Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/26/21: Biden's Approval Drops, Political Stunts Gone Wrong, Cuomo's Final Lie, Bernie's Budget Bill, Eviction Battle, Lab Leak, Corrupt Democrats, and More!

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

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Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of great stuff to get to. Before we jump into that, though, Sagar, did you want to give people an update on your present condition? I've got fantastic news, everybody. Tested negative. I'm almost 100% back to normal, just a little bit of lingering congestion. So two more negative tests and then I'm good to go. So if you see me out on the street, don't worry. I have officially tested negative. I'll continue probably to wear a mask for like another week just to make sure that people feel safe. But after that,

it's back to normal for me. So I'm really, really glad to be on the other side. Had some habanero sauce yesterday and it hit just like it was supposed to. So I'm happy about that. That is great. It'll be nice to be back in the studio. Most importantly, glad that you are feeling better for sure. So great, great news there. My AirPod just fell out. Hold on. There we go. All right. In the show today, we have updates on what's going on in Afghanistan, the very latest numbers in terms of Americans who remain and the expectations for the Biden administration. We have two just complete jackasses, members of Congress, one Democrat, one Republican, bipartisan, of course,

who decided randomly that they would go and make a big show of themselves and do a big photo op by flying to Afghanistan and inconveniencing literally everyone who was there trying to complete an urgent mission. So we'll give you all the details of that. We also have an update for you on the final moments of Andrew Cuomo's time as governor and the lies that he told up to the very, very end. Also, Emmy committee pulled his Emmy award. So I'm sure that's got to sting a little bit. Embarrassing for them that they ever gave him an Emmy Award. But anyway, moving on from that, there's also really big news about the reconciliation package. And of everything that we have in the show today, honestly, this is the piece that could affect your life the most. Because there are so many important potential items,

policy items in this reconciliation bill. So we'll give you the very latest on the process, where it stands, the deal that they've come to, and also some of the substance of what could be in that package. We've got David Serota on as well to talk about that piece and also give you a little update on everyone's favorite former mayor, Rahm Emanuel. But we wanted to start with some of the polling that is coming out regarding Joe Biden and Afghanistan in particular. So a lot of new numbers on Joe Biden's approval rating and pretty uniformly, he has taken a big hit. Not surprising given how overwhelmingly negative the media has been about his handling of Afghanistan, whether it's liberal media or conservative media. It is one of those bipartisan consensus items where they all decided that we should be there forever.

He's a terrible, terrible person, forever daring to do what everyone promised the American people that they would ultimately do. Let's throw that first tweet up on the screen. This just gives you a snapshot of all of these different pollsters and where they have Biden. So it ranges from Suffolk, which has Biden at negative 14 percent. So underwater by 14 percent. You got some in the middle like Gallup that has him basically like a toss up plus one percent on that. And then you go all the way to morning consult, which actually still has them at a plus nine. So you can see they are kind of all over the map. But a lot of the new ones that have come out have trended negative. And you can see this in the real clear politics average, which is always what we try to look at because any one pollster can be

wildly off. In fact, oftentimes when you average them together, they still tend to be wildly off. But let's take a look at that RealClearPolitics average. That's the next element that we have here. And you can see for the first time, he has actually, we should have a chart with the RealClearPolitics average that we can put up there on the screen. So for the first time, he has dipped into negative territory with his approval rating. And remember, this isn't just one poll. This is an average of all polls. So when you average them all together, you can see you've got about 47% approved, 46.9% and about 49% disapproved, 49.1%. So he is net negative 2.2% when you add that all together. And for those who are listening and not watching, he had solidly positive approval ratings up until this moment.

A few more numbers for you, and then I want to get your reaction, Sagar. USA Today had one of the more striking polls here as well. They saw huge movement on his approval rating. He's now down at 41% approved to 55 percent disapproved. So underwater by 14 points. It's interesting, though, you still got have, you know, vast majority of Americans who say, yes, this war was not worth fighting. And also, by the way, we still want to get out 53 percent of Americans to 38 percent back the decision to pull out troops. But 62 percent disapprove of the way his administration has handled that withdrawal. One of the notes that I'll throw in here as the question moves to

what's going to happen with refugees, overwhelming desire by Americans to resettle refugees, in particular Afghans who worked with our people, 84 to 10 people say, listen, if they worked with us in Afghanistan, we should find a home for them here. So overall, the picture looks like Biden has taken a big hit on his approval rating. Again, not surprising given the media coverage, but Americans still overwhelmingly back the decision to get out of Afghanistan. No, that is the major headline. I do think that creeping beneath this is the meta story that Biden is getting hammered on two particular areas where he was previously not just above water, but actually very high. That is his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. So that USA Today poll,

which did kind of shock everybody, and of course, all the Afghan war hawks were pointing to it as an example of how Americans care so much about Afghanistan. It's very much like that NBC poll, however, which we showed everybody on the Tuesday show, which is that, yes, there was a 16-point drop for the president's approval rating, but almost all of it was concentrated in his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and of the economy. So buried within the USA Today poll is that only 39% of people within the respondents approve of Biden's handling of the economy. And the previous area where he had enjoyed very, very high support is his handling of the pandemic, where he's now at only 50%. I think this once again captures a dynamic where Biden is really damned because he's not willing to go full Australia, which is really what I think you

