressively booking these massages, asking these women to come to hotel rooms and things like that. And then he would try to coerce them into all sorts of sexual favors, whether it was all sorts of sexual favors. We'll just leave it there. So let me, one of the things that really horrified me the most is this is also someone who held himself out as like a racial justice and I support the black community. He even used that to try to manipulate some of these women. One of the women that he was like basically begging to come and give him a massage, he threw in there like, oh, I'm just trying to support black businesses. So this is someone who says he supports Black Lives Matter. And then he's

accused of harassing and assaulting black women and claiming that it's, you know, in support of black businesses in the black community. So incredibly disgusting. So yeah, the other thing that is grotesque about all of this is part of the justification that was given for why he got such a light sentence is because the person they brought in as this like sort of arbitrator, judge, whatever, looked at those past instances of domestic violence and other horrific and potentially criminal behavior and was like, well, if they only got six, seven, eight game suspension, I can't really say this is worse than what they did. So she actually used the NFL's failures in the past to justify the failure here, which is, I mean, it is astonishing. It is disgusting. It is all of those things. But yeah, I mean, bottom line, what it comes down to here is the one dude who was betting on the game that he wasn't even playing in messed with their capital. And that's what

they ultimately really care about. That's just as obvious as it can possibly be. Yeah. And they point out to the fact that he would literally come into his locker at the Texan stadium and the former Secret Service agent who was the director of security for the Texans, placed a NDA in his locker after Instagram posts began to surface showing that he had a problem with being accused. And it's pretty clear here that the Texans were doing everything they could in order to get Watson, in order to get these women to sign NDAs. He's now being sued by a variety of different women. And the depositions and more are pretty horrifying. I encourage people to go read this Times investigation. It's multi-thousand word. Let's go and put this on the screen. And we'll have a link in the description as well if you want to go and read it. But these guys get away with a hell of a lot because of who they are. Even though it's all

out in the open, they get paid tens of millions of dollars. And then even whenever it comes to the surface, again, for the second time, you get suspended for six games. I mean, it's just, what kind of example is this to set for other players? And it's clear, screw with the money

and the integrity of the gambling. Oh, hell no. You know, you're going to get everything thrown at you. But, you know, credibly accused of sexual assault by dozens of women integrity of the gambling, oh, hell no. You're going to get everything thrown at you. But credibly accused of sexual assault by dozens of women and getting sued like this and even admitting to a lot of, at the best, bad contact in open court or in closed court in a deposition and now it's all been leaked out. That doesn't seem to be a problem for the Browns organization, for the NFL. There's a lot to say about it. I don't watch the NFL, but I do know that, you know,

millions of Americans care a lot about it. Kids and other stuff watch this, and they're looking at this, and there is a clear example that's getting said. I mean, this is a guy who had access to all of the Houston Texans massage therapists. He didn't need to go anywhere. And yet, the New York Times investigation found that he had booked massage appointments with at least 66 different women from the fall of 2019 through the spring of 2021. Some of those additional women who hadn't sued him said that he had requested sexual acts. So it's even more than the number of women who directly sued him.

The amount of women who said, yeah, he requested sexual acts from me as well. He denies the allegations. Yes, he denies the allegations. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, I know there's a lot of big problems in the world right now, and this may seem trivial, but I do hope you'll stick with me on this one. You might have noticed in our segment over the weekend, I was really ticked off by that latest update to Instagram. For those who aren't aware, starting last week, Instagram rolled out an update to a select portion of its users that effectively took over the user's screen. It ended infinite

scroll and forced users to engage with video and content they previously did not have to. The hallmark of the update was by taking over the screen, the user had less choice in choosing what they wanted to watch and what they didn't, dramatically increasing the amount of so-called recommended videos that one was served previously. It didn't take a genius to figure out the obvious. Instagram was copying TikTok in a big way. Why? Because TikTok is destroying Instagram with teenage users. It is dominating in terms of the only metric that advertisers care about, time on app. And in that update, Instagram made a big admission. The simple truth is that people do not post enough on Instagram in the current format

to compete with TikTok for the amount of time spent on the app. Thus, Instagram was simply going to copy TikTok to force users to spend time on there in a format that exists on TikTok, which they know works. This is profoundly distressing and actually very depressing for a variety of reasons. It highlights the game at the core of all social media. You are not the customer. You are the product. The only thing that matters to these companies is how much time you spend on the app. The more time you spend, the more data they gather, the more of that data they can sell and target for advertisers who are their real customers.

That's it. Whether you like it or not is completely immaterial. Keep in mind, myself, millions of other people genuinely really liked Instagram. Personally, it's always been my favorite social media platform from its inception. But what I like doesn't matter. What I click on and spend time on matters more. In that realm, it is undeniable TikTok and its format have won in a big way. It's not a coincidence. Instagram's update shipped the very

same week that Facebook announced its first ever decline in revenue in the history of the company since it went public. This was accompanied by signs that revenue decline was really just the first of many and a specific hit in the advertising business. Compare this to the data coming out of TikTok and specifically Instagram versus TikTok. TikTok, by contrast, printed a record $12 billion this year, posting a 300% increase in revenue. Furthermore, TikTok surpassed Instagram as the most downloaded app in 2020-22. Worse, according to Instagram's own internal data, which was leaked by Francis Haugen, the so-called faithful whistleblower, Instagram is losing dramatically to TikTok amongst young users who seem particularly addicted to the TikTok recommendation algorithm.

