Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/31/23: McConnell Freezes Again, KJP Defends Biden Age, Pod Save Bros Freak Over 2024 Polls, Pete-Vivek Flashback, FBI Collects DNA, Nepo HomeBuyers, CNN Invades HBO, Biden's Pharma Plan, Tucker Interviews Hungarian PM, Gen Z Debate on Biden 2024

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss McConnell freezing during a press event again, KJP defending Biden's age, Pod Save bros freak out over 2024 polling, Vivek and Pete cringe flashback, FBI collecting millions of American's DNA, 40% of young homebuyers relying on parent's help, CNN to air alerts over HBO content, conservatives lose it over Biden's weak drug pricing plan, Hungarian PM stuns Tucker Carlson with Ukraine truths, Harry Sisson and Link Lauren get into a heated debate over the 2024 election and young voters.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 Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of interesting stories that are breaking this morning.

So Mitch McConnell freezing again. What the hell is going on here? We will show you the video and we will discuss. We've also got a little bit of a pod save bro freak out over Biden's polling numbers and how the hell he is tied with the man who has been indicted. Ninety one different charges give you their analysis. We'll give you our analysis and all of that. Also, some new data from reporter Ken Klippenstein about how the FBI is hoovering up DNA information, what that could mean for you. We've got some new economic numbers that are looking pretty dire, especially for working class Americans racking up tons of credit card debt in a very difficult position right now. So I'll break those numbers down for you. We've also got CNN going back to the big streaming place, Saga.

They're giving it another whirl. And they also have a new president of the network that they are bringing in from previously from The New York Times. So that is an interesting development as well. And we're excited to have on the show today a big Zoomer debate. Two young TikTokers, one on the right, one on the left, debating, you know, who young people should and could support in 2024. So that should be a fun one as well. Yeah, I think it'll be enjoyable. Just want to say thanks to everybody who's been signing up and been helping support us. We've got in the latter stages of getting that focus group all together. So it's going to be a big deal for us to be able to have our own polling, our own focus group, and in partnership with a big firm here that is trying to make some

headways in the United States. So anyway, the point is, is that you guys are the ones who enable all of this work. It is very, very expensive. So we appreciate everybody who's been signing up, breakingpoints.com if you are able. And just one programming note, everybody have a good Labor Day weekend. We will have a show on Tuesday. We will not be here on Monday for us and for all of our crew. So we just wanted to flag that for you. Before we get to right now, what is the biggest news? Senator Mitch McConnell, the leader of the GOP in the United States Senate, freezing on camera once again in the middle of a press conference while giving one in Kentucky. Here's what happened. Senator, you're up for election in three short years. What are your

thoughts on it? I'm sorry, I had a hard time hearing you. That's okay. What are your thoughts on that? I'm sorry. I had a hard time hearing you. That's okay. What are your thoughts on running for re-election in 2026? What are my thoughts about what? Running for re-election in 2026. That's good. Did you hear the question, Senator? running for reelection in 2026? Yes. All right. I'm sorry, you all.

We're going to need a minute. Senator. Any. Any. Okay. Somebody else have a question? Please speak up. What efforts is Daniel Cameron going to have to make on the campaign trail to win Kentuckians over in November?

Senator Daniel Cameron, you have a comment on Daniel Cameron? Well, I think the government race is going to be very close. Far and away the best candidate we could have nominated. And I've stated the government increasingly Republican. In fact, the government is the only Democrat left in conference. So I'm optimistic that Daniel will be our next governor. I think we can do one more. Senator, what is your reaction on Trump's latest indictment?

Would you support him as a nominee? It's a question about Trump. I'm not going to comment about the presidential race, either on the Republican side or the Democrat side. Okay. Thank you all. Okay. Thank you. It's all right. Thank you. That was the full exchange there that we decided to show everybody, Crystal,

because it's very important. I mean, look, it's difficult to watch. There's no question about it. But, and if he was a private citizen, we would have nothing to say. But he's the leader of the GOP in the entire Senate. He's 81 years old. This is the second time in the last 40 days that this has happened. It wasn't that long ago. And I mean, I posted this and one of the comments that really stuck with me was very simple. Would you trust this person behind the wheel of a car? No, absolutely not. And if that's the case, how can you trust that person with a senior leadership role

in passing laws for 340 million citizens? It really is that basic. It's this, it's Dianne Feinstein. You also see something pretty disgraceful there with that aide, you know, trying to pretend everything is fine and just shouting the questions back into his ear. Just obviously she's like, I need to minimize the damage and all this. You also had one of the people who came over. That was his Capitol Police protection officer who, I mean, for some reason didn't lead him away. It's one of those where I just don't know the level of deference that we're supposed to have at this point.

I mean, it seems to me like elder abuse, specifically with a Capitol Police officer. You're charged with his welfare and his well-being. You need to get this man to a doctor immediately. I mean, I just don't know how at a certain point we were supposed to sit here and stomach these incidents again and again and again. And then the level of hand-holding that these people are getting. And also, many of the reporters in the room, how's the very first Manu Raju to his credit at the time that the first thing happened, the very first question is like, are you okay? He's like, what the hell just happened to you? Why

are they all sitting there and pretending everything is fine? Immediately they're like, what is going on? Are you having health problems? Like, are you fit to serve? The thing that really struck me with the AIDS is number one, what you're saying, Sagar, of like, you know, the total lack of transparency, their attempt to cover up for the American people. The fact that like in Dianne Feinstein's office, like that lady there, whoever she is, who no one voted for or elected, is probably really running the show. Her and whatever other aides surround him and try to handle him. But number two, they're not panicked about this at all, which tells you that either they're like the most callous, unfeeling people on the planet, or this happens all the time. All the time. And they know exactly what it is. And they're not concerned because

they know this is routine. They know this is just the state of life that he's in right now, because my God, if this was someone you cared about, even a little, even if you didn't care about them, you'd be like, we're getting you to a doctor. We're getting you to a hospital. You could be having a stroke right now, but both with the previous incident and now with this one, which is coming, what a month later on camera, how often is this happening? How often is this just the reality and state of affairs? In terms of conjecture of like what the hell is going on here, we learned last time that he suffered a number of falls. He suffered a concussion. We know that as well. Could be lingering after effects. I did see Sanjay Gupta on CNN was floating. Could be later stages of Parkinson's disease can cause these kind of

freezes as well. If you're like medication is wearing off, you could end up in this sort of incident. But the fact that there isn't an immediate freak out about it to me is a real tell that this is going on all the time. People can't freak out. It's a bipartisan problem. You got the freaking leader. He's the most powerful Republican, elected Republican in the entire country right now. It's absent, what, Kevin McCarthy. So I guess number two. In some ways, number one, because everything does move through the Senate. And the Democrats can't say anything because the President of the United States is just as old and has just as frequent crazy events happen to him. You referenced just earlier the first event.

As we said, this was less than 40 days ago. This was on July 26. Let's all go and relive that incident because it is so stark, exactly how similar this entire thing was. Let's take a listen. And a string of... Exact same situation. Let's put this up there.

Explanation from the senator's office. Here's what they had to say. Quote, just in, Senator McConnell's aide says that the minority leader felt, quote, momentarily lightheaded and paused during a press conference. While he feels fine, he will be consulting a physician prior to his next event. I mean, what level of gaslighting is this? It's outrageous to just say, listen, we've all experienced momentary lightheadedness. Okay, I think most normal people can relate. Even on one, I mean, personally, I'm not going to give him a pass on the first one. But the second one in the span of just a couple of, like in less than

a month, ludicrous. And also what you said, the routine nature through which that the guard was handling it and also the aid, you're like, how much has this happened? How many times in the middle of a conversation is a guy freezing? That is the type of tactics that you see in which they handle folks in a nursing home. And in many ways, like, that is what the Senate is becoming with Dianne Feinstein and with him. He is almost worse than Feinstein because Feinstein is just your normal senator. This is a person in the position of immense leadership and say over the country. And the even worse part, as you said, is that his aides are very clearly running the show. How much is even going on? And then it bears a very personal question of like where are this man's kids?

And if you care about this man, his wife, Elaine Chao, is an elected official. She's got to know more or was an appointed official. I'm sorry, was somebody who should know more than anyone on the public eye of how this is undermining not only democracy, but also just a terrible legacy look. I mean, at a certain point, where do these people get, where are they? How do they not step in and immediately try to put an end to this? I just don't, I'm so flabbergasted by it.

As I said, I would never put this person behind a vehicle. If this person was driving around, I'd be like, you gotta pull this man's license immediately. And just the other day, I think I told you this. I'm not sure if I talked about it on the show. I saw a very elderly person almost hit somebody in the middle of a crosswalk and then started crying afterwards because they had clearly, they didn't know what was going on. And I feel really bad for that person but she almost hit another lady you know who's walking with her kid and it's one of those words like this is a public safety concern at a certain point and now we're that's like that situation times 300

million yeah whenever it comes to the adults that he's I mean I wouldn't trust him with any basic intellectual tasks yeah let alone you know being one of the most powerful men in the entire country, if not planet. There's a backstory here that's worth remembering as well, because it raised a lot of questions about his health at the time, which is previously in the state of Kentucky, the governor gets to appoint, if for whatever reason a senator has to step down and retire early before an election, the governor, who right now in Kentucky is a Democrat, gets to appoint their successor. They ushered through new legislation recently through the Kentucky legislature, which would change it so that it's the Republican-held legislature which picks the successor. And there was a lot that was read into that at the time about, oh, this is the

Mitch McConnell succession plan. They don't want governor, Democratic Governor Andy Beshear, to be able to appoint his successor if he is unable to fulfill his whole term. I think it's worth remembering that. The other thing I'd say, Sagar, is, you know, it would be one thing if this was like a beloved person with the frickin' 80 percent approval rating in his state that people really want to be there as long as he possibly can be here. That is not the reality. Mitch McConnell, even though Kentucky is, you know, a pretty Republican state at this point, Mitch McConnell has one of the lowest approval ratings of any senator with their own constituents in the entire country. He is not beloved by his constituents. They would love to have a different Republican in that seat. And it's not like there's much risk that you're going to end up, you know,

electing a Democrat at the federal level in the state of Kentucky at this point. Yes, at the state level, they'll still vote for a Democratic governor, but the days of them voting for a Democratic senator for now are pretty, seems pretty far-fetched. So you don't even have to worry about the partisan control situation. So you're just holding on for the sake of holding on. You're holding on for the sake of power when you are in no condition to wield that power effectively. I mean, I lived in Kentucky. I saw Mitch McConnell up close operating there not very long ago when he still seemed really in command, really at the height of his power. The decline seems to have come pretty quickly and pretty steeply, but it's impossible for them to hide at this point. And I do actually think that there's a possibility just given the frequency now with which these events are occurring and given all

of the media interest in this, given the fact that there are a lot of people who would like him to move aside, I do think it's possible that he steps down in the not too distant future. Listen, I would hope so. But the Feinstein situation was a break glass moment. It's like when you can be genuinely senile and still be told on camera how to vote and get away with it, what are we going to do? And like I said, I mean, it's a bipartisan. People are too afraid of McConnell, not even of McConnell. They're afraid of his staff now at this point. They can screw you if you're a junior senator. I mean, on all kinds of little things like they can schedule things so that it makes your life inconvenient. They can make sure they don't accommodate you. If you're a junior senator, I mean, on all kinds of little things, like they can schedule things so that it makes your life inconvenient. They can make sure they don't

accommodate you. They can give you a basement office. There's all kinds of little things they can do to make your life absolutely hell. With Feinstein, they've basically, you know, she's become a pawn for Nancy Pelosi to try to get her chosen Democratic successor, Adam Schiff, in there. I mean, that's what's going on there at this point. And previously, Pelosi and Obama propped her up when she faced a primary challenge because they didn't want someone who was progressive and maybe wasn't going to just, you know, fall in line on literally every single thing that they want her to fall in line on. So that's why they've propped her up. With McConnell, I don't know what the political backstory is, who is enabling this, or if it's just all on him that he just wants to hold

cling to power for the sake of clinging to power or i mean the other thing with feinstein at this point like i don't even think she's self-aware of how far gone she is because the brain is just like i mean it's it's sad but it's obvious for everyone to see with mcconnell i've got to think there's still quite a bit of awareness of how bad this has gotten and how different he is now from even just a few years ago. Yeah, these people are just complete egomaniacs. It's completely insane. Let's go and put this chart up there just to remind everybody we're currently living in one of the oldest Congresses ever, the 118th Congress, only slightly less old than the 117th Congress, just so everybody is wondering, only because of a few Gen Z entrants, which dropped the overall average.

