Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/24/21: Vaccine Mandates, Australia Dystopia, Corporate Democrats, Andrew Cuomo Exits, Afghanistan Evacuations, DeSantis Derangement, Healthcare Dysfunction, California Recall, and More!

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

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and subscribe today. Hey guys, thanks for listening to Breaking Points with Crystal and Sagar. We're going to be totally upfront with you. We took a big risk going independent. To make this work, we need your support to beat the corporate media. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, they are ripping this country apart. They are making millions of dollars doing it. To help support our mission of making all of us hate each other less, hate the corrupt ruling class more, support the show. Become a Breaking Points premium member today where you get to watch and listen to the entire show ad-free and uncut an hour early before everyone else.

You get to hear our reactions to each other's monologues. You get to participate in weekly Ask Me Anythings. And you don't need to hear our annoying voices pitching you like I am right now. So what are you waiting for? Go to breakingpoints.com, become a premium member today, which is available in the show notes. Enjoy the show, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We still have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of good stuff to get to. But first of all, Sagar, how are you feeling this morning? I'm feeling a little bit better. So if anybody who missed it,

I've got the big one nine, the COVID-19, the Delta variant got it got me finally found me in my house. But I think I am finally on the mend crystal. That's what I'm hoping. I think tomorrow, hopefully I'll be back to like full capacity. And then I'm hoping to start testing negative then so I can get the hell out of my house because I'm starting to go a little bit of crazy here. Yeah, definitely be nice if we can get back in the studio next week. So but more importantly, it would be nice for you to feel better. That's that's the number one priority. Thank you. All right. In the show today, we have an update on what's going on in Afghanistan. Lots of people being evacuated over the last 24 hours. Major uptick there. We have some complete COVID insanity going on in Australia that you just have to see to believe.

I'll leave it at that. We'll show you that in a moment. Dems in disarray for real this time. Break down all the details about the now 10 corporatists who are standing in the way of getting anything accomplished, the infrastructure deal or the reconciliation package at this point. Andrew Cuomo is no longer the governor of New York. It is official. We've got a fantastic guest on to talk about also that recall happening in California. That really is a jump ball at this point. And national media not paying that much attention to it, even though this could be a huge, huge deal. But we wanted to start with a major development on the vaccine front. Yeah, the vaccine got big news yesterday with the Pfizer vaccine

receiving full FDA approval. The president announced it at the White House. Let's take a listen to what he said. So let me say this loudly and clearly. If you're one of the millions of Americans who said that they will not get the shot until it has full and final approval of the FDA, it has now happened. The moment you've been waiting for is here. It's time for you to go get your vaccination and get it today. Today. and get it today, today. So that's a very important milestone there, Crystal, because the full FDA approval was actually cited by multiple people who I've spoken to also anecdotally,

but more importantly, in the Kaiser Family Foundation survey, they found that something around 12 to maybe 20%, the numbers are really skewed. Some might've been using it as an excuse, but regardless, there was a certain segment of the population that said emergency use authorization by the FDA for the vaccine is what made them feel uncomfortable. Ultimately, the FDA did accomplish this in about, I think it

was 40% faster than normal in terms of their review procedures. So I do want to put that out there. But really what it does come down to is that the actual review process of this, which many people were critical of saying that it wasn't even going fast enough, is finally completed for the Pfizer vaccine. And that opens up the door to all sorts of legal mandates, which we're about to get into. Yeah, I have to think there are some people who this will help to convince because this was held out by vaccine skeptics as a kind of a trump card. Like, well, if the vaccine is so safe and so great, why does it only have emergency authorization right now? There are critics on both sides of this debate, as you just alluded to. Some people who said this went too fast. Why did you rush this process? Others who said, why didn't you rush

the process more? I feel personally like they got it about right because you need to, in order if the goal is to instill the most possible confidence in people, you need to go through the entire normal process in order for people to have that level of confidence. They went through that process. They just did it at an accelerated pace. So that's where we are right now. Look, ultimately, what are the impacts going to be? Hopefully, as you alluded to, some of the people who have been waiting for that official authorization will go ahead and get vaccinated. More likely what's going to happen is you're going to see more companies and more federal government agencies feeling confident, hospitals, schools, those sorts of institutions feeling like they now have the go-ahead to require their

employees to either get the vaccine or to submit to testing on a daily basis. Yeah, that really is, I think, the major headline beyond actually even the full FDA approval is that the president now urging private companies in order to mandate this for all employees. Let's take a listen to what he said. Today, I'm calling on more country, more companies, I should say, in the private sector to step up with vaccine requirements that will reach millions more people. If you're a business leader, a nonprofit leader, a state or local leader who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I'm calling you now to do that. Require it. Do what I did last month. Require your employees to get vaccinated or face strict requirements. That really is the big news there, Crystal. And I got to say,

it's interesting and I'm also a little bit worried about how it's going to go. Because as I pointed to, I think I did a previous monologue, Kaiser Family Foundation found that 40% of people who are required to take a vaccine would simply quit their jobs. What we also know here, and I'm curious for what you think, is that right now, white collar workplaces are the places most likely to require vaccination where their employees are disproportionately more likely to get vaccinated in the first place. The major standoffs we're going to see are when working class employees are required to get vaccinated, where they are much, much more likely to be vaccine hesitant. So see that like if Amazon

warehouses require vaccinations in their warehouse, something they have not done, I think very specifically Walmart would be another example. That is where I think things could become quite dicey. And we could actually see some major political headway. We'll talk about it later with the Gavin Newsom recall. But the people who don't want this thing are extremely animated. And I would not be surprised to see more states like Texas or Florida outright ban private vaccine mandates that we could see. And it could just turn into a major political football. I'm generally of the opinion that incentives work better than mandates and that on sports when we live in a

free country. But I'm curious for what you think on this, given that there is now full FDA approval. Well, it's complicated because there's effectively two principles here which are at odds. One is the principle of a sort of, you know, independent and freedom-loving tradition in this country, something I believe in, civil liberties, something I believe in greatly and defend in a lot of contexts. The other is the responsibility that we have to one another living together in a society. And I have to say, look, the backdrop in the context of all of this is none of these institutions, not the government, not corporate America, certainly has earned your trust to be able to institute

these sorts of mandates. However, I do think, look, there for me are a few exceptions here. Number one, you're probably going to talk about this as well. They are moving forward with military mandate. If you are a service member, you're going to be required to get inoculated. Look, you're already required to get a bunch of other inoculations. You've already signed over your body to the U.S. government effectively. So I'm supportive of that. I also think if you work in a public health setting or if you work with children in a school, I think you should be getting vaccinated. So because you have these two principles, frankly, it's complicated. I didn't really have an issue with what Biden said. He's not putting the full force of the federal government behind it. He's saying, look, I encourage you to do this. I think the companies that have struck this middle ground of like, listen, either get vaccinated or you're going to have to get tested. I don't really have an issue with that because again, you're still allowing people to make somewhat of a choice.