TikTok is simply the future. There's just no way of getting around it. And what is profoundly sad is because TikTok effectively destroys the social aspect of social media. As Jay Owens tells Wired, TikTok's innovation was realizing that social media no longer has to be social, just media. As in, what you decide to follow today is actually not a good predictor of what you might like tomorrow. If you're like me, there's all kinds of stuff that you subscribe to on YouTube or followed on Instagram like 10 years ago that you're not interested in anymore. But you never bother to unsubscribe. The human is too imperfect, and the algorithm is better at knowing what you will watch and what you will engage with.

While that is true, it is killing what made social media even cool in the first place. Think back to the beginning of Instagram, posting an over-filtered photo of your surroundings and having your friends comment that it looks cool and that you're doing the same thing. Think back to Facebook a decade ago. People would post dozens of photos after a night out. There was no presumption that this would ever matter for job prospects of the future. It was just people sharing photos, status updates with friends, and then engagement with that friend's content. Was it all sunshine and roses? No, of course not.

But it was a hell of a lot better than having zero control whatsoever. Fundamentally, beyond the even China question, what TikTok has exposed about the future of social media is that the social aspect and the connections to friends are actually detrimental to a better business model. And look, it's not all bad. If you want discovery, a recommendation algorithm is great. I would be lying if I said that rising and breaking points literally would not exist without them. In a way, I owe my whole career to them. But to me, I think a mix is important. Sometimes I want to follow someone just for the hell of it. Sometimes it's comforting to just keep up every once in a while with certain characters

from the past. That doesn't mean you never want to see it. The human element is what makes us human, but it's costing Instagram money. I suppose I owe it to you to at least note that after Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian spoke out, Instagram did actually abandon this specific update. But the update itself is just a harbinger of the future. Sure, your entire feed may not be taken over, but the principle of how more videos that you don't follow are going to be shoved into your feed is not going anywhere. The principle that you're actually a terrible judge of what you will spend time on is baked in forever. It will simply have workarounds in the edges in a less immediate and controversial way. The real question that all of us should be asking is, do we like any of this? We could easily change these incentives if we acted differently,

if we spent less time on these apps and gave these companies less control over us. Of course, at that point, they're deeply embedded though in our lives. For people like me, it's my whole job. For many of you, this is how you get so much value out of your life. Now is really the time to assess a system that we have allowed to be built on top of all of us because where things are headed, we have no say at all in our future. I know you and I have talked about this previously, Crystal, about how YouTube, the subscriber. And if you want to hear my reaction to Cyber's monologue,

become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, Andrew Yang has now officially launched his new forward party. And listen, I'll just be blunt, definitely not my cup of tea. His partners are former Republican Governor Christine Todd Whitman, who has spent her time post-public service running a lobbying outfit, serving on various corporate boards. And David Jolly, he's a former Republican congressman who has also spent his time post-public service cashing in through lobbying with a seeming specialty in ghoulish health care companies. Hardly the team that I would want for cleaning up the rank corruption that has made it so our nation's electeds respond only to donors and to big business. Now, their analysis at the

Ford party of the problems with the two-party system is also off-base, in my opinion. In their announcement op-ed, they write, quote, the United States badly needs a new political party, one that reflects the moderate common sense majority. Today's outdated parties have failed by catering to the fringes. As a result, most Americans feel they are not represented. Super standard, no labels, third way stuff. The problem for the Democratic Party, though, in reality, isn't that they go too far catering to radical extremes. It's that they make excuses for failing to deliver on the incredibly basic and insanely

popular shit that they routinely promise voters. In fact, the moderate middle of American public sentiment is overwhelmingly in favor of at least expanding Medicare, hiking taxes on corporations and the rich, more than doubling the minimum wage, and increasing Social Security. Those positions are not found at some arbitrary and constantly shifting center point between the Republicans in D.C. and the Democrats in D.C. It is significantly to the left of the elected leaders of either of these parties. In fact, the Trier's recitation of the issues where we need to find this mythical moderate middle illustrate the failure of their analysis.

They write, quote, On guns, for instance, most Americans don't agree with calls from the far left to confiscate all guns and repeal the Second Amendment, They write, quote, far-right's denial that there is even a problem on abortion. Most Americans don't agree with the far-left's extreme views on late-term abortions, but they also are alarmed by the far-right's quest to make a woman's choice a criminal offense. Listen, let me just put aside equating of the left with the people who are literally in favor of forcing 10-year-olds to bear their rapist babies. Because on each of these issues, the position the forward party stakes out is literally just the Democratic Party's actual platform and agenda. Dems just passed some basic, ultimately not all that significant gun reforms. They just worked down a deal with Manchin to do some moderate, not particularly transformational climate change stuff.