I mean, listen, McConnell is the second oldest Republican in the entire chamber behind Chuck Grassley. Senator Feinstein and Grassley are both flirting there around the 90 years old. We have multiple members of the House of Representatives who are potion 85, multiple over the age of 80. It's a bipartisan issue, as I said. And I did a monologue about this previously, which showed a chart which said that it was actually fascinating. I really do think about it. We've talked about it since, about how after Jim Crow ended, you had a new generation

of blood all come in to the Senate and into the House because a lot of different people could vote. And it's one of those where I'm just trying to think or imagine a situation where if more young people voted, if more people actually got engaged in the political system, we could end this. This is both an irresponsibility on their part, but some of it is on us too, because McConnell just got reelected. He's not uphill 2026. It's up to him to basically ride it out until his brain goes to complete mush. And then as we found out with Feinstein,

even then, as long as you get reelected and the machine boss is pushy through, they'll still push your ass around in a wheelchair and subject you onto everybody. Let me draw that out a little bit because you did that monologue on this and I thought it was so good because you got to the point of,

this is not just like about these individual egomaniacs clinging to power long past the time when they should have, you know, retired with a lot more grace. It's really a failure of democracy. And so it's not an accident that when you have the end of Jim Crow and you have an actual like rebirth and flourishing of democracy that you get a new, a lot of new lifeblood in there. It's also not an accident that now when we have so many of our democratic institutions completely corroded and completely rigged too, that you end up with this state of affairs where, you know, not just with McConnell, but we're about to have this election between Trump and Biden,

two old men that most of the country don't want to have either one of them in office. How does that happen? And what you bring up with the McConnell election is actually a really good point. How did it end up that Mitch McConnell gets reelected again and again, even though his approval rating is one of the lowest in the entire country? And it's a number of things. I mean, one thing that is really clear, Kentucky is a Republican state. They want to have a Republican in charge. And so they're more inclined to vote in a Republican partisan direction. That a Republican state. They want to have a Republican in charge.

And so they're more inclined to vote in a Republican partisan direction. That's their choice. That's fine. That makes some sense. But the other piece is, OK, well, then why doesn't he face a primary challenge? Well, anyone would be terrified to primary him because of, you know, the way money in politics works, the way that the heavy hand of the party would come down, the way that they would quash any potential political future for you. So that's an impossibility.

And then even on the Democratic side, why wasn't there a better challenger in place to even have a shot against him? And it was the same thing on the Democratic side. They put their thumb on the scale for Amy McGrath, who was a very poor candidate and didn't have a shot whatsoever. And so that's how you the fact

that these two parties, you know, prop up these candidates that no one likes or wants is part of how you end up with this situation as well. So when you think about money in politics, when you think about the party system and the way that works, when you think of, you know, the partisan tribal divide that also leads to people just voting for whoever has their partisan affiliation alongside them. That's kind of how you end up with this very regretful situation. That's right. And unfortunately, it has another regretful situation, which is that we have just as old of a president, except this one's actually running for reelection. And a funny bout where even the mainstream media can't deny polls showing that 70-some percent of

the American people think Biden is too old, that 69% of Democrats think Biden is too old to effectively run for reelection and to serve as president. Just listen again to the spin that his aides tried to put on his age. Here was Karine Jean-Pierre on CNN. Here's what she had to say. It is hard for us to keep up with this president who is constantly, constantly working every day to get things done and making sure that we are delivering for the American people. And that's what, and I think that's what matters. I get it. I get what you're asking me, but the record matters too, Jake. The record matters too. It's hard. Where do they get this line from that? It's hard to keep up with an 81 year old man. Yeah. Where, where, where is this coming? I mean, nobody

when your right mind believes this. By the way, the last person who everyone said we couldn't keep up with, his name was John F. Kennedy. He was our youngest president ever. And it also turned out that he was taking shots of meth in the back once a week. That's part of the reason why Dr. Feelgood was literally shooting him up full of straight up methamphetamine, which is why, that's where the Kennedy vigor comes from, by the way. Maybe all our presidents need to get on that tree. Yeah, listen, maybe. And so there's two things. A, it's not true. If it is true,

it's because he's definitely on the same thing as whatever Kennedy was doing, some sort of crazy amphetamine Adderall or one of these other things. Either is actually quite troubling whenever it comes to the state of the president. But it tells you a lot that that is the best that they can come up with. And Biden, too. I mean, all he's got, he's like, just watch me. Just watch me. It's like, dude, people do watch you. That is why they feel the way that they do about you.

It's because we've watched you. And I've said this before. I'll say it again. If you're so vigorous and so on top of it, debate. Go out, do some interviews, do some contentious interviews, go get on a debate stage and prove yourself to the American people. But they don't want to do that. I mean, the part about look at the record, I actually think that's probably the best thing you can say because he has accomplished, you know, he does have accomplishments that he can point to in office. He can point to the CHIPS Act. He can

point to the Infrastructure Act. He can point to the Inflation Reduction Act. You know, he can point to in office. He can point to the CHIPS Act. He can point to the Infrastructure Act. He can point to the Inflation Reduction Act. You know, he can point to the PACT Act. There are things that he can point to that he's accomplished. And so you can say, like, listen, whatever his workday is, look at the results. That's what really matters. I think that's probably their best argument. But to gaslight everyone and think we're going to believe, like, oh, we can't even keep up with him. Please. Like we can see we're not idiots. We can see what's in front of our faces. And we also have tons of reporting about how, you know, he gets up late and they don't schedule things in the morning, but then also they don't schedule things in the evening. And we see the vacation schedule. We see the beach schedule. We see all of these things. So don't just straight up lie to, I mean, this is

like a Sean Spicer level, like, oh no, actually the crowd was way different than what you think. That's like that level of lie because we can all see the reality of what, you know, what he is at this age at this point. Like you said on the schedule, I would be willing to forgive the 9am, you know, 9.30, 10am start times if this was a man, like Bill Clinton actually famously stayed up until like two or three in the morning. He used to talk on the phone and then he wouldn't start his day until like nine or so. But you can't have it both, man. You can't be starting your day at 10 and then ending it at four. It's one of those where like there are white collar workers who are working harder than Joe Biden apparently in terms of their hours. And look, all of this would be quite

reasonable for an 81-year-old private citizen who has like a side gig retirement thing going on. But it's not whenever you have one of the most demanding jobs in the entire, on all of planet earth with stress and then all of our fates writing on his good judgment. So that's why I thought it was important to put these two things together where we're just being gaslit and lied to by the aides, by the people themselves too, the level of ego that all of them have. We can't let ourselves off the hook. Part of it is on us. Part of it, we're the ones who allow this to happen over and over again.

Trump too would be one of the oldest presidential candidates ever, save for Biden running against him. I don't know what it is. They have this congenital need recently to just keep electing these people to office. We have no shakeup of the system. And it's not, look, it's both, it's bidirectional. It's the establishment ossifying. But some of it too is like, if people genuinely wanted the change, I think it would happen. And I don't know why so much, so many of us just sit back and let it. We're left with no choices. I mean, you know, think about like the Democratic primary that doesn't exist right now.

Right. Just pretend like no one's running against him. They don't host debates. And then, you know, it's the fascists that are at the door, which, by the way, I mean, I am very much of the opinion that Biden is vastly superior to Trump. Of my personal political belief, based on what he's accomplished with regard to the economy based on him getting out of Afghanistan. And so voters are left feeling like, I got no other option. And that's how you end up in this situation. You play that out in district after district,

state after state, level after level across the whole country. And yeah, that's how you end up with this situation. Wow, that's sick. It's not right. It is not right. And it is a real sign of national decline. Speaking of our current president trying to get reelected, there's a bit of a freak out happening among the Pod Save Bros. It's been kind of ongoing, but there's a new memo or sub stack post from one of them, Dan Pfeiffer, about the fact that right now, even with all the Trump indictments, even with us all living through four years of Trump and even with him having a frickin 30 percent approval rating, being hated by like a majority of Americans, they're tied.

They're tied. If you look at the polls, Biden, Trump tied. So he dug into some of the numbers and was like, what the hell is going on here? Let's put this up on the screen because it was actually a very interesting analysis. The headline here in his sub stack is called The Message Box. Why the 2024 race is neck and neck right now, despite 91 felony charges, Trump is within a point of Biden here is why. And there were really two primary reasons that he points

to. One of them you can see there up on the screen. He says Trump is holding more of his 2020 voters than Biden. Trump is holding on to about 91 percent of his 2020 voters, according to he he's using the New York Times, CNN, the most recent poll. That's what he dug into here for his numbers. So Trump is holding on to 91 percent of his votes for 2020. Biden is only holding on to 87% of his votes. Now, that may not seem like a big difference, but when you remember how close that election was and how it came down to, you know, not that many votes in just a handful of states, that difference can be everything. The second piece that to me is probably even more important for why Trump and Biden are tied right now is because of Biden's incredible decline and

deterioration in support among young people. So he, you know, at the beginning, he won young people overwhelmingly in 2020. At the beginning of his presidency, he actually had very high approval rating among young voters. So it's not like they just, you know, have hated Biden from the start. On the contrary, at the beginning, his highest approval ratings by generation were among young voters. That is now completely flipped. Pfeiffer writes, young voters are not yet as on board with Biden 2024 as they were last time around. According to Pew, Biden won voters

under 30 by 24 points in 2020. So it was not close, but he's only winning them now by 10, according to that New York Times poll. Now, what he goes on to say is it's not that a bunch of young and youngish people are deciding to support Trump. They are just checking out of the election. 9% of 18 to 29 year olds say they will not vote if Biden and Trump are the nominees. Sixteen percent of 30 to 44 year olds are either planning to vote for a third party candidate or not vote at all. Again, it's not that they're, you know, in love with Trump and flocking him in droves. That's not what's happening. They're just disgusted with both of their choices.

