Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/22/22: GOP In Disarray, Midterms Polling, Ukraine War, Trump Affidavit, Stelter Fired, Woodstock 99, & More!

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss the GOP infighting about the midterms, polling data on the 2022 midterms, Ukraine killing a Putin ally, affidavit for Trump-FBI raid, Brian Stelter getting fired, US aid to Ukraine, Woodstock '99, & more!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  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. worthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points premium member today at BreakingPoints.com. Your hard-earned money is going to help us build 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 BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. A lot of interesting stuff going on in the world.

Some GOP in disarray. A lot of finger pointing already about potential underperformance in the midterms. This is pretty interesting. McConnell's involved. Trump's involved. Tucker's involved. Hannity's involved. So we'll break all of that down for you.

We also have some brand new polling from NBC News that is pretty interesting. Very complex. I mean, you really could see this election in any number of ways. There are some numbers that are terrible for Democrats. There are some numbers that are not good for Republicans. So it's all very, very much less predictable than I expected it to be just a couple of months ago. Also, a car bomb killing a Kremlin ally in Moscow. A lot of questions about who is responsible, what it means, very dangerous situation ultimately that, you know, has the potential for Escalation putting domestic political pressure on Putin to do even more and be even more aggressive in this war.

So we'll break all of that down for you. A lot of questions remain there. Also, the very latest in terms of the Trump-Mar-a-Lago raid. The judge actually said, and this surprised me, you know, the Department of Justice said, we don't want the affidavit that justified the search. We don't want that to be released. They argued in favor of keeping that completely sealed. Coalition of News Organizations said, no, there is a public interest in knowing what is in this document. The judge has taken kind of a middle ground and said, hey, I think we should release it, but let's let the DOJ put in what they think should be redacted from this. So we'll break all of that down. And also, guys, I know you are heartbroken this morning. The Brian Stelter show,

Reliable Sources, has officially come to an end. We're going to get through this together, guys. We'll bring you his final stirring commentary from his final show. It's a solemn occasion. Yeah, indeed. Indeed. Solemn occasion this morning. But before we get to any of that, live show! Live show! Only a couple tickets left. Let's go and put it up there on the screen. September 16th, Atlanta. We are coming. Crystal, myself,

many other friends of the show. It's going to be an awesome time. Go ahead and buy those. We want to officially sell this thing out, folks. Let's go ahead and do it. Like I said, only a few remaining. Go ahead and nab them. And send us an email if there are any issues. As a reminder to the Lifetime members, if you had gone ahead and bought tickets, just forward your receipt as well to the customer service line, and those will be refunded closer to the day of the show. Looking forward to it. I genuinely cannot wait. You know it is getting close because I have actually gotten my babysitting logistics for my three kids secured.

It's serious stuff. Ready to go. So all of the obstacles have been cleared. It is happening, and it is happening in less than a month. All right. Let's get to the Republicans in disarray storyline here at the top. So Mitch McConnell, go ahead and put this NBC terror sheet up on the screen, really caused a bit of a stir with some comments that he made to the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. He says Republicans might not win Senate control, citing candidate quality.

Hmm. Specifically, here were his comments, Auger. He says, I think there's probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different. Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome. Now, when you are the once and potentially future majority leader, Mitch McConnell, on the Republican side, and you are outright admitting this far from Election Day that you think the Senate might not flip, I mean, that in and of itself is quite

noteworthy. It's huge. And it's very much seen as shots fired at Trump because it's a lot of his chosen candidates who are really underperforming here. Let's go ahead and put the 538 numbers up on the screen. And, you know, guys, this can change. The polls have been very wrong. They have consistently underestimated Republicans. So I really want you to keep all of that in mind as we're evaluating this data. But as of right now, Democrats are favored by 63% to 37% to win control of the Senate. They are feeling so bullish that there are some who are starting to whisper maybe we'll not just keep control of the Senate. Maybe we'll actually pick up a few seats and pick up a little bit of ground. Now, the candidates who are kind of widely seen as underperforming are, we've talked about all of them here, Herschel Walker, Dr. Oz, certainly, those two are top of the list. Also, J.D. Vance in Ohio, who is by quite a lot of polls, including their own Republican internals, down to Tim Ryan right now. Blake Masters out in Arizona. All four

of these seats should have been basically layups for Republicans with the overall political landscape that we're facing. And not only are they struggling in some of these seats, they are just outright losing. And it's pretty hard to deny. The last piece that I'll put up here before getting your reaction, Sagar, is part of the problem. And, you know, that reveals a lot about flagging Republican sort of enthusiasm and momentum, the fundraising numbers for these Republicans almost across the board is pretty dismal. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. Huge disparities. I know it's a little bit hard to see, but I'll read you some of the numbers here between the Democratic candidates and what they have cash on hand and the Republican candidates. So as a couple of examples down in Georgia, you have Raphael Warnock with

$22 million in the bank versus Herschel Walker, who's actually in better shape than most of the other Republicans with $6.8 million, but still a massive disparity there. You've got Mark Kelly out in Arizona with $25 million cash on hand versus Blake Masters only has $1.5 million. And this one is really quite stunning. Tim Ryan pulling in $3.6 million. That's his cash on hand status. That's what he has in the bank. J.D. Vance, less than $1 million, only $600,000 in his bank account at the end of last quarter. And this is consistent, something we've been tracking, you know, sort of at every level. The grassroots fundraising has dried up. There's a lot of questions about how the National Republican Senatorial Committee has been spending

their money. They blew through a whole lot of cash and now are having to pull ads down in key battleground states. They're having to spend money in places like Ohio that they really didn't think they were going to have to spend money on in order to win. And so there are a lot of structural issues here that are kind of cropping up for the order to win. And so there are a lot of structural issues here that are kind of cropping up for the Republicans. Absolutely. And I just think, though, it's always important to present the caveats. I mean, Susan Collins was down, what, 10 right before Election Day. Tom Tillis was supposed to be a dead man walking in North Carolina. There were a couple of other Senate seats. I mean, even if you go back to 2018,

if you'll recall, Marsha Blackburn was supposedly, you know, in a tight race. Remember also even Jamie Harrison, they said is like, oh, within two or three points, he lost by 17 points. So anyway, that's the caveat. Also, you know, I was talking with some people who work in these circles. Their counter to this is that the Democrats are awash in post Dobbs cash and in a way may actually be blowing their wad a little bit too early. Part of the problem is that because right now it's in August, they have all this cash, they have the media spots available, is that the Republicans, again, this is the counter,

so I am not saying this is necessarily the case. They're like, look, we're not going to spend our money in the summer. We're going to try and spend our money all the way come up to election day. That's obviously cope when they just don't have as much money. Well, they don't have the money. Right. It'd be one thing if, yeah, Democrats had raised a bunch of money and they spent it all. But Republicans are in the very bad position of, yeah, Democrats have been in a lot of these races outspending them and defining them on the airwaves.

I mean, think about Fetterman and Oz, how Fetterman jumped right to. Oz isn't even on the air. And yet, you know, they're behind in terms of fundraising. So they're in a position where they need to make up the gap with a flood of post-Labor Day advertising. And as of right now, aforementioned, who was backed by Trump. And Trump really kind of cleared the field for him and put him in position to win. He also had a lot of support from Peter Thiel financially. Used to work for him. In the primary, used to work for him. And not clear that Thiel is going to come in for him or J.D. Vance, who was his other big candidate in the general election.

So that's kind of a big question mark. But Masters, in order to win the primary, he went all in on like trashing Mitch McConnell, which I'm cool with, saying he would not support him for leadership

that he was going to vote for. He said Tom Cotton or I don't remember, somebody else, Josh Hawley or something like that. Now that he is struggling in terms of cash

and behind in cash on hand by like $24 million to Mark Kelly, now he's changing his tune. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. He says he's hopeful the GOP leader is going to offer financial support.

He says, I think he'll come in and spend. Arizona's going to be competitive. It's going to be a close race. I hope he does come in. And Sager, he says, we'll find a way to work together. He goes on to make his pitch. I mean, this is just shamelessly begging for cash here. I think I'm a much better candidate than Mitch McConnell gives me credit for, he says.

Let me just say, this has not gone unnoticed in Washington and has been passed around quite a bit in certain circles and made its way to me. And I was like, hey, you know, it's actually a good story. I got to give it to him. So there's a lot of gloating and some closed doors here in D.C. saying like, oh, yeah, everybody trashes him until they need the money. Until they need the cash. Here's what people forget. Not only the NRSC, which is run by Rick Scott,

but the Senate Leadership Fund, which is directly controlled by Mitch McConnell and his super PAC, is tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, potentially. And, look, Masters is fighting for his life. He's already down probably... See, this is the hard part to parse, which is that the Vance poll,

I just honestly don't believe it I'm like look I think he's gonna win I think he'll probably win by like four he should have won by 10 but he'll probably still pull it out the problem for him is that they're having to spend money there exactly yeah so the problem for them is they're gonna have to spend money but I just don't see it Oz I still think it's like 55 45 I don't think it should be I'm talking to Fetterman's direction it's still a little bit close, but I have confidence he might be able to pull it across the finish line, but it will be incredibly tight. Masters is legitimately, I think, in trouble because Mark Kelly, not only in terms of candidate quality, but the guy is not a nationally

defined Democrat in the way that Sinema or any of the other people who are kind of up are in the same way for the media. Mark Kelly did his very first Sunday interview as a senator this weekend. The guy has no profile. And I was actually doing some reading over the weekend. Almost all the interviews he gives are like to the Arizona Central or, you know, the Phoenix newspaper or something. And all he talks about is like water access issues for ranchers. He's actually quite a localist politician, doesn't play up his, you know, machinations behind the scenes. Yes, votes with Biden, but very rarely seen with Biden.

These are all things that I think define, you know, a popular politician. On top of, look, he's got a good bio, right? Married to Gabby Giffords, very popular in the state. There's a lot of sympathy, not only for her, and he's a hero astronaut. So it's like you put those couple of things together, this is a tough guy. And, you know, Masters shot himself in the foot. Two different cases. Number one was the Griswold thing that he put on his birth control contraception case, and he's not going to vote for any Supreme Court justice that doesn't commit to overturning that. He put it on his website in the primary.

