Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/29/23: Trump Trial Date On Super Tuesday, Dems Overwhelmingly Think Biden Too Old, Warren Buffet Bets Against Economy, Krystal Calls Out Bernie and Cornel West, Eminem Cease and Desists Vivek, Europe Freaks At Potential Trump 2.0, 4 Day Work Week

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump's long list of trial dates being set with one being right before Super Tuesday, Democrats overwhelmingly say Biden is too Old to run, Kamala cries about Newsom-Desantis Debate stealing her spotlight, Warren Buffet predicts Recession and makes bets against US economy, Krystal calls out Bernie Sanders and Cornel West in 3rd Party dispute, Eminem sends a cease and desist to the Vivek Campaign, Sean Hannity grills Vivek on Israel policy, Saagar looks into Europe freaking over a potential Trump victory, and Krystal looks into AutoWorkers demanding 4 Day Work Weeks.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of interesting stories that we have to bring you this morning. So first of all, we have the start of a trial date

in one of Trump's many trials, and we have a rapidly filling out calendar of trial and political. And so it's all pretty well. We'll break that down for you. We've also got some new polls revealing just how Americans actually feel about both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. So we'll bring you those numbers. New dire economic predictions and some new dire economic numbers. We've also got a major hurricane that is set to hit the state of Florida. We'll bring you updates on that. And a little bit of a tiff, I guess, between Vivek Ramaswamy and Eminem.

He famously, as his character, Da Vaik, liked to rap Eminem. He did it at the Iowa State Fair. Eminem is now responding. So we've got all of that for you. But before we get into any of that, thank you so much to everybody who's been signing up to be premium subscribers. We revealed yesterday we are in the works to get a focus group going. That is thanks to your support

and you guys backing this channel. Yes, that's right. We are actively working, scheduling, working on all the details right now. Everybody's signing up. We took advantage of the debate special and continues to sign up now. You guys are just helping us out so much. These two things do cost a lot of money. There's a lot of travel involved. We're working with various different firms, et cetera. And we want to try and bring

you the best possible coverage. And the networks all have, you know, big pharma advertisers and all those other people. We only have you. So BreakingPoints.com, if you are able to sign up, it really does help us a lot. But with that, let's get to the trial. Yes, indeed. So let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. We have a trial date set now in the federal case for Donald Trump, where he is charged with plotting to overturn the election. This is one of the Jack Smith cases. This is the one directly related to the fake electors plot in January 6th and all of that stuff. So a judge on Monday set a March 4th, 2024 trial date for Donald Trump in that case, rejecting, they say, a defense request to push the case back years. It was not quite as expedited as special counsel Jack Smith wanted. He wanted that date to be in January,

but it was much closer to his date than what the defense was pushing for. They wanted to push this all the way out, I think, until 2026. Now, there's something very noteworthy about March 4th, and that is that it is right next to Super Tuesday. So let's put this next piece up on the screen. We've compiled a graphic of all of the rapidly filling dates, the very full

calendar that Donald Trump is going to be facing here with what we know of his trial dates, plus the key points in the election. So September 6th, he's arraigned in Georgia. September 27th, there's the second GOP debate. We'll see if he participates. October 2nd, we've got the trial in the Trump org civil fraud suit. Later that month, we've got the first trial in the Georgia case. Now, that is the trial of Kenneth Cheeseborough, but it's expected that Trump may be involved, may be called as a witness. On January 15th, we've got the Iowa Republican caucuses, and we also have the start of the trial in the E. Jean Carroll civil defamation suit. Let's go ahead and put the next one up on screen because we are far from done.

January 29th, the trial in the pyramid scheme class action suit. This is some Trump org stuff that I genuinely didn't even know was going on, but apparently it is. And it starts on January 29th. On February 6th, we have the Nevada Republican primary. On February 27th, we've got the Michigan Republican primary. And then on March 4th, the trial starts in the federal January 6th case. The very next day is the Super Tuesday primaries. Then we go on.

Later in March, we've got the trial in the New York State criminal hush money case. That's the Stormy Daniels one. And last graphic that we have, and of course, this is not complete because we don't know all of the trial dates and when they start yet. May 14th, we've got pretrial hearing in the classified documents case and May 20th, the trial in the classified documents case. So this is the campaign schedule, guys. It's going to be a lot less about debates and policy and all of the things that we would aspirationally want our democracy to be about and much more about the unfoldings and the doings and workings of these trials, which are going to occupy a lot of the former president's time as we head into the

heat of 2024. Yeah. And I think that the judge made a mistake here, putting it in March. Obviously, the Trump people are being ridiculous. I even think that the Jack Smith trial date, proposed date is too late. I mean, you can't be having these things around actual election season. It needs to try and be wrapped up before. And so it's August 29th right now. I mean, I don't see any reason why it can't happen sometime in 2023. It's, you know, the lawyers are like, oh, it takes, listen, I understand that. But, but from an actual small d democratic perspective, having the trial date set the day before where he will be down there ahead of super Tuesday, when dozens of states head to the polls in the primary is insane. And then also to have it, the January trial, the civil, I mean, look,

at least that one is civil, but to have that one on the same day as Iowa, weren't we also talking about the other case that was happening that we saw where some of the proposed dates are in May of 2024, post Super Tuesday. To have all of these things happen, the Trump team, of course, is gonna use this opportunity to say, oh, it should all happen after the election. I think that's ridiculous.

But I think the American people deserve to actually have some sort of finality. And even the Republican voter have some sort of final say on the most consequential cases like these far, far ahead before they go ahead and head to the polls. And also, obviously, Crystal, as you and I know, this is only going to help Trump in a primary situation. I will save my speculation for what on the general electorate

I've long, long ago given up on any idea of what will happen when everybody actually does go to the polls. On the GOP primary, we have ample evidence enough to show us that this is the best thing that could ever happen to him for winning the nomination. Yeah. I mean, it all does beg the question, why did it take so long for these charges to drop? I mean, that's really, I, you know, I don't really blame Jack Smith because he wasn't appointed special counsel. He wasn't handed this until relatively recently. And so to conduct an investigation and do it in a proper and thorough manner, that timeline makes sense to me. Even the documents case,

that timeline also makes sense to me because they were trying to go back and forth with Trump and they were genuinely, seems like they were trying to do everything they could before taking the more aggressive stance of the FBI raid and then ultimately being sort of like having their hand forced and filing charges. But I don't know why Fulton County took so long. It's ridiculous. I don't know why Merrick Garland took so damn long to appoint Jack Smith as special counsel. I mean, literally, this should have been

done on like day one of the administration. Like we knew what unfolded on January 6th. We knew there were potential crimes there. So what were you all waiting around for? And that's what to me is very frustrating. I mean, listen, the Trump people were always going to say this is political no matter what the facts are, no matter what the timeline was, et cetera. If they had appointed a special counsel on day one of the Biden administration, they would have said that was clearly political, you know, that it happened right out of the gates. people being able to evaluate all of these charges and its potential guilt or innocence and have this play out before election season really kicks off. And I think by them dawdling and dragging their feet for whatever reason, I think they have really, you know, just made the election very difficult, really undermined, you know, undermined democracy in a certain sense, because now no one's going to be talking about, hey, what's your tax plan? Hey, what's your foreign policy plan? Hey, you know, undermined democracy in a certain sense because now no one's going to be talking about,

hey, what's your tax plan? Hey, what's your foreign policy plan? Hey, you know, what are we going to do in terms of getting people a better wage? None of that is really going to be the center of this campaign. And that's really kind of a, it's a huge loss and it's a huge disaster.

It's a massive loss and it's a huge disservice by Merrick Garland and the Biden Department of Justice. If you're going to do it, then do it. You know, you guys could have done it on, literally on day one, you could have come into office and be like, I'm appointing a special counsel on January 6th. They decided not to go. As you said, I'll back it up on the documents case because that was a timeline that actually did take months. They charged relatively quickly, actually, considering all the things that happened. But both on Fulton County and on this, I mean, it's very difficult not to read it as

an actual attempt to influence the election. I mean, what do you think? Why do you think they actually awaited? Because my theory is effectively like I don't maybe they deluded themselves into thinking that Trump would just go away and they wouldn't have to do the uncomfortable thing of charging the former president. My theory is that they didn't know which where they stand stood on the ground of popular opinion on stop the steal. They probably had the opinion that January 6th and all that. They're like, well, maybe the American people don't care as much. Stop the Steal, et cetera. Then the midterms happen and like, oh, actually, they do care a lot.

Why don't we go ahead and hammer this thing home? Not a bad thing in order to remind the American people about what happened on January 6th in the run up to the election. I genuinely believe it is that political in terms of its base instinct. If you were to think about the way that this all happened, too, with the January 6th case, they made the decision, you know, previously not to go ahead with these charges. They turned it over as a matter of course to Jack Smith under the fold of the documents case, not as one of his main mandates.

But Jack Smith then goes ahead and decides to prosecute. So, I mean, I don't know. That's a very difficult one in order to get around. They decided not to prosecute. Then he decides to prosecute. They can't do anything because he's got special prosecutor status. But I mean, again, to the political and the actual electoral aspects of this funny clip here from CNN, where they air what, you know, what the dream of the liberal, like the capital L liberal MSNBC, CNN viewers like, oh, this is obviously going to take him out. But here they air a very countervailing opinion, which I do think has a lot of truth

behind it. Let's take a listen. I know that Democrats look at this race and think, well, we'll, we'll probably do pretty well against Donald Trump, but there's a real reality here of being careful what you wish for. That's exactly what Democrats thought in 2016. They thought there was no way that Donald Trump could beat Hillary Clinton. he did. And we saw what the results were from that. I'd tell Democrats, be really careful of what you wish for on this. You're right. I mean, he's right. It's a, there's a good chance that Donald Trump can win. Yeah, there's a good chance that Donald Trump can win. Remember what Harry Anton said on their own network?