And so they're saying, I'm either going to sit it out or I'm going to vote third party. And, you know, Cornel West is running for the Green Party nomination. So they're going to have other options there. Well, here's the thing, you know, when you read it, actually, this is why I thought we really should take some dive into this is because not only is it significant, but like as cringe as the pod save bros have been, these people did win two elections, right? Dan Pfeiffer was a communications director for Obama. Nobody is a bigger critic of Obama than me. I could give it to you all day. But they got the American people to buy what they were selling, you know, sadly for the

rest of us. And they were good at politics. So whenever you listen to their indictment, really, of the Biden campaign and why none of them supported him even in the first place, there's a reason. Obama himself famously said, you know, nobody, never underestimate Joe's ability to F things up. And in here, what they point to specifically is Trump's strength, his ability to hold on to many of his voters, which always has been his strength, really, from the beginning of the 2016 primary. But then the very tenuous coalition that elected

Joe Biden, of which we even said and saw very early on in his presidency, the slimmest margins deny you victory. Once again, the suburban middle class people, these people are all over the place. Sometimes they're Mitt Romney Republicans, sometimes they're Democrats. Depending on the vibe, they'll vote Democrat. Sometimes they'll vote for their local Republican, but they love Gretchen Whitmer and they also love people like John McCain. Who the hell can figure them out? All right, so let's put them. Those are the people who really handed him the White House. But then you've got the diminishing returns there amongst Latino voters. You've got diminishing turnout amongst black voters. And the young voter piece is really key. I think one of the reasons

why he's pointed to the young voters is because the drop-off is so immense. If you see just a 9% reduction or that, that's it. You could kiss Georgia goodbye. You could kiss Arizona goodbye. Even in Philly, I mean, places like Philadelphia, Detroit, in Michigan, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, urban turnout in some of these places, which does rely on people who are disproportionately younger, that made some major difference. And when we're talking about some 40,000 votes across these three states, you just lost yourself the election in 2024 quite easily. So they are not wrong to point at this. And I think that the smarter and the sober ones, people like Harry Enten and people like Pfeiffer, who can the very least be honest, be like, we're in real trouble right now. I mean, Trump right now is doing better than he did in 2020 against Biden. Biden has got very, very serious work to do. Now I'll give the counter

side. I think abortion is still the dark horse. And there's a reason why the Biden campaign and the DNC beat it to shred, beat it to death, every word, the third word out of their mouth. It's like noun, verb, and abortion. That would be my strategy too. That's all I would talk about. It's very, very possible that there's a silent pro-choice vote out there that would either keep people at home who are pro-choice, who still can't like Biden, or just unfortunately come out, hold their nose, and vote for him. But I honestly think that's the only thing that could save him at this point. Well, if you look at the special elections that have happened this year, and I think it was 538

that crunched these numbers, Democrats have outperformed the expected partisan lean of these districts that have had elections this year by 10 points. Right. And it's basically because of abortion. I mean, you see a really clear, you know, in Ohio on issue one, even though it wasn't even directly about abortion, but it came tied up in this, you know, pro-choice, pro-life debate. And even in a state like Ohio, that is pretty reliably right at this point. Overwhelming victory for the pro-choice side. And turnout through the freaking roof. You know, they had turnout that was like,

it was a gubernatorial election for this random ballot initiative at a random time during the year because it is that energizing. And so, yeah, that is what the Democratic Party is banking on. And, you know, given the fact that they aren't really putting forward an affirmative agenda, given the fact that there were accomplishments, I think, at the beginning of the Biden administration, which, by the hey, we will make sure that things don't get worse in terms of abortion. We will make sure that things don't get worse in terms of climate.

But, you know, I think the economic picture right now is another undertold story of why young voters are not feeling the Biden love. There's a lot of celebration from the White House about the low unemployment rate and, you know, about some of the more positive economic numbers. But people are not feeling it, especially people just coming out of high school or college, trying to get in the workforce, trying to get imagine ever being able to own a home. We're going to talk some more about the economic numbers later in the show. They're not feeling it. They're behind where their parents' generation was in terms of basic benchmarks and life milestones, in terms of getting yourself on a pathway to some sort of middle-class stability. There's also a lot of concern about climate. And while at the same time as they passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which has some positive movement in terms of climate

change, they also are literally pumping more oil than we ever have in history. They have just broke what was previously the Obama record, by the way, for oil drilling. So, you know, it's not like young people are enamored with the climate agenda. But the other thing I would say is even putting the specific policies aside, there has been so much contempt and so much disdain for young Americans and their candidates and political ideology. I mean, just think of the treatment of Bernie Sanders supporters in 2016 and 2020. Like how many years can you get away with just basically like constantly shitting on a generation before they're like, yeah, I mean, I if you don't want me here, then I'm not going to be here.

So I think that level of contempt that has come from the White House and from the Democratic establishment is taking a toll here as well. Yeah, especially amongst young Democrats, it would make the most amount of sense. Listen, I mean, with the young voters, they are going to try and save themselves. Going to put this up there on the screen. Much to my own chagrin, it appears that, quote, Biden administration is moving to loosen weed restrictions. They're going to try and deschedule marijuana to Schedule 3, entirely removing it from the Controlled Substance Act. The HHS has apparently made a recommendation to the DEA that they move marijuana down to a Schedule 3 substance. This would change in the way that it is federally handled. Schedule III drugs are categorized as, quote, having a moderate to low potential for physical or psychological

dependence. That includes drugs like ketamine and testosterone. This is after a federal review of marijuana research by the HHS. The executive action that we'd previously seen about the pardons and all of that was kind of a prelude to some of this. Wasn't it Michael Moore who would always say that this is one of the first things that Biden should do in order to reduce turnout? That sounds right. I believe he was, so I guess we'll give political credit to Mr. Moore. He has always said that this was one of the easier ways in order to get younger people to come and vote. But I'm curious what you think, Crystal. Descheduling from one to three doesn't seem to ring the same as legalization

for marshalling younger voters. Yeah, so just to be clear, I mean, number one, so two things are true. This is a big deal. It's one of the most significant changes to drug policy that has really happened in our lifetime. So it is really significant. The difference between Schedule 1 and 2 drugs

and Schedule 3 drugs is significant. Now, it is really significant. The difference between Schedule 1 and 2 drugs and Schedule 3 drugs is significant. Now, it is still considered a controlled substance. It is still illegal. And so they're not decriminalizing it. But Schedule 1 and 2 drugs face really onerous regulations. Schedule 1 drugs are effectively illegal for anything outside of research. Schedule 2 drugs can be used for limited medical purposes with the DEA's approval, for example, through a license for prescriptions. And then schedule three drugs, the restrictions around them are a lot more lax. It's a lot lower priority in terms of enforcement. And you'll recall that Biden had previously pardoned a lot of low level, basically marijuana drug users as part of this push because this he launched this review before the midterms.

Yes. Which also is another tell that this is sort of seen in very explicitly political lens, which listen, I mean, I certainly support it. So whatever, if it's a cynical move or not, I really don't care. I think it's the right move. It was insane to have it as a schedule. Like you even have to acknowledge that is a schedule one drug with like, you know, the hardest, most addictive substances you can imagine is completely insane. Alcohol and tobacco, which are way more addictive than marijuana, aren't part of the Controlled Substances Act at all. They're not on any of these schedules. Now, if you were

just to evaluate them based on their medicinal purposes and based on their addictive qualities, they would probably be schedule one. But there's specific carve-outs, thanks to cultural standards and industry lobbying, for those two substances. So it was always insane to have marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug. That was completely crazy. Activists are really happy, obviously, with this move. But it's worth remembering that this is not decriminalization. They quoted one in this Politico piece that said, rescheduling cannabis from one to three does not end criminalization. It just rebrands it.

People will still be subject to criminal penalties for mere possession, regardless of their legal status in a state level medical program. But, you know, this is something it's not just young people at this point. Like the American people are overwhelmingly in favor of decriminalizing marijuana, Democrats and Republicans. it's a bipartisan issue. It's one of those issues where the movement on this in my lifetime has been really astonishing and quite extraordinary, but it is a particular, you know, it's seen as a real issue for young people.

And then the other piece that I would point to is the movement on student loan debt. You know, the fact that there was any effort to cancel student loan debt, obviously that most directly impacts young voters. Courts struck it down. They're trying to do some workarounds. They're taking it back to the courts. In the meantime, they've got these what is ending up to be actually very complicated, but student loan debt repayment plans that are based on your income to try to ease the burden

and make it easier to get forbearance, et cetera, et cetera. So that's the other very explicitly aimed at young people move. But, you know, does marijuana, rescheduling marijuana and trying to do something maybe theoretically, possibly in the future on student loan debt relief, I don't think it probably makes up for the fact that you have this economic landscape that continues to be very difficult for this generation. I think that's kind of the key driving factor, if I were to say. And the evidence I would cite for that is the fact that at the beginning of this administration, when war was being done and checks were being cut and people were, you know, benefiting. People felt hopeful. People felt, yeah. There was action that actually materially benefited people,

and all of that has been stripped away. And now people are like racking up credit card debt and kind of hopeless about how this is all going to work out. That's really your biggest problem. But, you know, rather than changing the substance of that, which would be very hard, they're doing other things, which, again, I support, but it's probably not going to be sufficient. Well, we'll see. It seems the American people are united in ruining concerts and city streets to make it so you can't go anywhere without smelling weed, like here in Washington, D.C. Sager's got a very get-off-my-line attitude.

I need to, honestly, I need to move out. I need to just go to some like deep red state where there's no weed because there's nothing. You can, if you move on to King George County where I live, you'll be fine. You will never. Why do people need to ruin public parks with weed? I mean, I really, this is a whole other conversation. All right. Let's get to.

Speaking of young voters, this is I really enjoyed this. So apparently, randomly, both Vivek Ramaswamy and Pete Buttigieg, who some of us have sort of compared them politically as like Vivek being like the Republican Pete for a variety of reasons. They were both at the same hardball college tour event in 2004 and got selected to ask questions when they were, you know, in college or just out of college or whatever. This is why the Internet is so beautiful that these clips just emerged. Let's take a listen to young Vivek and young Pete asking their questions here. Reverend Sharpton, hello. I'm Vivek. And I want to ask you, last week on the show we had Senator Kerry, and this week, and the week before, we had Senator Edwards. And my question for you is, of all the Democratic candidates out there, why should I vote for the one with the least political experience? Well, you shouldn't, because I have the most political experience. Thank you.

I got involved in the political movement when I was 12 years old, and I've been involved in social policy for the last 30 years. So don't confuse people that have a job with political experience. Congressman, why are you the only presidential candidate not attending tomorrow's youth-oriented Rock the Vote Forum, and do you think young people's votes matter in your campaign? They matter a lot. That's why I'm here tonight. So Sagar corrected me. They were not at literally the same event.

They were there a week apart. Yes. Okay. One was asking Reverend Sharpton, obviously, there, a question. But Vick's question is also funny because he's asking, why should I vote for someone with no political experience when obviously he has no elected experience? Well, he should copy Al Sharpton. I thought Sharpton gave a pretty good answer there, to be honest with you. I can't stand Al Sharpton, even though that was a decent answer. Now, I am not saying this, sir, but many

are saying that this is proof that both of them are CIA. Many are saying, I'm not saying it, I'm just reporting to you what others on the internet are saying. I think I'm somewhat more sympathetic because what I read in the two of them is that they were deep political nerds, I was a political nerd just like that who also attended said political events when I was 21 years old. So, you know, I get it at a certain level. It was a crazy time, Crystal. It was November 2003. We just invaded Iraq. 9-11.

Shit was wild, you know? And so it's like you want to go to an event and you want to make your voice heard. I will say rock the vote. My God. Like what a cringeworthy effort in order to get young people to vote. Do you remember that entire thing? Of course I remember it, yeah. It was horrible. That's up there with like the D.A.R.E. campaign and stuff that should have remained in the 2000s.

I have an affection for it, a nostalgic affection for it. There's like West Wing episodes about how like Rock the Vote. Anyway, there's so much more to say about that. Rock the vote. As a former rock the vote t-shirt owner, I should know. I don't know exactly where that went. Probably should have died. The point is, I think with these two, is that you can see deep political ambition, interest and all that very, very early on in their careers.

And I think, you know, that's probably one of the fairest critiques that always was of Pete Buttigieg, of Ramaswamy, and others is that people find those who are so politically ambitious at such an early age, honestly, repellent. I mean, I went to George Washington University. Everybody liked that. Everybody there was like that, including me. Going back and looking back at myself, you know, you got to be honest. You have to be self-reflective about who you are and where you fall. And it's one of those where most people don't want it. Most people do not want a politician to be the guy who wanted to be student council vice president when they were like 14 years old. Yeah.