There's no reason to do that, right? Except, I mean, there literally is no reason. And second, you know, saying he wants to privatize Social Security. So you put the abortion contraception thing on one end, which he's getting bombarded with on the air. And then if I was Mark Kelly, I would just run that privatizing Social Security clip all day long. And he is. And he is. Of course he is. And that's what, if we'll recall, the way this, this is always funny because cinema now that we remember her, the way that she beat Martha McSally is Obamacare. It was all Martha McSally voted to take away Obamacare. And Martha McSally is on record saying that. It was all Martha McSally voted to take away Obamacare. And Martha McSally

is on record saying that vote is almost definitively what sunk her in the state of Arizona. Yeah. In her post interviews, even though she was like appointed and then she ran, she lost again, which is pathetic. She was also, we didn't we interview her? We might have. I think we interviewed her and she was like the most wooden, just terrible candidate. She has a nice story. That you can possibly imagine. Yeah. I mean, you know, they're, listen, as I keep saying, the Republican, it should be a slam dunk for a lot of these candidates.

I mean, they shouldn't have to spend money in Ohio. And they're spending a lot. So the NRSC is spending $28 million, I think, in Ohio. And they're spending a lot. So the NRSC is spending $28 million, I think, in Ohio. It's a huge number that they're having to spend in Ohio to try to get J.D. Vance across the finish line. And I agree with you. It's Ohio. I don't think Tim Ryan's going to win. But you shouldn't be having to put down cash in that state. That should have been an absolute layup. So you now have a lot of Republican consultants and Senate hopefuls who are like, what the hell happened to all your money too at the national level? Let's go and put

this up on the screen. This is also kind of hilarious. It's a ripoff. GOP spending under fire as Senate hopefuls seek rescue. You have all these people who are calling for an audit of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. They say they're getting, you know, the Senate hopefuls are getting crushed on the airwaves across the country while their national campaign fund is pulling ads and running low on cash, leading some campaign advisors to ask where all the money went and demand an audit of the committee's finances, according to Republican strategists involved in the discussions. The NRSC's retreat came after months of touting record fundraising, topping $173 million so far this election cycle. But the committee has burned through nearly all of it with their cash on hand dwindling to $28 million by the end of June.

So this is another, you know, we saw this in the Trump campaign, too. Remember, they had that massive war chest. And we were heading into that election like, geez, the Democrats are going to be swamped by this amount of money that he's been able to raise. And then, oh, Brad Parscale and I don't know who else got their hands in the cookie jar. But that money was gone. And towards the end, the Trump campaign was having to pull ads in, like, you know, I think even Wisconsin and other key battleground states because they just literally didn't have the money. And there's echoes of that here. They had plenty of money in the bank, $173 million so far.

And now where is it? It's gone as you come down the stretch. And Republican online donations have flagged. So they're raising money at a slower clip. And they've had to pull their ad buys in some of these critical areas. So, again, I don't know that these things are going to be determinative, and especially in a sort of national, you know, environment where a lot of what's going to happen here is going to be based on the national winds, how people feel

about the country, how people feel about Joe Biden, potentially if Trump were to announce how they feel about Trump. All these other factors, certainly Dobbs plays into all of this, but it is an indication of number one, like total disorganization, foolish decision-making, and then the terrible candidates who have ended up in some of these racist phenomena. Yeah, it is funny too, because of course the establishment wing wants to blame, you know, Trump for all of this, but hey, Rick Scott is the one running the NRSC. And by the way, I don't know if people would know this, Rick Scott is worth like a hundred million dollars because the way that he even came to office was he was like CEO of some healthcare company, which eventually was investigated, I think for fraud.

But anyway, he made quite a bit of money there. And what his pitch was when he was running for governor and then later senator, he's like, I'm a businessman. I understand how the free market works, all of that. And yet what they're quoting is that national Republican consultant who says if they were a corporation, the CEO would be fired and investigated. It's like, well, I guess, you know, given Scott's track record, kind of makes sense. Yeah. The way this money has been burned, there needs to be an audit or investigation because we're not going to take the Senate now. And this money has been squandered. I mean, blaming it all on money, I think is obviously COVID. Canada quality is going to have an immense amount to do with it. That being said, they should not have spent $150 million. I mean, where did it go?

Nothing. I mean, to have all their candidates basically losing. And if I think back to the Democratic point that I made earlier about how Dems have all this money came in after Dobbs through ActBlue and this big, and this like the national fundraising infrastructure, and the whole point was they were blowing their money early. Well, then the Republicans blew it even earlier if they had 150. So where is this money happening? I mean, I think that is actually the gigantic scandal, not a real one as in, I'm not going to cry for, you know, like, uh, I'm not going to cry for big money donors who pay their money away and it was pissed away. But you know, these things are given to a certain political end and we don't see a hell of a lot of that. So I think that is a major one. I mean,

also, there's a lot of finger pointing as you were talking about, Crystal. Let's throw this up there. You know, Donald Trump is now inclined to wait until November midterms to announce his 2024 candidacy as part not to be blamed if Republicans underperform in the election. Which is telling because that tells you he thinks Republicans may well underperform in the election. I mean, he's not wrong, right? Which is that, as you and I said, frankly, I would never expect this of Trump because Trump should know that now is the best time to announce. He's never been more popular. He's raking in $1 million per day on the campaign, or in terms of his online fundraising. He's never had more support within the institutional GOP.

Like, why wouldn't you just announce right now? Since when does he care? Yeah, I am a little skeptical of this as well, that he would be so like, oh, let me wait, because it does seem like strike while the iron is hot, and he usually has a good sense of those things, so we'll see. Also, interesting, I don't know if you saw this, Maggie Haberman sort of floated. He may not run at all, which I— Yeah, I don't know where these things come from.

I know. It's possible, so I don't know. If it was anybody else, I would think they were just bullshitting, but she is very well sourced in that world. So I did take note of that. I don't know what it means. He's very hard to predict. I mean, you know, it wouldn't be the first time that he really teased a presidential run hard and then back down at the last minute for whatever reason. So I don't put it totally off the table, but my expectation is still very much that he's going to run.

Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, I will tell you about a year ago, I remember asking around, I said, hey, is Trump going to run again or not? And there were some, there was, here's what the line was, if he's able to, he will run. And everyone was like, what does that mean, if he's able to? So people were like, is he healthy? I mean, frankly, he looks better than he did whenever he was in the White House. So I don't really know if he has any health problems. I mean, it's not like anybody's particularly forthcoming about these days when it comes to our geriatric presidency, our presidents. So it would not be uncommon for there to be an issue.

So that's apparently what's out there. Here's what I was alluding to earlier. Let's throw this up there. Trump also trying to point fingers and blame over at Mitch McConnell, saying that Mitch McConnell is a, quote, broken-down hack, and questioned his ability in order to win back the Senate. Why do Republican senators allow a broken-down hack politician, Mitch McConnell, to openly disparage hard-working Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate. This is an affront to honor and to leadership. He should

spend more time and money helping them get elected and less time helping his crazy wife and family get rich on China. By the way, he employed that wife as his, what was it, commerce secretary? No, transportation secretary. That's right. So I always think these things are funny when he throws bombs even though he literally used to employ those folks. You literally hired her. Look, this all comes back to, what, like November and December of 2020, when both sides had a legitimate case, which is the Trump case against McConnell was, you held up the $2,000 stimulus checks for no reason. And that's part of the reason why Georgia Senate candidates sunk. And then McConnell was like, yeah, well, you told everybody the election was stolen and then a lot of people didn't come out to vote and Democrats came out to vote

because they thought you were out of your goddamn mind. Both sides have a point in terms of what exactly the downstream effect is. I mean, I don't really know who is the worst politician, at least who is more damaging to the GOP cause. But I think there is like mutual, they've mutually hurt national chances in their own very unique ways. I mean, look, it's their own problem, right? I mean, both have inflicted this upon themselves. And of course,

everybody has their own camp in DC who's spinning each other. Yeah, of course. I mean, and like I said, I think the most revealing thing is that here we are, we haven't even hit Labor Day, and you already have everybody pointing figures and trying to assign blame and trying to pre-cook the narrative of what went wrong if something does go wrong. Now, that doesn't mean, you know, they can just be covering their bases and then you still have the red wave. But especially given how high expectations were that this was going to be a historic wave, that you were going to have historic margins for Republicans in the House, that they were going to just wipe out the Democrats in the Senate, that there was just no doubt about it given the state of the economy, the state of Joe Biden's approval rating in advance, finger pointing and throwing under the bus is pretty interesting. And of course, the the folks over at Fox News had to get in on it as well.