You're not mandating that they ultimately get vaccinated, but it recognizes that if you aren't getting vaccinated, you are imposing a cost on those around you. And I have to tell you, Sagar, actually, your experience and our experience and actually my daughter's experience, she hasn't been able to go to school for the last week. My oldest daughter, because she is vaccinated with someone in her school who likely wasn't contracted coronavirus. And that's had an impact on everybody around that person, whether they ultimately contracted or not. It's not like it's costless when you don't get vaccinated and you spread the virus to someone else. We're not in the studio this week. I had to be masked around my children all weekend because

I was worried about spreading it to them. I didn't haven't seen my parents because I don't want to spread it to them. So there is a cost that you're imposing on people by not ultimately getting vaccinated. And I do think that has to be weighed into the calculation without making the burdens like overly onerous or insanely authoritarian, like the things that we're going to show you that are going on down in Australia. No, you're not wrong. That's the greatest balance, right? And yet, at the same time, I'm fully vaccinated, then I got the virus, and then people I live with got the virus. So it's one of these things where what exactly are we trying to accomplish? I mostly agree with what you said, which is that especially whenever it comes down to the context of the type of employment,

so like nurses in the ICU, look, you're dealing with the most vulnerable people in the entire healthcare system. I can't really see an excuse in order to be allowed to be able to spread that, possibly even more so than other people. And that's generally what the data does show us in terms of unvaccinated versus vaccinated. I also see this amongst police officers, right? Like police officers are literally required to interact with everybody inside of the general population. And the NYPD announced just yesterday,

they've already lost the third police officer to coronavirus. And I think the majority of their force is unvaccinated. At the same time, even though, you know, I can say we can both sit here till we're blue in the face, I really just wonder about how widespread the anti-vaccine sentiment is within so many of these communities and whether the mandate just may not work and create some sort of civil crisis. That's actually what I worry about the most. I mean, I think it is the United States Marine Corps where I think a huge percentage of the enlisted population is not vaccinated. I mean, how many

people are going to quit? Are they going to retire? Is it going to become some strange standoff with command? Now, maybe it's worth it. I really just don't know. It comes down to the forcing of people. The White House also is leaning very heavily into this. Jen Psaki was asked whether they're going to continue to push even more vaccine mandates, not necessarily like other diseases, but in terms of coronavirus, like when Moderna and others get full FDA approval. Here's what she had to say. Will the White House convince more businesses to require vaccines now that Pfizer vaccine has been approved by the FDA? Will we require or will we push them? Will you push them to businesses and require

certain businesses to, or push them to businesses? Sure. No, I just wanted to make sure I was understanding your question. We have already started doing that over the last several weeks. And I think we've, you've seen the president speak to this. You've seen a number of senior officials be more forward-leaning, I should say, about the role the private sector can play in mandating vaccines or taking steps with their own workforces. That is always going to be decisions for them to make. But some may assess, and some private sector companies have spoken out about how final approval of the vaccine may help them take that additional step. So we are here and we are here to be a resource as they have questions. But certainly we're hopeful this will

help put in place additional measures around the country. So there we go. That's kind of where we stand. And it's interesting because I do think that Delta does definitely change the calculus also in terms of bringing back, but it's interesting too, even without vaccine mandates, Crystal, we've seen a massive uptake in actual vaccination. I think we're crossing the 1 million threshold all across the South because people probably just personally know, people like me, who got sick. And you can see, I'm fine. I got the vaccine. I'm young. Probably always was going to be. But what if I, maybe if I wasn't vaccinated, this could have been a 10-day disease instead of a five-day. And people can look

at that and say, hey, I don't want the 10-day. So in some ways, you can also just trust the experience of many people who are all across the country just looking around, knowing people who got sick and said, all right, screw this. I don't even want to risk it anymore. That's true. But I think it's a fantasy to think that mandates don't work. Look, if there were more mandates in place, more people would be vaccinated. And that's what we've seen, like for the example of France, where they've been a bit more heavy handed. You've got to show your vaccine passport in order to get into restaurants or basically participate in life in France at this point. And there was an outcry, but there also were a whole lot of people who ultimately got vaccinated because there's a hardcore, maybe 10 to 15% that is truly adamantly opposed to getting

it, period, full stop, doesn't matter. They quit their job, all of that stuff to resist getting this vaccination. Then there are a lot of people who just sort of feel like it's not really their preference. They're not afraid of the virus. They don't want to deal with the symptoms. They don't want to take time off of work. There's a whole variety of reasons why people aren't getting vaccinated. I think for that squished ear grip, look, we shouldn't delude ourselves that if you had more vaccine mandates,

you would have more people getting vaccinated. So it's a question of how you balance these two competing values of civil liberties and having a whole bunch of corrupt institutions that have lied to Americans repeatedly, being in a position now where they actually are encouraging people to do the right thing, but there's good reason why so many Americans don't have trust in them. But so balancing the civil liberties with what our

responsibilities are to each other in a society, I tend to think that the direction of, like I said, if you're in public health, public service, if you're working with vulnerable populations or with kids, then I think it justifies being more heavy handed. And if you're working in a normal workplace environment, you know, incentives, maybe you can either get vaccinated or get tested every day. That to me is probably the right direction to go in without the federal government using a whole lot of heavy handed tactics to force that direction into being. Yeah. I mean, this, look, this is the nuanced perspective, which we're just lacking because, and I think maybe the reason I'm sounding some of the hesitancy is we, we see these like elite efforts where people want to deny care, you know, to the unvaccinated or, and's just like, where does this lead? I mean,

are we going to deny fat people dialysis? No. Even though dialysis requires, you want to go and look at the spending charts? It's one of the things that the federal government probably spends the most on in the uninsured population. But I also know who those people are and exactly what has led to all of that. So the slippery slope, it's like a libertarian dream that I've seen so many of these elite liberals almost embrace. It's like, wait, I thought you guys liked the Affordable Care Act where you can't discriminate based on preconditions. Probably the best part of that entire bill if we look back in retrospect. And now they want to overturn that. I think it's madness. That is complete madness.

And it's morally reprehensible. What you're referring to, there was a doctor who went on MSNBC and was like, I don't think that the unvaccinated should get care on the supposedly liberal or progressive network.

I mean, that's disgusting. Look, people make less than ideal health choices for themselves all the time. I'm one of those people, right? Whether it's sugar or alcohol or smoking or a sedentary lifestyle, whatever it is, you don't get to pick and choose who's worthy of care. If you believe healthcare is a human right, that's it, period, full stop. And I saw the write-up on that and I went to look at like, oh, how are

people responding to this, thinking that their reaction would be like ours, utter shock and horror that this idea has even been floated in a public context. And they were all like, well, I hate to say it, but they're probably right. And, you know, yes, this is what we should do. The amount of support for that, that sort of draconian, morally suspect type of thinking was really, truly disturbing. And I think it gets to something we really try to maintain on this show, which is understanding where people are coming from, not demonizing them. I saw on Washington Post, they had a write upup of these Facebook moms who've hosted this vaccine forum where they allow skeptics and vaccine supporters to come in and

sort of debate in good faith. And they actually are having much more of an impact in changing people's minds about the vaccines than someone who's just going to come in and yell at you and tell you you're stupid and tell you we're not even going to give you care if you show up at the hospital. So that sort of direction is completely abhorrent. Yeah, I think that that's exactly where we should go ahead. Now, speaking of draconian, both of us have been watching with some deep concern what's going on in Australia. And many of you have flagged it to us. We finally felt the need to cover it after a video was circulating from actual local Australian news, which is just so bonkers in the level of dystopia that they are basically enforcing an authoritarian, not even lockdown,

I don't even know, because it doesn't really fully capture what's happening there. This is what a news segment in Australia that ran yesterday looked like with regards to COVID. Let's take a listen. It's those doing the wrong thing driving our record case numbers. Among the most concerning cases, a COVID patient who's tonight on the run from a hotspot. Police and health authorities have issued an urgent appeal. Anthony Karam knows he is COVID positive when he steps into this public lift. Already breaking so many rules, he doesn't bother to cover his mouth as he sneezes and splutters.

The 27-year-old is still infectious but has gone missing from his Wentworth Point apartment, a warrant now issued for his arrest. This 27-year-old chap who apparently has expressed the view that he doesn't care less whether he spreads the virus is one example of the worst of the worst. There's little sympathy for anyone ignoring the health orders. Even this group of teenagers caught partying after dark at the bottom of the North Bondi Cliffs. Herded to higher ground by Pollaire's spotlight and speaker,

the eight boys were placed in handcuffs and left to explain a $1,000 fine to mum. 681 penalty infringement notices issued in the last 24 hours more than 400 of those notices were again for people being outside of their home without a reasonable excuse uh i don't really look anthony carom screw you you shouldn't be doing that you know i'm like i've got covid I'm locked in my house. But I don't think he should be. I feel like his name blasted by the health minister of the entire country and then locking up a bunch of teenagers for getting drunk outside on beach.

There's no words really to describe what the hell is going on right there. Complete authoritarianism. I think those are the words to describe what's hell is going on right there. Complete authoritarianism. I think those are the words to describe what's going on there. It's insane. And just to give people context to of the level of outbreak that they're facing in Australia. So in the US, so far, we've had 37.5 million cases and about 628,000 deaths. In Australia, they've had under a thousand deaths for all of coronavirus. Okay. 44,000 cases total. In nearby New Zealand, they had one case and they shut down the entire country, locked down the entire country for one case. So we were just talking about, you know, getting the balance right between freedom and these sort of civil liberties versus our responsibilities to each other.