And it's just very clear. Like that's what these two guys did. I will say it is kind of interesting, the two paths that they took. Because Ramaswamy eventually not only went to law school, but became a biotech entrepreneur and is a near billionaire. Where Buttigieg took the much more traditional path of the PMC, served in Afghanistan, went over there for six Navy reserves, all that other stuff. He did much more of a traditional box check for a Democratic politician, moved back to his small

home in a very benevolent move, became the mayor, all of that, where Vivek, it almost seems like, took a U-turn. He went into the business world made more money you know made enough money for the rest of his entire life many other lifetimes and then came back to politics which seemed to be although for republicans that would be more of a traditional but i don't know if he went down biotech lane because he wanted to be in politics he probably is just like i mean probably just want to make a ton of money which is fine clearly i mean clearly both a lot of ambition from an early age. Your point, you know, reminds me of a comment that Steve Bannon actually made, I think, about Marco Rubio a while ago that I thought was very evocative. He was like, you know, Trump is different because he wasn't like Marco Rubio with his hair blow dried in his briefcase at the RNC

when he's 15 years old. And that's kind of the vibe you get from both of these guys at the event. It is also interesting to chart their like political trajectory. Pete, by all accounts, when he was young was actually more of like a Bernie Sanders social Democrat. And then because of the path of ambition within the Democratic Party leads you to being just like a dyed in the wool neoliberal. That's where he ends up. And then Vivek is, you know, I don't know what his political path has been. It seems like he was kind of a liberal at that time and then he becomes a really hard libertarian. And now he's adopted like social conservatism

and is more of a traditional conservative, but also still holds these very hard libertarian values in terms of economics, especially with regards to the Fed and monetary policy and things like that. He's very much like a Ron Paul guy with regard to the Fed. So in any case, it's funny that they were both there. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I really don't know what to say other than it's like it's a pretty clear look into how a lot of these people are. And, you know, a lot of politicians are like this. Joe Biden, you know, is one of those guys always wanted to be president. It's like a red flag. And sometimes when you look back,

anyone who's obsessed with student government, what's his name? Bill Clinton was president of, I believe it was Georgetown freshman class. He was like student body president there. So, you know, the ambition is deep. People really, they really prefer candidates that it feels like even if it's not true, that it feels like they were like dragged to power. It is a it is a, you know, uncomfortable feeling to look at someone and be like, oh, from the moment that you were aware, you were like envisioning yourself taking the oath of office in the mirror. You know, but I think the reality for almost all these people is that they've been, they've had these ambitions for a long time. The every guy thing. Navigating to try to figure out where they should land to be, to get there.

The every guy thing is so important. That's one of the, it was a real, I think about it a lot in terms of the 2004 race where W famously, I'm not sure if you ever won student body president, but I think he was the social chair of his fraternity at Yale. And it was like the social chair versus somebody like Kerry who look again, Kerry was like lusting after power from very early on. He was obsessed with the fact that he had the same letters as JFK, you know, turned himself into a Vietnam like anti-war act. I'm not putting down his service, but he very clearly used it for his political ambition then at the time afterwards, whenever he returned.

And it's like that, the two contrasts to America. It was very clear. People like the social chair vibe. Yeah. They like the, I want to have a beer vibe. I mean, ironically, like George W. Bush was a Bush. Yeah. He'd been, his family had raised him to try to be president.

It's about vibe. It's about affect. Yeah. He'd been his family had raised him to try to be president. It's about it's about affect. Yeah. But the vibes were more like, oh, I'd like to have a beer with you. Even you're the son of like this incredibly wealthy, incredibly powerful political family over generations and generations. And you've literally been like molded into this little political animal. But because he was able to pull off the everyman vibe, he won the beer track vote. It's not like Kerry was what came from nothing. He also married into a half a billion dollar Heinz fortune and started wind sailing and taking up. He was obsessed with the idea that he was JFK. And it came to, A, he did not have even close to the gravitas of JFK. But second, it's like when

you put that up, especially in the modern political environment, that stuff is not going to work. So my advice to Ramaswamy, Buttigieg and any future kid who is like me, who's was doing cringeworthy stuff like this is don't do it. Actually, you really don't want to. If that's something that you have any if you have any hope of going forward in politics. My advice would be it's OK to do it, but like have some core of like principles and values and ideology that you actually because that's also comes through if like i think about kamala where she was changing messaging depending on the seasons trying to like you know have a brainstorming strategy session about what her core values are like that comes off where it's one thing to have ambition.

Listen, we all have ambitions in different directions, whatever. It's another thing that your only ambition is about your ambition. It's not about doing anything. It's not about a greater good. It's not about any sort of value you want to put forward in the world. People can really see that and it irks them. It really irks them. Okay. Let's go to the next story. This is a very important one. Reporter Ken Klippenstein has been staying on this and has actually uncovered some really crazy data. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. The FBI is hoovering up DNA at a pace that rivals China and currently owns 21 million samples and counting. One of the reasons I actually found the story especially fascinating is it details the Byzantine

laws which the FBI is using, both in loopholes and also explicitly, to gain more DNA samples from American citizens at a faster pace than ever before. He writes, quote, that the FBI aims to nearly double its currently $56 million budget for dealing with the DNA catalog with an additional $53 million per year for its budget request of fiscal year 2024. In an April 23 statement to Congress, the FBI revealed that they significantly expanded DNA processing requirements of the FBI and were collecting some 90,000 samples per month. Some of this, Crystal, is based upon federal law, where there is a database of the combined DNA index system that goes across all 50 states, which stipulates that originally, just if you were a violent or a sexual offender, they were going to take a DNA sample for you for reference in the future. That eventually was then lowered down to the misdemeanor level of crime.

It eventually got to the point where if you are now even a person of interest in a crime, even if you've never been convicted in a crime, that you can have your DNA legally obtained and is now expanding to the point where even in airports and in ports of entry, they are hoovering up DNA samples and basically through a quasi-legal loophole are expanding this with no recourse, no due process about the invasive privacy nature of any of this that rapidly expands so they can just do it and do with this data for whatever purposes that they want. Don't forget, there was, I forget which, it was the Golden State Killer, I want to say, the serial killer, who they were able to find him

decades after he had committed his last crime. And he was a horrible serial killer, to be clear, where they checked his past DNA against open databases of like Ancestry.com of like people who had submitted samples. They were able to obtain like a search warrant or whatever for these and were able to connect it back to him via a semi-distant relative of his who had submitted their DNA to one of these like ancestry websites, which raised a lot of questions. You know, I'm not saying it wasn't good that we caught him. I think it's great. You think you'll die in jail and that's good, especially recourse for his victims. But it really opened my eyes, that particular case where I'm like, wow, man, I mean, the way that they are able to use this, it doesn't just implicate you.

I mean, if they even have a very distant relative or whatever of yours, they can quite easily use that should they ever want to in any of these types of scenarios. Very creepy when you start to think about it. I think there's a lot to say about this. First of all, your comments about how, where this started and where this ended up really illustrates the problem, the slippery slope with the security state. So it starts in a place that basically everyone would support like sex offenders were taking their DNA, right? We're going to, we're going to track this. We're going to keep track of it to try to protect the public.

And it would be very reasonable. It'd be very hard to find a person who could be like, no, you're not going to do that. But you start in this place that is 100% justifiable. And it would be very hard to find a person who could be like, no, you're not going to do that. But you start in this place that is 100% justifiable and that would have broad public support. And then over the years, it just expands and it expands and it expands and it expands and it expands. And another thing that comes out of this is part of why their DNA tracking and database has really exploded in recent years, not all of, but part of why is because under Trump, there was an order to start collecting the DNA information of undocumented immigrants. So this program starts under Trump. At the time, because it's Trump, it's very controversial. Well, guess what? Now Biden's

in office. He's kept the same order in place and no one says shit about it. So it just continues to expand. The other piece of this is now obviously, you know, the technology has gotten much better. It's become much easier and much faster with a lot less resources expended in order to catalog and identify DNA. So as the technology, actually we have a quote from this article that makes this point exactly. They say the database is likely to continue proliferating as DNA tech becomes more sophisticated, pointing to the advent of environmental DNA,

which allows for DNA to be collected for ambient settings like wastewater or air. Goes on to say, just by breathing, you're discarding DNA in a way that can be traced back to you. So as the technology becomes more sophisticated and more seamless, you can expect this program only to expand further. There's been an effort to increase the budget around collecting and tracking and storing all of this information. And, you know, on the what people would say on the other side is, hey, you pointed to the Golden State serial killer. Isn't it good that we were able to identify this person and bring them to justice after all of these years?

Isn't that a good thing? Of course it is. But it's also important to keep in mind, number one, that on the other side of the ledger is the millions and millions of completely innocent people who now the government has all of this personal private information about. That's number one. But number two, DNA hasn't even been that effective overall in terms of identifying those who committed crimes and prosecuting them. Ken writes in this piece, DNA has played an important role, but less than 3% of the profiles have assisted in cases. By comparison, fingerprints collected by the FBI from current and former federal employees linked them to crimes at a rate of 12% each year, according to testimony from the

Bureau back in 2004, when fingerprint technology was far less sophisticated, the implication being that it probably is an even higher match rate at this point. So, you know, it's really troubling. Our own intelligence agencies raised a lot of justified questions and concerns about the rate at which China was hoovering up all of and tracking all of this DNA information from their own citizens. And it turns out we're doing the exact same thing at the exact same pace and rate and size and scope and scale. Yeah, that's the creepy part, too, about how it about the way that it's collected. And one of the important things to underscore about what you said is, you know, we have this idea from TV and from movies that it is used, you know, to great effect in many cases. And it is in some murder and rape investigations. But the vast majority of crimes and stuff don't entail those. Those are actually quite rare,

you know, on a macro scale. So then it comes to the question of like, well, what are we going to do with all this? And also to what end, you know, in the future, I've told the story before about how, you know, I entered in to the United States from Mexico. I was coming in through a port of entry. And even though I'd never signed up for global entry and I'd never, you know, given any facial recognition or whatever, uh, my face was used in a pilot program by the CBP or yeah, I think it was the CBP when I was reentering the United States. And I had never consented to any of this. And they're just straight up using facial recognition software. I mean, it's one of those were like, what? I'm like, I never asked for this.

Wait, you know, if they can do this here, what is stopping them from doing the entire country? Actually, the answer is nothing, you know, in terms of whatever, especially when you're coming back in. This is just where it's so direct because you're looking directly into the camera. How many times are you on camera and then somebody is scanning your face? Again, look, you can make a reasonable case for like, what, you don't think we should have that for everybody who comes into the country? I don't know.