We have let's start with Sean Hannity here and his take on Mitch McConnell and his comments. How about you get out there, Mitch, and fight for your team? What's your agenda, Mitch? Or would you rather just sit by and watch helplessly as Democrats lie to your face, pass another $500 billion green energy boondoggle next year? Or is it maybe Mitch McConnell hates Donald Trump so much that he would probably rather see Trump-endorsed candidates lose because he thinks that might hurt Donald Trump? His time as a leader needs to come to an end. So you can pretty much assume whatever Sean Hannity is saying is whatever the line from Trump is. I mean, it just goes straight from whatever the phone call is he had with the president earlier in the day to his

audience here. But you can also see, I mean, those McConnell comments, even though he delivers them in this very monotone Mitch McConnell way, they really stirred up quite a frenzy. Tucker Carlson also responding to Mitch McConnell's comments. And I thought what he had to say was actually kind of interesting in a couple of ways. Let's take a listen to that. Dr. Oz is getting crushed by a stroke victim who was already crazy. It's bizarre. The question is, why is this happening? We spent some time on the phone the other day calling around to various

smart political people to find out why it's happening. We heard a lot of theories, almost all of which boiled down to Dr. Oz is a bad candidate. Mitch McConnell, who's in charge of electing more Republicans in the Senate, gave virtually the same explanation yesterday at a Kentucky Chamber of Commerce lunch. Quote, candidate quality has a lot to do with outcome, he said. In other words, it's not my fault they sent me bad candidates. Unfortunately, donors and party leaders often do complicate it. They want candidates to talk about issues that they care about, which are often very different from the issues that the public cares about. So he goes on to say that, you know, there's no bad

candidates. There's just candidates that talk about the wrong issues. And he doesn't outright say stop talking about the economy, but he goes on to say the right issues in his view to talk about are immigration and crime, which I thought was very interesting because there's also this NBC News poll that we're going to cover. the number one issue isn't inflation anymore. It's actually threats to democracy, which surprised the heck out of me. And gas prices have gone down. So I'm not saying that there isn't still a lot of pain over inflation, that that isn't going to still be an extremely important factor. But it's also very clear that the reason that Democrats have the shot they do in the midterms is because of a cultural issue. And so he's trying to say, like, we got to throw some red meat to our own base on our own cultural

issues. No question. I mean, the thing is, is that the Republican advantage a couple of months ago was all economic. Dobbs, as we both said, threw a wrench into that and has caused and unleashed chaos. Even if Dobbs had not happened, I still think that even at gas at, what, $3.50 or something like right now? I think it's $3.80, something like that. National Prize. I mean, it's still a dollar higher than it was when Joe Biden got elected. Without Dobbs, the Republicans could still prosecute that case. They could remind people, like, hey, remember when you were paying X dollars a gallon to continue to look at your grocery store bill?

But the scrambling of everything and And then look, part of the frustrating thing in politics, people have very short memories. I mean, you know, things were very popular. And then a month later, it's like gas prices. Everybody was like, oh, I'll pay high gas prices to support Ukraine. Three months later, they're like, I'm going to kill someone if the gas goes up by 30 cents. Some of us said that would happen. But the problem is, is that in politics, especially whenever you're doing this up and down game, you respond to whatever the it thing is at the moment. And because and Tucker's also not wrong, which is that the GOP did never had a real economic case to make. It was just everything sucks under Biden.

Right. But that's a converse because now Biden is like, you're getting $100 a month raised because gas prices have gone down. I was like, well, that's not really how it works. But, you know, yes, you are saving $100. But in a way, when you're like, everything sucks because of Biden, if things get better under Biden, he can say, hey, things got better under me, even though he had no hand whatsoever in lowering gas prices. The gas prices are just like this blaring sign that you drive by multiple times a day that tell you how it's going. And obviously have a dramatic impact on people's bank accounts and especially working class people

who are trying to just drive to work. So when you have it going up and up and up and escalating every time you see it and hitting $5 a gallon and more in certain parts of the country, it does just feel like you're being squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter. And so even though the gas prices are still very high in comparison to when he came into office. I just checked, $3.90 a gallon. I mean, that's high. Right. The fact that you have them starting to ease up and go down, you know, that does change the landscape ultimately here for how people are feeling. Now, again, Republicans were not actually planning on running on anything. I mean, that was the real, like in terms of elite

Republicans and what their strategy was outside of Rick Scott and his terrible idea to run on like a tax hike for working class people and getting rid of social security or whatever his bogus idea was. Mitch McConnell and his ilk were like, no, we're going to run on nothing because we don't need to because things are bad enough and Biden's approval is bad enough. We're just going to make it a referendum on Biden. And if it hadn't been for Dobbs, that would have worked out and worked out beautifully for them. And they would have, you know, the red wave would be in full effect. Dobbs has definitely changed that calculus. And so now the fact that they are like literally have nothing in particular that they are offering

affirmatively to the American people is definitely creating a problem for them. So lots of interesting finger pointing and recriminations here. Absolutely. All right, let's go ahead and get to those poll numbers that we've referenced now a couple of times. So a lot of interesting things here, a lot of data points that could point really in either direction in terms of which party is going to do the best in the midterm. So let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is from NBC News. They find that Biden's approval is 42 percent, which is terrible, but actually is a little better than he had been previously. The Republicans lead the Democrats 47 to 55 in terms of, I mean, sorry, 47 to 45 in terms of the generic ballot. So they have a two point edge. You've got voters

ranking threats to democracy as the number one issue ahead of cost of living. That was a surprise. And you have 57 percent saying the Trump investigations should continue, as opposed to 40 percent who say it should stop. If you dig into the article that they have here, they also say it paints a mixed picture of the 2022 midterm landscape. As I mentioned, President Joe Biden's job rating is mired in the low 40s. Republicans narrowly lead on the congressional preference. And by the way, if they lead at all, that means they're going to take the House because of the way that these districts are ultimately drawn. But with Democrats nearly tying Republicans on voter enthusiasm, that is different because earlier in the cycle, Democrats very apathetic, Republicans highly motivated. So the fact that

you now have Democrats tying Republicans on voter enthusiasm is a big deal. And as we mentioned before, cost of living dropping to the second most important issue, and I think jobs is number three, and threats to democracy, number one, which, you know, could mean any number of things to any number of people. And very hard to say which party actually benefits from that being the top issue. I think your instinct would be like, oh, well, Democrats are talking about January 6th and the fake, you know, they're worried about the fake electric scheme and all of this. But we saw some polling previously that said basically the parties were tied or Republicans even had a little bit of an edge in terms of overall who voters thought were more sort of trustworthy with democracy. Threats of democracy to a media trained ear is like January 6th. To some people,

it's like voter ID or like, you know, like voter laws or whatever. I mean, or stop. No, it's stop the steal. I mean, to more people, it's like, yeah. So if you're a Republican voter who believes the election was stolen, you consider that a threat to democracy. And that may well be your number one issue. The reason I always think these are just a little bit silly is look, cost of living is number two and number three is jobs and economy. So I'm like, okay, you obviously combine the two and you get 30%. So that is dramatically outstripped the rest. Economies still, you put those together. You put it together. Yeah, because it's not like people- They're not inextricable. Right. And people aren't just offered sort of an open-ended, like, what do you think is the most important issue?

They're given a list of choices to pick from. And so I actually went back to look at, oh, how did this compare to the last NBC News poll and the issue ranking? And they didn't even ask about threats to democracy. So it was hard to even have a baseline comparison. And I also just think that people are pretty bad at assessing what they're actually going to vote based on and like what's really shaping their view of the party in power, the potential candidates that they have to evaluate. So, but I did think that that was interesting that there was something other than inflation as number one, just because every poll we have seen for months and months and months now, that has been the number one issue. No question. Let's go to the next one up there, which is also quite fascinating in terms of the

overall image of Democrats and Republicans. Not a great sign. So images of Democrats is 34% positive, 51% negative. Not things that much better there for the Republicans, 34% positive, 49% negative. Fascinating. Image of Biden though, this is where things get very interesting. He's 40% positive, 48% negative. Trump, 36% positive, 54% negative. Harris, 32% positive, 50% negative. And Pence, 25% positive, 44%. So I think that, you know, the overall takeaway, his Trump, that Trump favorability rating, that's basically the same it's been since like 2017.

36, and those people, they don't just like him, they love him. With Biden, I same it's been since like 2017. 36. And those people, they don't just like him, they love him. With Biden, I think it's a little bit softer. But also there's a reason that his negatives are not as high because people don't hate Biden. They're just like, eh, whatever. Outside of certain people. Whereas most of the people who hate Trump really, really, really hate Trump. My personal favorite is the Harris positivity figure at 32%. And Mike Pence also at 25, which, you know, if you're Pence, maybe you look at that and you're like, oh, there's no way I could beat Donald Trump in a Republican primary. But apparently these people are delusional enough in order to think that that is somehow

possible. I think, of course, on top of this, Dobbs really did change everything. Let's put this up there, which is that 68% of Republicans expressed a high level of interest in the upcoming election, expressing either a 9 or a 10 scale, versus 66% for Democrats. But the two-point GOP advantage is down from a 17-point advantage in March and eight points in May. And the pollsters said that the increase in enthusiasm is almost entirely attributable to the Supreme Court decision. And that was always the issue. The reason why everybody thought it was going to be a blowout in March and in May was because Dems didn't have any real reason to come. They felt very apathetic. Obviously, the Inflation Reduction Act hadn't happened.

There was no legislative achievement, complete stasis, on top of the economic wreckage. Well, now they have a reason to get registered, to get involved. And when that happens, it erases the ability of the massive sweep that we were probably going to see in the Senate. And it introduces that uncertainty combined with candidate quality, which could, could result in Democrats keeping the Senate. So that is kind of how I look. It's like a confluence of so many different things that feed into one another. Midterms turnout is king because it's all about, are your voters motivated enough to show up?