Australia is definitely not getting that balance right. This is completely, completely insane. These draconian measures, putting people on blast on the local news and public officials putting them on blast, levying these multi-thousand dollar fines for daring to step out of your apartment. This is complete insanity. Yeah, it really is. And, you know, I've seen so many clips of health ministers and more saying, like, don't talk to your neighbor whenever you're outside. I

mean, don't engage in any, like, basic civil conduct. And I think where the really terrifying part is, I don't sense all that much of a major backlash against this. Many people in Australia seem to be okay with it. I'm not going to say that there haven't been protests. There certainly have. We actually have this video. Go ahead and play this of children getting pepper sprayed at a protest. I do want to say, though, please don't take your children to protest if there's a risk of getting pepper sprayed. That being said, I have no idea why these cops felt the need to pepper spray a 12-year-old for holding up a sign that says, let me play. Let's take a brief listen to it. You got anything to watch? You mind if I film this?

Don't you see the ice? I'm going to go watch, buddy. I'm going to go watch. That's crazy. I mean, that's crazy. This is a little child who's got pepper spray in his eyes for holding up signs about Let Me Play. I mean, really what we're seeing, like you said, is that they're getting the balance completely wrong. But really, I think the disturbing part is know, whatever the government ministers were saying. But what all they were

doing was having a debate. They were having a debate on their show around the efficacy of masks, around the efficacy of lockdowns. And YouTube actually took that video down. But even worse is that, remember, in this country, we may have a freedom of the press. We have a freedom of, we have the First Amendment. In Australia, in Great Britain, as we found out during the whole Piers Morgan thing, they can actually censor the media with whatever they want. They could say, oh, you're issuing damaging information. That's really how you see the media become an almost total and complete arm of the state whenever it comes to these draconian measures. And, you know, we're all just watching

this with horror. I don't even know how this could possibly happen in a Western country, but it's bringing out the true colors in a lot of people. Well, there's a lot to say there. First of all, part of why this is important for an American audience is that that type of media censorship is something that a lot of liberals have gotten behind. They would like to see, you know, they would like to see the U.S. government have more of those powers of censorship and use them against media outlets, which, as you said, the inevitable byproduct of that is you have effectively state TV, which in some ways you already have. But that's by their own choice, apparently, and by what they believe the profit motive dictates to them. The other thing is that it reminds me very much of the sort of draconian measures that were taken by places like China earlier in the pandemic. So to see, you know, a government that supposedly is, you know,

a free and open democracy, engaging in these sorts of authoritarian tactics is quite shocking. I think it's also important to remind people that Australia's vaccination rate is extremely low. I think the last number I saw was something like 30 percent. They've said they want to get it to 70 percent, 70 percent before they lift the lockdown. That's a long way to go. And so it's going to take a lot of time before they achieve anything approaching 70 percent. And then you got to ask, OK, well, does that then include you have to have had your booster shot? Where does it ultimately end? And the reason that the vaccination rate was so low, part of it is because Australia before now, they really hadn't had an issue while we were all locked down.

They were fine. They had, you know, complete, almost completely shut down their borders and sort of self quarantined there on the continent. And they were able to keep any sort of spread at bay. Delta has really changed the game for them,

but because they had gotten off Scott brief, or is that racist to say, is that problematic? No, no, we're not getting into that. No. Anyway. Okay. Anyway, since they'd gotten off scot-free up until this point, there was kind of a lax attitude around the public, but then the leadership also said, um, it's not a race to get the vaccinations done. So there was a laadaisical attitude among the, you know, top elites and public officials as well. So plenty of blame there for the elite class in Australia. And it's an incredibly dystopian and disturbing scene to watch unfolding from afar. Yeah, it's it's absolutely terrible what we're saying.

And that's a very good point about the vaccinations and more. And exactly. You know, I just I just hope that they get out of this thing sometime soon, because I don't have to listen to our constant pleas for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to BreakingPoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. But Crystal, I know you got your eye on some absolute madness here in Washington. So can you, I've also been texting you. I've been like, I don't understand what the hell is going on here. It's complicated. Well, it's complicated and it's not. Let me start with the bottom line, which is that you have 10 assholes, corporatists, sort of bought off members of the Democratic caucus who have decided to throw a real wrench in the plans to pass the reconciliation package that, of course, Bernie's been working on, and ultimately the infrastructure bill as well. So here's the backstory. Some of you guys know these details, but effectively, what Pelosi and Bernie agreed to is to tie the bipartisan

infrastructure package that the moderates like with the larger reconciliation package that, you know, most of the caucus and Biden and the progressives like to tie those things together so that you could make sure both pass. By doing that, you get progressives to vote for the infrastructure bill and you get moderates hopefully to vote for the reconciliation package. So that's been the plan all along. They went to the Democrats to pass a rule in the House, which would set up that process, which would say, OK, we're moving forward with the reconciliation process and we're setting up these votes down the road. And you had these, it was originally nine and now it's 10 corporate type Democrats suddenly digging their heels and say, no, we're demanding that we immediately vote on the infrastructure bill. And we're not moving forward with any of this

until we get a scheduled immediate vote on that package. So we can throw this tear sheet up on the screen from the Washington Post. The original nine wrote this op-ed saying, look, let's do infrastructure first they write we are firmly opposed to holding the president's infrastructure legislation hostage to reconciliation risking its package and the bipartisan support behind it we can walk and chew gum just as the senate did we can pass the infrastructure measure now and then quickly consider reconciliation and the policies from climate to health care to universal pre-K that we believe are critical. So, again, that would blow up this entire process because progressives have said,

and this is what Senator Sanders said to me when we spoke, they're not going along with the infrastructure package unless it's tied together with the reconciliation package. The moderates want to vote for the infrastructure package and then be able to hack away at the reconciliation package. As of today, they're at a complete impasse. They met for a long time last night. Pelosi was trying to sort of strong arm them into going along with this rule that would set up this entire process. And ultimately, she was unable to get the votes to be able to do that. My understanding is that they're going to try again today. A couple other things to throw into the mix. Of course, Kyrsten Sinema is also continuing to be a pain in the ass.

She has said that she does not support, and I think we have this in a tweet, through a spokesperson. She said that she does not support the $ and a half trillion um here's what the spokesman said proceedings from the u.s house will have no impact on kirsten's view she will not support a budget reconciliation bill that costs three and a half trillion dollars and the one other piece of context here that we can throw into the mix great reporting from the folks over at daily poster david serota's outlet showing by the way, these nine house Dems threatening to kill their party's budget have raked in $3 million from donors in the pharma and fossil fuel industries, which just so happens to be the industries targeted by that bill. So if you

are wondering why they are going so hard to try to destroy the process to get this reconciliation package, this will give you a good hint as to what their actual priorities are. Yeah. And I asked around, I called some of my friends who all work in the business and they described it almost exactly as you said, really what it is. And this was the best analysis that I heard. So I'll share it with all of you, which is that it's a trust deficit, which is that the moderates basically, they do not want to vote for that $3.5 trillion bill, period. Their baby is the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which was passed with Republican support, Mitch McConnell and all them voted for it

in the Senate. They just want to clear that win and that's it. They never really wanted to vote for Bernie's infrastructure or for Bernie's budget bill. At the same time, the progressives, as you say, they are not happy with the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Their baby is the Bernie budget bill. So they say, we're not voting for this infrastructure thing unless we get the budget. But this is also a very interesting concept of power, Crystal. And this was a point that I'm curious for your perspective on, which is that these moderates, these 10 people that has now come out, have effectively held this entire thing hostage. We have no idea what type of deal that they're going to get. Now, the current scuttlebutt in DC

is that they're likely to accept an October 1st deadline for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, as in we will have a vote by October 1st. But what does that mean? the entire budget bill, which actually gives a ton of leverage to Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and the moderates in the House in order to chip away at everything in the bill that they find objectionable. And they will say, here's all the parts. You said October 1st, take it or leave it, effectively holding it hostage. So in one way, I got to hand it to him. This is extreme mastery of how to use a narrow margin in the House of Representatives and an inter-caucus fight in order to set yourself up for victory both ways. Because in one way, if they only get the bipartisan infrastructure bill, they win. Because many Republicans would vote for it if it came to the floor.