All right. But, you know, at the very least, like there needs to be some actual transparency and investigation or oversight into this, because when you just start collecting vast DNA samples of your entire population to basically no end, and you have this readily accessible to law enforcement, you know, with what, what do they need in order to tap it? Are we making sure they're proper safeguards and all these things in place? You're real, just one step away from a very bad situation where this data is used for nefarious purposes. And it happens and it expands with no notice, little debate, no explanation to the American people of what the pluses and minuses might be, what the risks and what the

benefits are. It just happens. And from, you know, a small program really targeted to, you know, basically as much information and data and DNA as they can possibly get their hands on over the course of, you know, several decades. That's how we see the size and scope of the security state just continue to creep and creep and creep across administrations. This one is truly bipartisan, right? Happened under Trump, happened under Biden, I'm sure, happened under Obama, certainly happened under George W. Bush. It's the uniparty is really involved in this expansion and very, very little scrutiny of it ever. So, you know, kudos to Ken Klippenstein for doing this kind of reporting and exposing to all of us what is actually going on here. Yeah, absolutely. So we've got some economic numbers that we wanted to bring you this morning, starting with the housing market. And let me give you a little bit of context here before I put the

first article up on the screen. I mean, obviously, we all know how expensive homes are, both in terms of the sticker price and in terms, critically, of the mortgage interest rate that you have to pay. And of course, the higher the mortgage rate is, the more important it is to have a big down payment. So you're paying down some of the principal so that you're getting hit with less of that mortgage interest rate. So it's less critical, even though it still makes this huge difference. Well, in this landscape, if you are a young person trying to buy a house, good luck. And one of the only ways they're able to pull this off and put this up on the screen, because we've got new numbers now to back this up, for under 30 homeowners, 4 in 10, so 40%,

rely on family money to cover their down payment on that property. So basically, if you're under 30 and you want to get a house, you got to have mommy and daddy with cash in the bank ready to pony up your down payment, or you can forget about it. Now, this obviously has huge implications for generational wealth, has huge implications for just like the story we tell ourselves in this country about the American dream, about how anyone can aspire to this level of middle-class prosperity and with the house and the white picket fence and the family, et cetera. I mean, the new story of our economy is if mommy and daddy aren't underwriting it, you can forget about it. That what really came through from this with the

amount of people who are doing this is we talked previously about the wealth transfer and how a great wealth transfer that's happening right now is really from boomers who are either aging off and are dying or are already preemptively transferring or helping out their elder millennials have entrance to the homeowner market or asset ownership. Asset ownership at an earlier point and allowing it to appreciate the course of your life is the single best way in order to attain wealth in this country, the ability then in order to access that tap of wealth is so important. And if the only ability is to have well-off parents, well, you're in a real tough situation if you don't

even have that. And the problem is, I was even reading more recently about how high interest rates have made it so that people are disproportionately finding it harder in order to get a mortgage. The reason why is that the bank can earn off of straight up deposits, 5% or 6% or whatever from the Federal Reserve or from T-bills. So you better be a pretty damn good lender or a damn good borrower if you are actually going to be an attractive asset for them. In that way, then, it's even harder today to actually qualify. Specifically, I was reading for a jumbo mortgage because the competition for your business

has just gone way down in the era of a high interest rate environment. On the one hand, that could be a good thing. It means that people aren't getting access to loans or whatever that they can't pay. But it's really difficult if you're a younger person and you have to prove your ability in order to pay in the future. Or if they knock you down in the price of house and the only way that you're even able to come to the price where you're living in an urban market or whatever is to have the signature of a parent. What if your parent didn't do that? Well, what if you're self-made? What if you're a first-generation college graduate or any of those? It puts you at a very,

very significant disadvantage. For your whole life. Yeah, for your whole life. And it really creates these hard class lines that it's like, whatever station you were born into, that's what station you are likely to remain, regardless of how well you do in school and you play by the rules and you do all the things that you're supposed to do, if you don't have mommy and daddy able to stroke you a check for your down payment, it will be very hard for you ever to get on that homeownership ladder, especially if you live in one of these very expensive metro housing markets. Just to give you a little bit more of the data here, this was from a survey by Redfin, and they found that 23% of homeowners under 30 used a cash gift from family members to cover their down payment. Another 21% used inheritance money.

So that's where you add those numbers together. You get 44% who are using either money from family member or some sort of inheritance to be able to achieve home ownership. And so it really does kind of cut to the core of what we think about how this country should work and the upward mobility that should be available to people. They've coined this term NEPO home buyers to refer to young people who are relying on family money in order to get on this property ladder. But increasingly, this is the only way that young people are are relying on family money in order to get on this property ladder. But increasingly, this is the only way that young people are able to achieve those milestones. And at the same time, there's other numbers that are coming out about how difficult the economic

landscape is for a lot of people in spite of some of the headline numbers that look pretty good of low unemployment rate and all of these things. But if you dig into those numbers, even an inch, you see how much pain there is out there in the economy. Let's go and put this up on the screen. This is in some ways one of the most critical indicators of how people are actually doing. This is from the Washington Post. They say delinquencies rise for credit cards and auto loans, and it could get worse. With interest rates going up, more consumers have missed payments on household debt. Put this next graph up on the screen because you can see really clearly what's going on here. Over the past two years, really, you've seen the number of delinquencies for all types of debt, whether it's consumer loans, credit cards, or auto loans, you see those numbers significantly spiking and heading an upward

direction. This tracks very closely, of course, with the end of the pandemic era programs that helped people get through the pandemic that provided people with a little bit of cash in their bank accounts. And it coincides with a Federal Reserve policy of hiking interest rates that, of course, makes all of that debt so much more expensive and so much more difficult to pay off. Let me just read you a little bit of this article and then we'll get Sagar's reaction. They say more Americans are falling behind on their car loan and credit card payments than at any time in more than a decade. Troubling signal of consumer stress as higher prices and rising borrowing costs are squeezing household budgets. The pain, of course, they say, is most acute for lower income earners who have

largely used whatever they managed to save during the pandemic with the help of government stimulus checks and breaks on obligations such as rent and student loans. They've got a quote here from Mark Zandi, who's chief economist at Moody's Analytics. The increase in delinquencies and defaults is symptomatic of the tough decisions these households are having to make right now, whether pay their credit card bills, their rent, or buy groceries. So when you have inflation that has cooled some, but still has goods, especially like critical things that people have to buy, much higher prices than they were prior to the pandemic, you have the end of pandemic era programs and you have interest rates going up, making all of this debt so much more expensive,

you end up with a really dire landscape such as this. Yeah, and you're looking at it and it's just clear that we're going right back to the days of the post great recession, which was actually some of the worst days in modern US economic history. I don't think you can really write it off. It was so horrible.

It was one of those where we didn't realize how bad it was at the time because we had just gone through the Great Recession. But that is really when people got completely wiped out. And it really is reminiscent of the Great Depression. The worst of the Great Depression was not 1929. It was four. It was five years in because at that point, you have the compounding poverty. You have the compounding inability to get housing, compounding inability in order to

catch up. And that's when stuff really just starts to break. And that's when a lot of people just gave up. They either exited the workforce, became permanent renters. That's also with zero interest rates whenever the billionaire class and the corporations really got richer than ever and started especially accelerating financialization. So this is a really bad place to be, to have consumer debt and all of that basically return to 2012 levels,

except at that point, there was at least some zero interest rate stuff going on that was juicing the broader economy. Now we don't have either of that. We even have a reduction in overall earnings and our growth is generally anemic. So I mean, this just looks, everything just feels very 1970s right now.

I was sort of shocked by the average credit card interest rate that they have in here. What is it? It's 20.6%. Yeah, that's not surprising. That's a record high, 20.6%. So it just shows you when you get behind on those credit card bills

or if you're having to rely on credit cards in order just to make ends meet, how quick you can get behind and basically have no prayer of ever paying that off at 20.6%. I mean, that is really high. And that's just the average. That means a lot of people have rates that are a lot higher than that. They also point to something we covered before, which is that total credit card debt just topped a trillion dollars for the first time ever. And I didn't know this statistic. There are 70 million more credit card accounts open now than just back in 2019. I mean, that wasn't that long ago.

Americans have opened up 70 million more credit card accounts in that time with these high interest rates. And then the other thing that we're seeing is that we've had the rise of these buy now, pay later services. If you go on any basically consumer website, they have these options where you can pay for things in installments, et cetera. The importance of those services has also been rising. They say usage surged 40%, 40% in the first two months of 2023. So it shows you that people are really struggling just to buy things like groceries, other necessities, pay their rent, et cetera. They're having to lean on debt that has now very high interest rates in order to get that done.

And they are really squeezed in spite of any of the celebratory type top line numbers about unemployment being low, et cetera. Yeah, these are the numbers that matter the most. And things were better a couple of years ago, and now they're getting bad. And they're all on the uptick. So this is the single biggest problem crisis facing people, the ability to keep up with everyday life. And let me just echo what you said, please do not go into a crazy amount of credit card like that debt unless you really are in a bad situation. 20% interest, that is horrible because that's five months and you basically doubled. I mean, what are you going to do? And especially if you can't make your minimum payments or any of that. So look, I'm not going to tell anybody how to live. I'm just going to beg people,

don't find yourself in that situation. I got friends and people in my life I know who are in that situation. It becomes overwhelming and all in my life I know who are in that situation. It becomes overwhelming and all-encompassing. You could blink an eye and watch it all just quadruple, triple, or something like that. And then you just feel helpless. You don't know what to do. So try not to put yourself in that situation. But people who are finding themselves in there in order to make general ends meet, I get it. I don't know what else you can do. It's a real failure. Okay. Let's go to the final one here. Fun stuff. CNN Plus, of course, you know,

we danced on the grave here for rightful purposes. We still are, by the way, the owners of that proud CNN NFT of the first moments of CNN Plus. What they described as the most historic moment in CNN history since their launch and their founding. And since it failed so miserably the first time, $300 million, they've decided to do

it again, except this time make it way worse and even more annoying. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. It seems that Warner Brothers Discovery is now going to test out CNN news alerts while Max viewers are watching TV shows and movies on the platform. So I want everybody to think about your favorite show on Max, formerly known as HBO Max. Let's think about Last of Us, The White Lotus, House of the Dragon. It's Sunday night or it's Monday, whatever. You just got off work. You want to catch up. You sit down in order to watch your favorite TV show and you get a notification up there on the screen, and it says, do you want to watch Anderson Cooper right now? Can you imagine?

I would freak out, and especially if it became some sort of picture-in-picture situation. If you're going to ruin my Last of Us time or my House of the Dragon time, that's sacred time. That's like me actually checking out from the rest of the world and driving in to George R.R. Martin. I mean, for CNN to invade that, especially after we all had to

suffer the indignity of having the HBO name taken off. But I said, this actually is beginning to make sense because they did not want to sully the hallowed HBO brand by turning it into CNN Max, which is what this new live streaming service will be. Now, I guess to their credit, they're basically just repurposing current content. They're going to live stream like Jake Tapper's show or Anderson Cooper's show or any of these on there. So it's not like they're hiring Chris Wallace or any other jokers that they tried to do last time. But I mean, it's still, this is plus. They're just they're doing what Peacock has done over on Peacock. It is actually offensive. Yeah, it is like the idea of you're sitting there watching your show and you get some like news alert on your TV that says Trump just called

Stormy Daniels or space or whatever. Like that's going to make me want to call the cops like that is an invasion of my time and space and energy there. It is wrong. It is horrible. I have to think that people are going to be incredibly irritated by it. But, you know, it's just hilarious to me as well, because Zucker expected CNN Plus, they launched this with so much fanfare. You guys can go back and watch our coverage of it and our predictions that it was going to be a total disaster. And of course it was because what they were putting out into the digital ecosystem was just like a B team version, B rate version of the actual CNN channel. Or it was like, you know, it wasn't going to be like Anderson Cooper on parenting and somebody was having a book,

Jake Tapper was having a book club, all this kind of stuff. I'm like, no one wants to pay to watch this. This will be a failure. And sure enough, it was. They pulled the plug. I mean, it was the smartest move, honestly, that probably conflict made was to immediately pull the plug on CNN Plus, which was losing cash hand over fist, complete monumental disaster. And now they're just going right back to the well with it doesn't seem like any real, you know, new insight into how this is going to work out. It's kind of incredible. But they feel like I mean, I understand the thinking from the perspective of they're looking at NBC slash MSNBC has made some kind of a digital play. Fox News has made some kind of a digital play. I don't know that any of these are really working out all that well, but they're doing it right.

CNN knows the writing's on the wall in terms of the normal cable news business. They know they have to do something. That's why Zucker put so many eggs in this basket to start with. But they just have no understanding of what a successful online streaming business would actually look like. And so they're just recreating CNN+. It's incredible. It's actually incredible. And they also did it at the same time that they are hiring a new chief. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.