would have to do. And frankly, you can't constitutionally do in the United States if you wanted to get the cases down. And then at the same time is embracing Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky over at the CDC, these kind of half-hearted measures which don't make a lot of sense. And then the country is spanning from red and blue, the culture war. Oregon now brought back their outdoor mask mandate for some reason, which nobody can really explain. And then at the same time, you've got red state governors which are banning basically any restrictions whatsoever. I think that kind of chaotic dynamic, especially as a Delta variant

surge, it continues across the country, especially amongst the hospitalizations and deaths. That is what is going to continue to hammer him. And then really, we cover this so much during the Trump years, which is the economy is downstream of the pandemic, which is that there is no separating it, which is that as long as the pandemic is going badly, then the economy is going badly. So that's why he's at 39% there on that. That 39% on the economy, I would absolutely not want to be there. One of the only indicators of strength that Trump had in the polling, which obviously was dramatically flawed before the 2020 election, was he was always above 50 whenever it came to the economy,

always above 50. So to have Biden sitting 10 points below where Trump was back in November of 2020, I think it's a disaster for the president. I almost don't even look at Afghanistan as a bigger part of this. I think it's obscuring a much bigger trend across the country if people are saying, what the hell is going on here? I just want to know. Yeah. I mean, look, I don't think there's any denying that the overwhelming negative media coverage onslaught over the past two weeks with regards to Afghanistan has hit his approval rating. I don't think there's any denying that whatsoever. However, is that ultimately going to be ephemeral? And I think you're right. When people are going to the polls, ultimately in the midterms, they're much more likely to be voting on how they're

feeling in their local community, if they're feeling safe, if they're feeling like their kids are protected, and if they're feeling like they're doing well economically. You know, I mean, you point to the coronavirus numbers, but at this point, those are his highest marks. That's his best one. That's his best one. The fact that he's barely scraping together 50% support. I do want to be fair that I think a lot of this is out of his hands, you know, just from the nature of the United States. As you pointed out, different states are doing different things. Florida, they're not, they're getting hammered right now. I mean, a lot of the states that have low vaccination rates and where the governors have, you know, made this big public culture war show of we're going to ban you having any sort of like masking, we're going to ban,

we're going to control what you can do in your local school. Those dynamics are really out of his hands unless he really wants to push the limits of sort of, you know, our entire constitutional system. And I think what people at this point would be willing to accept. So some of this is out of his hands, but he's still, you know, ultimately still the president and people are going to judge him and the Democratic Party based on how they're feeling about the trajectory of Delta and the trajectory of the economy. Throwing into that mix, and we're going to talk a lot more about this later, both you and I and also with David Sirota, you know, it's been a while since he's really done anything economically. You had that relief bill when you came in. You had a good vaccination push that seemed to be rolling out pretty effectively when he first got started. That's kind of hit a wall, although actually the numbers have picked back up here in recent days as Delta has surged. But economically, they decided to mess around with this bipartisan infrastructure deal.

And that has really slowed down the whole process. So I understand why people are looking at this and going like, you're not really doing anything. So no, I don't approve of what you're doing on the economy because you're not actually doing anything at all. Now, if they can get a reconciliation package through, does that change the game? Possibly. But I am of the opinion and have been for a while that Democrats are pretty screwed in the midterms. And if you ask people here in D.C. and they're being honest, they will tell you the same thing. They didn't do what it takes to take control of redistricting. That puts them at a

tremendous disadvantage. Midterms are typically historically bad for the party that's in power. You have a lot of just macro trends that are going in the wrong direction for them. So I think Afghanistan or no, they're kind of screwed for the midterms. They should go ahead and live their best lives now and get as much done as they possibly can, because I think that the power that they have right now is going to be incredibly short lived. There was one other number. This is really pretty striking. That shows you just how done Americans are with Afghanistan, with the way they've been gaslit on the war on terror, with all of it. So let's put this Sam Stein tweet, Morning Consult Politico poll. This is the most hawkish possible framing of this question. They ask people, do you believe the U.S. should still withdraw their

military presence in Afghanistan if it means it creates an opening for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups to establish operations in Afghanistan? Still, still a plurality say yes. 45% say still withdraw. 40% say don't withdraw. So even when you frame this in the most aggressive, hawkish, like imperialist possible way, war on terror type of way, Americans are still like, no, we're done here. We're just done here. And I do believe, yeah, I do believe over time as, you know, these images that have been incredibly heart-wrenching and difficult to watch fade. And people really take in, and we're going to talk about this in a minute, the fact that in a very short period of time, we've gotten out now 80,000, 90,000 people. That's an impressive

accomplishment. Thank God no American has been killed in this process. Once people actually sit back and take in those facts, I actually think these numbers are going to move in a more positive direction for Joe Biden on Afghanistan, because he did the thing that Americans still, even in this moment, are like, we really wanted you to do that. I agree with you. And that's the funny part. Even with that question and the phrasing, they still came out underwater. So I'm looking right at you, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who the day after the fall of Kabul is like the terror threat is now higher. Some of our audience is so young, they probably don't even remember what it was like when they're like the terror levels now orange. Now it's red.