Did you give them a reason why they're going to show up and vote for you? Because obviously, turnout is much lower in midterm elections than it is in presidential years. So which side is able to motivate their people and get them out? That is usually determinative. If you think back to 2010, the year I had the glory of running for Congress, the big problem for Democrats nationally, where they just suffered what Obama characterized as a shellacking, was their side was just completely demoralized and apathetic. They just didn't

show up. And on the other side, the Tea Party energy was raging at the time, and they were highly, highly motivated to turn out. So I still think Republicans are extremely motivated. That's why, you know, this is going to ultimately, I think, end up, if I had to guess, I'd say this is going to end up being a very, very close in terms of which party performs better. With Dobbs, you now have given Democratic voters a very clear reason why they should show up and vote and what is at stake and what is on the line. That's showing up in some new data of who has been registering to vote post-Dobbs. So we covered the results in Kansas where the pro-choice position prevailed overwhelmingly,

even in a state as conservative as Kansas on that ballot question about amending the Kansas state constitution. Well, part of that story was the fact that you had a massive wave of women post-Dobbs registering to vote and then showing up to vote on that ballot initiative. But there are some new data that indicates it's not just Kansas where this phenomenon is occurring. They look in particular, let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. They look in particular at Wisconsin and Michigan. These are states where, you know, who controls the governor's mansion and who controls the legislatures is really going to

matter in terms of what the abortion landscape looks like in the state. In Wisconsin, you have women outregistering men by almost 16 percentage points since Dobbs. And you have Democrats making up 52 percent of all those newly registered voters compared with 17 percent of new voters registering as Republicans. So you have a gender gap that is sizable and you have a partisan gap that is even more sizable. In Michigan, the story is not quite as dramatic, but similar portrait that the registration numbers paint here, women outregistering men by 8 percentage points, Democrats outregistering Republicans by 18 percentage points. Interestingly, and this is part of what made this data so compelling, is in states where abortion access is not really at risk,

for example, New York, they don't see this gender gap and they don't see this partisan registration gap. So it really is in the states like the more viscerally people feel like their vote is going to be connected to what happens in the post-Roe environment, the larger these numbers are and the greater the disparity is. So it's pretty compelling evidence that Dobbs is driving a lot of voter behavior right now. I think that's quite obvious. And, you know, it was dramatically underestimated, I think, by the Republicans. And they are still flailing around. They really don't know what to do with the message. You see this over and over again. And you have some of these candidates which are really shooting them to Tudor Dixon,

you know, saying not even exceptions in the life of a mother. Once again, you can hold that position if you would like, but you are running in a definitively purple state. So it's not exactly going to be... And she was like the moderate candidate, though. That's just like... And actually doing yourself no favor by running on that national and continuing to defend it. I mean, one of the things you should conclude is they actually believe it. Okay, that's fine. I respect this country and its freedom of beliefs. But don't be surprised then if a dramatically unpopular idea they continue to defend is going to punish you at the ballot box. The next one on the corollary of whether polling is actually screwed or not, though, is also important. Yeah. So this is the major, major, major caveats, which I think is really important.

And why, you know, I am not on the train of like, Democrats are going to have a great year. I think it is decidedly a very mixed picture right now. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. And this is the reason why you have 74% of voters saying this country is on the wrong track. You have Biden approval still only at 42%. You have the generic ballot still at R plus two. And you have a lot of voters who say that their whole reason that they want to vote is to send a message of opposition to Joe Biden. And this is the, you know, ordinarily, if you saw these numbers, you would say it's done. Like Republicans are going to romp. This is, you know, it's a fait accompli. There's basically nothing Democrats can do to reverse the tide because you've got 74% of people saying we're on the wrong track.

They hate the president. It's not going well. It's done. But, you know, there are some other countervailing factors. But if you still were going to bet, you would ultimately bet on these longer term trends. You would look at the fact that the polls have consistently understated Republicans. And you would say that even though the polling portrait, when you look at these individual races, might look like Democrats have a shot not only to hold the Senate, but to potentially to pick up races. I would be very, very skeptical of the sort of like

overwhelming Democratic hopes that are starting to emerge here. And the reason why I always present the caveat is, look, it happened in 2016. And here's the thing. All of the cope around the polls, they say they're going to get better. It didn't happen. They were way worse in 2020. Right. And then since then, you know, there was this whole convoluted theory about how Democrats

are more likely to work from home, which means that they were answering more phone calls, which means that everything was weighted in their favor. I mean, I think that's probably true. But what that really just taught me is the insanity and the chaos of our society over the last three years has injected uncertainty into all elements of American politics. And that includes data science, polling, and economics. Of course, that makes sense. So when I have lived through, and you did too, watching live, Susan Collins coming back from a 12-point deficit to win by a couple of points,

Jamie Harrison losing by 17, Donald Trump almost winning Wisconsin whenever he was supposedly down 17 points the day before the election. I'm like, I don't know if I believe this stuff. And in a lot of ways, whenever I see, you know, whenever I see, what's Tim Ryan up seven, I'm like, yeah, I just I'm like, I don't believe it. Like Trump won the state by eight points. I'm like, I just simply don't believe that's the case. It's possible if he does win by eight.

I'll be like, wow, that's crazy. Yeah. Frankly, it would only that would only confirm my insanity thesis. But the point of this is that wrong. There are certain things with fundamentals that the Trump people would always point to. They're like, yeah, look, he's got bad ratings on the economy or he's got bad ratings. I'm sorry on the pandemic. Yeah, people say we're divided.

But look at the economy. And overwhelmingly, a lot of voters, it was always like a slight majority said the economy was better under Trump and that they trusted him in order to bring it back again. Powerful message and one that ultimately was vindicated. Same on culture. But more importantly, even though the wrong track number was very, very high under Trump, you had to dig down and be like, okay, well, people who people trust in order to bring it back.

And so with Biden to have a wrong track at 74, to still have a generic ballot at R plus two, remember this too, you know, generic ballots have historically, what is it? Underestimated Republican support by a couple of points. So maybe it's R plus four in that environment. Yes. It's still possible with candidate quality and all that the Senate stays Democrat, but you're still looking at, I wouldn't call it a massive wave, but in a way we may have almost done a dis Republicans may have done a disservice by predicting such a massive wave that if they only modestly win, I mean, still win. Like that's what a victory is.

Well, and that is kind of where I think we circle back to McConnell's comments that we brought you at the beginning, because I also see it, it's a shot at Trump. It's also a way of tempering expectations because they set the bar so high and expectations so high

that then if they just take the Senate and only buy one seat, people will be like, what the heck happened to the red wave here? So I think very much sort of tempering expectations and trying to lower the bar. Yeah, I mean, I saw a poll out of Pennsylvania, Oz and Fetterman by Trafalgar, that had Fetterman up by, it was four or five points. To me, that's more likely the range of what we're talking about. I think he's probably ahead because Oz is just like determined to run the worst, most out of touch campaign that he possibly can. But do I buy that it's, you know, last week there was a poll that had Fetterman up by like freaking 18 points or something crazy.

It's not that, right? It's Pennsylvania. It's a tough year for Democrats. It's going to, you should bet that it's going to be a close race in that state. And, you know, Trafalgar, as skeptical as I was of them back in 2020, they ended up being a lot closer to reality than where a lot of the other pollsters were. So I kind of took in that data point and was like, yeah, that's probably closer to what the actual reality on the ground is. Here's the truth, and a lot of Dems don't want to admit it.

Tony Fabrizio, who worked for Trump, his polls were actually shockingly good ahead of 2020, and so was Trafalgar. Those are the guys who I look to and I'm like, okay. Although, now let me just throw the wrench in the total other direction, which is that these couple of special elections we've had in Kansas, and what was the other one? It was another sort of like Midwestern state, dramatically underestimated Democratic performance. So anyway, this is all just a way of saying I think the picture is extremely, extremely murky.

You could pick data points that would say Democrats are actually going to have a decent year. You could look at it and say, no, there's no way Republicans are going to have a massive wave. And I just think anyone who is predicting anything with certainty is kind of foolish and full of shit. Yeah, absolutely correct. Okay, let's move on. Let's talk about some geopolitics stories. A fascinating and interesting move happening over in Moscow. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Daria Dugina, she's the daughter of Alexander Dugin, a Putin ally, was killed in a car bomb on a highway outside of Moscow. So Dugina, the daughter of Alexander Dugin, who I've spoken about, actually did an entire monologue about him after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. People describe him as an ultra-nationalist, but I think the better way is a true Russian czar revanchist, somebody who genuinely believes in the primacy of the Russian nation, of the Russian people,

of restoring essentially the Russian empire. This has little to do with the Soviet Union and more like the hundreds of years of Russian history that preceded him. As I said, if you're interested, you can go back and watch that monologue. I quoted some of the things that he talks about in the way that Putin allies can see the world. To be clear, Putin and his circle have always kind of held him at an arm's length and kind of seen him as a kind of crazy figure, which, you know, he almost looks like Rasputin. So it makes sense. Anyway, his daughter was killed in a Toyota Land Cruiser driving just 20 miles west outside of Moscow. Now, reportedly, Dugin himself was actually supposed to be in the car, and so he was very likely the target of this assassination attempt. Now, in terms of the assassination attempt, and then obviously she

was killed as well, a major murder investigation has now been launched by the Russian police. And this is where things, of course, become interesting because it can create political pressure from all different sides. Immediately, the Ukrainians and Ukrainian officials were like, we didn't have anything to do with this. Yes, we hate Dugin. This was not us. Don't try and do this. So they're trying to distance themselves, obviously, from the attack. At the same time, they are now opening investigations and pointing fingers in many different directions, Crystal, which you have some of the details on. Yeah. Which is interesting, but the major point is that to have an assassination of such a high profile Putin ally, ultra-nationalist in the city, there's a variety of options. It could be legitimate Russian opposition.

It could be, you know, a targeted killing by the Russian state allies or whatever in order to put pressure on Putin in order to ramp things up and have a revenge campaign. Or it could be a domestic operation. You should put none of these things past both the Kremlin and their opponents. Could be the Ukrainians. I mean, it really is. It also could be the Ukrainians. Who knows? Or Ukrainian-affiliated people. I mean, who the hell knows what's going on? So before we get into, you know, what the FSB is saying, and there was another dude who actually claimed credit that you should be very skeptical of. Before I get into all of that, I think the really important thing to understand is that, you know, this is quite extraordinary. Whoever is behind it, it really does sort of scramble the domestic political landscape for Putin

and could potentially put more pressure on him. Because remember, as much as Putin is like, you know, an asshole and a hardliner and all of that, people don't realize there are much more hardline elements who want him to go even further, who want him to, you know, outright declare war, which he hasn't done with his population, even though it's very clear to,

you know, anyone who's looking that this is a war, who wants a more general sort of like draft to have a larger scale mobilization and to really justify like a maximalist, maximalist approach to Ukraine. There's a lot of chest thumping this morning about we got to hit the Ukrainian like official government buildings and we got to go after their intelligence services and those sorts of things. So whoever is responsible for it, it looks like that is the likely domestic political outcome in Russia is potentially strengthening the hand of the hardliners who say we should be going further. Now, the other possibility is that it goes in the other direction and it freaks people

out about like, oh, geez, we thought that this whole Ukraine situation could just stay in Ukraine and wasn't really going to affect our daily lives here in Moscow. And now we're freaked down about this and we want to wind this whole war and military occupation back. So that's sort of the domestic political landscape. So the FSB says that they have solved the murder. And you'll never guess who they say was behind it. They're blaming the Ukrainians. They say it was a Ukrainian woman named Natalia Vovk. I don't know how you say this. Rented a flat in Dugina's building, trailed her, planted the car bomb and escaped to Estonia as Max Sidon, who's the Moscow bureau chief at the Financial Times,

writes a lot of odd details in this claim by the FSB. The woman who they're blaming for the murder apparently carried out this professionalized car bombing with her 12-year-old daughter in tow. And she allegedly followed Dugina in a Mini Cooper with Kazakh, Ukrainian, and Donetsk people's Republic plates, and then also fled to Estonia through Estonia. So you're like, you know, and they Putin, they all hate like Estonia right now too. So you're like, it's the Ukrainians and also screw

Estonia. It's all very convenient for their narrative. There was another dude who was like a Kremlin critic who, um, was expelled from the D, who claimed responsibility for it and said he was part of this like secret Republican partisan army underground resistance to the Kremlin. There's reason to be very skeptical of those claims as well, including the fact that this guy has apparently made up bullshit claims in the past and gotten caught for it. Number one. Number two, he put up some website that was like, if you're also interested in domestic political terror, message me here.