Mark Thompson has been named the new CNN chief executive according to CNN. And Mark Thompson is an interesting guy. He actually worked at the New York Times. He was one of the CEO of the companies that actually brought it out of really what was a business crisis for them. But here's the thing. This is a newspaper guy. He previously had worked over at BBC News. The thing is about the way that the Times turned around is the Times currently is not a news business. It's a cookbook crossword business with a news arm. It's basically a liberal lifestyle brand that also has news. And that's traditionally how the news business works. People don't really like to

pay for news. They like to pay for other stuff. And then it's subsidized by the news. Well, or the news is subsidized by that other stuff. Well, how is CNN going to operate like that? Yeah. I mean, look, at the end of the day, they're fine. They've got these fake cable carriage fees that's going to subsist for them for the next couple of years. They are still rolled into a multi-billion dollar corporation like Warner Brothers Discovery, HBO Max, and all this other content can easily subsidize the news arm,

but they want it to be profitable the way that it is. How, though, can you turn this around into a sustainable business asset? The Thompson strategy for making CNN successful would be to resuscitate Bourdain from the dead and basically just make it so that he's on the air all the time. By the way, people forget this. He was the most successful thing on all of CNN. I was going to say, that's not a bad strategy. Yeah. But he was once in a generation. Where is he going to come from? How are you going to find another Bourdain? Like you basically have to remove all the news content and make it so that the only profitable part of the network, no more primetime,

no more news, any of this, you're just running cooking shows all day long or the Charles Barkley, Gail, what is it called? King Charles. King Charles. Yeah. King Charles. Like that's what you would do every single day if you want to turn it into a business. But that's not how you run a news business. So I really have no idea how he's going to be able to do it. I don't either. But I do think it's smart hire. I mean, at least he has a track record of taking a news operation and expanding it and getting people to pay for subscriptions in a way that, you know, was sustainable. Like we've provided this contrast before, but at the Washington Post, you know, they saw subscriptions skyrocket during the Trump era. They bet the whole farm on Trump coverage, you know, democracy dies in darkness, whatever. And so they went all in on that. And then the

moment that Trump is out of office and political interest wanes a bit, then their revenue is falling off a cliff. They just went through another round of layoffs. They're in a lot of trouble. New York Times, of course, also got that Trump coverage bump, but they didn't rest on their laurels with that. They also, you know, they acquired the Wirecutter. They launched NYT Cooking. They made it an audio destination with podcasts like The Daily that have been really, really successful. And so they used the momentum from Trump to actually build

out their business in a way that would be more sustainable. And that turned out, and the games like you talked about, and sports and all sorts of things. So that turned out to be extremely intelligent. Now, can you translate that into CNN? What would that look like? Of course, it wouldn't look exactly like the playbook that they ran at the New York Times, because print is different than, you know, is different than cable news. But at least they brought in someone who has some track record of success that I can imagine maybe having some ideas here. I have no idea how it works out, though, or what it looks like. Well, yeah, good luck. Good luck to our colleagues, I guess, over at CNN. I guess we wish you nothing but the best. Yeah, I appreciate it. I appreciate having another go at CNN Plus to keep an eye on here. The first time, though,

that I get interrupted. Oh, man, I can't even tell you how angry it's going to make me. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? One of the dumbest fights ever has broken out between Democrats, Republicans, Big Pharma, and corporate media, which perfectly encapsulates the dynamic between the two parties, the pitfalls of our political system, and basically why we can't have nice things. So here is the backstory. As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden and the Democrats passed some incredibly modest reforms to lower prescription drug costs. Under pressure from pharma lobbyists and their own corporate sold-out caucus, they settled for allowing Medicare to negotiate prices on just 10 drugs, with the new pricing not even set to kick in until 2026. So for those who are keeping score at home,

by focusing just on seniors, you're already limiting the impact. By only negotiating prices on 10 drugs, you are further limiting the impact. And by inexplicably pushing it out for three years, you are guaranteeing that no one will see any benefit whatsoever for the next two election cycles, curb stomping the possible political benefits as well. In spite of this modest, delayed, neutered impact, Democrats and Biden, of course, running around pounding their chest like they just slayed some sort of dragon. They know that, of course, we pay astronomically high drug prices as compared to every other country on the planet. They know this is a massive pain point for tens of millions of Americans. And they know that doing anything

about this insanity-inducing, unconscionable state of affairs is extremely popular. So Biden is leading into these wins on prescription drug pricing as part of his reelection campaign, wildly overselling the benefits in an attempt to convince Americans that he has done a lot more than what he has actually accomplished. So since we took office,

President Biden and I and our administration has taken historic, historic action to cut the cost of prescription medication for our seniors. We capped the cost of insulin at at $2,000 a year. And we have made vaccines free of charge, which will save seniors hundreds of dollars every year. And we finally allowed Medicare to negotiate the price of medications with big pharma companies to the benefit of 65 million Americans at least. Historic action.

I guess it is a low bar when the recent history is just giving away the store to big pharma and allowing them to steal from our tax coffers and from our citizens. This is such, though, a pristine example of the Democratic Party under neoliberalism, engineer some overly complicated, watered-down reform, then pretend like voters should fall to their knees in gratitude for a modest and possibly imperceptible improvement. But still, in fairness, it is at least an improvement. On the other side, if you listen to how the drug companies and the Republican elected media allies are talking about this, you would think Biden just engineered an entire government takeover of big pharma, which, by the way, is what they actually should have done. Pharma, after likely being instrumental in making these reforms so pathetic to start with, howled, threatened to withhold key life-saving drugs, spent tens of millions in

negative ads against the reforms, and ran to the courts, crying that the price negotiations were unconstitutional and that every dollar cut into their profit margins was basically theft. As Merck's legal filing pouted, this is not negotiation. It is tantamount to extortion. The Wall Street Journal editorial board, they just weighed in with their own hysterical gaslighting, describing these tiny Biden baby steps as command and control drug price controls. I wish. And claiming that modest price cuts on 10 total drugs coming in three years time would devastate research and development, depriving the public of critical life-saving medications. Now, this complaint might be worth considering if Big Pharma was really in the business

of inventing life-saving medications. In reality, every new FDA-approved drug in recent history was initially developed using taxpayer dollars. Pharma spends much more of their time and their money focusing on how they can use patent lawfare to maintain their price-gouging monopolies. That's really the business they're in. Now, elected Republicans are joining the fray, carrying water for their pharma donors and using pharma talking points to fearmonger about these very modest proposals, which just passed. Per Politico,

congressional Republicans slammed Biden's Tuesday drug price announcement, saying they will impose crippling price controls. Quote, I hope that our colleagues on both sides of the aisle can come together to mitigate these devastating effects and advance consensus-based, market-driven solutions to access affordability challenges, said Senator Mike Crapo, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. Meanwhile, Trump at least has enough brain cells to realize this is the dumbest attack from Republicans of all time. So he's taking his usual approach of vaguely posturing like he might do something on prescription drug prices when, of course, we all know the real truth. In a video on his website, he said, we've been ripped off by everybody for so many decades. We

are tired of it. Not going to happen. Of course, it did happen under his administration for four years with next to no action. And his proposed solution now is just revive an executive order that has already been killed in the courts. Ironically, the massive freakout from Republicans, Pharma and their media allies might actually help to convince the public that the Biden administration must have really done something given all the outcry. Surely they wouldn't protest so much over something so small, right? The lesson I wish Democrats would learn is that since Pharma is gonna have a next level meltdown over even the smallest threat to their profit margins, you might as well give them something

to really melt down about. But instead, we'll just continue in this cycle. Democrats will make things 3% better, wildly oversell it, expect the public to express their undying gratitude always and forever. Republicans will then march in to declare that this very mild improvement is actually an unconstitutional attack on America,

which will destroy the whole country. And meanwhile, the American people will continue to get absolutely screwed with no end in sight. Just another day in our nation's capital. This whole thing has been so absurd to me. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, so how are we looking at?

We often hear a lot from the nations of Eastern Europe about the war in Ukraine. The prime ministers of the Baltic nations, as well as Finland and Sweden, are always salivating to push the U.S. into war with Russia and to beat the war drum harder than anybody else in the NATO alliance. They want to give away the entire US store to Ukraine. But often ignored in the view of the Ukraine conflict is Hungary, which unlike any of those states actually shares a land border with Ukraine. And of course also shares the long history of Soviet and Russian imperialism.

The reason Hungary is ignored is because it explicitly has a different view of the Ukraine conflict than every other nation inside of NATO. These views are inconvenient, and thus, you never hear about them. And no matter what you think about Hungary, the nation, you still cannot be arrogant enough to dismiss the view, then, of a NATO member, a former victim of Russian imperialism, and a literal border state to the war in Ukraine. Tucker Carlson sat down recently with Viktor Orban, he's the leader of Hungary, for his view of the Ukraine conflict, and some parts of this are vital for everyone to hear in America. Let's take a listen to the first part.

The view is that Ukraine is winning this war. It doesn't sound like that's true. No, it's a lie. It's not just a misunderstanding. It's a lie. It's impossible. Everybody who's in politics and understands the logic, the figures, the data, no way. Why is it impossible?

Because that way, the poor Ukrainians die every day. Yes. Hundreds and thousands, you know. So my heart is with them. So it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy for Ukraine. But they will run out earlier from the soldiers, number of soldiers, than the Russians.

What finally will count is boots on the ground. And the Russians are far stronger, far numerous, more numerous than the Ukrainians, many more. So this strategy that we are just supporting is a bad engineering of the strategy. Okay, it's dark words there to start us off. The narrative that Ukraine is winning is a lie, according to Orban. Orban says that the number of troops

expended by Ukraine versus Russia, and he notes that the Russian colossus' ability to endlessly throw poor conscripts into the fray. The counterpoint to this, then, is that the West must make it so that the war in Ukraine is so painful for Russia that they sue for peace or withdraw, because the population doesn't want to pay the price anymore. Here's what Orban specifically had to say about that strategy. To understand the Russians, it's a difficult thing, especially if you have an ocean between you and Russia. So when we speak about politics, I mean, Westerners, what is the focus point of our conversation? The focus point is freedom, how to provide more and more freedom to the people.

When you speak on politics in Russia, this is not the number one issue. The number one issue, how to keep together the country, because the country is very big and and there's a privilege of the question how to keep together the country and not freedom freedom is just another issue second third whatever first keep the country together and that's generate a different kind of culture and understanding of politics that's creating a kind of military approach like they have always on security safety buffers on geopolitical approaches it's not it's not our culture. It's a different approach. It's legitimate to have that because it's their history. But we have to understand that we cannot beat them as we do just now.

It's impossible. They will not kill their leader. They will never give it up. They will keep together the country and they will defend it. We finance more, they will invest more. If we send more technical equipments, they will produce more.