You know, it was horrible. Like every day you go to the airport, what's the terror level at? You know, and then that depends whether you can bring like some liquids onto the plane or whatever. They're trying to bring that kind of feeling back. And even with the relentless media propaganda, even with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and all of Congress and the entire establishment going all in, still the American people say, yeah, I don't know about that. I just don't think so. So I think that's one of the only heartening stories that I think has come out of this. You can always have faith in the people. Yes, indeed. Actually, I have one other minor heartening part that I did want to mention,

because I think our audience will appreciate this. We had Lucas Kunz on this week. By the way, premium subscribers get the entire interview. Afghan and Iraq veteran. He learned the local language Pashto. He spoke with people on the ground while he was there and had a very similar analysis of like, this whole thing was a mess. It was corrupt and it was long past time that we get out. And after we had him on, he got all these bookings on MSNBC, on CNN, the mainstream media picked up on how interesting and how intelligent and what an important voice he was. So I thought that was pretty cool to see that at least we could inject one good voice of Ethan into mainstream news. I thought you guys would appreciate that too. That's the only, that's the other only piece of good news that has come from this. And so to the cable newsbookers, now we know we're watching. We know you're watching. So

we still hate you, but it's okay. Most of you are good people. You just work for bad people. So we told you already about the, we preview a little bit of this story. And it is possibly one of my favorite things because the country has to be united in hating at least somebody. And it always, I hope that it is the right people. And finally, we can all agree that Democrat and Republican, we have found the two biggest jackasses in the United States Congress.

And that would be Congressman Seth Moulton. You would remember him from his failed presidential bid and Congressman Peter Meyer. So let's put this up there on the screen. I mean, these two congressmen went to Afghanistan on a 24-hour unauthorized trip just to prance in front of the cameras and to see what was going on there. Now, here's how they did it, Crystal. They went there on a commercial flight to the UAE. Then they used their congressional experience to hop a military flight to Kabul airport.

They stayed there for a number of hours and they got on a plane and left. Now they infuriated everyone. Why? Because diplomats and the people who were actually running the evacuation were like, hey, the last thing we need are some two low level jackass congressman here just screwing things up. But worse, they took up seats which could have been taken by Afghans. So they directed diplomatic and military resources away from the actual evacuation effort, put themselves on the ground, potentially in harm's way, meaning that the brass had to make sure that these two idiots were protected while they were over there. And they took away seats from the actual Afghan or American

citizens. This is one of the worst displays of hubris, just so these idiots could go. And they thought they were such heroes. That's the best part. Oh, yeah. They thought they were going to be hailed as this. Oh, these amazing people came to Afghanistan. It's like everybody was like, get the hell out of here. It's like when the president knows not to come to a hurricane site 24 hours after. You know why? Because the first responders who have to protect him should be busy digging people out of rubble and making sure the people are in their homes, not having to worry about the goddamn motorcade. And yet these idiots decided to disregard all of these rules, and they decided to go over to Afghanistan in the first place. It's absolutely, no matter where you even fall on this,

this is one of the most outrageous acts that I've seen in a long time. One of the most damaging and idiotic just publicity stunts that I've seen in a long time. One of the most damaging and idiotic just publicity stunts that I've ever seen. They thought they were going to be big shot heroes, that everyone's going to tell them how brave they are. Thank you for going. Oh, isn't this amazing? Instead, everyone was like, screw you. What are you thinking nancy pelosi kevin mccarthy every you know senior admin official that could possibly give a quote to anyone in fact i think we have one of the most devastating quotes here this was from a washington post piece a senior administration official said this was as moronic as it is selfish.

They're taking seats away from Americans and at-risk Afghans while putting our diplomats and service members at greater risk so they can have a moment in front of the cameras. And that is 100% accurate because, look, there are terrorist threats at that airport. And you don't think that two members of Congress, a Democrat and a Republican, then those would be prime targets. If you're ISIS or one of the other terror groups that has a foothold in Afghanistan, of course, you're a prime target. So you're taking away all of these security resources just to protect your lame ass when they should be laser focused on the task at hand, which is getting out as many people as they possibly can. It was so enraging and so absurd.

And as you said, the only silver lining was that it really brought everybody together in a shared spirit of screw you. Yeah, that's my, look, Nancy Pelosi ripped them. That's how bad it is. Put that up there on the screen. Nancy Pelosi was like, hey, don't do it. The White House was like, we would really like to not have to worry about two idiot congressmen over in the middle of an active war zone. The Pentagon said the same thing. Frankly, they should have been denied boarding.

I don't know. You know, the military, next time it's one of these idiots tries to pull something like this, tell them, no, you're not getting on this goddamn plane. You don't belong in Afghanistan. This is completely outrageous. And really what it is, is, you know, back to Glenn Greenwald and what he said. It is 2002 all over again. It's all just performative BS in order to try and boost their own profiles, to try and have these publicity stunts. And who suffers? Who actually suffers? The people of Afghanistan and then our poor soldiers.