I don't think, yeah, can you imagine submitting some internet form of like, I would like to be a domestic political terrorist. I'm sure this isn't going to get swept up by intelligence. So be skeptical. That's very hard to say who ultimately is behind this, but everybody is sort of picking their favorite villain here and spinning the story to their own ends. But I think the bottom line is it creates a lot of volatility and could potentially lead to, you know, pressure for an escalation.

Yeah. So and like who benefits from that? Right. There's a lot of people who benefit from these things. It's not past the Russian state in order to do so. I mean, it probably wouldn't put it past some Ukrainian sympathizer or some rogue operation or whatever to do so. Who knows how exactly these things go. Rogue also in terms of the Russian sense. So I think undeniably, it creates a new set of conditions, which both sides, of course, have to react to. Zelensky is actually warning that a major Russian offensive could be coming in preparation for Ukrainian Independence Day, which is sometime soon, and that this could be a prelude to blaming them in order to launch maybe more of a full-scale type operation. So that's certainly possible. Putin apparently has been setting his sights on the city of Odessa as a strategic port in which a lot of the grain leaves from.

Perhaps capturing that would be much more of a major victory. Perhaps this is a prelude to that. I mean, perhaps he was just killed. You know, somebody was targeting Dugin for some other reason. Again, though, nobody knows. I will say car bombings are not that rare in Russia. Political opponents of Putin and many other people have died in them in the past. But, of course, you know, his opponents also know that. So the point is, is that what this does is create a major flashpoint

in domestic Russian politics. It's been covered there on state television and, you know, hardliner assets who were allied with Dugin are going to be pressuring Putin regardless, even though they already were in the lead up to this. And also it's going to bolster, you know, how the Ukrainians are going to respond to whatever is going on. So that's the reason why this, you know, one particular murder is so important is that it unleashes all of these new conditions with people on the ground are going to have to react to. I was talking to our friend about this and trying to understand it in the Russian domestic political context. And he was saying, you know, this guy,

kind of what he was best at is, yes, his sort of grand philosophy here, Putin takes elements from and is, you know, in line with some of his thinking, etc. But that what this guy is really good is sort of like at marketing and branding himself, especially to Western journalists and the Western alt-right. So his influence as Putin's brain in all this has been kind of overstated in terms of the Western media. That being said, you know, he's someone that certainly like the hard ultra-nationalists in Russia see very much as an ally and they see this as, you know, as a really, really big deal. He also was saying in terms of the general Russian population, this isn't someone who is, Dugan is not actually a household name.

Yes. So to the extent that this was sort of like, you know, if it was a targeted killing to drive some kind of domestic political outcome, of ultra-nationalists or Kremlin insiders because the general population is not super knowledgeable about who Dugan is or super caught up in whatever his philosophy is and obsessed with him in his life. Very well said. As I said, the Putin people have kind of shoved him to a side. At a certain point, they got him fired from his job. They didn't actually like him kind of pitching himself and writing often in English for a very specific audience.

So he's a complicated figure, you know, in his own right. And I'm sure this will only just bolster more of his calls for like the total subjugation of Ukraine. But anyway, it's going to create some conditions on the ground. Now, speaking of that, let's move on to this part and let's put this up there on the screen. This is something that we have been focused on very intently. So you guys might have seen this, but the Ukrainian government has been putting out all sorts of these propaganda videos of them striking Crimea targets. So, taken by force and annexation by the Russians in 2013. They later, you know, confirmed it as some sort of like plebiscite. And they're like, the people of Crimea want to be part of Russia. So anyway, Russia regards it as its own territory, as an official part of the Russian Federation. So of course, this is contested in international,

you know, circles, never recognized by the United States, never recognized by Ukraine, by Europe, by any international body. That being said, this is still the first strike by Ukrainians. Now, of course, they consider it their territory. So that being said, they're using our weapons to strike this territory, which the Russians consider part of the Russian Federation. I'm not saying that's not a reason to do it, only that it does change the stakes a little bit in terms of past fears by the United States and by many others that the Ukrainians would actually use US-provided weapons

to strike other ammo depots and other things in actual Russia across from the border, or at least traditional Russia, pre-2013 Russia, and that could be regarded as an escalation on behalf of the United States. And now we do know, after the State Department was pressed, that the United States has approved of these strikes, of Ukrainian strikes, on Russian-occupied Crimea. Here's what they said, quote, we don't select targets, of course, and everything we've provided is for self-defense. Any target they choose to pursue on sovereign Ukrainian soil is by definition self-defense.

So of course, you know, we're sticking with our definition. Now, listen, I am obviously partial to this definition, but the other side gets a vote too. And so this could lead to some escalation on their behalf. Or look, I mean, it could just lead to some things that we really don't want to see, in which we've seen in the past, anytime the Russians feel like the West is moving in a certain direction, they'll strike Lviv or they'll strike Kiev for no particular reason, you know, with these horrific weapons and, you know, bomb a bunch of civilians. This could lead to also some sort of strike back in that regard. But I just think it's very, very noteworthy for us to see very

specifically that we are supportive as official Biden administration policy of U.S. provided weapons being used by Ukraine to strike targets in Crimea, which also is very sensitive from a diplomatic point of view on our end, which is that the Ukrainians, Zelensky specifically, said, we're going for it all. We will never cede Crimea. I mean, listen, I'm sympathetic. I wouldn't do it either now, though. Does that mean, though, that the war is going to drag on for years and years? I mean, these people, frankly, so far, have not even been able to retake territory in the eastern part of Ukraine that they already lost. How are you going to take back Crimea? You're already still fighting a defensive war.

And even the New York Times, Crystal, put a story out this morning, almost as kind of like a calm down folks type thing to its major supporters. They were like, hey, these strikes that are happening on Crimea, they're mostly for social media purposes, and they will have very limited effect. Russians actually keep most of their ammo depots outside of the range of Ukrainian weapons. So don't think that this is making some major effect on the war. So I found it very telling that the Times felt the need this morning to come out with an update to all of its readers. To just say, hey, this is not like any major strategic new offensive by the Ukrainians.

Right. It's mostly a social media campaign. Well, and it should be seen, too, in the context of the fact that the Ukrainians have been signaling for a while that they're going to have this new major counteroffensive, which we have not actually really seen. And so perhaps this is a way to create some splashy headlines that give the illusion of some sort of progress and ability, capability to retake territory even beyond the line, you know, the sort of status quo before the latest Russian invasion. So it, yeah, the, the, that it's mostly for social media purposes kind of makes sense

in that regard. But I also do think it's worth keeping in mind that this is very serious. I mean, the policy of the U.S. government had been sort of, you know, it had been very left intentionally unclear whether Crimea and the parts of eastern Ukraine that had already been taken by Russia before this latest invasion, whether striking in those regions was considered defensive, whether we were okay with our missiles being used for those purposes or not. Now they're clarifying that it is. And I mean, it is hard not to describe that as an escalation because it's saying, okay, we don't want to just retake the territory that we had before this initial, this most recent invasion.

We want to actually go all the way back, even though, you know, the real facts on the ground, even though they weren't fully acknowledging that, hey, you know, Russia has taken these places over, the facts on the ground were they had these parts of Eastern Ukraine and they had Crimea and nobody was really doing a lot to try to, especially in Crimea, take that territory back. So I think it's hard not to characterize this as an escalation and a major move forward in terms of at least signaling maximalist aims of the Ukrainian government and backed by the U.S. Let's put it this way.

In 2016, a couple years after Crimea, there's a hot war waging in the east. If Obama had shipped—by the way, the major debate, and this is why I love actually knowing something about this. The major debate at that time was, should we provide the Ukrainians offensive weapons to, you know, contest territory in the eastern part of the country? Yeah. There was never even a debate around providing them with weapons to go after Crimea. That would have been seen as like an effective declaration of war against the Russian state in 2016. And, you know, the debate was confined solely there. Now, of course, look, Russia invaded Ukraine. They're the ones who changed the game, not us. Now, though, we get

to decide. We're like, hey, where diplomatically are we drawing lines here? You know, because if you start striking territory, which is, you know, disputed also in the past, well, you know, that opens up all sorts of doors as to what does this all mean? And look, it just does what worries me about it is, if that's the aim, that's fine. You're welcome to fight your war. But our policy, and I'm doing my whole monologue on this, is effectively a blank check to Ukraine and say, you guys do whatever you want. And I don't think that that's acceptable, not when we provide the vast majority of the arms. And if we are going to be the, basically, the sole funder of the Ukrainian military and the only reason that they exist, then I think we should have a say as to what's good for us. And to make sure they're like, hey, it's not actually in our interest that we have to keep providing you with hundreds of billions of

dollars of weapons for like a decade to fight over Crimea. They're like, you know, if you want to contest the East, fine, you know, be my guest, Odessa, et cetera. But we should have some say also in the prosecution of the war. Instead, we're taking a total backseat to what's happening there, which would effectively only guarantee that it goes on and on and on. Again, you know, I'm not saying if I was Ukrainian, I wouldn't want Crimea back too. They get to decide, of course, and do what they want with their resources. But when we are the major funder, then we should also have a say as well. It's what we think is good for us and for global peace, although I think what's good for us is first, always. And yet again, another potentially highly consequential decision that will be seen as a provocation from Russia that is being taken with literally no public debate.