Yeah. So he said, he's like, look, he's doing better in his polls against Biden than he did against Hillary. And he's doing better against polls and Biden than he did against Biden 2020. I mean, things as much as people want him to be gone. There is no evidence at all that this current case or any of that against him has had a major impact. Now, look, he hasn't gone to trial. But at this point, I mean, how many Americans have seen the mugshot? Like how many Americans are very aware that Trump is indicted and or being prosecuted for something? Some people say that they won't vote for him. We'll see.

I mean, it's one of those. But poll after poll after poll after poll shows that he has strength. Now, look, they all could be totally wrong. We could have a same miss that we had in 2022 where we vastly underestimated the revulsion at Stop the Steal. I don't want to rule that out whatsoever. But does he have a chance? Absolutely he has a chance. And they think this is the silver bullet when I think it actually gets us even much closer to a precipice of some sort of disaster in 2024. If you are the nominee of one of the two major parties, you have a chance.

No matter who you are, no matter how many indictments, no matter how guilty you are of how many crimes, you've got a chance. And I don't think anyone should delude themselves about that. Now, I do think that all of the weight of these charges and the prospect of jail time and just the constant reminder of the mess and the chaos that was President Donald Trump, I do think that that weighs on the general electorate. But if you look at the polls right now, it is literally tied. It's literally tied.

And I think Democrats should do a lot of soul searching about how they could possibly, how their guy, who's the incumbent president, could possibly be tied with this guy who, in my opinion, is a criminal, who is thoroughly corrupt. We're about to get to the fact that the American people also think that he is thoroughly corrupt. How are you tied with this dude? And don't tell me it's misinformation or don't tell me it's whatever cope that they love to roll out or Americans just don't realize how good the economy actually is, et cetera. No, you have failed if you are in a jump ball with this dude that Americans were very happy to get rid of and who has a 31% approval rating and who, as we showed you yesterday, about 60% of the country on every one of these charges thinks that he's guilty and you're tied with him.

I mean, that's astonishing. And if you think about it also in terms of all their, you know, they really want to unite this anti-Trump coalition. Their whole message isn't about, hey, we're going to do anything for you. It's just about stopping Trump. Well, if your core commitment really is stopping Trump, you need to look in the mirror about your commitment to propping up Joe Biden, who clearly is an incredibly weak candidate going into 2024. If you really wanted to beat Donald Trump, you would actually have a competitive Democratic primary

so that voters had an opportunity to back a candidate that they aren't afraid is gonna not make it through the next term and leave us with Kamala Harris as president. If you actually wanted to defeat Donald Trump, that's what you would do so that people had an opportunity to participate in democracy and be able to evaluate the candidates and come up with the strongest choice to defeat this guy. But they have no interest in doing that because ultimately they're more concerned with keeping their grip on power within the Democratic establishment than they really are

committed to beating Donald Trump. Yeah. And, you know, for all of the talk of corruption, it's like if you were to go ask a Republican voter, they'd be like, all right, well, Biden's corrupt. And you're like, yeah, I mean, it's kind of true. It's like, well, why come nobody talks about, you know, Hunter Biden or any of that? This isn't whataboutism. I'm just demonstrating that when you don't allow like an actual free discussion of this, particularly in the media or the Democratic primary, you know, to have a Marianne Williamson, an RFK Jr. actually call out Biden or any of this on the stage, have him account for it, then Democratic primary voters and others could say, well, we had a reasonably fair process where these things were aired. But when you push it down

to silence and then you also see the other candidate who's being actively prosecuted, it's like, well, you know, it's very difficult in order to draw this different conclusion. And it comes back to the fact that for a lot of people, and we talked about this, we have a segment dropping over the weekend, I think people will enjoy it, about tribalism and about how negative partisanship is at all time high levels. That's exactly how you get to this situation. You have no ability in order to positively win over. The slice of the electorate that can be positively win over is smaller and smaller. And they feel equal revulsion, it seems, with a lot of these candidates and are much more voting in terms of choosing the lesser

of two evils, which is, you know, I mean, as we said, that's a terrible way in order to run your democracy. One thing, though, that we wanted to flag for people, I've said this before. Let's put this up there, please, on the screen. This is actually a write-up of about a Reuters Ipsos poll, which shows that the majority of Americans, super majority actually, nearly 60% of Americans say they, quote, have at least a fair amount of trust in juries. And why that matters is, this is something I flagged previously when talking about Trump. I mean, look, we're anti-institutionalists here, me in particular, or whatever it comes

to some of whatever it comes to like discussion around Trump. That said, whenever a large segment of this country still has kind of like a normie belief in the justice system, they're like, oh, these institutions, they're not corrupt. They're following the rule of law. He got mugshot, he got arrested. There's gotta be, you know,

where there's smoke, there's fire. I think he said that last time. So if they do have a jury, ostensibly of peers, convict Trump here in Washington, D.C. or others, there could be some trust in that system by more independent voters because they think that there's no way that they would have voted to convict him if there wasn't some sort of fair conclusion. That's my one flag, too, for people is like for some independent minded voters, the fact that he faces these legal troubles and if he is convicted, that could I wouldn't say it's disqualifying entirely, but it could marginally impact the amount of people who vote for him. And in a close election, that could matter a lot when it comes to the polls. So with regards to jurors, most Americans, especially Americans actually who have served on juries before, have faith in, you know, jury of their peers. I think the fact that this is not a bunch of elites, it's ordinary citizens who sign up for this, well, don't sign up, are selected for this civic duty and show up and do their part, like that has kept this an

institution that has a relatively high amount of faith. So about 60% of Americans say they have at least some amount of trust in juries, according to a recent survey. But when you ask specifically about Trump's trials, a majority of Americans, Democrats, Republicans, and independents said they did not think the courts would be able to seat impartial jurors. So when it comes to Trump specifically, and I mean, it sort of makes sense, Sagar, because everyone's feelings about this man are so hardened. Like it would be kind of impossible to get, I don't know, a jury that's like been living under a rock for the past eight years and hasn't formed some sort of an opinion about Donald Trump and whether he's a hero or whether he's a criminal. So I do think it'll be tough for them to go through this jury process and come up with people who really, truly have an open mind in terms of hearing the evidence and deciding where they stand. Obviously, the Trump team has been

trying to make a lot of hay about, you know, D.C., which is a jurisdiction that votes overwhelmingly Democratic. It's actually the most Democratic voting jurisdiction in the entire country. So they've been trying to make a lot of hay about that and to plant the seed in people's minds that you can't possibly get a jury that is going to be fair and impartial in this city. So, you know, that's going to be kind of a continuing ongoing conversation. But just to sum all of this up, to be totally clear about how I feel about this, which I think people know, I think you can hold two thoughts in your mind, which is that the charges are appropriate, which is what I believe.

And I do think that he, you know, committed these crimes. He deserves to have his day in court and present all of his evidence, et cetera. You look at the documents trial, it's pretty hard for me to see what their defense is. You know, I do think the charges on January 6th in Fulton County, et cetera, are, you know, pretty clear and also appropriate. You can believe that and also think that, yeah, there's a lot of politics involved here. And I think the timing of it is the perfect case in point. Why did they wait to this point? What was the calculation that led to all of these things unfolding right in the midst of a campaign season instead of what would have been a real service to the American public if you were going to file charges, do it as soon as possible so people have an opportunity to evaluate all of

this on its own merits before we're in a campaign season. So for my part, that's the way I feel about all this. Yeah, and I think that's very reasonable, I think, for many people to look at it. But unfortunately, I think a lot of this is going to get lost in the partisan muck and on cable news. Let's go over to age, the discussion around age. President Biden would be the oldest man to ever be reelected to the Oval Office. He would be 86 years old should he be reelected on the day that he would actually leave the White House, should he live to serve that long. And the American people are very not only cognizant of it, they're not very happy about the fact that they have such old men who are running for president and the White House was actually confronted With that yesterday. Let's take a listen age, how old he is in the president's history. Does the White House have additional plans to demonstrate that he can continue to do the job at his advanced age and kind of allay some of those

concerns? I mean, look, I appreciate the question. I get it often, as you know. And what I would say, and I've said this many times, and many of my colleagues have said this, the president says this, if you watch him, if you've seen what he's done in the last two years, this is a president has had a historic administration. That is important. And so that's what we will happily, happily to discuss as it relates to age, what the president has been able to do and how he's been able to deliver. Well, all right, you can discuss it. Let's be real. They haven't discussed it at all. And Biden hasn't even sat for an interview except for, I believe, the Weather Channel in the last couple of months. Let's go ahead and start to put this up there. He did one with some wellness podcast.

Oh, I apologize. You're totally right. I don't know if that was in the past month, but that was the other recent one. That's right. His most recent one was also a wellness podcast. No disrespect to my wellness podcasters out there, but there's a reason he didn't come on any political show. So this is the poll that he was referencing. Do you think Joe Biden is too old to effectively serve another four-year term as president? Overall, 77%. Yes. No, 22%. Democrats, even the vast majority of Democrats at 69, and then of course the vast majority of Republicans. In terms of Trump, do you think Donald Trump is too old to be effectively serve another four-year term as president? Overall, 51% yes.