So don't misunderstand the Russians. So they're not going to get sick of Putin and throw him out. Come on, it's a joke. Come on, it's a joke. Strong words again. What is very important, though, about what Orban said is our conception of how our population or some other Western nation may respond to sanctions and death is not the Russian view at all, both at a population level and a governmental level. Perhaps his most important insight there is the preservation of Russian territory and a broader conception of a greater Russia historically is a vital national security interest to the Russian regime for all time. Thus, when something is vital, you are willing to

expend significant military resources, population, and endure pain to accomplish it. That has frequently been comparison of turning Ukraine into Russia's Vietnam. First of all, that's dumb because Russia already had its Vietnam. It was called Afghanistan. But the reason why our Vietnam was Vietnam and theirs was Afghanistan was that it was arrogant military adventurism focused on territory far away from the core security interests of both regimes. The populations of the US and the USSR saw clearly that the immense cost of said wars in far-flung places was not worth any notional benefit of continuing. With Ukraine, it is a very different story. First of all, the West has basically given the Russians no option right now but capitulation. And second, it is literally next door for them. It's not far away. It is considered a core part of

their sphere in their minds. And fighting and escalating there has a different cost benefit analysis for the Russian people and the Russian regime. So what do we do? We have a precipice. The current plan by Washington is simple. Pour as much money into Ukraine politically and bleed the Russians dry with the hope that they eventually just fold one day. All of this is done with the Biden edict of nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. Here too, Orban popped the thought bubble of those in Washington, DC, making it clear the power behind this conflict is not Kyiv, it is right here in Washington. Take a listen. First, you should admit, probably publicly acknowledging,

that the key is in your hand. So if the United States would like to have a peace, next morning there is a peace. Because it's obvious that the Ukrainians, the poor Ukrainians on their own, they are not competitive in this war. So if there is no money and there is no equipment from the West and especially from the United States, the war is over. Yes. The solution is in your hand. It's in the hand of your president. The present one or the future one, but you will solve it. The United States can do it, nobody else. It's not the solution for the Ukrainians. Of course, it's about Ukrainians, they cannot be neglected, they must be involved. But the real factor is not Ukraine, the real factor is intention of the United States. If our president wants peace,

there will be peace. That's according to Orban. This too is obvious looking at a basic chart of weapons and material going to Ukraine. We contribute more than the rest of the entire world combined, including the great powers of Europe. So obviously, then we get the most say. I'm just going to end with this. I'm not claiming whatsoever Orban is the majority view within NATO or even amongst former socialist republics. Obviously, he is not. But it is vital to hear what he has to say, specifically because it allows for dissenting views and debates. Dissenting views and debates, which did not happen when we lost our senses

and we let every tiny nation of all of Eastern Europe into NATO without a single regard for the consequence of the future. Our current policy in Ukraine is signing us up for never-ending bills, never-ending military supply, and never-ending diplomatic problems at a time when our attention in a different region of the world has never been more important. So I was really struck by what he had to say. And listen, I get it. I know everybody hates Hungary, whatever. Okay, they're a Christian nation. Yes, they don't like immigrants, et cetera. Put that aside. We're not talking about that right now. We're talking about how do we see other, how do other NATO alliance members and people who were former socialist republics view the conflict? And where

are we being honest about what the future looks like? That is probably the most stark admission that I have heard yet from an actual leader of a NATO military state and who shares a massive land border with Ukraine. Yeah. I mean, I have no problem with Hungary. I do have some issues with Orban, but I mean, I think on this, he's being way more honest than anything I've heard from an American politician, to be totally frank with you. And, you know, the part that really disgusts me is we're effectively, because he's obviously correct that the U.S. is driving this train, that the fact that, you know, the way the war has been conducted, the, you know, continued effort to push it, the continued effort to thwart any sort of peace talks or diplomatic negotiations

that, like, that is coming from Washington. We are driving this train. That has always been really clear. And when you really think about that, you come to realize we're using the Ukrainians as pawns. And it is a devastating tragedy in that country, the number of people who are being killed and maimed and the whole nation upended and destroyed. And what is the plan? Like, what is the plan at this point? Because even the thing that's articulate of like, well, I guess we're just going to keep doing it. I mean, that's keep doing this forever. Like, what is the plan at this point? Because even the thing that's articulate of like, well, I guess we're just going to keep doing it. I mean, that's keep doing this forever. Like, even that doesn't really make sense. Do we really how does that serve our interest or anyone's interest? So the clarity of saying, yes, it's the U.S. that's driving this train and stop with the

learned helplessness to pretending like, oh, Ukraine's doing these drone strikes, you know, look for this deepest into Russian territory. And we wish they wouldn't. But what can we of course, you can do something. Of course, you are not helpless in this situation. So to hear someone, even someone that I'm not a fan of laying out there, what feels to me like some real unvarnished truths, I think is very worthwhile to listen to. Yeah, I mean, and that's what really just comes across is where he's like, look, this is on you. He's like, you guys are the ones who do it. I also really enjoyed, there's some different moments where he goes at, uh, U S arrogance. He's like, Oh, you guys fought the cold war. And you think you know something about Russia? He's like, why don't you ask people like us who

were actually ruled by the Russians? He's like, we understand them. He, you know, he was arrested actually for protesting against the Soviet regime. This isn't somebody who is pro Russian or whatever in any aspect of the world. He's just different in terms of his view of how they should conduct themselves in the alliance. So anyway. But, you know, the other thing with that is he was explaining, you know, he was explaining like, oh, you have to understand how the Russians think. But I don't think the way that they view this is so different from how we,

like the sanctions, for example. You know, we had this idea that, oh, the sanctions will make life hard and they'll fold and whatever. You know, first of all, our own experience of trying to use sanctions, it has never worked out that way. But, you know, even with the Ukrainian expectation that attacks on Russian soil would also weaken their resolve. I mean, historically, it's had the exact opposite impact. If that happened to us, it would have the exact opposite impact. So I don't know that the Russian people, they've been propagandized and they're invested in this what is legal, insane, imperial project of Putin that I don't support whatsoever. But I'm not sure that the way that they view things is so different from how an American would view things if you put them in

the same situation, the same context. That I don't disagree at all. Okay. We've got a great debate for everybody. The TikTok kids versus each other. Let's get to it. Obviously, young voters are going to be really key in 2024. So we thought we would convene a big Zoomer TikTok panel. We're very excited to have us joining this morning. We've got Harry Sisson. He is a very enthusiastic and outspoken Biden supporter. And we also have Link Lauren, who is a conservative, a little bit vivate, curious, but I think still keeping his options open in terms of the GOP primary. Fair to say, Link? Well, I'm, wait, wait, wait, whoa. I'm an independent. I'm an independent,

common sense moderate. Okay. All right. Well, we'll see about that as we get into the conversation. I'm anti-Biden. I'm anti-Biden for sure. Well, that's good. All right. Okay. Well, we can get into all of that. Gentlemen, we're really glad to have both of you. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for having us. Yeah, of course. So I wanted to start, and Harry, I'll start with you, but I'll give you the same question too, Link. You know, voters of your generation are basically not really feeling either party so much. And we've got some approval ratings of the leaders of the two parties we can put up on the screen here. So let's start with Joe Biden.

I think he sits in this particular survey at 37%. And then Donald Trump, very similar, 37%. And Joe Biden sits at about the same percentage point right in the 30s, 37%. So overwhelmingly unfavorable opinion of both of these two individuals among young voters. So, Harry, from your perspective as a Biden supporter, what are your peers getting wrong? I'm not necessarily sure it's what my peers are getting wrong. I think it possibly might be what the administration is doing wrong when it comes to messaging.

Okay. I think that the Biden administration has done so much for young people, whether it's on climate change or historic investments in infrastructure or even education investments. There's a lot there that young people should be excited about.

I mean, the largest investment in fighting climate change ever is something that we can all be really happy about, really excited about. But I think that on the occasion, the administration does a poor job of kind of pitching these things to young people, which is sort of understandable given the era we're in right now with social media and technology. I don't think anybody has really perfected how we get the message through social media, like in terms of politics. I think a lot of people on social media have, but not necessarily politics. So I think once we get that message out more, once we start saying, hey, look at all these amazing things

that the Biden administration has done for young people, especially as we get close to the election, more money is involved in politics. The opinions, at least on favorability, will start to shift. Okay. I love when the Biden administration says it's the messaging. They're like, people don't know how well we're doing for them. They just don't know how good they have it. It's almost like this cultural gaslighting. They think if they keep repeating Bidenomics, Bidenomics, Bidenomics over and over and over,

young people are just going to have more money in their bank accounts. So it's not really translating. And I don't know if it's the messaging because young people are just stressed financially. That's what I read every week in thousands of comments and messages. So let me just link to follow up on that. Do you feel like the Republicans have offered an agenda that's resonating with young people or that you would expect would resonate with young people. I do have some numbers I can put up on the screen for this as well. For sure. Let's see. Go ahead and put the third graphic up on the screen. This was some polling of how young people feel on a variety of issues.

This is 18 to 29-year-olds. Over time, we've seen them getting increasingly progressive on a variety of issues. Here, you've got on stricter gun laws, wanting action on climate change, on same-sex relationships, on food and shelter being a basic right. So I know you've got a critique of Biden here, and frankly, it's one that I partially share. But do you think that the Republicans are offering something that could really fill that void? Well, what I see from young people is they're much more beholden to policy than they are to political parties. So young people, they don't really care as much about Republican or Democrat. They want to vote for someone who's a transformational leader and who's actually going to help them. And I think young people really want someone who's closer to their age,

to be honest. I'm not ageist. If Biden was some spry whippersnapper, I'd say go ahead, run for a second term. But the guy's pretty much incoherent, works two hours a day, and is stumbling and falling down. So most people do not want him to see re-election. So Harry, you've been pretty vociferous. I see you laughing there about Biden's age. But I think it's a legitimate concern. 70 something percent of the American people agree, 69% of Democrats, actually the vast majority of the people in your age group specifically, I guess kind of mine as well, also think that Biden is far too old to run for president. So whenever you're engaging with your audience, people who are young, how do you try and convince them? What's the response here to

the critique? Yeah, I mean, look, I don't think that talking about his age is wrong. I don't think that it's an unfair critique. And I understand why, you know, some people might be concerned about his age, right? I get it. But I think that when we're talking about age, policy and accomplishments matter more. And the fact of the matter is this president has been one of the most accomplished and, in my view, one of the best presidents in my life. And I'm happy to explain why. Just hold on, Link.

We'll come to you. Don't worry about it. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the PAC Act, the CHIPS Act, rejoining the WHO, the Inflation Reduction Act. I mean, the list goes on, right? I think that when you're looking at this president, look at the policy, look at the productivity of this administration, as opposed to, oh, let's just talk about his age, which, as I said, a fair concern. But in my view, what we get done is more important than the age of the candidate. Okay. And then, Link, what Crystal asked you about policy and all of that, I mean, look, you went to NYU, both of you gentlemen, actually, it's kind of interesting in order to think about

two different trajectories crossing paths, I guess, in the night. Whenever we talk here about younger Republicans or even independent non-democratic voters, do you actually see a more policy concern? Because mostly from what I can tell and from peers as well, a lot of it is around cultural concern. There's nothing wrong with that. But I do think that that is a major animating factor. I'm curious how you square your answer with kind of that observation that we've generally

seen as dissidence to like what the overall cultural left is doing? Well, I definitely think the mainstream media is profiting heavy off of these culture war issues. And I knew Harry was going to have his DNC talking points. He was going to list the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act. It's good stuff. No, no, no. I'm totally good for you. But I've been traveling across this country the past year. And when you go talk to maybe a rural voter in Iowa and a small town who owns a small business, they're not feeling the effects of those things. So in a New York, Manhattan, liberal elite bubble, you can list all of those accomplishments. But when you go out into the real world, people just aren't feeling it. They want someone new. They want someone different. So I'm not taking away that he's got these things

passed and the debt ceiling and all of that, but people still want someone new. And I'll also point this out. If he has all of these accomplishments, why is he still neck and neck with Trump in the polls? Wouldn't there be a massive margin? Why is it always one point here, one point here, half a point here? Wouldn't he just be winning by a landslide if they say Trump's a criminal and Trump's been indicted a thousand times and Biden's so great? Clearly it's not sticking. Yeah, except, you know, when we look at polls at this time in different elections, they were never right, right? Like Rudy Giuliani was leading at this point. And I find the point of, you know, the liberal talking point in Manhattan to be interesting because it's not just, you know, me going to NYU saying all these policies are great. It's like,

no, the American people are really feeling this. Like the veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits, do you want to tell them that, you know, they're not actually feeling the benefits? The people who have had their kids lost to terrible mass shootings, do you want to go tell them that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which expands red flag laws, background checks are not significant? Do you want to go tell the record low unemployment, the people who now have jobs, the more jobs that Biden, like 13 million jobs in the Biden administration, we go tell those people that this administration is not working for them. I mean, or how about the people who were just coming out of COVID? President Biden inherited a constitutional crisis from Donald Trump inciting an insurrection. You know, people

are not vaccinated. Unemployment's still high. Nobody's making any money. Then President Biden comes in, buys a lot of vaccines, get this vaccines, gets the job market back open by making crucial investments. I mean, if you would like to go tell all those people that what they experienced was fake, then by all means. But I think we're going to listen to the American people, especially, I mean, we can go into the women and their reproductive freedoms who are being stripped. I mean, how about that 13-year-old girl in Mississippi recently

who's now a mother? I mean, do you want to go tell her that the Republican policy is working, what this administration is fighting for when it comes to reproductive freedom is not real? I mean, I think that sounds more like a conservative talking point in wherever you might be living right now than the liberal Manhattaner combating average Americans or anything like that. Link, I did want to get your thoughts specifically on abortion, if you could respond on that piece, because obviously in elections this year and going back to the midterms, it's been a big issue for Republicans. We just had an Ohio issue one, which was very much a pro-choice versus pro-life.