Yes. Which has been the way of this entire war. Things are just done. The media doesn't explain what it means, what the risks are, what the possible blowback is. No, it's just presented as like, this is what we must do without any sort of case built on the other side for why there are risks involved in our course of action. Very true. Okay, let's talk about Donald Trump. This has always been following affidavit saga, the warrants, the FBI. It almost feels like ancient history,

even though it just started happening in the last two weeks. It's funny how that works, doesn't it? But the latest in all of these wars, let's put this up there on the screen, which is that, as you alluded to earlier, the New York Times, many other news organizations, sued the FBI, the Department of Justice, and said, hey, you need to release the affidavit,

which was used and sworn before a judge, which justified the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago. Now, what we knew previously from the search warrant, which was released, were the specific crimes and laws that which the FBI and the Department of Justice alleged a criminal violation of which could be furthered and found evidence at Mar-a-Lago, which we know based on reporting and all these other things, have to do not only with classified documents, but the, you know, mis-storage or hanging on to things too long based upon months of negotiation and possible, you know, there's all sorts of allegations as to what exactly the documents are and why Trump held on to them.

But we seem to know that he held on to some documents and that under three separate statues of U.S. law, the FBI raid happened. However, what we don't know is the actual probable cause and investigation and the past meetings with the Trump organization, the Trump lawyers that have occurred in the past. All of that is contained within the affidavit. Now, we know a little bit as to why the DOJ doesn't want to release it. They say it would reveal the identity of potential cooperating witnesses. Now, I don't know why they would say that unless they have a cooperating witness.

We don't know who said cooperating witnesses, some sort of mole, some sort of rat or whatever in either the Trump org, Secret Service, whatever. Somebody in the organization knows something. of surveillance video and others, they claimed that even after the Trump people had said, yes, we're securing documents in this room, because they actually have surveillance video, part of the search warrant was to get their hands on the video and also based on past testimony and more to confirm that there was like a violation of law and an agreement of things that had been said. So based on that, there has been an extraordinary public interest in this affidavit. What is in this affidavit? What is in this affidavit? What was the probable cause?

Well, the government's case that judge found enough to say to grant a warrant for the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. DOJ initially was like, no, we're not going to release it. Now, usually they get an extraordinary amount of deference. cool is that the judge finally, actually in this case, said that the government should propose redactions to the affidavit, to the judge, based upon and what will be a prolonged process from here on out because he thinks the extraordinary public interest is so important that he is going to possibly order a public version of this affidavit. Now again, it will be heavily redacted. And having seen some of these, it is so annoying when you're reading through them and you just have whole pages,

which are black, but you can't hide everything. And my personal favorite is sometimes they forget to redact stuff that they were supposed to. And you learn a hell of a lot more from that. Not necessarily fair to the people who it's supposed to be redacted to, but listen, we're in the news business. I'm going to take everything. Yeah. We're in favor of as much disclosure as humanly possible. I think we should release the whole thing. Yeah. Absolutely. That would definitely be in the best interest of us in the news media. Yeah. I mean, I'm actually, I'm surprised. I thought this judge, given the government was

making the case and that they, you know, could say, point to confidential informants and an ongoing criminal investigation, all of these things. They basically like, listen, we can't let this information get out to the public. So the fact that the judge is even taking kind of a, you know, a half measure here or a middle stance saying you can propose redactions, we'll put some of it down. And he does go on to say, like, I don't know how interesting by the time we get the redactions done, the public is going to ultimately find this. But that is better than nothing. So I think the expectation is that the redactions are proposed redactions supposed to be submitted this week. So I don't know exactly when we might get access to some portion of this affidavit. But you're exactly right. I mean, the search warrant contains certain information about exactly what crimes

they expect to find evidence of and that justifies the search. But the affidavit gives all the detail about what led them up to concluding that there were crimes being committed and that you would have evidence at this location. It also would, you know, very likely give up who it was that was informing on Trump or multiple people potentially who was informing on Trump. And all the reporting suggests that it's someone who is fairly close to him, close enough to know very specifically what these documents were and where they could be located within Mar-a-Lago. In typical Trumpian fashion, this is interesting, and this is something you and I were sort of talking about, debating whether Trump wanted the affidavit to be released publicly on Truth Social. And we can put this up on the screen.

He's calling for the release, pushing for the unredacted affidavits release, etc., etc. But while he's saying that publicly on Truth Social, his legal team did not push for this to be released at all. In fact, they say that his lawyers were conspicuously absent from the legal proceedings surrounding the unsealing process. At any time, Mr. Trump and his team could have filed papers asking Judge Reinhart to make the affidavit public, but he chose not to. So I think he finds it publicly beneficial to posture

like he's got nothing to hide. Of course, he wants this affidavit on in the public and it's going to expose the DOJ and the FBI's crimes, et cetera, et cetera. But in reality, is he in there with his team fighting for the release of the affidavit? No, he is not because, you know, he doesn't know exactly what's in here. And it's very possible that there are things in here that are actively damaging to him and a problem for him. Well, that's what you said, too, which is beyond him. It's like, look, this is the government's case.

You know, the Trump people haven't even had a chance to respond. Like maybe the government is lying. Maybe they use some informant. So it's not actually fair. And that's part of the reason why these things don't come out. Part of the reason why I think that in general, beyond a news interest, that it all should come out. This is a public interest case. Deal with it.

Yes, I understand that it's different and Trump is not above the law, but in terms of Donald Trump and his potential to actually pressure the system and whatever, that is all going to come from small d democratic means. And from his perspective, you should release anything possible. And look, I mean, to Trump's case during Ukraine gate, even though the quote, perfect phone call was not good for him, he released it and eventually convinced most people it was the quote, perfect phone call. Even if there was some stuff in there, which, you know,

I'm not saying it was a criminal act, by the way, but just like okay, well, you know, it's clearly pressuring him in a certain way. As I've always said, the most disgusting part to me of Zelensky's phone call with Trump is when he's like, oh, Mr. President, we stay in Trump Tower. And I was like, oh, that is so gross. This was before he was Hero Zelensky.

Yeah, before he was Winston Churchill. He was stroking Trump and being like, I loved your hotel. You have the best hotel, Trump Tower. That's where we all go. See, that I find, frankly, a lot more objectionable. It is really gross. Than whatever was happening with the military aid. But again, I just think that transparency

probably only helps him, you know, prosecute this case. Everybody can always find picking and choosing of what convenient facts or whatever are there for why he's, quote, exonerated, as he always would claim. So to his own public interest case, I think it's- Well, he could maybe, at least if the affidavit was revealed,

he could maybe like actually figure out what his defense is and lean into, like pick a narrative, you know, because they have just been throwing everything against the wall that they possibly could. It was that it was planted. It was confidential. It's, you know, actually I declassified this.

So it's totally cool. And I take where, I mean, they've just gone cycled through everything that they could possibly think of. So maybe if they knew a little bit more information, they could like construct one crazy narrative and sort of stick with it and keep pursuing that because that's what they seem to be most successful at. Absolutely correct. Okay, it's time for a solemn occasion here on Breaking Points. They always say that, you know, you should never rub it in when people are down. So we have a moment of silence. And yeah, well, some people

listen to this podcast, so I don't think that would work. But you guys can take your own moments of silence while we continue to describe the story. So we got the tragic, tragic news for the country. Let's go ahead and put it up there on the screen. CNN has officially fired Brian Stelter of reliable sources, canceling his show unceremoniously and giving him only a couple of days notice. Please put the New York Times story up there on the screen. What they describe in here is that Stelter was called into Chris Licht, who's the new boss over at CNN's office on Wednesday. Reporting indicates he emerged ashen.

And after that meeting, the news slowly broke. His show, with the last show, would air on Sunday. It has aired, and unfortunately we do have a clip of that for all of you to see. But it is interesting only in this light. As we have discussed, we had the video that many of you saw on our channel about John Malone. He's a major investor in Discovery, which is the parent company of CNN, has said, I want to see CNN get back to hard news. We know that Chris Licht was tasked by David Zaslav, who's the new

CEO of Discovery, to completely undo the Zucker era over at CNN. One of his first acts at the network is, no more stupid breaking news banners unless it's real. The next one was cleaning out many of Zucker's people, also immediately canceling CNN+. Since then, there has been open reporting that Chris Licht and David Zaslav, the brass over there, cannot stand Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter's posturing as partisan, as going after Fox, becoming basically just clowns on the network, which are open, partisan hacks. And it is not a surprise then that Chris's first real fire and firing and reshape of the schedule is to specifically go after Stelter, who was the real face of this kind of contingent at CNN. So what that led to, the final cancellation of the show. And I think actually, Crystal, the sign off by Stelter just tells us exactly why he really needed to go in the first place. We have some of that.

Let's take a listen. You know, I love this show, this small but mighty show punched above its weight for so many years. Even a former president commented on the cancellation. Reliable Sources has been a one of a kind show and a popular show. This is one of CNN's highest-rated weekend shows. So I want to say thank you to all of you watching around the world. And by that, he means a couple hundred thousand people.

But, you know. Highest-rated weekend show. The weekends on cable news are garbage. The only people doing that are stuck in an airport like I was. One of the highest-rated. And I also love him being like their David versus Goliath, like small but mighty show that punched above its weight. Are you kidding?