No is 49%. Democrats, 71%. More people think Trump is too old than Biden. That's interesting. For Democrats, 29% say no. Republicans, 28% say yes. And 72% say no. So the significant difference between the two of them really is that even the vast majority of Democrats think Biden is too old to serve as president. Let's go to the next one, please, here. Majorities of both

younger and older Democrats really believe Biden is too old, with 77% of 18 to 44 saying yes. Democrats, 45 plus saying 62% yes. 18 to 29, 76%. So really, it does show you that the millennial voter and or Gen Z voter in the Democratic Party is very fed up with the age of President Biden. And I think what it shows you, let's go to the next one here as well, about the majorities of older and younger, is that even though what we have here, what stuck out to me, was that the adults who are 60 plus, even they also say 71% that Biden is too old to run for president. So up and down the overall age demographics crystal, it is clear that the voters at every level of age, both partisan, independent, Republican, Democrat, with Biden in particular, are very struck by the man's age. And I think that that is one where there is a fundamental difference in the way that they view Trump.

And whether it's fair or not, I think it just comes down to aesthetics and observation. I mean, Trump just doesn't appear to be all that different than how he was whenever he was in the Oval Office or really on the national stage since 2015. But with Biden, I mean, the pronounced decline, we've known this man for 50 years. You know, I've seen,

I literally remember him doing interviews, 2016. I've played many of them here on the show. In terms of his cogent ability to form a sentence, it is night and day the difference of even five, six years ago compared to where we are right now. And then imagine five years from now is whenever he would be leaving the Oval Office. That's how crazy that things are whenever people have to consider this. And that's why it's reflected in the polling data. So this was interesting, too. They asked people the first word that comes to mind when they think of Biden and the first word that comes to mind when they think of Trump. For Biden, 26 percent of all adults, so more than a quarter, cited Biden's age. And an additional 15% mentioned words associated with being slow and confused,

while for Trump, only one in 3% did so. So, you know, I think to your point, Sagar, like people just evaluating the performance and the energy level of these two candidates, they've come to different conclusions about where they are in their aging process. However, this poll did not contain good news for Donald Trump either. For Trump, nearly a quarter mentioned words associated with corruption, crime, lying, or untrustworthiness, while only 8% mentioned those traits for Biden.

So basically, you know, American people think both of these guys are old and corrupt, but for Biden, it's the age that really leads the concerns. And for Trump, it's really the corruption, crime, lying, untrustworthiness that leads the concern. So this is some election that we're headed into, guys. Really inspiring stuff. I think that's very important for people to understand. And that's why, you know, it fits actually with what we're discussing here.

We began our show talking about Trump's trial dates. And that's really what people consider the most about him. And even before that, you know, the vast majority of Americans, they didn't particularly like Trump. Many people who voted for him actually didn't like him at all. Many people had unfavorable views and still decided to vote because of negative, negative partisanship. With Biden, I mean, there was a real hold your nose phenomenon in terms of beating Trump back in 2020. And the question is only, will that hold on to where we are right now in 2024? And the considerations and the concern about his age is only even more today than it was before. And people have to consider that this

isn't a one-term, this is a two-term president that we'll be sending until the very, you know, far into a septuagenarian age that we would be have in the Oval Office in charge of the most powerful, you know, most powerful, have the most power of any man on earth. And I think that difference in the choice, it could marginally make enough of a difference. But then, you know, at the same time, I could make the same case. Trump is so repellent. The attitudes around him all of that haven't changed. People are willing to hold their nose and vote for Biden once. Why wouldn't they do it again? They rewarded the Democrats, you know, for negative participations, mostly in 2022. No reason why they wouldn't do it in 2024.

The only downside to that, though, I think is Kamala Harris, who they know would be the president should Biden die. And that is a major consideration for a lot of voters. Yeah, I think it is. I think that the Democrats do themselves a real disservice by trying to stick with Biden and close out any possibility of even having a debate within the Democratic Party, because you can see even among their base voters, they're really concerned. They really want to have other options. They really want to have a, you know, full democratic process. They have an overwhelming majority worries about Biden's age as well. And so if you really want to beat Trump, like if that is actually your goal, if you really believe your rhetoric about the fascists being at the door, then you would do everything you could to try to identify the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump. But they are not interested in doing that. They've decided that, you know, they're just going to lock everything down and keep any, pretend there isn't even a

democratic process playing out, pretend that Biden has no competitors whatsoever and just cross their fingers and hope that, you know, the trials and the crimes and the chaos and stop the steal and abortion and all of these things are enough to get them over the finish line again. And listen, like you said, Sagar, you know, if I had to bet, I would say they're probably right. I think they probably is. You know, it's hard to beat an incumbent president, even one with as many concerns as Joe Biden has. The fact that all of these trial dates are going to focus Americans back on stop the steal and all of these things that they really hated

about Donald Trump, I think probably doesn't help out Donald Trump, even though you just never know how these things are going to play out. But listen, they're playing with fire. That's all I'm going to say. Yeah, I think you're absolutely correct. And to the Kamala Harris point that I was making,

she is so weak and insecure. She is now freaking out about the Gavin Newsom, Ron DeSantis debate. Let's put this up there on the screen. It really is just absolutely hilarious. Kamala Harris allies are, quote, privately grumbling that Gavin Newsom's plan to debate Ron DeSantis is, quote, disrespectful to the VP as they see the move as early jockeying for 2028. I mean, they're not wrong in that. Is it disrespectful? Well, I mean, maybe it's realistic. Even a guy as unpopular as Gavin Newsom is probably more popular and electable as Kamala Harris, the least popular vice president in all of modern American history. And the funny thing is, is that this debate, you know, of which

has yet to been, has been agreed to by both sides, but has not yet officially materialized, which we're about to get into, is quite obviously Newsom trying to plant his flag as a possible Biden alternative should something happen to Biden. It is a shot at Kamala Harris, but it's not disrespectful, Crystal. He's shooting a shot. Like, he got DeSantis to agree to the debate. I actually think it's a brilliant move for both of them because it's a decent amount of earned media. But it's an implicit acknowledgement, really, by the Harris camp that Newsom is actually

far more formidable as a candidate, at least in that lane, than Kamala Harris is. I mean, his overall favorability and all of that, I'm not gonna say it's high, especially amongst Republicans. I don't think he has a particularly good record exactly he can run on. But again, when we're comparing the two, it's obvious that he's strong enough. And it shows you a little bit of a preview of 2028

of what they wanna do, which is use identity politics to anoint her as the queen to be able to take the nomination in 2028 and keep and bar out every single other person. And if you do challenge her in any way, then you're disrespecting the first black female vice president. You know, Newsom had an interview, you know, contentious interview debate, I guess you could say, with Sean Hannity that actually went really well for him, even with, you know, the Fox News audience. Like he gained a lot of respect, I think, because of his ability to handle that exchange in a relatively effective way. And so that was the genesis of this idea of him debating DeSantis and having Sean Hannity

moderate that. And so, you know, I would just say, like, actually, it is kind of disrespectful to Kamala Harris, but you don't garner respect by just like being like, you must respect me. You have to earn it. And so, yeah, Gavin Newsom and about a thousand other ambitious Democrats see you as weak and they are all positioning and circling like vultures waiting for their chance in probably 2028 to be able to jump in the fray and be the next in line. There was a different universe in which she was a much stronger, much more compelling figure with a lot more admiration and higher favorability ratings among the American public, where 2028, if Biden were to get reelected, would be a foregone conclusion that she would basically be

the next in line and be the nominee. That should have sailed. It is not going to be that way. And they can try all of the identity politics that they want to. There are going to be a lot of candidates who jump into that race. There are going to be governors. There are going to be senators. There's going to be Pete Buttigieg, all kinds of cast of characters who are not going to be put off whatsoever by this currently very weak vice presidential candidate. So yeah, in a sense, it is kind of disrespectful, but guess what? That's because you haven't exhibited the kind of strength that would dissuade people from trying to edge you out and take that place. So listen, that's politics, right? That's life. And, you know, there's some also a little bit

of grumbling, even from Biden advisors who feel the debate could boost DeSantis. And they're now they now are like, you know, they still, I guess, think that Trump will be a weaker candidate than DeSantis. They don't want to boost DeSantis, which is kind of interesting to me because I don't know. I'm not sure that DeSantis really would be a stronger candidate than Trump. Who knows? Yeah. Hard to say. But anyway, they're also worried that it could give the impression that there is a contested primary going on. Trust me, I think that they've done their best to close that door and make it clear to all Democratic voters that you have no choice. You must stick with Joe Biden. So they're worried about that as well. But I don't know. The hand wringing over it is kind of interesting and revealing to me. The other

question is whether this debate is even going to happen because there's been some roadblocks in terms of in coming to terms over what the rules of this debate would be. You can put this up on the screen from Politico. Apparently, the big questions here are about who would be in the audience. They want at Fox, and I think DeSantis wants like a live studio audience, and they propose that it be split evenly between the two candidates. But Newsom, I think, understandably fears that that would be overwhelmingly tilted toward the Republican side because it's Fox News. And so he doesn't want to have the live audience. He wants it just to be him and DeSantis and Sean Hannity. So they're still sort of negotiating some of those details. Who knows if this even is gonna come together.