And they don't really seem to be committed to doing much of anything on abortion, but certainly guaranteeing late-term abortions is not in the plan. More concerning, though, is not the forward party's positioning on these social issues. It's the total lack of commentary on the economic issues, which are most core to Americans' daily lives and to the breakdown of our society. Universal basic income, once Andrew Yang's signature policy proposal, it's gone. Healthcare, unmentioned. Breaking up the monopolies to rein in corporate power, no. Stopping the corruption pipeline of money and politics, a revolving door into cushy corporate board gigs and lobbying jobs? Obviously, Jolly and Todd Whitman are not going to kill their own cash cow here.

On electoral reform, the Ford Party does offer some specific and genuinely beneficial policies, advocating for ranked choice voting, open primaries, ending gerrymandering. Nothing would make me happier than to see the success of these efforts, especially ranked choice voting, which could help build the space for a viable third-party movement that really is responsive to the economic needs of Americans and isn't just a consultant grift complex the way that the two parties are right now. So listen, on that front, I absolutely hope for and am cheering for their success. Which brings me to the real heart of what I wanted to say today about the Ford Party launch, because there has been a totally unhinged freakout meltdown from liberals over this project. Witness for yourself. Andrew Yang does not care about democracy.

If Andrew Yang cared about democracy, he would bow out, he would cancel his forward party, and he would help the Democrats win in the midterms. But he's not doing that because his ego needs him to be the leader of his followers. And his followers are going to be when he siphons off voters from the Democrats, which will not work because forward party and third parties never win elections. In fact, they never even receive over 5% of the electorate. And Andrew Yang knows this. So what is he doing? He is picking apart the Democratic coalition

to please his own ego. And what's the cost? American democracy. So guys, That deranged person is apparently a podcaster? Incredible to watch him insist both that the Ford party

is devastating for the Democrats, but also it's definitely going to be a total and complete failure. Here's another little example for you from a former Biden surrogate named Lindy Lee. She says, quote, what Andrew Yang is doing by launching a third party is so destructive and a vanity project. We only have one political party, Dems. GOP is a terrorist org. Either help us defeat them or get the F out of the way.

There's literally thousands of tweets of this variety from resistance liberals who object not to the issues Yang is highlighting or the substance of their proposed program. Fundamentally, they are freaking out at the introduction of any other choices into our political system. They're saying we have to protect democracy so we can't have any democracy when it comes to political party options. Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? But as we've seen before, this is really kind of their only play. It's quite revealing that they are clearly fearful that with any other options available, even what I consider to be quite an anodyne one in the forward party,

their consultant industrial complex and incumbent protection racket would fall apart completely. Dems are revealing that their whole argument depends not on appealing to voters and making the case for their policies, but on scaring everyone about how the Republicans are so much worse. And in fact, the Republicans are worse. Nisagra pointed out yesterday, you should note the worse Republicans become, the more it benefits Democratic elites, giving them some pretty unsavory incentives in this whole disgusting system. And if their efforts to shame and cajole voters into backing their candidates, well, it's never the fault of the hapless Democratic Party for failing to deliver on their promises. It's Jill Stein or Andrew Yang or those pesky voters themselves failing to support democracy by doing precisely what the party tells them to do when they are

told to do it. Look, I had a lengthy exchange with Andrew yesterday. I didn't want him to be blindsided by my criticism of the forward party. He genuinely believes the strategy is the best way to break through the hellscape of our current political landscape. I've certainly been wrong before, and I do know that if the Ford Party can achieve something like universal ranked choice voting, it would be a significant breakthrough for rebuilding our badly atrophied muscles of democracy. Perhaps it could create the space for a thousand third-party flowers to bloom, a result I would 100% celebrate, regardless of how I felt about any individual flower that bloomed. Trusting voters to have choices and power and be active participants in governance, that is what it actually means to be pro-democracy.

Censorship, shaming, stifling dissent, those are the hallmarks of the anti-democratic future that liberals claim to want to avoid. Sagar, I've made some of my concerns and disagreements. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Thank you for watching. It was an intense and fun show to do today. A lot of big topics here around the world, domestically, politically. We'll have a lot for you on Thursday as well

because we'll have the results of these primary decisions. Listen, guys, as we've been saying, if you're already a premium subscriber, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you to those of you who upgraded from the monthly to the annual. That has been hugely helpful in terms of our planning for the year.

We have some big things that we're going to be hopefully announcing in the coming future. So thank you for that. If you are able to become a premium subscriber, it really helps us. I think, Sagar, your monologue is pretty appropriate here in terms of we don't want to be subject to the whims of big tech. Yeah. And the alternative model, which we intentionally adopted here, is to depend on you guys rather than depending on these recommendation algorithms and these big tech companies. Yeah. We have a direct relationship with our customers,

with our subscribers, and I wouldn't trade that for anything else in the world. And it's the most meaningful thing that, you know, for the show, we could lose YouTube or whatever tomorrow. And it really, I mean, it would suck, but it wouldn't matter in the long term because all of you. So thank you all for your support. We'll be watching the results and whatever happens, it's going to be an eventful 24 hours and we will see you all on Thursday. See y'all on Thursday. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John, who's not the father? We'll be money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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