Like you work for this gigantic multi-billion dollar multinational brand and you're acting like you're just the little guy out there doing his best. Hilarious. Licht has said after Stelter's firing, he said there will be moves to CNN employees at an editorial meeting. There will be moves

you may not agree with or understand. I want to acknowledge to everyone that this is a time of change. I know that it is unsettling. So, I mean, I've given my sort of

assessment of all of this. Stelter, Stelter kept his slot when he was, like, very clearly not good at being a television anchor. Put aside his ideology or any of that.

Yeah, he's actually just bad at it. He's just, like, not good at being a television anchor. Didn't he say he's always sitting like that? Yeah, he's always like...

I'm not going to claim I don't sit weird, like, I put my knees up sometimes just because it's more comfortable, but... I've told this story before. I mean, I went on that show and i don't remember we're talking about impeachment or something like that i said something which was you know kind of a bomb in terms of cable news

world like not something that people normally say on these shows and he was very unable to process in real time what i was saying it was very clear he had a list of questions and he asked me the question and then it didn't matter what I said, he was going to go on to question number two and just very robotically. So this was, anyway, the reason he kept this slot in spite of poor ratings and poor performance was because he was willing to toe the line for Jeff Zucker when it counted. And this became really clear in the whole Chris and Andrew Cuomo scandal. When he went out on the late night shows, Ryan Stelter did, and was willing to defend CNN's handling of the whole Chris Cuomo situation in spite of that.

I mean, it was a clear violation of journalistic norms. And your job as the media critic is supposed to be not just to criticize other media platforms, but to apply that critical lens to your own media platform as well. And so the whole reason he was there was because he was a Zucker loyalist and he was willing to, you know, toe the sort of CNN propaganda line. And so once his benefactor was gone, immediately the reporting started that his head was probably on the chopping block. Now, listen, I am skeptical. Number one, I'm skeptical that the Chris Lick changes are really actually going to improve CNN. My problem isn't that CNN has an ideological lens.

My problem is that they get stories wrong and that they have a total partisan bias, just like MSNBC does and just like Fox News does as well, that makes them boring, predictable, and oftentimes like inaccurate and like causes them to lie in service of sort of Democratic Party elites. I don't know that the changes that he is proposing here, which is to make it more quote unquote centrist, where it's like, well, this side says, but that side also says this, is going to make it any better. It just means you're sort of just like carrying water for Beltway conventional wisdom and like, you know, a similar cadre of elites. We'll see. I'm also skeptical that those changes are ultimately going to last.

Yeah, that's the real one. Because Trump is going to be back. And you know what's going to happen. The hosts who are willing to be sort of the most out there in terms of what they're saying about Trump are going to get the highest ratings. And ultimately, it's a business. And is he really going to like, focus on or promote the hosts who are getting poor ratings because they're staying at this sort of like, you know, centristy, milquetoast, one side says what the other side says lane, when the people

who are willing to throw the bombs are getting all the eyeballs. So I'm very skeptical that ultimately, the business model of Trump derangement isn't going to be what prevails all the eyeballs. So I'm very skeptical that ultimately the business model of Trump derangement isn't going to be what prevails in the end. I completely agree with you. And just to give everybody a trip down memory lane, Media Research Center put together a highlight reel over on Brian Stelter's career. Let's take a listen. To understand why so many Republicans have abandoned democracy, you have to hear the poisonous propaganda. What do folks in the reality-based, reality-based, reality-based media do in the coming weeks? Biden secret emails. This is a classic example of the right-wing media machine. When we're not able to say that Hunter Biden's laptop is a story worth pursuing.

You say we're not allowed, we're not able. Who's the people stopping the conversation? Who are they? Is it possible to make Fox News viewers change their minds about key issues just by having them change the channel? Entire media companies essentially exist to tear down Joe Biden. Can we have an honest conversation about gas prices? Or has the coverage been out of proportion, out of step with the American public? Too much of the US media chatter is distorted to the point of being dishonest.

Dana Milbank, here's his column for the Post this weekend, and he says he has data to show that the press has turned more negative against Biden than the press was against Trump. What do you think about that? Does it ring true to you? Trump might have committed treason. What does Putin have on Trump? The US president possibly working for the Russians.

Is President Trump a racist? Is the Trump presidency a criminal presidency? Look, it's perfect. That's what he excelled at. I best heard him described as the media's janitor, as in like the cleanup guy to always make sure. And look, I mean, there was a real cry. It's funny. If you go on Twitter and you'll see, the nation's press is in mourning right now. This is their number one defender. And I said, oh, thank you, Brian, for standing up for the First Amendment. First of all, this guy never stood up for actual free press or free expression. It was purely as a defender of the establishment media and its wing. But second, I think this is

the real tragedy of Stelter's story. Here's what people forget. He was actually good at his job once upon a time when he was working at the New York Times as a media reporter covering the morning shows like Ann Curry getting fired. Yeah, did you say his morning show book was actually really good? It's a great book. I read it. It's 2013. I don't know if people know this. The Apple TV series, The Morning Show, is based on Stelter's book. This is another thing you see in media all too often, though.

It's like, okay, I trust your judgment that this was a good book. I certainly know he was a well-sourced reporter who would get good scoops and do a good job on some of his reporting when he was in that lane, is like, they all want to be TV stars. Yes. And again, putting the ideology aside, this was not someone who was meant to be a TV star. Yeah, it's like, bro, it's not cut out for this.

To me, the greatest crime he committed was just how he was completely willing to tow the CNN corporate line and play cleanup, like do the cleanup job for them whenever Zucker asked him to. He was reliably there to, you know, borrow a pun from their name, reliably there to just carry water for his own management. So to me, that was the greatest crime he committed.

Now, as to what's coming next, let's put this up there. CNN's new boss actually hinted to the staff, there will be many more changes and you might not understand it or like it all, he said on Friday morning. And as I actually tweeted this out this morning, Crystal, some new reporting also from Puck News, that Jeffrey Toobin is the first of many paid contributors whose contracts will not be renewed at the network.

So, look, is their whole strategy going to work? Probably not. Will I watch a bunch of people? You know, I joked, I joked, it's like, oh, a never Trump former CIA recession is coming if all these people lose their jobs. Am I going to cry tears for them? No, absolutely not. I keep thinking about the line from the Joker, only going to paraphrase it, you get what you deserve. Although, honestly, I could see him being the type that would bring in a bunch of never Trump CIA types in the interest of being nonpartisan, like, these are Republicans, you know? See, now I'm just back to the black

bill. Yeah. Look, there is no saving this whole thing. I just want to temper expectations that the changes here, even though you might be happy that Brian Stelter is out, that the changes here are ultimately going to amount to anything we might view as progress in terms of journalistic integrity. Yes, I think you're absolutely right. All right, so what are we looking at? Well, it's been nearly 180 days since Russia invaded Ukraine, six full months of war, the likes of which we have not seen on the European continent since World War II. In the early days of the war, certain things were not allowed to be debated in the public square in the West, such as, is it a good idea to pull the rip cord on the global petroleum market for the Russian invasion of Ukraine? How long should the West pay high gas prices? Will our sanctions have the intended effect? What is our end goal? Is it

in Ukraine? Is it total Ukrainian military victory? Is it a stalemate? If so, what kind? What is our end goal? Is it in Ukraine? Is it total Ukrainian military victory? Is it a stalemate? If so, what kind? What is our diplomatic end goal? Militarily, what does that even look like? In terms of the weapons that we're shipping them month after month, are we sure they're being used as intended? Are we sure they will stay in the right hands if they even make it to them at all? Do we have a plan in place to ensure stability, not just temporary military victory? Now, of course, we asked all those questions on this show, and of course, not one of them was ever entertained by the U.S. Congress. In general, the media and the political establishment smeared you as a Putin apologist if you asked even one of those questions, not that I particularly care.

Now, at its core, the case for defending Ukraine by the West was simple. All those questions aside, we must stand up to Putin in Ukraine so he and other autocratic countries do not feel emboldened to go further and threaten our NATO allies who either share a border with Russia or are nearby. Okay. Now, much was made of the transatlantic alliance, not only between the US and the UK, but France, Germany, and the rest of the continent. The pledge was made by this so-called United West for everyone to step up and take action. There is just one problem. Just like at the core of the NATO alliance, there has been a rot for decades, the same problem has now reared its head with respect to the Ukrainian conflict.

July, for example, was a rough month for Ukraine and for the West's policy. July saw record profits by Russia from oil, Ukraine definitively lost a major military campaign in the East, and it was regrouping for an offensive to retake territory. The U.S. recognized this by passing and sending billions of dollars of military aid to Ukraine. Now, you would think then, well, the rest of the European countries, since we're all united, we're all in this together, are stepping up too. That's actually completely wrong. In fact, new data tells us that not only did they not even send any of the support they had previously, but that Europe's six greatest powers and largest economies did not send one euro of bilateral military aid in the entire month of July.

Those powers include the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, and Poland, all of which have far more to lose from any general war in Europe than we do, and who literally are both closer to Russia, but have fought wars with them for hundreds of years prior. And as shocking as a zero figure is, it's even more shocking when you look at things in terms of absolute aid. In terms of overall aid, the United States to date has provided Ukraine with 25 billion euros of military aid so far. No other country even comes close to one-fifth of that. Yes, you heard me correctly. The only ones who even though approach the one-fifth figure is the United Kingdom, which has sent 4 billion euros of aid.

After that, there are so-called EU institutions, which barely counts since that's supposed to represent like 29 different countries, and Poland, and they have provided 1.8 billion. Germany, the fourth largest economy on earth, a so-called great ally of the US, which has the biggest GDP on the continent, has sent 1.2 billion. France, the seventh largest economy, the second largest European power, has sent 0.23 billion. Italy has sent 0.15, which means to date, the United States has provided more military aid to Ukraine than all of the European continent combined. So I compose a very simple question. If this is a war against Putin aggression, why should the United States care more about peace in Europe and the greatest powers on the European continent?