But it'd be fun content. I wanna watch it, right? I think it's good. I think more people should do this. I mean, you have two competing visions here of people who are like B-tier politicians in terms of who dominates the national stage. But you've got two of the most populous states

in the entire country. Newsom affirmatively has a vision for California. I disagree with that vision. Ron DeSantis has an affirmative vision for Florida. Both want the rest of the country to look more like their states. They have very dynamic economies. I mean, why not? It's a good thing. It's one of those where actually we would all be better served for. They can argue about crime. They can argue about whatever, books and libraries and trans and all that. And you know what? In many respects, it's even more consequential because they have actual governing power and influence over their state legislatures that actually impact

the millions of people who live in those states. So I think it's a great idea. I really do. And I hope it goes forward. I almost am on the Newsom side where take out the live debate just because I want more of the debate than submitting the cheering. It'd be better. And the audience, I mean, their stance is like we don't want to have this like cheerleading section. I agree with that. Like it'd be better if you just have the questions, the viewing audience can judge for themselves rather than try to pump up one side or the other with whoever happens to be in the room. So I do think it would be better that way. But anyway, I hope they can come to terms because it'd be interesting to watch.

Because like you said, they both have implemented very different agendas in their states. They have very different records that they can contrast. And I think they would both ably handle themselves in terms of articulating their own vision. And it would be interesting to watch. All right, let's go to the next one. This is a really interesting story. I know a lot of you guys were interested in the Michael Burry short where he placed, put options that have a nominal value of some 1.6 billion. He did not bet exactly 1.6 billion or whatever against the market, but should there be a crash and a recession, he actually would profit very handsomely. So the question is, is he the Cassandra? He's often saying things are going to crash, and sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. But Warren Buffett, it seems,

the investor, also appears to be preparing, or possibly, for some sort of downturn. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is some new analysis from the economist Steve Hanke. And what he points out is that the Berkshire Hathaway CEO has sold some $8 billion worth of stocks and slowed pace of buybacks just last quarter, with sparking a, quote, 13% rise in a money pile with a near record $147 billion in cash. Quote, the sprawling conglomerate has now disposed of a net $33 billion over the last three quarters, fueling a stash of cash, cash equivalents, and treasury bills. These are consistent with the anticipation of a recession and the fact that stocks are currently pricey. Quote, it is also consistent with his long-term track record of piling up cash in anticipation of storm clouds ahead

with the capacity to pounce on bargains once the storm hits. So I think that you put those together, and it's pretty clear here that both in terms of the overall price of assets and in terms of Buffett's long track record, which we have decades now, in order to observe, he's got a very consistent playbook. And in that playbook, he anticipates some sort of crash that could come. The other important thing to remember too, with not Burry, but really with Buffett, is that people track and think about things

that he thinks so much, that sometimes his expectations can actually become reality. He's such a power player that for, if other fund managers are like, oh, Warren Buffett's pulling back, they're like, oh, well, then we got to pull back. And that actually could cause a contraction in itself, even if that wasn't going to happen in the first place.

Regardless, the overall net effect would be the same in terms of his ability in order to profit. So some crash happened in the future. Same in terms of Michael Burry should his options go ahead and pull off. And it's one of those where in our economy, nobody knows what the hell is going on. Interest rates are sky high, 7%, 8% or whatever, whenever it comes to a mortgage, 7% whenever it comes to a car loan. But at the same time, inflation remains very steady. The new price of a car still remains above $50,000. We've got record high gas prices. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Gas prices are

actually highest that they've ever been in 2023. Some of that is due to the hurricane. A lot of it is also due to global instability. Hurricanes aren't going anywhere. Also, we had the oil production cuts by both Saudi Arabia and Russia, which continue to keep prices high. All of this shows that you've got sticky inflation. The Fed, it seems to be done-ish in terms of

raising their interest rates. The unemployment rate is very odd. It's both low, but also wages are not necessarily keeping up with inflation. The overall phenomenon of bargaining power, some of it remains, but it's not even close to what it was in 2021. So if you look at these two investors, both of whom have at least one in particular has a very good track record, you very much could see the scenario where what they're saying is very counter to what the Biden folks and what some of the other mainstream economists claim is going to happen, which is like, oh, we're going to get the soft landing and everything's going to be fine. Yeah, so there were, you know, several months ago, there were a lot of mainstream economists that were sounding the alarm, expecting a recession, etc. Once inflation started to cool, right, there's still persistent inflation, but it is lower than what it was. And the Fed basically stopped hiking interest rates.

Additionally, they thought, all right, maybe we did pull off this soft landing. The reason potentially why some of these major investors are having second thoughts about that analysis is there's a number of factors here. All of them we've been talking about here on this show, but just to go through them. You've got an AI boom that could really be a bubble, right? That's one piece. You've got commercial real estate that is in a world of trouble and could have major follow-on effects for ordinary people and for banks, especially mid-sized and small banks as well. And we've already had seen the shakiness of some of these banks' balance sheets when we had the Silicon

Valley bank collapse. So that's another piece. We just had there up on the screen, student loan debt repayments are set to start. It's actually, there have been a lot of attempts from the Biden administration, which I appreciate, to try to, you try to make this less painful, to try to have income-based repayment plans to allow for forbearance, etc. But that has made this all incredibly complicated. This one woman who is trying to get through to her student loan, like the person who actually owns her loan now because like some 40 percent or whatever of these loans have been sold off during the interim period since they last had to make payments. And the person she got through to at her student loan servicer told her to call back in January when maybe call volume would be lower. So that tells you how things are going over there on the student loan debt repayment front. But, I mean, this is a massive blow to a lot of Americans who have not had to make payments for quite a while and are going to have to restart in October. I mean, this is just around the corner. So that's another hit to the economy.

So you've got AI potential bubble. You've got massive commercial real estate issues. I think everybody agrees with that. You've got student loan debt payments set to restart. You have consumers piling up massive amounts of debt. We saw credit card debt reaching over a trillion dollars. So people becoming increasingly overextended. And then the other piece, Sagar, is as we've always discussed with the Fed, there is a lag between the actions they take and when those actions really hit the economy. A lot of this, you know, they project a lot of confidence and like they pretend like they

know exactly how this is all going to work and how it's all going to impact the economy. They don't know. They're guessing. And so there is speculation that potentially the full force of those interest rate hikes hasn't even hit the economy yet, and that there could be a lot more damaging impacts to come down the road once those interest rates really show up in terms of their impact on the economy. So those are some of the factors that exist that would weigh on the negative side of things could end up getting a lot worse than what a lot of mainstream economists are kind of anticipating or predicting at this point. Yeah, exactly. And, you know,

it's one of those where we just have no idea where things are going to end up. But it's one of those where we should be prepared for any of those bad scenarios and to fit with all the politics that we have been discussing for the top portion of our show. A recession would dramatically change the electoral calculus. It'd be one of those where then, I mean, how out of touch would you seem when you're obsessing over Fulton County, January 6th trials, whenever there's an actual straight up recession? How would you feel about the fact that you labeled the economy Bidenomics? I mean, if people are in a recession, how are they going to feel? I mean, I think they already don't feel great about it. If you're in a full blown recession,

how are they going to feel about Bidenomics? If we have a full-blown downturn, I mean, it would dramatically change everything. And don't forget, you know, things can change completely on a dime. President George H.W. Bush had a 91% approval rating around this time in his presidency. And then he got completely beaten in the election by Bill Clinton, largely because of an economic downturn that came in 92, of which Clinton was able to capitalize on, even back in the, even Jimmy Carter, actually. But most of the country had turned against him. But the worst of the actual recession, depression, and all that, the high interest rate phenomenon, mostly came in the latter year

of his presidency and just completely changed the way that he was able to campaign. So don't forget that the last year, specifically economics in the middle of what is going on in election is so, so important to what actually ends up happening in said election. Let's go to the next part here. And this is also actually very interesting around Americans and where and how they are able to pay for their homes and including their home insurance, something that we've been tracking quite a bit. Quote unquote from the Wall Street Journal, Americans are bailing on their home insurance. Some homeowners who are skipping

coverage say that they can no longer afford the rising premiums. And the reason why is that many of them live in disaster areas where home insurance companies are either bailing out or increasing their premiums dramatically. So for example, the national average for home insurance based on a $250,000 in dwelling coverage increased this year 20% to $1,428 annually. Others, especially people who are wealthy, they are saying at this point, paying the premium is so ridiculous because they have enough money stored away that they could probably just rebuild if they needed to. Others, though, who don't have that capacity are stuck in a situation where they are totally uninsured. They point to one man, for example, who he estimates

he has saved some $50,000 for not paying on his 1,100 square foot Los Angeles home. But should anything happen, he would very easily be liable for it. In some of these areas like Florida and some wildfire prone areas, for example, in California, many home insurance companies have pulled out, leaving them with no option. And then if they are totally wiped out and destroyed, they are facing a serious issue. This is specifically a problem for seniors. We covered previously about how 50, this is insane to me, 50% of seniors don't have $1 saved for retirement, $1.