Can you imagine being one of those? I would be terrified if I was the commander of Kabul. And I was like, now I got to worry about these two congressmen to make sure that these guys get off this base safely? He doesn't need to be worrying about that. What if you're one of those soldiers who had to protect them or was reassigned from protecting the airport, making sure just to keep an eye on these two gentlemen? So the level of stress that this must have given our poor guys at the airport, poor guys and girls at the airport. I can't even imagine because I've heard from some

about what it's like whenever a VIP visits a war zone and they had to pull out all the stops. And that's exactly what these two guys did in this situation. They made it all about themselves. And screw you. That's all I have to say. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was? Well, here we are again to remind you that becoming a premium member means you 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. Sagar, speaking of publicity stunts, I have a little Cuomo update for the people as well. Oh, we have a great one. So the new governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, so she gave an interview yesterday on local New York radio in which she revealed thousands of more coronavirus deaths than Andrew Cuomo ever let on. Let's first take a listen to their interview. We'll give you the exact numbers. There's no opportunity for us to mask those numbers, nor do I want to mask those numbers. The public deserves a clear, honest picture of what's happening. And that's whether it's good or bad, they need to know the truth. And that's

how we restore confidence when they know that I will always be truthful and very transparent in my approach to government. Yeah, well, thank you, Governor, for actually telling us the real numbers. So let's give everybody an idea of just how much these people were lying to us. Put this Axios tweet up there on the screen. So what do we see,395, a full 12,000 more deaths that were hidden by Governor Cuomo. Now look, the actual numbers themselves, we were generally had an idea of this. However, New York State itself had not yet acknowledged the real death toll that these people had suffered from. And this all comes down to the fact that Cuomo himself wanted to hide these nursing home

deaths in order to protect his own ass and in order to write his little book about triumph in the coronavirus pandemic, for which he was paid millions of dollars in advance, for which he was made into a media hero, and more. So, I mean, unfortunately, this will probably be our very last Cuomo update, unless we learn even more about his corruption. But this is what he should have been impeached for, Crystal. This is what he actually should have been impeached for. Not only the decision, but then for the nursing homes, lying about it, covering it up, coming under, lying to the federal government itself. Everything the media has accused Ron DeSantis and many of these other

people of doing, he actually did. And yet at the end of the day, as we said before, he was impeached over the Me Too stuff. Okay, I'm not diminishing the experiences of any of those women, but this is far worse of a crime against the people of the state of New York. And he's mostly gotten away with it. Well, and just so people understand here, I mean, all the way up to his farewell address, he was giving out the wrong numbers. Okay. This guy cooked the books, lied about the nursing home deaths, lied about the overall death toll in the state of New York. And yes, great that he's gone. But that got so little attention ever from the media, which is insane. And the bottom line is, as long as Trump was there and Cuomo could say, oh, these questions and these attacks, this is all just partisan.

This is all just political posturing from the battle Republicans and battle Donald Trump. The media was happy to accept that line. I mean, they just bought it. And it wasn't until two things happened. Number one, Trump was gone. And number two, all of the Me Too stuff broke, that they had any interest in holding Andrew Cuomo to account for anything. And keep in mind that to the very end, remember Biden got asked that question of like, well, do you think he was a good governor? He was like, yeah, he was a good governor.

What? What? I mean, on every level, this guy was a corrupt failure. The only thing he did well was projecting like big daddy government energy when he was in front of the camera for which he was awarded an Emmy, which, by the way, we'll update on that. The Emmy committee has now stripped him of his Emmy award. It is so embarrassing that they ever granted him that. Cynthia Nixon had a good line. She was like, listen, neither of us is governor of New York,

but at least I still have my Emmys. So I do also want to say, look, this guy was challenged by Cynthia Nixon and also Zephyr Teachout. And they were treated like they were ridiculous people and they were distractions right up until very, very recently. I think it was Bakari Sellers who tweeted out like, oh, thank goodness we could have had Cynthia Nixon and that would have been terrible.

It's like, would it have been though actually? Because look at what this guy is actually doing outside of just his ability to like give a presser that makes you feel good. So goodbye, good riddance. And the lies were being told up into the very, very end. Yeah, I wanted to make sure that everybody got that update because both the death figure is horrific.

It's one of the worst in the entire country. But worse, the cover up on this and the media treatment of the story, just absolutely abysmal. And the fact that he even never got taken down by what he really should have been, I still think it will remain a crime. And always, Assemblyman Ron Kim reminds us, it's not about us. It's not about the media.

It's about the 12,000 families who lost people in a nursing home, who were robbed of some extra time with some loved ones, who were robbed of the ability to have them at their wedding, or robbed of the ability to have them at one last Christmas because of the decisions of this man. And so that's really who we always have to think of whenever it comes to this story. That is exactly right. Another really important story that we wanted to update you on, which is where the Democrats are with this big reconciliation package. Last we left you, there was an impasse between these first nine, then it became 10. Like there's the far right and the far left.

These are like the far corporatist. They're like the most extreme pro-corporate wing of the Democratic Party. They are trying effectively to only pass the bipartisan infrastructure deal and to pour cold water on the reconciliation package. That's ultimately their goal, regardless of what else they say. That's what really what they're aiming at here. And there was this kind of impasse between Pelosi and those 10 corporatists who wanted to immediately schedule an infrastructure vote so that they could get that through and get that done. And that would allow them to do whatever they want, ultimately probably tank the reconciliation bill. So there was a question of how hard of a line Pelosi was going to draw,

how hard of a line these nine, ultimately 10, were going to draw. So they came to a kind of a deal. The idea here, and it's a little bit complicated, but they effectively agreed that the infrastructure package would come up for a vote on September 27th. Actually, let me rephrase that. Would be considered by September 27th is the specific deal that was ultimately reached. So that gives Pelosi and Bernie and all the Democrats working on these committees gives them about five weeks to try to work out all of the details of the reconciliation package and bring that to's important for these two things to be tied together is because that makes sure that the progressives have some leverage over the moderates. They're kind of holding their infrastructure package hostage to coerce them to vote for the reconciliation bill in some sort of reasonable form. And that also keeps the progressives in line to vote for an infrastructure package that they don't really like. So it sort of keeps the leverage, distributes the power between all factions of the party. Ultimately, the moderates