And they could kill the budget bill. And if they don't, they get the October 1st one, then Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have the time deadline and can say, look guys, October 1st, you guys want it? You got to accept every single thing that I demand and they'll cut out many of the parts of the bill that they don't like. So if you're listening, and I know this may sound a little bit complicated, this is how the sausage is made. It's by real legislators who are willing to step up. And I think, Crystal, people who share your politics might ask a good question. When is the last time that some House progressives ever leveraged power in a pretty expert way like this? It's been a while. I would actually counter Sagar that in this instance, they kind of have, because they cut, I mean, they have, it's a weird dynamic, but Nancy Pelosi is actually leveraging

and the White House leveraging hardball tactics on behalf of what progressives want here, which is a very weird dynamic. There's one, there's a little bit of reporting out there saying, this is from Julie Grace Brufkey, who she wished, Capitol Hill reporter. I know her. Yeah, she's a good reporter. She's in Breitbart. So keep this major grain of salt, major grain of salt. However, there is reports of one of the nine moderate Dems told GOP members if they don't support the budget, there are threats to ruin his district during the redistricting process and fire a member's relative that works at the White House. And Bill Clinton also called to pressure them to support it. And if that is in fact true, big if, I fully

support that type of politics. Because ultimately, you're talking about the entire agenda here. I mean, you're talking about universal pre-K. You're talking about affordable child care. You're talking about two years of community college. You're talking about any sort of climate provisions. There's effectively nothing on climate in the infrastructure bill. So whatever hardball tactics Pelosi and Biden and Clyburn at all have up their sleeve, I do think they are bringing to bear on these moderates. The question for me is whether these moderates really truly oppose a big reconciliation package and are really prepared to take the hard line track that you're floating here, or whether they're mostly just posturing both for their, you know, problem solver brand, but also for their donors who they've

taken a bunch of campaign cash for. I think it remains to be seen how hard of a line they're ultimately willing to draw here because they will draw the ire of the entire democratic establishment in a way that normally, you know, is used against the left of the party. And these are people who are close to leadership. Some of these people, in fact, this is another important point. Some of these people have their jobs still because the democratic establishment intervened on their behalf in democratic primaries every quayar is a perfect example of that narrowly narrowly squeaked by and won his seat um with a strong challenge from jessica cisneros who by the way is running again pelosi and all these people

came to his rescue and backed him only to now watch him float potentially sabotaging the entire process that's been set up here and anything, anything happening in the remainder of the Biden administration. So I think tremendous pressure is going to be brought to bear on them. I think ultimately, if I had to guess, there is going to be some kind of process that moves forward where they get some kind of face saving gesture so they can go to their donors or go to their district and say, look, I stood up against Democratic leadership. I find it hard to believe that this group, which is typically basically like establishment shills, are really going to stand up to the Biden White House and the entirety of the Democratic establishment in that way.

I think you're probably right. And it is true, which is that the pressure that is being brought to bear and why it's interesting is that this is the actual Biden agenda. This is it for Biden. There's nothing else. His legacy after this, it's this bill, it's going to be Afghanistan, and it's going to be the American rescue package, which he passed in the first couple of months. It's over. I mean, effectively, in terms of your presidency, given the legislative hijinks and look, given what we know about how the midterms are very likely to go. So from that perspective, the White House is basically bringing all the power that they have in order to try and force this. So I think you're probably right, which is that at the end of the day, the leader of this

group, Josh Gottheimer, Biden won his district by six points. Okay, so it's not like he isn't a very popular man in that district. And there is likely to be some deal. I am very curious though about, they have held out much longer and for much more than I actually thought. I thought they were going to fold a couple of days more before they did. And they ultimately would vote for the passage. But I guess, what is 24 hours? We'll see who can extract what. But this is high level Washington stuff, which does really matter for the passage. But I guess, you know, what is 24 hours? We'll see who can extract what. But this is high level, you know, Washington stuff, which does really matter for the folks who are watching or listening at home in terms of how this stuff actually moves through the Congress. Well, and it really matters in terms of, I mean, there are provisions in the reconciliation package

that would really profoundly impact people's lives. And we're talking about expanding Medicare to include vision and hearing and dental. We're talking about expanding Medicare to include vision and hearing and dental. We're talking about potentially lowering the Medicare age. We're talking about all your kids being able to go to preschool for free, all your kids being able to go to community college for free, child tax credit getting extended, not to mention trying to take some steps to avert the worst of the climate crisis. So there's real immediate tangible benefits that are being held hostage here. I also one last note, which is, I think, really important. Imagine if it was AOC and the squad and Bernie Sanders who were holding the entirety of the Biden administration agenda hostage, the media would

be losing their minds, right? Completely demonizing, completely demonizing these people. And there's barely been any coverage of this. I mean, it's been pretty quiet and there is a lot at stake here. And I also want to say that, you know, a lot of lefty YouTubers haven't had much to say about it either, because you end up in the unusual position of, of, you know, supporting something Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden want. And there are a lot of people who are committed to, you know, no matter what it is, even when a broken clock is right twice a day, I can never say anything that supports any item of their agenda because then I'm a sell-in. And I think that's ridiculous too.

Look, getting this package through, is it everything that I want? No. Is there $15 minimum wage in it? No. Are there other things that I would want to see? Would I want to see Medicare for all? Would I want to see that age expanded even more downward than what they're kind of? Of course.

But there are real tangible things in here that would make a noticeable difference and impact on people's lives right away. And if you don't, if you aren't concerned with that, and if you don't know where you stand on that, then I'm not sure what your politics ultimately are all about. Yeah. Um, I think that's a very good point. There's a big difference between posturing and actually playing in politics. And so that's what I think we should see. Okay. Speaking of posturing, Governor Cuomo is no longer, he is now former Governor Cuomo. As of midnight, his former Lieutenant Governor, Kathy Hochul, is now Governor of New York. Cuomo delivered quite the classic Cuomo farewell address yesterday, where of course he praised his own confidence.

He made sure to take some shots at the left in there just for good measure. He even, Sagar, and you would have appreciated this, he went on a relatively lengthy diatribe about the salt tax, got that into the farewell address as well. And of course had to, in classic fashion, pat himself on the back for his magnificent coronavirus handling. Let's take a listen to that. Please don't forget what we learned together last year. And don't forget what we accomplished. We went from the highest infection rate in the nation to the lowest. We did what no one thought could be done. Why? Because when the rest of the nation put their head in the sand and denied science and played politics, we faced up to the facts and we made the tough but necessary decisions. That is very difficult.

What do you think of this coronavirus handling, Zogger? That makes me so angry because even on his way out, he still has to lie about his own administration, which did all of the nefarious things which the media was accusing other governors of doing. They actually covered up deaths. They actually covered up their own culpable actions, which led to the deaths of thousands of nursing home patients. They lied to the federal government. They obfuscated to the public. They lied to the media. I mean, they wrote a book in June of 2020, you know, patting themselves on the back after holding these triumphant press conferences when they were actually the worst in the nation in terms of the way that they were handling this crisis.