So they are a blown tire away from bankruptcy. Without Social Security, these people are going to be starving in the street. And then also because Social Security have a cost of living increase, some of them have basically been deciding just not pay their home insurance premium or don't even have home insurance. If they have some sort of disaster, they have nothing beneath their feet and they're going to lose everything that they got and no sort of coverage. So home insurance is one of those where it's probably secondary to car insurance in terms of the one that matters the most and one where a single accident can change your entire life completely overnight. You know, like the wealthy

people in here who are trying to game the system, they're going to be fine regardless. But if you were one of those people without a dollar in retirement and you're a senior and you're not able to afford home insurance, it's one of those where it's very clear, like we've got to get our act together and some sort of program put into place very, very, very soon as more of these things are going to happen. Or we're going to see like we are one event away from like mass poverty in the state of Florida or in the state of California. And we have a hurricane headed that way. But what potentially major, you know, possibly category three hurricane headed that way, which we'll get to in a moment. But just to give you some more of the numbers of how many people are, quote unquote,

bailing on homeowners insurance, 12% of homeowners in the US now don't purchase homeowners insurance. Most of them, a majority, have annual household incomes of less than $40,000. So we're not talking about the wealthy saying, I got millions in the bank, no big deal. If a hurricane wipes out my house, I'll be fine. This is people who just literally can't afford it. And when you look at those numbers, Sagar, that you cited of on a national average, homeowners insurance went up 20 percent in one year. That's a national average. Just think of what's happening in states like Florida. Think of what's happening in states like California, in states like Colorado, in states like Louisiana, in states like Texas. These are places that have been really hard hit

and the expectation is will continue to be hard hit where homeowners insurance companies are increasingly pulling out. Now, many of these states have a state run option, sort of like a homeowners insurer of last resort. But oftentimes, because if you're left with no other option, you're probably in a higher risk category. Those premiums are very high. So not only is this an issue if you face a horrific catastrophe and your home is wiped out, this is also a major issue in terms of people being able to afford a house because mortgage issuers are have to factor in not only the cost of the house but also are you going to be able to afford the cost of the homeowners insurance so this is also

pushing a lot of people out in terms of affordability you know there was another article that is incredibly relevant to this, just about how much the cost of these increasingly catastrophic events, how much that cost has escalated. We can put this up on the screen. The headline here, this is also from the Wall Street Journal. Are we ready for a $100 billion catastrophe? How about $200 billion insurance companies are struggling to keep up with economic growth, population shifts, inflation trends, and the most unpredictable variable of all, the rising prevalence of natural disasters, big and small. The cost to recover from these natural disasters has wildly escalated. And so, I mean, the bottom line that you take away from this article and many others that we've looked at, Sagar, is the

homeowners insurance market in increasing number of states is just completely broken because of where people have built, you know, population centers, because of the increasing frequency, you know, because of climate change of these extreme disasters and because of, you know, inflation and the cost to build and the cost of housing, et cetera. There is just, you know, for many of these insurers in a lot of regions of the country, it just doesn't make economic sense. And so we've got a market that is completely broken right now with disastrous results already for a lot of people. Yeah. And we can fix it now or we can fix it later, because if we all know what's going to happen, there's going to be the $100 or the $200 billion

catastrophe, like a hurricane. Hurricane Sandy was a disaster, we all remember. I think it caused somewhere near $100 billion in damage. And guess what? What's going to happen? The home insurance companies are going to come and ask for a taxpayer-funded bailout. We already know. They already did that in Florida, by the way. And DeSantis gave it to them.

Well, and that's state bailout. I mean, we're talking about hundreds. That's more than we've given to Ukraine, okay? Like, this is going to cost some serious coin if we don't actually deal with some of this now and actually implement regulation or whatever, some sort of program in order to try and head it off. Or we're going to end up in the privatized world, which is going to require a massive bailout. And then people are absolutely going to get screwed sometime in the interim. So that's why we spend a lot of time on this, especially with, as you said, we've got the hurricane, which is coming down right now.

Let's go ahead and put that up there on the screen. Hurricane Idalia, I believe that we were saying that correctly, category three with 115 mile winds prior to Florida landfall. So look, we don't know yet where exactly it's going to strike damage, et cetera. But this just, the beginning of hurricane season, I guess in some respects has already been going on now for quite some time. People in that area stay safe and all that. And also just be prepared for these scenarios and all that are only going to become even more prevalent. Yeah. And I just looked it up to give people a sense. So first of all, 100 percent on Idalia and we'll be keeping an eye on it. This could make landfall as a category three. This is incredibly seriousfall as a Category 3.

This is incredibly serious. Governor DeSantis has already said this is going to be a major storm. There are mandatory evacuations in place for some of these areas. Tampa looks like it could be hit, so we'll keep an eye on that. In terms of historic costs of some of these catastrophes. The most financially expensive natural catastrophe in U.S. history was actually Hurricane Katrina back in 2005, estimated $186 billion in damage. But the second most is one that might surprise people. It's Hurricane Harvey, which was just in 2017, which inflicted $148 billion in damage. And Hurricane Harvey is part of what sent, you know, portions of the homeowners insurance market into a spiral and effectively like broke the homeowners insurance market

and made some of this so wildly expensive. So anyway, I know this is a real pain point for a lot of people. So it's something we're going to continue to follow. Yep, that's right. All right, let's get back to some domestic politics here. There was an interesting back and forth between Senator Bernie Sanders and one of his former supporters, Dr. Cornel West, who is now running as a third party candidate for president, Bernie has already jumped in to endorse Joe Biden. This in spite of the fact that, you know, he continues to, he just gave a big speech in New Hampshire, calling out the corporate Democrats and, you know, urging them to do more. But even

in that same speech saying, oh, but we got to back Biden, we got to unify behind Biden, etc. He got asked on CNN specifically about Dr. West's challenge of the current president, Joe Biden. Let's take a listen to how he responded. Senator Sanders, Cornel West, who is a close ally of yours, he is running a third party campaign for president. He recently criticized you for endorsing President Biden's reelection. Listen to what he said. I love the brother. And, you know, even in love, people have deep disagreements about these things.

But I think, again, he's fearful of the neo-fascism of Trump. People look at Biden, they don't really want to tell the full truth. He's created the best economy that we can get. Is this the best that we can get? You're going to tell that lie to the people just for Biden to win? What's your reaction to that? Well, my reaction is that certainly it's not the best economy that we can create. That was my speech was about yesterday.

We've got to join the rest of the industrialized world, guarantee health care at all. We've got to cut the cost of prescription drugs in half. We've got to raise the minimum wage to at least 17 bucks. And now we've got to build the affordable housing we desperately need. good friend, Cornel West, is I think in these really very difficult times where there is a real question whether democracy is going to remain in the United States of America. You know, Donald Trump is not somebody who believes in democracy, whether women are going to be able to continue to control their own bodies, Whether we have social justice in America, we end bigotry.

Around that, I think we have got to bring the entire progressive community to defeat Trump or whoever the Republican nominee will be, support Biden, but at the same time, which is what I did yesterday, is demand that the Democratic Party, not just Biden, have the guts to take on corporate greed and the massive levels of income and wealth inequality that we see today.

Sagar, what do you make of that exchange? Well, that's about as good of an articulation of vote blue, no matter who I've ever heard. I think it's a bit odd because Bernie, nobody asked him or AOC or any of these other people to step in so early and affirmatively endorse Biden. He'd never did any of that back in 2020. And now he's been effectively, you know, he's been downgraded to some sort of campaign surrogate, openly attacking Cornel West and undermining many of the theories of which he himself ran on for a long time. So, I mean, I can't think of anything as like, I mean, it's

really an outright betrayal of like so much of his life's work and a lot of the people who followed his movement. I mean, not only in order to endorse Biden and not acknowledge any of the third party candidates, or sorry, any of the candidate challengers who are running against him, but then to openly dismiss and discourage the idea of third parties, which is directly Cornel West explicitly trying to run against Joe Biden and to force change and to try and get some of his ideas injected into the party of which, and even candidates of which he, you know, long was a defender of, that is literally the definition of democracy. So Bernie's saying that he's endorsing Biden or whatever because of democracy, but also kind of openly trashing the idea of democracy itself by running against Biden. It doesn't make any sense.

So there's two pieces of this. One part I actually agree with and one part I really disagree with, and I think profoundly goes against everything that he previously stood for and argued for. So the part that I'll start with the part I agree on. I think he's basically correct about third parties. I think the only thing that Cornel West, Dr. West, who I love, admire, respect, whose politics I almost wholly and completely share, I think effectively the only thing that his campaign will accomplish is number one, helping to reelect Donald Trump, and number two, hurting the left. Because ultimately, there's just a poll that came out that showed Biden and Trump basically tied in a head to head. You throw Cornel West in and Trump is winning by like five points.

And the margin is just exactly the amount that Dr. West takes away from Joe Biden. Now, listen, it's fully on Joe Biden that he needs to do more to appeal to potential Cornel West voters. But let's live in the land of reality of how this is going to work out. They're not going to do that. Dr. West will take some percentage, relatively small percentage, away from the Democratic total, and it makes it easier for Donald Trump to get elected. So if your priority is reelecting a Democrat, and if you believe, as I do, that Donald Trump and Joe Biden are not equivalent, that Joe Biden has been better in particular on economics, but also with things like the withdrawal from Afghanistan, then yeah, I think a third party effort makes it more likely that Donald Trump gets reelected. And the reason why I say I think it will ultimately also hurt

the left wing and left principles, if that's what you care about, is we have the model of 2016. Look, the theory in 2016 with Jill Stein was if we withhold our votes from the Democrats and that's going to force them to the table, we're going to have a voice in the room, they're going to have to come to our side. No, that's not what they did. Instead, they demonized anyone who would have even considered Jill Stein. They used it to demonize the left. They used it to undercut any sort of leftward push. And so while I would love to imagine that that theory of the case would work out, we've seen the reality and that is not what happens. Now, the place where I profoundly disagree with Bernie Sanders is on his orientation towards the Democratic primary.