wanted to reclaim. They're not moderates, really. They're extremists in this context. They wanted to reclaim that power for themselves, just be able to get their infrastructure package through. So this deal is struck that says they must consider the infrastructure bill by September 27th. These nine are running around acting like this is some big win and they really got their way. What is the reality here? Let's put Jake Sherman's reporting from Punchbowl up on the screen. Ultimately, it seems like the September 27th deadline that they supposedly won is really ultimately kind of meaningless. He says Pelosi still holds all the cards here for three big reasons. The rule only says they have to consider

the infrastructure bill by September 27th. It doesn't say they have to vote on it then. So you could push the vote off down the road you could use stalling tactics so that gives you wiggle room to start with number two you can pass another rule that says we're going to do something different so if you have a majority of the caucus to pass another rule then you can still do something different and finally oh she can actually just use what he describes as a break the glass plan clause 1c ofC of House Rule XIX allows Pelosi to unilaterally reschedule the vote. So she can just decide like, yeah, I know I said I'm going to do that, but now we're going to do something different now. Now, I know she wouldn't necessarily want to

use that as a first option because you've given someone your word, et cetera, et cetera, but that is still on the table. So what does all of this mean? Ultimately, it means really Pelosi still holds all the cards here, as Jake ultimately said. She can decide when and how this vote comes up. She can decide how much pressure she wants to put on these corporatists. She can also decide how much pressure she wants to put on the progressives to get in line on a reconciliation package that is certainly going to end up less than the $3.5 trillion that was originally proposed. So that's where we are. A sort of deal has been struck. A timeline has been set.

But ultimately, Pelosi is still in control of this process. Whether that ends up being a good thing or a bad thing remains very much to be seen. Yeah, it's really interesting, Crystal, watching all of this. And actually, like you said at the beginning, I know this might sound like a lot of inside baseball, but there's a lot of stuff in this bill where whether you're for or against, you should probably at least know what is going on in here. And so it's interesting to me, actually, that one of the most titanic pieces of legislation that would pass in modern American history is not getting even close to the headlines, frankly, that it really deserves.

And so did we already put Ryan Grim's piece up there on the screen? Because I think that one is important as well, that the cracks emerging in Josh Gottheimer's Unbreakable Nine. Let's go ahead and put that up there. Right. And then, of course, we have that tweet as well around how Omar, Representative Omar Bush and Tlaib have already said that they won't be voting for the reconciliation bill or for the infrastructure bill unless it comes out on the exact same time. I think that these dynamics are all very important. And so when we have and what we'll see in terms of the vote is if they can get it done by September 27th. But as you said, they're not necessarily hardwired to that date in the first place. And I just find it really, I mean, I just don't see any way they could possibly get it done by September 27th.

That's only a month from now. 3.5 trillion haven't even begun writing the entire thing in the Senate. Well, that is true, but they have actually, a lot of these pieces have already been written. So apparently she was already planning on a timeline of early October. So this really actually only changes it by a few days. And a lot of these pieces have already been written. So there is some indication that it is possible and feasible. The challenge is if you do, in fact,

have a hard date set in stone, that does hand power to the corporatists who don't want the reconciliation bill really at all. They're certainly happy to hack it to pieces. So that gives you a hard deadline where you can go to the progressives. And like we've seen happen time and time again, you can say to them, look, take it or leave it. The infrastructure bill is coming up for a vote tomorrow. So if you don't take this package, nothing is happening. And that's a tremendous amount of leverage. That's a tremendous amount of pressure you can put ultimately on the progressives here at the end.

So far, they have been really cohesive. They've had one unified line about, look, this has to be done together in tandem. And it has to have climate provisions. It has to be a sizable package. That's the part, though, that gets really squishy is we don't know exactly where their red lines are. What will they ultimately accept here? And that's where things I think ultimately get really dicey. But, you know, it is interesting having someone who does use hardball tactics and, uh, is competent in terms of understanding the process and getting what she wants.

Working at least somewhat on your side to get this package through. And again, look, we're a long way from here to there. But, you know, we were talking last time about how reportedly these nine are getting a lot of pressure in terms of, listen, we're going to destroy your district. You're not going to be able to win re-election because of redistricting. Somebody's relative at the White House was being threatened with being fired. Bill Clinton was making calls. I mean, it seems like they're going all in

to bring these people to heel. Ultimately, I think they achieved a sort of like face-saving gesture in terms of what they actually won here. But again, the cards are all being held by Nancy Pelosi. The ultimate deal is going to take the shape of what she wants it to take. That doesn't give me a whole lot of comfort here, but we'll see ultimately what comes together. And I do want to spend a little bit of time, because it's easy to get bogged down in the process, just talking about what is actually in this bill, right?

We're talking about this is if you care about climate, there's nothing in the infrastructure package effectively that's going to deal significantly with climate. All of it is in the infrastructure package they have. They can't directly put a renewable energy standard in, but they're trying to put incentives in that act effectively like a renewable energy standard. That would be significant. On education, you've got universal pre-K and you've got universal free community college, both huge deals, huge deals.

Pre-K in particular, to me, I mean, there is no better investment we could make than in our young children. Those formative years, all of the research says absolutely critical for where you're going to end up in life. So universal pre-K and also universal community college, really important here. On healthcare, you have a huge expansion of Medicaid. You also have an expansion of Medicare that would include vision, dental, hearing. Some indications may also include lowering the Medicare age.