And so even on the way out, the revisionist history. And that's part of the thing that just sticks in my craw over this entire situation. Look, is it good that he's gone? Yes. It's some final accountability. But he should have been gone many, many months ago. Assemblyman Ron Kim, who really is the person who's been at this forefront from the very beginning, was calling him out about nursing homes back in April of 2020. And then when the Me Too stuff all comes to the fore, that's what he starts to get investigated for. That's ultimately what brought him down. And I'm not erasing the experience of many women. And I certainly think that he was an absolute creep

in the way that he handled himself, especially with that female trooper. That's the one that will always stick with me. However, in terms of the actual conduct that he displayed in office, what he did with his handling of coronavirus was the worst offense possible. And the media just didn't,

they gave him a pass. At the end of the day, he got a real pass. That's the worst part of it. The only thing they knew how to cover was the Me Too stuff. And like you said, that's not like, it was enough. I mean, if that was the only thing he did wrong, in my opinion, that was enough for him to have to go. But by ignoring all of the rest of the many acts of corruption, indifference, callous, just horrific decision-making that led to loss of lives, covering up the numbers, lying to the public about how bad things were in nursing homes and in the state writ large, the fact that that didn't garner coverage and that that wasn't enough for the media to put pressure on him ultimately to go means that he's able to deliver this little speech with a straight face about how magnificent his Corona virus handling ultimately was because the media did not do the job of educating the

public on what an absurd catastrophic lie that ultimately is. So, look, will he be able to make a political comeback? Who knows? Who knows? But by failing to educate people about his most egregious crimes when he was governor, they leave that little crack of a door open for him to come back and say, I've changed. I know now not to be so handsy. Forgive me. I'm just Italian. And don't you want me back in the governor's mansion where I was so competent and so effective that I won an

Emmy award? So there's a real cost. There's a real cost to the fact that the media ignored all of those crimes. And we will recall the media's coverage of Governor Cuomo that helped build him up into this national celebrity. He was the good guy and Trump was the bad guy. And they really leaned with this guy. David, we're standing by for Governor Cuomo's press conference, his daily briefing. How would you contrast Cuomo and President Trump's handling of the crisis? Truth versus mendacity. Governor Cuomo out there day after day after day.

Everything Trump isn't. Honest, direct, brave. Real leadership of the kind the president of the United States should have provided. Governor Cuomo is clearly living in a totally different reality, the actual one, than the president of the United States. Governor Cuomo has become a national leader. For a lot of people, Andrew Cuomo has become the leader of the Democratic Party. He is conveying incredible strength.

You spoke to National Guard troops today in a stirring speech that, if I wasn't listening carefully, I thought you were sending soldiers off to war. This has been a remarkable show of leadership by Governor Cuomo in recent days. He's providing hope, but not false hope. Governor Cuomo, I think, is one of the heroes on the front lines.

With all of this adulation that you're getting for doing your job, are you thinking about running for president? Andrew Cuomo, who has a daily television show now and has become in some ways the shadow president. Maybe Trump is just a little bit mad that Governor Cuomo has become a kind of acting president. Dealing with hardship actually makes you stronger. that's what governor cuomo said earlier today that's what i'm gonna go teach my kids right now at home oh my god oh i can't ever watch that's what i'm gonna

go and teach my kids dealing with hardship thank you uh the media janitor. But we would be remiss if we did not highlight his final and worst crime. So let's put this up there on the screen. This shows how much of a monster he is. New York Magazine, cold-hearted Cuomo ditches his dog at the governor's mansion. So Governor Cuomo has been asking his staff members whether they want to take his dog off of his hands and left the dog behind at the house after he moved out. Now look, it is hard to have a rescue dog and all of this, but what we're seeing here is this guy basically was using this dog for media purposes. Now that he no longer needs to be a politician with a nice dog and all that, he's trying to both pawn it off, not only on his staff,

but leaves it behind at his own house. And as a dog person, this is the cheat. If you really want to look at how the character of people, whether you like dogs or not, like to be able to leave an animal behind cold hearted and then try and just pawn them off on people after you got what you needed out of them. It makes me sick in order to see that. It's pretty revealing. Like, it may seem like a small thing, I guess, but it really is very revealing of a person's character. Captain is the dog's name. Captain was featured in his Instagram account and official photos.

He was used as a prop. Okay. This dog used as a prop by a monster who's now happy to just conveniently discard him when he no longer needs him to serve in that role and purpose um it just shows you what a phony this guy was the entire image of like i'm the competent strong man here to protect you all of that was completely phony and you know the media and the public ultimately led by the media completely fell for it this guy's approval ratings up until very recently sky high people were talking about oh they're gonna swap him out for joe biden democrats are gonna run him for president is you know

certainly if after biden serves he was all set up to be the next democratic nominee after kamala harris does whatever she wants i mean this guy had it made and the whole thing was a complete and phony lie. Just like he used the dog captain, he used the people of New York for his own glory. And it was completely disgusting to watch. Yeah, it really is. I mean, I just have no words. And actually I do want to say there is a large increase in people taking dogs back to the shelters now that COVID is over because they're like, oh, it's actually more work. That also just makes me, you know, it's just using these animals. Like if you're going to adopt a dog, as I did, like you're in it for the long haul. And that's just how it goes. Okay. Let's get to Afghanistan. We have our, you know, continuing our Afghan update here. And I want to bring everybody the latest numbers.

So here's what we have. The updated evacuation numbers from the White House. This is as of this morning, 3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. For over August 23rd to August 24th, so in a 24-hour period, 21,600 people were evacuated from Kabul. There were 37 U.S. military flights, 32 C-17s, five C-130s, which carried 12,700 evacuees, 57 coalition flights, which carried 8,900 people. So that is well over the target crystal for the entire coalition of 5,000 to 9,000 per day, which the White House says is what they need in order to hit, in order to get everybody out by August 31st. And I think that this is, as with all things today, a media story more than anything else. friend Richard Hanania, he put it in Richard's cheeky way. The evacuation is literally the most

competent phase of the war and the one that is getting the worst press. And we wonder why there's no accountability. I want to echo that. Show me the lie. Show me the lie. Exactly. Listen, am I outraged by the scenes at Kabul airport? Absolutely. Do I think it is disgusting to leave military equipment and all that stuff in the Taliban's hands? Yeah. But I think it is disgusting to leave military equipment and all that stuff in the Taliban's hands? Yeah. But I would be remiss if I did not tell you that the current evacuation is going 10 times better than the war itself. And I am just so sick of hearing posturing from people who have been silent for the last 20 years, who don't know. If you're outraged at the scenes of Kabul or leaving equipment in Taliban hands, where were you while the special inspector for

Afghan reconstruction was putting out reports over the last decade, revealing all of the equipment, billions of dollars that fell into the hands of the Taliban, the corruption of the Afghan national security forces, how quickly the Afghan government was collapsed. You could see the corruption there stark night and day, not to mention the millions of Afghans who were killed or wounded, or the thousands of American soldiers who were killed or wounded as well. The actual prosecution of the war was way worse than this current evacuation. And that's what I want people to wrap their minds around. Yes, the evacuation is going bad. Now imagine 10 times worse. That's what the actual war was like, as Lucas Kuntz, who was the former Marine officer on our show, told us yesterday. I'm so glad,

by the way, that so many people watched that interview. I was really heartened because that's an on-the-ground experience of how fubar this entire war really was. Yeah, if you guys have a chance and you haven't watched that interview we did with Lucas yesterday, this is the guy who served in Iraq, he served in Afghanistan. He learned the local language, Pashto, so he actually spoke with elites, he spoke with Taliban members, he spoke with regular Afghan civilians, and got a real, actual picture on the ground of what things were like, and most importantly, the lies that were being sold to the American people for the entirety of this conflict. You know, the other thing here, Sagar, to your point about how, look, this,

obviously, it's never going to be pretty when you are ending a 20-year disaster of an imperial project that spent trillions of dollars to only literally make the Taliban stronger than they were when we first arrived. Wrap your head around head around that i mean that's not an over that is the you're right okay there were opposition forces in place against the taliban that we before we ever showed up that were stronger than the afghan army and police force that we spent 20 years trying to train and support and supply etc etc cetera, et cetera. Okay. So that's the reality of Afghanistan. And frankly, there are numbers that indicate the last week since we've withdrawn and tried to get our people out and are having significant success, frankly, being able to do

that has been less violent than the week before, according to the numbers that are available. I mean, that tells you everything, right? Their outrage is so incredibly selective. Where were they for these past 20 years? They didn't care and they don't care now. They're just cynically manipulating people's humanitarian instincts in order to try to perpetuate a war and a conflict that is completely unjustifiable by anyone at this point. So at this point, because it seems like the media is kind of losing interest in the story already, because frankly, they haven't gotten all of the gore and the bloodshed that they want, right? You said it yesterday, and this may be harsh but true, but it feels sometimes like they're hoping for an ISIS attack. No, they want slaughter. That's