And there's another section of this where he gets asked specifically about the Democratic primary. And he says, no, I think we need to unify behind Joe Biden because that will be what helps to defeat Donald Trump. Well, that's exactly the argument that was used against Bernie Sanders himself. Yes. Both in 2016 and again in 2020. Stop criticizing the Democrats. Stop criticizing the Democratic establishment. Stop running altogether because you're sowing dissent and your, you know, attempts at democracy here are really undermining our attempt to defeat Donald Trump. It was bullshit then and it's bullshit now. And the fact that he jumped in to endorse Joe Biden, a man that he knows is not living up to the, you know, Democratic, social Democratic

ideals that Bernie Sanders supports, is not living up to the bare minimum of really helping the working class or even meeting the promises that he himself made on the campaign trail. Something that I know that Bernie Sanders is aware of because he just gave this big speech in New Hampshire with this direct critique of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. But still, you jump and endorse him while there's a competitive primary going on? Listen, I understand, I'm not a fool, the realities of DC, okay?

For him to endorse the candidate, Marianne Williamson, who most closely matches his own ideology, I get the way that that would make it impossible for him to, you know, have any sort of influence with the White House, et cetera, et cetera. But you didn't have to do anything.

You know, you could have just stayed out. And if you really believe your rhetoric about what needs to be done to defeat Donald Trump, then actually you would endorse and fight for Marianne Williamson because she is the person who is carrying the mantle of his political project. Let me put this next piece up on the screen. I've referred to this New Hampshire speech a couple of times. So he, Bernie Sanders, traveled to, yeah, this is the third element. Bernie Sanders traveled to New Hampshire and he says, I gave a major speech about why Democrats must ignore the corporate wing of the party and instead put forward a concrete agenda that speaks to the needs of struggling working Americans. And in the very same speech where he's saying we got to reject

the corporate Democrats and we've got to do better and we got to lay on this working class vision, et cetera, et cetera. He's also repeatedly saying we got to back Joe Biden. I back Joe Biden. I back Joe Biden. I back Joe Biden. These two things make no sense together. It's just wildly inconsistent. It's nonsensical. And it does go against everything he used to say about the importance of democracy and the importance of backing candidates who are going to support an actual, genuine, material, working class agenda. So that's the piece that makes no sense to me and that I really object to. Well, you should. I mean, this is the man who said he was going to challenge Obama or at least thought about challenging Obama for the

primary in 2012. He used to really believe in shaking up the system. And so, yeah, I mean, this is the man who said he was going to challenge Obama, or at least thought about challenging Obama for the primary in 2012. He used to really believe in shaking up the system. And so, yeah, I mean, it's one of those where I just don't really understand his orientation around all of this. And as you said, too, you know, you can separate two different things, like a third-party bid and then also an active primary challenge, of which he has refused to get involved in. Or at the very least, he could stay silent. He could ask Biden. He could be like, well, if you want me to endorse you, I'm going to need X, Y, and Z. But he has actually not done literally any of that. So that's, that I think is his biggest problem that he has going on. You know,

and that's the thing too, look, with Cornel West, like nobody can get into his mind or into his head about exactly what he's doing, what he's trying and, and what he wants to do. I mean, and the other thing is you could take it out of his word and he just believes that it's not going to work. And I, I think, you know, we have to come back to this. Like you can't quash his ability to run. Like you can't declare war against you at the end of the day, like you have to work within the system. The green party has ballot access. And in that, like you got to fight for the votes and actually get them. And there's, you know, there's a way in order to get that done. And if, you know, Bernie believes so passion votes and actually get them. And there's a way in order to get that done.

And if Bernie believes so passionately, then he would have to make a much better case to many of the people who would and are considering Cornel West for president in order to say, here's why, if you share our politics, like going back in the day, you would have to go and do this. And that's why we can actually have a vision of change in order to affect and get things done on this side. But he's not doing that, you know, in any of these pitches or in the New Hampshire speech. Yeah. And listen, guys, just to be clear about third parties, like I would love to, you know, live in a world where Cornel West running as a third party candidate had a real shot at the White House. But simply because of the structure of our political system as it exists today, it's not going to happen. And so, you know, that's the reality that I'm sort of grappling with here. And we have an example from 2016 of how this all works out. Now, I think the narrative about, oh, Jill Stein cost the

Democrats the election. I think that's total bullshit. Like the numbers just literally don't add up. That's not what happened. Hillary Clinton was a disastrous candidate. It's 100 percent on her. So let me be really clear about that. But let's also be clear about the fact that they definitely blame Jill Stein and they definitely blamed her supporters. And it did not have the impact that people wanted it to have of then forcing the Democratic Party to come to the table and actually appeal to these voters. That is not their response. That's never going to be their response. So let's not pretend that it really is. So that's the third party piece. But listen, on the Democratic primary piece, I just think it's, I do find it sad. I still really, you know, really respect and admire Bernie Sanders. I think he's

done a lot for this country. He still is one of the most beloved figures in the entire country because of his willingness to speak the truth on a number of issues about the media class, the political class, and the way that working class people have been screwed. But on this particular, like how he's jumped in to endorse Joe Biden, it goes against everything that he said in 2016, everything he said in 2020, everything he said about his theory of political change. And it makes no sense. Yeah, exactly. That's really what galls me. I'm like, it's changed. This is the difference in everything your entire life. And it's like, and this is your last act. You got into the argument they were making against you.

He's almost 90 years old. He's like 80, what is he, 86? It's like, this is it for you, dude. This is what people are going to remember you for. So listen, he gets to choose the course of his own life. Some news that we just couldn't ignore on Vivek Ramaswamy, too good and too fun for our media block here, about Eminem and Vive's Ramaswamy's previous personality known as Davek, the rapper who would frequently rap Lose Yourself by Eminem while he was in college and also showed it to all of us at the Iowa State Fair. Eminem, it seems, has taken notice. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.

Eminem has sent Vivek a cease and desist letter demanding that he stop rapping his music on the campaign trail. The Daily Mail can say after exclusively obtaining a letter from a representative for the music licensor BMI, which represents Eminem. They say, quote, in the letter, which was dated on August 23rd, BMI told the campaign's lawyer they had received communications from Mr. Marshall B. Mathers III, professionally known as Eminem, objecting to the Ramaswamy campaign's use of his musical compositions, the Eminem works, and requesting that they remove all Eminem works from the agreement. BMI will consider any performance of Eminem works by the Vivek 2024 campaign from this date forward to be a material breach of the agreement for which BMI reserves all rights and remedies with respect thereto. Ramaswamy,

having performed Eminem's Lose Yourself 11 days before that the actual letter was sent. We have some, we can put this, a little bit of a video that we have. We can't play the music for you for copyright reasons. Eminem would come after us as well. Well, his lawyers would come after us and get all of our ad revenue from this video. The funny thing is, is Vivek responded and took it in stride. Let's put this up there. He says, quote, will the real Slim Shady please stand up? He didn't just say what I think he did. Did he at Eminem with a laughing face. So, you know, I actually do have a question here around these cease and desist letters and their legal standing. I mean, are you allowed to tell, you know, this happens like every time.

It does. Is you have some candidate who somebody doesn't like and they're like, hey, you need to stop using my music. But then the candidates never do seem to do anything about it. And I mean, one of the things I was looking at here is, like, this is now a constitutional agreement. And it's like, well, hold on a second. Like, he didn't agree to anything. And whenever it comes to copyright, if you're not using it to make money, you know, I mean, I just assume that there's, like, a whole different legal conversation around this. I'm assuming he just did it for public purposes because he's like, I don't want my music associated with this guy's brand.

Yeah. Yeah. But I'm like, is this actually enforceable? I don't think so. I have no idea what the legality or around any of this is, if there's actually something enforceable here. But listen, if I was an artist and some politician that I hated was using my music, I would feel the same way. Right. And I would definitely be like, don't use my art on behalf of whatever political project that I wildly disagree with. But to your point about how this happens all the time, I pulled up, there's actually a Wikipedia

that lists all of the musicians who have at some point opposed Donald Trump's use of their music. And I'll just read you a sampling. You've got Adele, Aerosmith, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Eddie Grant. He's the Electric Avenue guy, Elton John, Everlast, Guns N' Roses, Isaac Hayes, Leonard Cohen, Linkin Park, Luciano Pavarotti, Neil Young. When did he use Luciano Pavarotti? I honestly, I'm going to confess, I don't even know who that is. Oh, you don't? He's an Italian opera singer.

Oh, okay, okay. So anyway. You know, he does have a weird penchant for strange. I mean, you know, he's got the, his walkout song is the whole, like, you can't always get you what you want. But he sung in, like, the highest whatever the note that is for singing. And then, yeah, I mean, he'll use what, he's got Elton John before. Yeah. I know Born in the USA was the one that Springsteen went after him for.

I have nothing against Elton John. Okay, so it says here he used his recording of Nessun Dorma. Okay. At Trump rallies, which ends with the chant, I will win. They objected. Neil Young, Nickelback, Panic at the Disco, Kiko Vega, Pharrell Williams, Phil Collins, Prince, Queen, Aria, Mariana, The Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Village People, The White Stripes. So welcome to the club, Vivek, I guess. Yeah, exactly. I think the only artists that you're allowed to use as a Republican are like some country musicians and then Kid Rock.

I actually thought Romney had a great song. It was 2012. I think it was Born Free by Kid Rock. I actually always liked that song. I thought it was a good one. And Kid Rock actually campaigned for Romney. Hillary Clinton had the most cringe campaign songs of all time. She certainly did.

Bite songs. So good. I'll never forget it. When I hear that song, every time I want to die. Yeah, when I hear it, I think about all the women crying in the Javits Center. I was there. I was there to witness it.