So that is also really critical and really important. You've got an extension of that child tax credit that provides a benefit to so many families in this country and really providing them with a cash infusion. Again, investing in,, investing in our children. So listen, there are real tangible benefits here in terms of everything that's in the news right now. This is the package that is most likely to have the most profound impact on your life. So the process is important just in terms of whether it's going to happen or not. But I don't want to lose sight of the details of what it's going to mean for you, your family, your community, and what's ultimately at stake here. That's right. Everybody go and make sure they're familiarized. This would

be one of the biggest transformations of the American welfare state since 1994. And nobody's really talking about that. And I actually do think there's a lot of worthy discussion to be had. 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 podcast 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 Saga in your daily lives. Take care, guys. Crystal, what are you taking a look at now? All right. Another important and undercovered issue here. So you will recall we covered extensively and it got a lot of national press attention as well, the coming end of the eviction moratorium a while back. OK, Joe Biden at the last minute after, you know, sort of declaring that he couldn't really

do anything about the expiration eviction moratorium, his hands were tied, etc. He comes in after it has technically expired and creates a new eviction moratorium. It's slightly more tailored, but it's still going to cover most Americans. And the idea is, OK, we don't know if this is going to pass legal muster or not, but we're going to try and see what happens. And at least it buys us some time to be able to get more rental assistance out the door because $56 billion in rental cash assistance has been appropriated and a tiny sliver of that has gone out. So we're going to do this extension. We're going to see what happens in the courts,

and we're going to buy people some time so that more of that money can get out the door and we don't ultimately face a homelessness crisis. So two big things have happened on this front. Number one, the eviction moratorium is headed to the Supreme Court, and the expectation is that a decision could come at any time. Let's throw that first tear sheet there up on the screen. You have a coalition of landlords and real estate trade groups in Alabama and Georgia who are challenging this moratorium. Of course, they argue that the government overstepped their authority. The Biden administration, the government is saying, no, no, no. Of course, we could do this. This is within the rights of

the CDC. The legal issue involved here is the Public Health Service Act. I'm reading from the Washington Post. It gives the agency authority to, quote, make and enforce such regulations necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases across states or from foreign lands. So the government looks at that and says, listen, Delta is surging. Clearly people losing their homes and being put either into a group home setting or out into the streets, that can definitely spread this communicable disease. And we've covered research here that shows that is in fact the case. So we are well within our rights to go ahead and create this eviction moratorium, which is different from the previous

moratorium. That's the government's argument. I think most legal scholars are somewhat skeptical that the Supreme Court, given their previous ruling on the prior eviction moratorium, that they're ultimately going to side with the government. And again, that ruling could come at literally any time. So as we await that, all right, let's go look at the other piece. So the idea here was, all right, we're going to buy some time so that more of this cash rental relief can ultimately get out the door. So how are we doing on that front, guys? Let's throw the other tear sheet up on the screen. Oh, turns out not well at all. The headline here from the Washington Post says, as eviction crisis loomed, rental relief barely picked up in July. So last month, nearly $1.7 billion went out from this rental relief fund as compared to $1.5 billion in June. So there was barely an uptick at all in the amount

of cash relief that went out the door. This is a tiny fraction of what has ultimately been appropriated to provide people with relief and try to make them whole so they can stay in their households. And Sauter, I don't know what the answer is here because moratorium is very, very likely to end. 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. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, you may not have missed this, but we have some very, very interesting news out of the intelligence community. Now, as usual, the media and the intelligence community and their relationship around all of this is very interesting. Here is how a new lab leak hypothesis report from the intel community is being reported.

So let's put this up there. First of all, it was leaked to some very friendly reporters over at the Washington Post. Now, the way that they published this is as quote from Ellen Nakashima. The intel community gives Biden its long-awaited report on COVID origin but fails to crack the case, officials say. No determination on whether the virus resulted from a lab leak or animal to human infection. But here's the thing. If you look further within whether the report was even ill-conceived in the first place, you would discover that the DNI, the head of the Intel community herself,

Avril Haines, already said back in June when the 90-day order was given to the Intel community in order to produce a report around the lab leak hypothesis, quote, we're hoping to find a smoking gun, but it's challenging to do that. It might happen. It might not. Furthermore, within the report, they acknowledge that the Intel community itself doesn't have the expertise that they needed to actually even come to a conclusive report, that they would have had to unload dozens of pathology experts, lab expertise, and more, not to mention the fact that we don't even have the evidence, the direct evidence that we would need out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the first place. And yet, this frankly BS report from the intelligence community is already being used by the media in order to whitewash and say that

the lab leak theory had no basis in fact in the first place. So let's go ahead and put this next thing up there on the screen from Virginia Heffernan. Now Virginia, she's an LA Times columnist, but more importantly, this tweet really made the rounds amongst elite liberal media circles. Here's what she says. To those who stake an argument about lib media bias on the premise that reporters were too woke and afraid to cover the lab leak hypothesis, quote, number one, they did cover it. Number two, it wasn't that compelling. She then goes through and cites a number of places in which the media did cover up the lab leak theory, specifically for ideological reasons, and comes finally to the inconclusive report out of the intelligence community. Now, first of all, that report from the intel community

remains classified. The White House and others say that parts of it will be released. Okay, I'm not going to hold my breath. But in reality, given the open source information that we already have around the lab leak theory and more, it is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt with the circumstantial evidence that there is more evidence to point towards a lab leak than there is towards natural origin. And yet the media combined with Dr. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins, the head of the NIH, as recently as of just two days ago, are still saying that, quote, the vast majority of the evidence, that's from Dr. Francis