what they want. They're hoping for the Taliban to, you know, publicly behead someone for wearing Western clothing or whatever. Like, that's how sick this is. And so since they haven't seen that level of bloodshed, not that we're whitewashing the Taliban and their horrific rule here whatsoever, they're losing interest in it. And I think they're already moving on to the next story since they didn't get the horror show that they were wanting and hoping for to gin up their own ratings. Yeah, I mean, I think it's absolute sickness. And the part that makes me really sick is where they're currently campaigning. They're pushing all they possibly can to try and get the U.S. to stay past the August 31st deadline set by the president, which, by the way, the Taliban

came out yesterday and said is a red line. And don't just listen to us. Britain's own ambassador to Afghanistan told his government staying past August 31st is a very high risk endeavor. And yet yesterday, that was all the press wanted to push on to Jake Sullivan whenever he was giving a briefing. Let's take a listen to what he said. And as I said, he is taking this day by day and will make his determinations as we go. Yes. Just to follow up, does the administration think that they need the Taliban agreement to extend beyond August 31st? As I said, we are engaging with the Taliban, consulting with the Taliban on every aspect of what's happening in Kabul right now, on what's happening at the airport, on how we need to ensure that there is facilitated passage to

the airport for American citizens, SIVs, third country nationals, and so forth. We'll continue those conversations with them. Ultimately, it will be the president's decision how this proceeds, no one else's. And Crystal, breaking news this morning that the CIA director Bill Burns actually yesterday met with the leader of the Taliban in Kabul, the highest level meeting to date between the Taliban and the Biden administration since they've been in power. Obviously, most likely talking about withdrawal plans, the airport and more. But if you want to see the deep state already trying to weaponize and to protect themselves, it's happening. Their little errand

boy, Adam Schiff, who leaked everything they wanted during the Russia investigation, well, here's the consequence. Now he's doing the exact same thing as head of the Intel Committee. Let's put these tweets up there on the screen. Adam Schiff come out and preempting the administration, saying the intelligence community says that it's unlikely that Americans may be out all the way by August the 31st, given the numbers. So he's saying and pushing for the deadline to be evacuated. But the worst part, in my opinion, is he says that the intel community was, quote, very aware the Taliban had the ability to take over the country. And he declares, quote, I do not believe at this point, sitting here today, I have any evidence of an intelligence failure. Now, sorry, that was by Jason Crow,

who's another Democrat, also a pro-war Democrat, pro-intel committee. As you pointed out in your excellent monologue, Crystal, the CIA director was traveling while this was happening. There's no way he would have been doing that if he thought that the country was going to collapse. There is no realm of possibility where the intelligence community predicted 100% that this was going to happen. They are simply trying to cover their own ass and put this all with the political consequences onto the White House. And to see their little janitors in Congress like Adam Schiff just put this stuff out there completely without any chagrin, without any skepticism of what they're hearing. This is a final consequence of Russiagate, which is that they have made themselves

stenographers for the intel community, the very lawmaker who is supposed to be looking over them right now. Yeah, Adam Schiff, DCIA is basically, I mean, when you hear words come out of his mouth, just know that they come directly from deep state. I mean, he's just repeats whatever line they want him to put out into the public, you know, going so far as to just unequivocally, oh, there was no intelligence failure here. Of course, they got it perfectly right, trying to push it all onto Joe Biden that this had to be done in a hurried fashion. So yeah, there's a lot of cynical actors all around. The media coverage has been horrendous and one-sided. And the moment that they don't get the story that they want out of it, they're going to move on to something else and forget that

Afghanistan ever existed like they did for the past 20 years. Yeah, no, that's right. You know, we were looking, you were saying they mentioned it like five times only, you know, 20 minutes that they spent on the media coverage. It goes back even more years. You know, over the last five years,

they barely spent any time whatsoever. And now they're all, you know, logistics experts on withdrawal from Kabul. It makes all, you know, logistics experts on withdrawal from Kabul. It makes me, you know, it just makes me so mad just watching these people because we know that they don't care. And really what they're wishing for is a bad outcome. That's exactly right. Wow. You guys must really like listening to our voices. Well, I know this is annoying. Instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial, when you're done, check out the other podcasts I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American

society. You always need more Crystal and Sagar in your daily lives. Take care, guys. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, this is a story where I'm always reluctant to seem as if I'm defending somebody. But the more I looked into the facts of this, it is completely insane. So it starts with the Associated Press. Now, we've covered before how the media really seems to have Ron DeSantis derangement syndrome, and that's exactly what happened here. So the AP publishes this story in which they say, quote, DeSantis top donor invests in COVID drug governor promotes. Okay, that seems bad. However, let's actually read into it a little bit. Okay, that seems bad.

However, let's actually read into it a little bit. Now, what we find here, the AP story is predicated on how Ken Griffin, who is the CEO of Citadel, a Chicago-based hedge fund, they have 15.9 million in shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which is, of course, the pusher of these mononuclear antibodies, which have been found to be extremely effective for people who have COVID.

So the drug that both the governor of Florida, also the governor of Texas, has been pushing, this Regeneron mononuclear antibody treatment, which has been shown to be extraordinarily effective, they are insinuating it's being pushed by DeSantis because of donors. Now, you may remember that they did this previously to media whenever it came to vaccines in Palm Beach County, even though as the Palm Beach County Democrats came out and said that there was nothing to this story. Well, this is exactly what happened. You saw a huge pushback from the DeSantis administration, from his spokesperson, Christina Puchaw. Well, what ended up happening is that the AP, based on her pushback, they write this ridiculous little letter where they say, Governor DeSantis, you need to end

harassing tweets aimed at a reporter from his spokesperson. Now again, his spokesperson is simply highlighting, admittedly with a little bit of vitriol, that the AP story is complete and total BS. And what happens? What do you think happens? Twitter then takes action against the government spokesperson. So put this up there on the screen. Her Twitter account was locked for 12 hours and she was forced to delete it for quote, harassing behavior. Now, once again, she was pointing out that this story is completely and utterly ridiculous.

And all things considered, the Associated Press publishes a ridiculous hit piece, barely grounded in fact, against Governor DeSantis. Then they complain whenever you point out that it's completely wrong. Then Twitter goes and bans her. Governor DeSantis actually pointed this out all in a letter, let's put it up there on the screen, in which he pointed out, he's like, you have published a misleading clickbait headline to cast doubt on a pretty effective cure. Well, I would say therapeutic for COVID. And now people may think that that is infected by politics, all because of a ridiculous story.

So no matter what you think about Ron DeSantis, no matter what you think about censorship and more, you can clearly see that the facts of this story show a mishandling by the Associated Press, then an enforcement by Twitter, wrongly on the side of the AP, and really just a totally misleading situation, which could lead to an undermining confidence in public health. So that's the thing, Crystal. The more I looked into this, I just couldn't believe the facts of the story. One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle and Friends, where we do long form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or you can

subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. Crystal, what are you taking a look at today? Well, this morning, I've got two little stories for you about just what a complete monstrous grift, layers upon layers of ghouls taking their cut is essentially all that our shambolic health care system is. So first story, let's put this up on the screen. This is from the Washington Post. Really encourage you to read this entire story. So many detailed, great examples here. The headline is how the U.S. vaccination drive came to rely on an army of consultants. And let's just say no one is blameless here, federal government level,

state level, red states, and blue states. So let's just go through a few of these examples. First one, federal government. Back during the Trump administration, Boston Consulting Group was given a $4.9 million contract from the CDC to set up the initial vaccination drive. Now, I don't know if you remember the initial vaccination drive. Now, I don't know if you remember the initial vaccination drive, but it was a complete and utter catastrophe that two thirds of Americans, according to a Gallup poll, said was going terribly.

So what happens? Do they adjust, bring in someone new? No, no, no. It led to Boston Consulting Group being rewarded with another $165 million in contracts. You got that? So federal government thinks they can't do it themselves. They outsource it to this group of consultant goals who dramatically fail and are rewarded with another $165 million in contracts.