It was a sad, sad scene. The other one I think about is Pete High Hope's Panic at the Disco. The most classic. The Pete Buttigieg dance. So good. Oh, of course. Panic at the Disco. The most classic. Had a whole dance. Yes. The Pete Buttigieg dance. Yes. Can't get over it. Indeed. So good. Anyway, that's your fun news for the day. We want to end actually on a segment that just happened with Sean Hannity and Vivek

Ramaswamy on a more serious note, because there's a lot going on here in terms of what Vivek has said so far, which has pissed off Republican elites the most. And it appears to be his declaration that we will treat Israel like every other country by normalizing foreign aid to them. Hannity in particular incensed by this idea. Let's take a lesson. You know, you said aid to Israel, our number one ally, only democracy in the region should

end in 2028, uh, and that they should be integrated with their neighbors. I was exact quote. That's actually. Yeah, I can tell you the exact quote. What I said is it would be a mark of success if we ever got to a point in our relationship with Israel, if Israel never needed the United States as aid. And Sean, you know how politics is played. A lot of the other professional politicians who have been threatened by my rise have used that statement to say that I would cut off aid to Israel. That's not correct. I've been crystal clear. But do you understand the importance

of the strategic alliance, the intelligence sharing in an area of the world where we have a lot of enemies, which is, by the way, boggles my mind that we look for the lifeblood of our economy and the world's economy from that very same region of the world. We have more natural resources here, which you agree. But you do understand how important that is and how important the intelligence factor is and how important it is with Iran, especially seeking nukes. I understand it, I think, more deeply than probably anybody in this race. I've traveled to Israel. I have business partners in Israel. The reality is this. By the end of my first term, our relationship with Israel will be stronger than it ever has been because I will treat it as a true friendship, not just a transactional relationship.

Why did you say that Israel should not have preferential treatment from us? That's a direct quote. Sean, I understand. No, those are direct quotes from headlines summarized by opposition research fed to the fake news media. The reality is, here's what I'm saying. Abraham Accords 2.0 is my top priority. Abraham Accords 2.0 is my top priority, which is to get Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar into that pact with Israel. And foremost, to have a partnership with Israel that does something really important for the U.S., which is to make sure that Iran never, ever, ever has nuclear capabilities. That's important to the United States. And the other thing I've said, Sean, is that Israel is our friend. Good friends learn from each other. I would love Israel's border policies in this country. I would love Israel's tough on crime policies and strong

national identity in this country. Well, I don't know. What did you make of that? I just think the level of hatred that he appears to garner for just saying we will treat Israel like a normal, like any other country with our foreign aid. And that it's our foreign aid. I don't know why it's not desirable to have to not give Israel foreign aid anymore, or any other country, really, for that matter. It's a very developed tech-based economy. They're making a hell of a lot of money. The last time I checked, we'll go over there, in many respects, their own military capabilities, they laugh at us because they think we're far behind the times. Listen, you know, we'll go over there. In many respects, their own military capabilities, they laugh at us because they think we're far behind the times.

I mean, listen, you take anybody's money if they're going to give it to you. But this has particular, has like struck the third rail for Nikki Haley and for Sean Hannity seemingly here. And it like blows their mind, the idea that we would treat them the same way that we treat everybody. And it's just funny because even if you look we would treat them the same way that we treat everybody. And it's just funny because even if you look and go back at what he said previously, he was like, yeah, I guess we should just normalize it the way that we have our relations with Egypt. You're like, what? Like, why is this so objectionable to so many of these GOP elites?

So let me read you exactly one of the quotes on Israel that they're referring to there, what he originally said is, if we're successful, the true mark of success for the U.S. and for Israel will be to get to a 2028 where Israel is so strongly standing on its own two feet, integrated is the economic and security infrastructure of the rest of the Middle East that it will not require and be dependent on that same level of historical aid or commitment from the U.S. So that's what he said. I think there's a lot that's interesting about this exchange. I don't see anything wrong with that. Number one, what's interesting about this exchange is of all the things that the VEIC has said that you could object to,

like invading Mexico, like disenfranchising young voters, like basically like watching the world burn, like this deeply regressive flat tax and dismantling all of these like federal agencies that we actually kind of need. Of all the things that you could take issue with, it's him sort of suggesting maybe we adjust our relationship with Israel that they go all in on. OK, so that's revealing. Equally revealing, I think, is that Vivek is very politician-y and very squishy and very like sort of trying to spin on this particular issue. If you think back to the debate, how many places where, you know, everybody else was trying to dodge the question on climate change and he's happy to jump in there and be like, climate change agenda is a hoax he's happy to jump in there and be super crystal clear on what he thinks

about ukraine but on this issue even during the debate when nikki got him on this issue part of why she actually you know even though i think her neocon worldview as i explained in detail is porn etc etc part of why she got him on this particular issue is because suddenly he becomes very weaselly and very like let me explain and let me change what I actually said and let me reframe it and rephrase it, etc. So even he feels very tepid and skittish about what he previously said on Israel. I mean, this is such a third rail that if you say anything different than the 100% consensus, there is such a freakout, especially the Republican Party. But I mean, we've seen it in the Democratic Party as well, where there's this whole organized effort to quash any sort of dissent on the status quo of our,

you know, aid towards Israel. And the funny thing is, if you put that quote to a Republican voter, they'd be like, all right, yeah, whatever. You know, it's gonna be one of those. I mean, look, a lot of Republicans, they have a lot of deep affection for Israel. They have a not like a rosy view of the country, whatever. Okay. But the point though, is that if you were to say, oh, let's just treat every, we should, we should get to a point where they're independent of us. How can you possibly object to that? I mean, that's a longstanding point of foreign aid in many of these respects. It's one of those where it's like, it makes such transparent sense, especially if that's something that you're trying to pursue. And if you listen to what he's talking about,

he's like, yeah, I want to normalize relations between all the countries so they can just live like that and we don't have to be involved anymore. I mean, what are we objecting to here? Like, what is the dissent from that? That we should just give somebody money regardless of whether they want it or need it or not? It boggles the mind. Now, the reason why I think he's defensive is, let's all be real here. The billionaire donors and all those other people, they can say he's free of them. I think he's probably freer of them than most.

Just because of his own personal wealth. Because of his own personal wealth. Yeah. But you can't be running. Let's say in this scenario where he is the nominee, you can't run without him. You're going to need their super PAC money. You're going to need the, you can't, all the money in the world can't buy you as much as you're going to need in order to run.

And he's afraid. I also think that whenever it comes to conservative media, this is the one area where I see them attacking him a hundred percent. Fox news, obviously with Sean Hannity, with many of the other outlets of which he, he relies on to really get some earned media in order to pump, you know, in order to pump like info to the GOP base. This is one where they're taking the most issue sometimes because they also take money from donors who are obsessed with Israel. So it actually reveals, I think, a lot about the subject. Yeah. It also reveals a lot about,

you know, Fox News doesn't want Rupert Murdoch, let's be clear, because plenty of the hosts still love Trump and, you know, are very sycophantic and all of that stuff because they see where their bread is buttered in terms of what their audience wants to hear. But Rupert Murdoch wants to move on from Trump. He tried with Ron DeSantis. It hasn't really worked out. They sort of pseudo floated Tim Scott, put on a little Tim Scott trial balloon. That hasn't really taken off. The new flavor of the moment is Nikki Haley. And so I'm just thinking back to when they did their like, they invented out of whole cloth,

these quote unquote power rankings and like just randomly put Tim Scott in the top three alongside DeSantis and Trump in these power rankings based on literally nothing. And obviously, you know, the person that you would actually put in the top three based on his online support, based on his polling, based on his fundraising, et cetera, would be Vivek. So that was immediately a signal to me of like, oh, they don't want this guy whatsoever.

And this is another sign of, you know, Sean Hannity was really confrontational with him from the start of this interview on the issue of Israel. They clearly, you know, they don't see him as an acceptable second choice Trump alternative, et cetera. And, you know, I think Vivek, if you just look at his proposals, I think they would largely be really good for, you know, status quo of America. I think they'd be largely very good for the wealthy, et cetera. But I do think they feel that they have less control over him. And so that's probably why they're so viciously going after him and trying to make sure that he's not acceptable as the Trump number two alternative. There's no question about that whatsoever. Yeah. In terms of, even rhetorically, the reason why they got to quash this and crush it in his tracks, because you can't be allowing any of this. The only person could ever actually say this is

Trump and get away with it. And even with Trump, he never did that, whatever it came to Israel. That's true. This is the one issue where he never crossed orthodoxy. Even a little, he did everything they wanted him to do on Israel. Absolutely. All right, so how are we looking at? Well, at this point, it looks pretty likely that absent a black swan event, Donald J. Trump is going to be the next Republican nominee for president. Whether he wins is another matter entirely, but I subscribe to a lesson all Americans should have learned in 2016. If you're the nominee, you can damn well win the presidency.