Collins, points towards a natural origin of the virus. All of this is to be said is that the Biden administration from the get-go has been passing the buck on this. They have said that first the WHO should do an investigation, even though we already know that the WHO is compromised, that the main investigator that they use, Dr. Peter Daszak, already had ties to the lab. Then they kicked it to the intel community saying, hey, you guys figure it out, even though they literally don't have the resources in order to do so. The only people who are ever going to know for sure are the people inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And if we had gotten our act together quicker, perhaps we could have done so. But right now, the circumstantial evidence around what we have

seen in terms of the known number of Wuhan Institute of Virology lab staffers who were sick back in November of 2019, given the fact that the World Military Games seem to have been a nexus point for coronavirus in the city of Wuhan, given the lies that the Chinese government has pushed consistently on the natural origin theory. And then finally, really what we know about gain-of-function research itself, it seems clear the direction in which it points. So what I really am seeing here is a media and concerted campaign by the Biden administration and by our mass media to try and cover up what is clearly happening here. And that's the problem we have, Crystal, which is that they're trying to see the

inconclusiveness of the report. Joining us now, we have the founder of The Daily Poster, the one and only David Cerda. Great to see you, sir. Good to see you, David. Great to see you. Thanks for having me. So you've been doing some great reporting on the unbreakable nine. They're calling themselves some reports where they're really now 10. They're also, you know, extreme corporatists. And you've been doing the reporting on exactly what their motivations are in terms of blowing up the reconciliation deal, because that is their ultimate goal here. Just tell us what you've learned. So a while back, an Exxon lobbyist was caught on tape basically saying that the company had successfully stripped out climate provisions from the infrastructure bill. And essentially what that telegraphed is that the, for instance, the oil and gas industry really

wants the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and they don't necessarily want, to put it mildly, they don't want the reconciliation bill with all the climate stuff in it. There's a similar dynamic with the pharmaceutical industry. The reconciliation bill, there's a very good chance that it's going to have some provisions in it to finally allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies, negotiate for lower prescription drug prices, something that the drug industry really doesn't want to happen and has lobbied furiously against for years. So point being, there is a lot of industry support for the infrastructure bill and a lot of potential industry opposition to the

reconciliation bill. Not coincidentally, as you allude to, the nine or ten House Democrats who have said that they want the vote on the infrastructure bill first, which would essentially create the conditions to kill the reconciliation bill. Not coincidentally, that group has been bankrolled by the oil and gas industry and the pharmaceutical industry. They have raked in more than $3 million of campaign cash from those two industries alone. That's only nine members of Congress. That's actually a lot of money, and it includes a number of the top recipients among House Democrats of campaign cash from those industries. to essentially help Republicans and the corporate lobby potentially get the infrastructure bill that corporate forces want and kill the reconciliation bill that a lot of powerful corporations and a

lot of their powerful donors do not want. So David, can you just outline exactly what the, so you have the Chamber of Commerce, you have industry that are putting all this money behind them. What do they hate that's in the reconciliation bill? Is it the tax increases? Like, what is it exactly? Well, again, I think when it comes to the pharmaceutical industry, I think they fear any of the provisions that have been talked about, about lowering prescription drug prices. Obviously, the oil and gas industry does not want all of the climate programs which are designed to transition the country's economy off of fossil fuels. There's also, as you mentioned, there's expected to be proposals into the reconciliation bill

for higher corporate taxes, higher high-income tax rates. So there's a whole lot of things in the reconciliation bill that corporate America is probably worried about. And for process-wise, we should make clear, the reconciliation bill has not, the details of it have not been written. What Congress has to do in this convoluted process is it has to pass a framework, a reconciliation framework, which says to each Senate and House committee, please write the details of your specific topic area into the final budget bill. So when we're talking about what's likely to be in the bill, we're

talking about proposals that have been proposed by various Democrats, but the actual writing of the bill has to start happening once the reconciliation framework has been created. Got it. So I went through some of the process stuff earlier. I think I probably confused people more than I actually helped elucidate it because it is a little bit of a confusing process. But the bottom line is the nine have been touting that they won this deal from Pelosi that says that their precious infrastructure bill has to be considered by September 27th. Pelosi and some reporters are basically telling the press like this was mostly a faith saving gesture that's kind of meaningless and doesn't really change the fundamental dynamics here. As I see it, and I want to get your analysis, effectively, Pelosi continues to hold all the cards. So if she decides she wants to put a lot of pressure on these nine or 10 and bring them

to heel with a package that's relatively sizable and make some significant investments in our future and in the American people, she'll do that. And if she decides, on the other hand, that she wants to jam progressives and say, look, sure, it got stripped down to be, you know, one and a half trillion instead of three and a half trillion, but they're going to vote on their infrastructure bill and then you're going to have no leverage and you're going to end up with nothing. So is that how you read the situation? And how are you feeling about Nancy Pelosi still having so much power in this process? I think you've described it exactly right. And to boil it down even further, I think the action in this is as much which bill gets