But that's just the beginning here. Let's talk about Ohio, a red state run by Republican Governor Mike DeWine. Ohio was falling behind other states nationally in terms of their vaccination rates. This was a problem for the governor, apparently not because he was actually worried about the vaccination drive going well. Oh no, he was worried about this from a PR perspective, was making him look bad politically. So what did they do? They brought in McKinsey with a $6 million contract to help them, quote, tell their stories.

Here's an email that illustrates, we can throw this up on the screen, that illustrates exactly what they were actually concerned about and wanted McKinsey to help them deal with. This is an email from Stephanie McLeod, who is the top public health official in the state. She says, as you know, the governor is getting pummeled by the media, both in stories as well as at pressers about where Ohio falls nationally and in the Midwest. Time is short and I don't want the governor standing up at one more presser without a story to tell. Next presser is Tuesday. As much as you can, please prioritize McKinsey requests tomorrow so they can get started. So just to summarize here, $6 million contract to the goals of McKinsey,

not even to help make the vaccination drive go better, but to invent some bullshit cover story for the governor. Taxpayer dollars going to a spin operation, a PR spin operation. That's what you're talking about here. But it's not just red state governors that are guilty of these types of disgusting throwing money around to some of the worst people in the country. Let's take a look at California. Governor Gavin Newsom, bit of hot water right now, facing a recall election. That is really quite close. Apparently, according to this report, no state went as far as California in terms of outsourcing their vaccination drive to consultants. In particular, Newsom put Blue Shield,

a health insurer, in charge of the initial vaccination logistics, making sure enough doses were going to the right places, making sure those doses weren't spoiled. In the beginning, that was incredibly important because there was very limited supply. Blue Shield, from the outside, you might say, okay, health insurer vaccinations seems like a kind of logical choice if you're going to go ahead and outsource all of these things. But the experts involved said that selecting Blue Shield was completely insane. They were outraged by it. Why? Because this sort of task, what you really needed was someone who specialized in logistics, in delivery, in being able to move these vaccinations and track them properly. Something that Blue Shield, again, dramatically failed at.

So you might ask yourself, well, why did he pick this particular company to reward with tens of millions of dollars in government contracts to do something that they have no expertise whatsoever in doing. Well, here's a piece of information that might be relevant to you helping to understand this. This is from the piece. When Newsom ran for governor in 2018, Blue Shield partnered with labor unions to sponsor a committee supporting him that was not subject to spending limits, a super PAC in other words. After Newsom won, Blue Shield contributed $100,000 for his inauguration. They also gave $50,000 on his behalf to a charity for firefighters, according to filings with the state. So ran a super PAC for him, gave him $100,000, gave a donation of $50,000 on his behalf to a charity for firefighters. And then lo and behold, what a coincidence, rewarded with this gigantic contract

that they had no business getting whatsoever. This piece goes on and on about examples of the way that money was thrown around to these consultants. So as we look at the fact and consider why so many Americans have not gotten vaccinated, these consultants and the millions that they made to grift off of taxpayers, very important and undertold part of the story. But just so you know that it's not only in times of crisis when our healthcare system fails us, just on a daily, regular basis, it is nothing but a grift and a sham. Let's put this New York Times tear sheet up on the screen. We've just gotten a look at what hospitals charge for various standard medicines, procedures, anything that they're doing. This was as a result of a bipartisan price transparency effort that

was started under the Trump administration, has been continued under the Biden administration, where hospitals are supposed to disclose what patients are actually being charged for these various procedures. You would think you would already know that. But not only do you not already know that, a lot of hospitals have just flouted the law and refused, even now, to provide the prices of what people are actually being charged. Why do they not want that information to get out there? Well, let's put the next tear sheet up on the screen. The prices are insane and make absolutely no sense. So the particular example we have up here is for a colonoscopy at one single hospital, Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak. If you have a Blue Cross plan, it costs $728.

If you have a Cigna plan, it costs $999. If you have a Humana plan, it costs $1,801. These prices are based on literally nothing. And it's not just colonoscopies. Every single thing that they looked at was equally insane. And one of the lies that you've been told is that if you are insured, the insurers, they have a lot of weight behind them, they can negotiate the best possible price, that they can negotiate better prices certainly than you can on your own, or that the government can through Medicare and Medicaid. That turns out to be a total lie. In many instances, people who are uninsured, the ticket price they're being charged is actually lower than the rate that the insurer is paying.

Those costs are passed along to employers. They're also passed along to people who have high deductible plans. Sometimes there's cost sharing even beyond when you've hit your deductible. So this is a huge, huge price and burden that's being put on healthcare consumers. In many instances, these insurers are being charged rates for the same exact medicine or treatment that are four times or even 10 times more than what the federal government is paying. So this is all completely insane. It bears no relationship to what the federal government is paying. So this is all completely insane. It bears no relationship to what the cost of the procedure is

or what the cost of the medicine is. It's just all about who's on the take and the amount of profit that they can squeeze out of every single interaction with the healthcare system. The entire thing is a grift. Everybody is on the take. And ultimately, the healthcare consumer is stuck with the bill. And Sagar, the price transparency thing, first of all, it's insane that these hospitals- So as you know, there's a big election going on

in California, the recall one with Gavin Newsom. The polls have it very tight. And there's a lot of analysis that we want to be able to bring all of you. We found the right person, Gustavo Arellano. He writes for the LA Times. Now, Gustavo, you wrote a column which caught both of our eye. Let's put it up there on the screen. Sorry, Democrats, Latino anger towards Republicans isn't enough to save Newsom's political hide. Tell us about what you were trying to get across in that column and how you see the election generally. The one group that has always been more apt to support the recall than not so far in polls have been Latinos, which has shocked people because, of course, ever since the GOP in the 90s waged a scorched earth xenophobic campaign against Latinos to be able to win any sort of elections. So people have been shocked again and again. And Myron, the reason I did this, don't be shocked. There's very legitimate reasons. I don't agree with them, by the way. I'm totally against the

recall, but there's very legitimate reasons as to why Latinos are going to be in favor of the recall. The last poll showed that Latinos are a majority of likely Latino voters are supporting the recall. And why do you think what do you think those reasons are? And by the way, I think the fact that you are on the other side of this debate, I think that gives you credibility that you're saying, look, this is not my thing, but I understand where people are coming from here. And this is something that Democrats really need to pay attention to. Yeah, tell that to the Democrats who absolutely despise my column, especially the activist, especially white liberals, of all people, just despise the column. But there's a couple of reasons I mentioned in my column. You have, for one, Latinos were just destroyed, you know, more than probably more than any other ethnic group in California by the pandemic.

We're frontline workers. We're small business owners. We're also a lot of the people who passed away. So I thought Gavin did as good a job as possible as he did for the most part with the pandemic, especially except, of course, with the non-wearing of the mask at the French Laundry. So people, all voters are going to say, what have you done for me lately? And so far now, we are going back to mask mandates. Everyone's expecting the state to shut down in a couple of weeks if the Delta variant continues. And also, though, all Gavin has at this point is saying, I'm not Larry Elder. Larry Elder is evil. Therefore, vote for me or vote against the recall. No one wants to hear that. You know, especially it's this has been a

campaign strategy that has worked for the Democrats for 25 years. We're not the GOP. The GOP hates you Latinos. It's not working anymore. And we saw this not work with Trump from gaining in Latino numbers in the 2020 election. Yeah. You know, it's so interesting, Gustavo. We've tracked this phenomenon with our friend Chuck Rocha as well, who's been saying you cannot take advantage of Latino votes. Do you think that that is going to come to roost? I mean, I think your point there about the lockdown, about how Latino workers in particular disproportionately born likely to be affected by some of these policies, plus the expectations

of pandemic restriction. Do you think that is what is motivating people? I mean, what are some of the other issues that are salient in the campaign? Because, you know, where we are here in Washington, there is not as much of attention on this race, which I do really believe could be, you know, a seismic event if Gavin Newsom is recalled. Oh, my Lord, it'll be the political blunder of the millennium, you know, the short millennium so far. The fact that Newsom and I call this, by the way, I said in early March before the recall even became official, I said Newsom will win if Newsom