And as CNN reminded its viewers very recently, there's a very good chance and likelihood that Trump actually does win the election against Joe Biden, who is facing his own host of problem. This raises a really interesting question. What actually happens if Trump is reelected? There's a whole host of monologues I could do about what it would look like from a domestic perspective. But for this purpose, I wanted to zoom in on something that I, of course, care a lot about, our foreign policy and military resources, and specifically redirecting them away from Eurocentrism and direct them towards actual American interests alone. On this front, Trump, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy

are the only ones who even rhetorically take a different pitch than the rest of the Republican field. The rest of the world is certainly taking notice. I was especially caught in some very humorous moments that the Wall Street Journal took a survey of European diplomats who are freaking out at the prospect of another Trump presidency. The journal cites numerous European politicians who are aghast at two prospects. One, that Trump would slap them with tariffs should he become president again,

and at the idea they would actually have to pay Ukraine's bills if he won. This quote in particular hit home to me. Quote, French officials have been warning European allies the possibility of a Trump return requires the continent to significantly expand arms production from artillery to missile defense systems so that it can supply Ukraine on its own. Did you hear correctly? The Europeans are worried they may actually have to pay the bills for the war that most affects them. And remember, Germany, the largest power on the continent and literally

has a massive land war raging next door, still refuses to even commit itself to the necessary minimum of 2% to maintain NATO alliance membership in good standing. That is what type of freeloaders that these people are. It says more about Biden that he lets them get away with it. It is clear that a Trump victory at this point, maybe even regardless of policy, would dramatically change the way Europe approaches the Ukraine conflict and realign our priorities. But what really has Europe's attention right now, it's not just Ukraine. It's a little-noticed policy proposal in our press that has been widening eyes across the world. Trump is increasingly coming around to the idea of a 10% quote, universal baseline tariff on all imports to the United States. The idea is to create a quote, ring around the US economy. And behind the tariff, of course, is to try and lower the cost of US

produced goods and give an advantage to U.S.-based businesses selling domestically. This lit a fire across the pond. European countries heavily are dependent on U.S.-based exports are freaking out at the Trump return. Recall, Biden agreed to roll back some of the major Trump tariffs on European-based steel and aluminum, which garnered more complaint from them than any single policy that Trump ever enacted. Europeans since have even been smarting since the Trump imposed those tariffs before COVID and have continued to be upset after Biden imposed modest made-in-America provisions into the Inflation Reduction Act for the electric vehicle

supply chain. The Trump proposal reveals the limits of so-called Biden's commitment to some America first trade policy. The White House blasted the Trump 10% tariff saying, quote, combining a sweeping tariff tax on the middle class with more trickle down welfare for the rich special interest would stifle economic growth and fuel inflation. The irony is that the Biden White House is using the same talking points that would apply to their own tariffs in place right now against China. The whole point is that buying this agenda, the neoliberal agenda around cheap goods as the end-all be-all is exactly the philosophy that landed us in a place where we can't make a NAM thing to save our own lives. The reason that we even have high inflation is because the cost of goods was raised dramatically

on us by supply chain disruptions from around the world. We have no choice but to pay for it. If we had it here already, maybe we would have paid a little bit more in the past, but not even close to as much as we did after COVID. Not to mention all of the heartache and the pain and the suffering that losing our industrial middle class did to millions of people around the globe. There is plenty to criticize Trump on, if you ask me. Mostly that if he didn't actually do anything that he said he was going to do. But he was right about America's foolish relationship with Europe. And he was absolutely right to declare a trade war against America's supposed partners,

which are taking us to the cleaners. Much of this comes back to a major moment from the GOP debate that I still can't really get out of my head. That was the battle between Mike Pence and Vivek Ramaswamy. Vivek, if we do the giveaway that you want to give to Putin to give him his land, it's not going to be too long before he rolls across a NATO border, and frankly, our men and women of our armed forces are going to have to go and fight him. I want to let the Ukrainians fight and drive the Russians back out into Russia. I have a newsflash. The USSR does

not exist anymore. It fell back in 1990. More than anything was the real clash, the new versus the old. Is America a nation in decline that needs to be saved and needs to husband its resources to secure its future? Or are we a country with such abundance and such petty considerations they don't matter to us? To me, the answer is obvious. It's the former. It's why Trump was right. He declared American carnage in 2016.

It's also why the rest of the world hates that vision that he brought so much. Setting up America up for success is directly bad for them because their success has come at our expense. I'm curious what you make of the 10%. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? For my entire life, the story of the working class has been one of betrayal and loss, stagnant wages, vanishing benefits, rise of the working class has been one of betrayal and loss, stagnant wages, vanishing benefits, rise of the gig economy, decline of unions. And so it has been astonishing to watch a potential turning of that tide. Nowhere is that shift as evident as in the fight

that workers at the big three automakers organized by the UAW are waging right now. 97% of those workers just voted to authorize a strike which could, if contract negotiations fail, kick off in just a few weeks. This comes, of course, on the heels of UPS workers securing some real wins in a contract that includes $170,000 in wages and benefits for full-time workers, a number that is decent enough to spark a whole wave of upper-class anxiety and resentment around the notion that package carriers might actually be able to afford to live. But the wins in the UPS contract, they pale in comparison to the demands which are being made right now by the United Auto Workers.

These workers, remember, bailed out the bosses back in the financial crash and have watched as the automakers have returned to astronomical profitability, happily handing out goodies to shareholders, but never cutting their workers in on their company's success. And so workers have had enough. They're asking now for a 46% wage hike to match the pay increase of top executives. They're asking for job guarantees in the event of plant closures. And they're asking for a return to real pensions. But in one of their boldest demands, they are also asking for a four-day, 32-hour workweek. Take a listen to UAW's new national president, Sean Fain,

explain exactly why. I've been talking a lot, you know, about a 32-hour workweek, 40-hour workweek for 32 hours that we work, 40 hours pay. And it's been wild to watch the talking heads on television that continue to have a meltdown over this discussion. You know, right now, Stellantis has put its plants on critical status, forcing our members to work seven times as important as the families of company executives. Isn't our own health just as valuable as that of the talking heads on television?

You know, UAW family, our demands and our fight are about more than just us. They're about the double standards in our society. Company executives get to work remotely while the working class is forced to risk our health at work. They can live a life of luxury at their second multi-million dollar mansion in Acapulco while the rest of us are scraping to get by at jobs that don't provide a pension. Fain makes what is a really key point there. White-collar workers have benefited from increased work flexibility through hybrid remote work schedules post-pandemic. Writing a four-day

work week into the big three contract could help secure better flexibility and work-life balance for blue-collar workers as well. Now, you might think this sounds like a fantasy, but there are actually some real signs that the four-day workweeks moment might have arrived. Recent pilot program out of the UK was so wildly successful that all but three of the companies that participated said they are going to stick with the new shortened schedule.

Workers, of course, absolutely loved it and said that their sleep, mental health, stress levels, and personal lives all improved as a result of those new schedules. Bosses found that workers were way more productive and actually able to accomplish the same amount, even given the shorter hours. Revenue at those participating companies was unchanged and even went up from a comparable period in the prior year. And unsurprisingly, workers wanted to stay in their jobs, leading to a major decline in employee resignations. 15% of the participants actually said there was literally no amount of money

that could induce them to go back to five days of work per week. Now, here in the U.S., a Democratic lawmaker just proposed a four-day work week in the state of Pennsylvania, which would apply to companies with over 500 people. That legislation would set the workweek at 32 hours but require companies to keep overall pay the same so that workers are not losing out as they move to fewer hours. The movement also fits perfectly with a post-pandemic attitude shift that has led millions to rethink their work obsession and shift their priorities away from the grind and towards their personal lives. We have tracked all of this here really closely. The migrations in search of better quality of life, the mass adoption of hybrid work schedules for office workers, the rise of some

cultural phenomenon like the anti-work subreddit, the wave of post-COVID resignations that saw workers hopping jobs in industries like never before. And in a sign of those rebalanced priorities, research just came out showing that workers' quote, connection to companies' missions just hit a record low. Now, Axios, of course, frames this as a negative, but personally, I see it as extremely healthy. Why should workers devote themselves to a company mission that likely has nothing to do with them

for companies that have zero loyalty to them? In another sign of the four-day work week being an idea that time has come, polling shows it is insanely popular with basically everyone. Eighty-seven percent of workers are interested in a four-day workweek. Highest support comes from millennials at 93 percent. But support for the idea was extremely high, over 70 percent among workers of every single generation. So for any cynical politicians out there,

please take note. Voters will love you if you champion this cause. It's worth remembering, too, that the 40-hour workweek had to be invented and had to be fought for. And actually, the auto industry was central to that reform as well. Henry Ford was one of the first employers to institute a 40-hour workweek along with pay that was high at the time under the theory that a large middle class was needed in order to buy his product. In the same era, pressure from workers and unions helped codify the 40-hour workweek at the national level through legislation signed by FDR. Often forgotten, too, is the fact that the movement for a shorter workweek had even more audacious goals. In 1933, a bill to shorten the workweek to 30 hours sailed through the United States Senate. Labor groups backed it. FDR initially backed it as well before buckling

to pressure for manufacturing concerns. The 40-hour workweek was actually the compromise position after that initial bolder effort was killed in the House of Representatives. Nearly a century later, white-collar and blue-collar workers alike are picking up where reformers and labor activists left off nearly 100 years ago. After all, what could be more essential to human thriving and to realization of freedom than control over one's own time? What could be more beneficial to families and to communities than actually having time to give to loved ones and civic participation, time that is not an exhausted, distracted afterthought. For decades, Americans have been brainwashed into believing their only worth is as workers and as consumers. But the experience of COVID, whether you were forced into remote work that triggered a life of reassessment

or whether you were deemed essential and then discovered your employer was literally willing to kill you for profit, that experience has broken decades of work-obsessed programming. And so in this new reality, the UAW's four-day workweek demand makes all the sense in the world because we are all more than our jobs.

And Sagar, one of the key points that I thought was- And if you wanna hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Great counterpoint show for everybody tomorrow. Otherwise, we will see you all on Thursday. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon.

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