voted first. And let's just explain for a second. The whole reason that the bills need to be coupled together is there are various senators and some House members in the Democratic caucus who say that they're not even sure that they would vote for a reconciliation bill at all. But they're supportive of the infrastructure bill. So the idea is you have to tie them together, what those conservative Democrats want. You have to tie that together with what the rest of the Democratic caucus and especially progressives want, aka the

reconciliation bill. If you de-link them and you pass what conservatives want first, then they don't have any political incentive to support the reconciliation bill, which is so it's effectively a way to try to kill the reconciliation bill. That's why they need to be linked. Where the action is going to be is both in the sequence, right? Will Pelosi bring up a standalone infrastructure bill, even if the reconciliation bill is not ready to be voted on? Let's say they're still working on it. That potentially creates a situation where the reconciliation bill gets killed. So timing and sequence is one factor. But the other factor that you allude to, which I think is so important, is when the progressives

have said, no climate, no deal, what they're saying, they're saying we're not going to vote for the infrastructure bill until the reconciliation bill is linked to it. That's what they're saying, is that the term no climate has not yet exactly been defined in an ironclad way, that there's a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that Bernie Sanders has put together. But when Pelosi, in her statement, said we have to respect the 51 Senate vote threshold that we'll need to pass that. To a lot of people, that reads like code of Nancy Pelosi saying, Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema may have a veto power over what I will declare is reconciliation. In other words, she can say, listen, I'm honoring

the deal to bring up the infrastructure bill with the reconciliation bill, but it creates the conditions where if Joe Manchin or Sinema say they want the reconciliation bill reduced, that's where the real action is going to be. Got it. David, you also have some new reporting around Rahm Emanuel. Let's go ahead and put that up there on the screen. Can you just tell us a little bit about this little reward that Rahm is receiving now that he's got his new ambassadorship? I mean, it's incredible, isn't it? Like that this guy has just been given a nomination for an ambassadorship after all that happened in Chicago, after all the things that he's been involved in with the Laquan McDonald murder, the video of the murder on tape that was suppressed. I mean, that's all pretext to how is he suddenly still getting a top appointment? And let's be clear, ambassador to Japan is a big job. It's not, you know, I think people think about ambassador, oh, it's just a gift, doesn't

matter. I mean, the ambassadorship to Japan, that's a really important posting. Now, what we know is that Rahm has very little qualifications for the job. Then the last time he was in Japan, he connected his big donors with Japanese government officials. That was back in 2018. But the other question is, what is he actually being rewarded for? And we took a look at what happened in the 2020 Democratic primary. And Rahm, if folks remember, Rahm intervened in a very public way in that Democratic primary to amplify really vicious criticism of Medicare for All when Medicare for All was kind of surging as an idea. Bernie Sanders' campaign was surging, and he did a big favor to Joe Biden. And part of this ambassadorship appointment is a reward for that favor. But that's not the only way Rahm has been rewarded. SEC documents show that less than

a year after Rahm did that huge spectacle of publicly billifying Medicare for All, he was given a board seat and about 186,000 shares in a company that is in the private health insurance industry, a company that warns its investors explicitly that Medicare for All threatens its profits. So the point is, is that since Rahm intervened on the biggest health care issue of the day in the lead up to the pandemic, he has spent the pandemic getting himself a payout in the private health insurance industry that has been making a jackpot of profits during the pandemic. And now he's subsequently being rewarded with an ambassador. Amazing. I mean, David, this is why your reporting is so important, truly, because that whole process that you describe, he goes on TV to bash Medicare for all in service of Joe Biden, while by the way,

he's also, you know, entwined with some health care interests. So he had a financial interest there as well, which was never disclosed, of course. And then he's rewarded in this way, not only with this prominent position, but also in terms of, you know, financial incentives that he receives. Like, this is how these bad ideas just continue to proliferate. This is how people get elevated in Washington. And Rahm Emanuel is one of the worst actors in Washington. He is one of the, like, great villains, certainly of the Obama era. So everybody make sure if you're able, go and subscribe to Daily Poster because I think that's why you're reporting,

you and the journalists that you work with there, why it's so important because you really show how this all works and what the actual incentive structure is in this town. And I just think I cannot highly recommend it enough. It's absolutely invaluable, David. Thank you. Thank you, David. Thank you. Thanks to both of you. And thank you for your show, because I just want to add mutual admiration society here for a second, but it's hard to get the reporting out. So I appreciate the fact that you and your team are always working to spotlight the stories and the reporting that doesn't necessarily get spotlighted by corporate media for obvious corporate reasons.

That's what we try to do here. Links will be down there in the description. Appreciate it, David. Thanks, man. Thanks to both of you. Our pleasure. All right. Thanks, everybody, for watching. Thank you for bearing with me during my COVID week. I'm testing negative, so I will be back in the studio next week. I cannot wait to get back. It's been quite an experience, and I hope that it's been okay. If you can continue to support our work here, link is down there in the description. You get the show an hour early, uncut. You guys know the drill. Thank you for all your best wishes to me personally and for bearing with us this week. Love you guys. Have a wonderful weekend. By the way,

oh, I should mention, we're doing something a little bit different this weekend. Yes. We always post some content for y'all on the weekends on YouTube. We're also going to put those videos together and release a little shorter podcast version, audio version over the weekend as well. So look for that. Let us know what you think of that new format as well. And enjoy the weekend, guys. We'll see you back in 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 crystalandsauger.com. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John.

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