will not be recalled if everything goes hunky dory. Well, you have wildfires in California. You have the pandemic, you have the state of angst that he has never really been able to solve because the pandemic hasn't allowed him. And this is the other thing with Newsom. No one really likes him, let's be honest. Democratic politicians have to like him because he's the governor

and he might have a small base, but Latinos, he's never resonated with Latinos the way, say, Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders, Chuck, of course, Chuck was smart. No one wants to listen to Chuck. So if you don't have a politician that's going to motivate you to try to save your hide, then they're not just going to come out. And also, and I cannot overestimate or, you know, oversell this idea that there's a lot, and I've been trying to formulate this idea of the rancho libertarian. I know a lot of my cousins a lot of young latino males they don't care they care more for joe rogan than they do for gavin newsom and they're not

necessarily like arch conservatives or anything they just grew up with parents who did it their way you know pull yourself up by the bootstrap so you hear someone like newsom just throw all sorts of stuff through the government at them it's not gonna it's not gonna um impress them one bit so right now as we speak um it's pretty much a jump ball and i always think it's worth going through a little bit of the process for people uh who maybe haven't been following it that closely so there'll be basically two questions that are asked to california voters number one do you support recalling gavin news? And if more than 50% say yes, then it goes on to the second question. Okay, well, who do you want to replace him with? And there's a whole list of people. The top contender right now appears to be a conservative

radio host named Larry Elder. So there's a bizarre set of circumstances where Newsom's approval rating is actually fairly good. It's above water. But the people who are most motivated to come out and vote in the recall are the ones who are motivated to vote for the recall and vote to get him out of office. So do you think it's possible that at the end of this campaign, as people actually realize, like, oh, this is real. This guy could actually lose, that that's gonna motivate more people to go out to the polls? Or do you think that some of the apathy is just kind of baked in at this point?

The apathy is baked in, melted, whatever food metaphor you wanna use, it's right there. And that's why what you're seeing is the Democrats definitely saying, look, if we have a Republican, we have Larry Elder of all people being the governor of California, this the progressive dream is gone. It's doom. So it's a total scorched earth apocalypse campaign. But you're also seeing that now with Republicans. The number two person right now, Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego, he's called on Larry Elder to resign for his past statements about women, about minorities, saying California, I forgot

what the quote was, but something to the effect that California is not going to replace one ineffectual governor with another one. But those are the voters. I mean, people forget as for all the stereotypes of being California, for California being a deep blue state, which it totally is. We still have, since we're so huge, we still have a huge Republican GOP voting base, in many ways bigger than some of the deep red states that we have. So if all those people go out and vote, and they are, because they absolutely despise Newsom. If Democrats don't like them, Republicans despise them. If you have apathy from the Democratic side, then Newsom is toast. So the person, the people who are going to influence this election, the trigger, so to speak, are going to be Latinos.

And what's interesting, if it's likely voters, then Newsom wants Latinos out because Newsom wants that apathy. But if Latinos finally come to their senses and say, you know what, we do not want Elder and Newsom, screw him, but better Newsom than someone else, then Latinos will turn the election towards Newsom. But that's the big if. And so far, the polls have shown, again, starting from March, it was about 37% Latino likely voters supporting the recall. The last one, I believe it was by CBS,

it was about 51%. We'll see what the next poll should be coming out next week. It's picking up. Yeah, that is absolutely stunning. Kuzal, can you explain something to me? I've seen some criticism of Gavin Newsom's recall strategy here, which is that vote no, but also leave the next blank, leave the recall who you want blank. I've seen Nate Silver and others point out this actually could screw him over and lead to his actual recall. Now, once again, you're our California expert. What the hell is going on there? I'm a bit confused. So this goes back to the 2003 recall of Gray Davis.

What Democrats feel, and I disagree, by the way, was that Gray Davis, a very, very unpopular governor back then, total like what techno crap, boring. Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course, jumps into the race, destroys everyone. So the thinking, though, was that the reason the Democrats lost was because you had the lieutenant governor at the time, Cruz Bustamante, a Latino, vote, you know, be on that recall petition. That's when we had, what, 133 candidates as opposed to 47 now. So the thinking was that, OK, people thought that by voting for Bustamante and voting yes on the recall, you save the seat. That didn't happen. I would argue Schwarzenegger was a political phenomenon, cultural phenomenon back then. He's not the Schwarzenegger of today. People forget Terminator 2 and all that. And so this time around, the Democrats, that's been their strategy.

OK, well, in 2003, having a high profileprofile Democrat there is going to screw us over. This time we can't do that as well. But now, no, the opposite has happened. There is no viable Democrat. There's some YouTube personality. You guys are younger than me, so you'll know who he is. Kevin something or other. But other than that, there is no viable Democrat at all.

If you had a former L.A. mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, that to me, it served as insurance just in case people did want to recall Newsom. At least, hey, because we have so many Democrat voters, they'll go for Villaraigosa or someone else, but there is no option at all. And Newsom is still trying to push that. Again, if that happens, oh my God, you want to talk about hubris and arrogance. That was that right there. So as I read it, this is probably the better strategy for Newsom, because if you back someone like, you know, a credible Democrat, if you back them, then it's sending the signal of like, I think I'm going to lose. And by the way, here's a decent option that you could opt for instead. In terms of the Democratic Party,

it seems to me like the much better option is to have a little insurance policy there that if Newsom is ultimately recalled, that people could fall back to. So you don't end up with someone like Larry Elder becoming governor with 25% support of the voting public. But the last question for you is, I just really want you to lay out for people

why it is incredibly possible that Newsom could be recalled and that you could end up with someone who frankly has views that are really wildly at odds with most of the California public serving as governor of that state, because it seems like such an incredibly implausible outcome. Just help people understand that, look, this is not certain whatsoever, but is there a chance that's where we end up? Yeah, there's a chance. This is unthinkable to most people in California, and especially outsiders like yourself. You're like, what the hell is going on? This is supposed to be California, the bastion of progressive politics against the Trump administration. But no,

the fact is we have a recall on the ballot. There's always voter apathy. Newsom just does not have that base. Maybe his policies do, but we're not running on policies. We're running on Newsom. So because the Democrat, and this is a key point, the Democrats never plan for a day like this. So they have no strategy whatsoever. Their big idea right now is running commercials nonstop with Elizabeth Warren. And hey, Elizabeth is awesome, but no one in California outside of Santa Monica or San Francisco cares for Elizabeth Warren. They don't. And that just antagonizes and annoys people more and more. So it's a coin flip right now, as you pointed, or a tip-off, a basketball tip-off. It is a possibility.

There's still three weeks to go. The recall election is scheduled for September 14th, but the ballots are already coming out because every single California voter is going to have a mail-in ballot. So if you want your progressive paradise to remain in California, if you don't want someone whose politics are out of the 1990s – we're talking about the 1890s with Larry Elder, then you have to go out and vote no on the recall. But a lot of people really, again, I think with Trump, they're like, ah, we survived four years of Trump. We could survive about a year and a half of Larry Elder. Be careful what you wish for because it just might come true. Wow. It is absolutely crazy. Gustavo, thank you so much for just breaking all this down for us.

It's been incredibly helpful, and we really appreciate your perspective. Yeah, we appreciate it. Thank you. Great to have you. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Okay, guys, thanks so much for watching. We really appreciate it. You guys can become a premium subscriber today. Link is down there in the description. Just want to say we appreciate, me in particular, all the support from so many of you, the get well messages and all of that. I got a message that somebody had prayed for me at the road. That's like the nicest thing anybody has said. So thank you. Thank you all. I am feeling better. I very much hope I am very, very, very confident I'll be back in the studio next week and, you know, I really miss it.

Crystal, thanks for bearing with me as well. So thanks everybody. Not so bad hanging out in my apartment this week, Sagar. So no worries. Anything for you. Glad you're starting to feel better. And we will see you guys back here on Thursday. Thanks for listening to the show, guys. We really appreciate it. To help other people find the show,

go ahead and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps other people find the show. As always, a special thank you to Supercast for powering our premium membership. If you want to find out more, go to crystalandsager.com. A lot of times big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one.

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