Unless the so-called European powers know that they don't actually have to do anything, they continue to subsidize their vast welfare states, and that we will continue to foot the bill because of our politicians, media, and establishment class are far dumber than theirs are. What made things especially comical is as I was writing this monologue, an announcement came across the wire. The Department of Defense has announced we will provide an additional $775 million in military aid to Ukraine to mark the six-month anniversary of the war. Those include HIMAR rocket systems, artillery, ammunition, drones, and mine-resistant troop vehicles. This $775 million in aid outstrips entire European nations on the continent in dollar terms. And just another

routine resupply by the United States. The simple fact is the U.S. is getting ripped off to a historic degree by the people who are supposedly such great allies. They talk a big game. They appear at the conferences. They say it's all about them and about us. But when the bill comes due, we are the only people paying it. And here's the thing. Our payment may cost us big time in the future. A Pentagon official recently revealed shocking information before Congress, which nobody in the press thought to warn the American people about. The United States' supply of Javelin anti-tank missiles is currently at a full reduced one-third capacity because of the support for Ukraine, and will take years to replace that stock. Our supply of Stinger missiles is also reduced by one-fourth.

The Stinger missiles in particular are a problem because they literally are not in production anymore. Raytheon's CEO says that if you want them back, our production line, it will take almost 18 months to even begin. Furthermore, while everyone is worried about Ukraine, we also have interest in Asia, where Stinger missile deliveries for Taiwan that were scheduled had to be pushed back because of Ukraine. Now tell me, what if China invades Taiwan tomorrow? Do you want to be in a position where we have to choose between sending them nothing and then keeping our defense readiness intact? Those are all questions the people in power do not want you to have answers to, because if you did, you would be outraged. The extent to which the U.S. is underwriting so-called peace in Europe is nowhere even close to the balance of fairness, even when you factor in our superpower status. Worse, this actually

feeds the notion that this purely is a proxy war between the two great powers and undercuts any great so-called Western alliance. Furthermore, it actually indicates how much Ukraine needs solely the United States. If they need us so badly, well, maybe then we should have more say in the conflict and guide and pressure the government to a solution which is best for us. I say this by acknowledging the Ukrainian cause is just, but there are a lot of just causes on planet Earth. The question of geopolitics is simple. What's best for us? I posit it is insane to underwrite a conflict like this for years to come with an effective blank check while letting other European powers mooch off of us for their physical security, and to then take a back seat in how the actual conflict itself goes.

The further along this path that we stray, the more likely it becomes that the U.S. expends billions of dollars in a conflict where our actual interests do not lie, that in the long run will only make us less safe, less secure, should a real conflict arise. We did this twice in the last 22 years. You would really think that we would learn our lesson. But we don't. We continue to let vague delusions about democracy and alliances cloud our judgment, only to eventually be smacked in the face with reality. Sadly, I think that that day will come. And at least historians will know that there were some sane people who were speaking out about it at the time. I mean, everyone says the United West,

united, we're united together, we're fighting together. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, in one of the early scenes in Netflix's new docuseries, Woodstock 99, the festival's opening act, James Brown, is refusing to take the stage. His manager screams at the festival organizers that Brown will not go on until he gets all of his cash up front. The festival organizers refuse, and a standoff ensues.

Brown is trying to secure his bag, and the festival organizers, of course, are trying to secure theirs. It ends up being a good enough metaphor for the entire film, which documents Woodstock 99 in all its grotesque glory. Something happened between the original Woodstock of 1969 and its millennial reincarnation. And I think that something says a lot about the decadence, venality, and rot at the core of our society. Here's a look, a little bit, of the official trailer for train wreck Woodstock 99. Woodstock 99. It was going to be the biggest party on the planet. But that's not what any of us remember it for.

What the hell happened? What sort of setup do you have for accountability? How many security guards do you have on site? They were glossing over all of that. Big fat rip-off. They're all about making money off us, and we're pissed. But the show was going to go on. I think we need to see a whole hell of a lot more

When you see it with your own eyes It's just ten times more shocking Once you become part of a herd You become like animals Things are just getting out of control And all of these people Were acting like animals. We got fires everywhere. Look at this.

Kerosene match. Now, the most obvious thing to say about Woodstock 99 is that it was completely ruined by greed. It was like capitalism chewed up and puked down the original Woodstock and booked corn and Limp Bizkit as headliners. Now, 1969, sure, the organizers hoped that they would turn a profit, but that wasn't the only or even the main goal at that point. I went back and watched the original 1970 documentary about the festival to get the best sense of it that I could. And at one point in 1969, the organizers are actually running short on time in the run-up to the concert, and they've got to make a choice. They can either build out the stage to maximize performance quality, or they can build out the fence to ensure that everyone

has to pay for a ticket. They pick the stage, and many, if not most, concertgoers end up coming in for free, causing the whole thing initially to be a disaster from a money-making perspective. But without this choice, Woodstock would have been just another concert, not a generation-defining cultural touchstone. Now, even though in 1999 the main visionary behind the original festival was still running the show, whatever idealism had existed in his young self had long ago curdled into a cynical desire to cash in on his legacy. At every turn, the leadership team cut corners on the location and on food and on sanitation and everything else, leading to a miserable, disgusting, and dangerous experience for the festival goers. For example, in order to

maximize their profits, they subcontracted out the concession rights and cheaped out on sanitation. So as temperatures blazed into 100 degrees with no shade in sight and a bunch of drunken and dehydrated concert goers desperate for water, concession stands jacked up the price to $12 for a single bottle of water. In 1969, concert goers made the best of rainy weather, sliding and frolicking in the resulting mud. You've probably seen the pictures. In 1999, concert goers also played in what they thought was mud, except this time the mud was the direct result of overflowing porta-potties creating literal shit rivers. The overflowing feces then contaminated the free water supply, causing attendees who drank and showered in that water to be stricken with a World War I- era illness called trench mouth. Teens were falling out left and right from heat exhaustion, trench mouth, and other injuries,

completely overwhelming the on-site paramedics. But it wasn't just the organizers who were lacking in that peace and love spirit. In 1969, concert goers came to Woodstock, yes, to gather and enjoy the experience, but they had a shared set of values and beliefs as members of the counterculture. They had a commitment to each other and to a larger cause.

In 1999, the concert goers mostly appeared to just want a few days of total hedonistic debauchery. Those who showed up with any sort of peace and love spirit had it immediately sucked out of them by the animalistic treatment that they were subjected to. Now, the 60s counterculture ethos of free love had turned into teen girls being badgered to show their tits. The whole scene was a kind of combination of girls gone wild meets entitled frat culture and culminated

with a young girl who was passed out being raped in the back of a stolen ambulance in the middle of a rave. Another girl reported being pulled into a mosh pit and raped. Now this whole dynamic actually made me look a little differently in my own college and high school years and also made me grateful for the best ideals of the Me Too movement, which was an effort on a mass scale to try to make it clear this type of behavior is not remotely acceptable or cool, to try to impose some penalty of shame and disgrace for those who would treat girls as prey. of the festival, who suffered through the shit rivers and dehydration and extreme temperatures and disgusting trash-filled landscape and sexual harassment, price gouging, and all the rest, they made it through in part because they had been promised some sort of big surprise at the conclusion of the festival. Now, rumors were flying about some major surprise act that could close out the experience with something positive to hold on to. But of course, that would be expensive. So instead, the organizers decided

they would surprise everyone with some sort of vigil to end gun violence. A perfectly corporate attempt to paint over the whole mess with some nice liberal virtue signaling. Their way of pretending that this festival was about something other than the cash. But as if that wasn't bad enough, they also were total colossal morons. And after building up an explosive rage-filled atmosphere for days on end, they then handed 100,000 lit candles into the crowd as part of their fake virtue signal gun violence thing. Well, what do you think happened next? Yes, the crowd burned the place to the ground. Fires were everywhere. Concessions were looted. Organizers were forced to flee the scene. Now, when it was all over, the place looked like a trash-drewing, charred

hellscape, unfit for animals, let alone for humanity. Thousands were sickened, untold numbers preyed upon by looters and sex offenders. Three people died. And after watching the documentary, I gotta be honest with you, it kind of feels like a miracle the body count was not any higher. So how do I sum all of this up? Well, in 1969, the overriding spirit was a commitment to the community. In 1999, it was every man and woman, for him or herself, using the people around you to get yours. Now, there's a larger cultural commentary here, of course. In the ensuing years between 69 and 99, the revolutionary ethos and winds of the 60s were hollowed out, leaving only a cruel caricature of that original spirit. The hippie ethos itself was bottled and sold as a kind of a lifestyle brand, an aesthetic that you could purchase at free people, the spirit of which advertisers told you you could embody by drinking a Pepsi.

The Reagan and Clinton neoliberals let us have some of our individualistic, cultural wins, but everything else was destroyed. The universalist communal spirit and associated policy sold for scrap to the billionaire class. neoliberals let us have some of our individualistic cultural wins, but everything else was destroyed. The universalist communal spirit and associated policy sold for scrap to the billionaire class. Unions died, wages slipped, greed became good. That ethos took its toll on creativity as well. The 1999 headliners have, by and large, not stood the test of time. People still listen to the acts of the original Woodstock lineup. Can't imagine a whole lot of folks are dying to hear the live version of Pretty Fly for a White Guy and I Did It All for the Nookie. Now, the very fact that the 99 Festival was a regurgitated attempt to recapture the creativity of a previous generation,

that in and of itself says a lot about how much our creativity has flagged. And it has echoes in the way so many of our popular films, music, and fashion just seem to be a rehash of previous eras. Top Gun, anyone? Now, it turns out commitment to money and self above all leads to nothing but a rapacious, sickening wasteland, as true in 1999 as it is today. And it's just very clear how...

Maybe I'll watch this now. It is worth watching. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Hey, everybody. Unfortunately, there was a scheduling problem. Missed flights, production schedules, all that. We want to make sure we get the show out on time,

so we will book Adam for a later date. But we hope that you guys all have a great day. As a reminder, go ahead and buy those live show tickets if you can. As far as the premium subscribers, we love you guys so much. We've got big things, as I said, in the works, literally designing and everything right now. It is only because of all of you. We appreciate you. If you want to join us, link is in the description. Otherwise, we will see you all later. Love y'all. This is an iHeart Podcast.