Even in a red state like Ohio, overwhelmingly the pro-choice side wins. So how do you think Republicans should be talking about that issue and how much do you think that that matters in terms of young people? Well, I would say a ton of Republicans are pro-life, so they're totally fine with everything. But I'd like to point out, I'm a gay guy. I don't have kids. I don't even date women. So me opining on abortion, probably not the best person to talk to about this topic. You're still allowed to have an opinion. For sure. But when I talk to people, I do realize tons of this country, they are pro-life. And you're going to have people who are pro-choice. So I'm not here to tell people who to vote for when they go to the ballot box. I'm just here to represent the thousands of comments and messages I read every week from people across this country.

Oh, I will. I will. Yeah. Republicans across the country are trying to take women's reproductive freedoms. I mean, it's that simple. We don't have to dodge the question. We can just be honest about it. Republicans across this country are trying to take women's reproductive freedoms. We saw it on the debate stage. Asa Hutchinson bragging about all the pro-life legislation he signed. Rhonda Santus bragging about his heart bill. Tim Scott saying he'll sign the most conservative pro-life legislation of elected. Donald Trump saying that women should face punishment if they get an abortion. We have Alabama now suing or threatening to jail people who even assist women to get abortions. Not the doctor, not the woman, but even people who assist. This is one of the biggest crises of our times where we have Republicans directly infringing on the rights of women across this country. And it's disgusting. So when you're looking at 2024, you're thinking, man, how do we get back to a time where women can actually choose

what they want to do with their body? You look at President Biden, you look at the Democrats who have a record of putting on pro-choice judges to different courts, and even the Department of Justice right now, under President Biden, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, have sued consistently in these Republican states to get these bans overturned. Now, sorry, I don't want to take up too much time, but this is a very important issue. Well, Harry, how come Democrats didn't codify Roe versus Wade when they could have? And how come, you know, even moving forward into this election, because I'm on the same page as you are, I'm pro-choice, you know, I would like to see Roe versus Wade at the very least be codified and put back into place. That's actually

not the message. That's not actually what they're pushing for. What they are saying is we just won't do the bad things that the Republicans are doing. Don't Democrats owe women, young people, people across this country more of an affirmative agenda to restore the rights that were lost, given that you do have these, what in my opinion are atrocious situations of, you know, 13-year-olds being forced to bear their rapist babies. Don't they have a responsibility to go further than just saying we're better than the bad guys? Crystal, I couldn't agree more, right? I couldn't agree more. I think that in my view, though, the administration has laid out, especially President Biden, how they intend to reinstate these rights. Whether it be through

judicial nominees, President Biden has always said, I will appoint pro-choice justices. If there's an opening on the Supreme Court, you have Clarence Thomas in the 70s, Alito in the 70s, Robert Suess served for 15 years. President Biden has always said that. However, also President Biden said that he endorses removing the filibuster for codifying Roe v. Wade. Now, if we can get the Democratic senators that we need in the next election and retake the House, we'll do it. I'm so confident that it will get done. Now, as to why it hasn't happened previously, under President Obama, he had some super majorities, but a lot of those senators were from a lot more conservative states. The national sentiment on abortion wasn't the same. So do I blame those Southern, or maybe not

Southern Democrats, but those Democrats who were in those more conservative states for not using their power then and codifying it? Absolutely. But the political kind of landscape was just a little bit different then. But it's still a missed opportunity. And I think if we get that opportunity again, we will take it. Link, young voters, number one issue at the polls. You said you're an independent, you're anti-Biden. If you're young, why should you not vote for Biden? Well, I'm not here to tell anybody who to vote for. I think people should make their own decision. Honestly, the biggest issue for me with Biden is the censorship on social media. I mean, going back to court to try and overturn the lower court's ruling to censor social media content and steer the narrative, that's just never going to sit

well with me. I think his calamitous trip to Maui last week really solidified it for me. I mean, you go to Maui and give a speech about almost losing your Corvette in a small kitchen fire and making glib jokes and comments when people have lost everything. They've been torched to the ground. They can't find their families. They can't find their kids. He's cracking jokes. Then he hops on a plane to go back to his $18 million mansion in Lake Tahoe and take Pilates classes and walk around a parking lot with a smoothie. I want a transformational new leader in this country to sit in the Oval Office and really enact change. People need to see strength and see a real leader and Joe Biden isn't giving me that, he's not giving young people that. But Link, it's not just about what you're

against. It's also gotta be what you're against. It's also got to be what you're for. Very likely the Republican nominee is going to be Donald Trump. You know, Trump also censored on social media. You can see that. You can see that. You can go and read the Twitter files and you'll see his administration doing a lot of the same stuff that the Biden administration was doing. In fact, I mean, the Hunter Biden laptop thing happened while Trump was still president. So let's keep that in mind. That's number one. Number two, I mean, in terms of hurricane response, he was, you know, very late in terms of his response to Hurricane Maria. He took 13 days. He showed up for two hours.

Yeah, and go back and look how Donald Trump did. My question to you directly, and then I'll get Harry in. My question to you directly is, then I'll get Harry in. My question to you directly is, is Trump better than Biden? You know, if that's your choice, Trump v. Biden, or would you vote third party? Like, what would be your choice in that situation and why? For sure. So the thing about American politics is you never know who's going to emerge. I mean, look at how many candidates were on the stage last week, right?

So I'm going to keep my options open and see how I feel in November of 2024. But Link, listen, but let's be real. This is what it's likely coming down to. I'm probably the most real person. Let's get real, Crystal. Trump is like 50% ahead of everybody else. You know, Nikki Haley gained like three points after this debate. It's not enough to overcome it. But if you guys have a nail in the coffin, but Crystal, if you have a nail in the coffin

with the trial, then isn't it sealed up? I'm just trying to figure out where do you actually stand? Like, do you actually think Trump is better than Biden? If that's your choice, are you a Trump guy or are you on the fence? Are you looking at a third party candidate? We also never said anything about nails in the coffin, just to be clear. Yeah, no, we've never said that, definitely. So anyway, where do you stand if that's your choice?

Where do you stand if that's your choice? Honestly, traveling, getting to know these candidates, I really like some other candidates, and I'm looking to see who's going to emerge in November of 2024. Okay. Go ahead, Harry. I'd also like to point out... No, no, no.

You can let us know. One second here. We'll get to you. Go ahead, Link. Go ahead, Link. I'm an independent new media journalist, so I report on culture hold on. We'll get to you. Go ahead, Link. I'm an independent new media journalist. So I report on culture war stories. I follow politics very closely.

It's not my place to tell people how to vote or exactly who I'm going to vote for. Harry, obviously, he made the decision to totally endorse Joe Biden. And if they were paying for my flights and hotels, maybe I'd do the same thing too. I wish my flights and hotels were paid for. Please put me in contact with who's doing it. No, no, no, but it's okay. I would love for it to be paid for. You've made a decision to do it.

No, no, but listen, listen. I come from a place of journalism. I gave you your time. You're an influencer for Biden. I gave you your time. So that's the difference here. I wish John Perry could do it. Perry, go ahead and respond.

Perry, you can go ahead and respond. Go ahead. Sorry, guys. I apologize. No, you're good. Go ahead. Crystal Sager. So what we just heard from my counterpart on the right is what we call a non-answer.

You ask him a question. Are you going to support Trump? He couldn't bring himself to support the four-time indicted disgraced former president who's now a proven sexual abuser or rapist. Dude, wait. Dude, journalists have to... Hold on.

Let him finish. Or, you know, rapists, as deemed in courts in New York, right? Couldn't give you a determination there. But just to respond to what he said earlier, I mean, I think it's just when you asked him, like, why would he support Trump over Biden, right? Why is he voting for Trump?

He then cited President Biden going to Maui as one of his big reasons. And he's like, oh, he took 13 days. And the granddaughter in Arkansas. But he wasn't clamoring. I don't think he's brought up the fact that Donald Trump took 15 days to go to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, which killed thousands.

Right. There's no there's no criticism there. He's like, oh, Biden took 13 days. And the reason that Biden took 13 days is because now he was on fire. Like it's unsafe for the president and the Secret Service to travel there, along with the federal response going on. And the governor there was like, yeah, within six hours, the president met our needs. On the 10th, President Biden signed an emergency. Wasn't Tulsi Gabbard there on the ground the next day? On the 10th, President Biden signed an emergency. Wasn't Tulsi Gabbard there on the ground the next day? On the 10th, President Biden signed an emergency declaration. So look, you can clamor in with Tulsi Gabbard,

this or that or President Biden. But, you know, the people who are actually in Hawaii are saying, yeah, yeah, President Biden met all our needs within hours. Like he's been great. The federal response has been fantastic. I don't know. It's a bit more complicated.

Yeah, go ahead. I've seen people in Maui on their local news station saying, screw Joe Biden. They put up a sign over their businesses saying, we're sorry you lost your Corvette in the fire.

You know, like, I don't know if the people in Maui are so happy, but, you know, God bless. I'm just saying, can I say one thing real quick? Yeah, go ahead. Yes.

This comparison between me and Harry, I feel it's a false comparison. Harry is an influencer who's decided to totally endorse Joe Biden, which is his prerogative, right? I'm a new media journalist. My medium happens to be TikTok, right? It's not my place to opine or tell people who to vote for. I'm not owned by a political party. I'm not owned by a media conglomerate. I cover the news. I look at a lot of information and I give you my take. That's it. Okay. So let's close. Let's close by forcing each of you to sort of steel man the other one's position. So Link, what, in your opinion, is the best thing that Joe Biden has done and potentially the best reason for young people who are considering voting for him to vote for him? Honestly, I can't think of one reason to vote for Joe Biden.

I would say if you're pro-choice, you're definitely going to lean toward Biden. And I think that's up to a woman to make that decision. But for me personally, I'm not going to list all the accomplishments. We just heard Harry list 50 different things. So there's nothing. Not one thing that you think that he did that was like, all right, that was okay. The thing is also, you guys, like I said, I'm not telling people to vote for Trump or Biden. I'm keeping options open.

I really want a transformational younger leader. I mean, look what happened with Mitch McConnell yesterday. Look at Dianne Feinstein. Look at Joe Biden. Is it crazy to say, hey, can we have someone maybe in their 60s or 50s, someone who really speaks to us and understands the 21st century issues we have with cybersecurity and so many other things. Also, I don't really want a president pushing us deeper, deeper, deeper into conflict with Ukraine,

Russia, et cetera, just to be honest. And we didn't even touch on that. Okay, Harry, what about for you? What do you think is the biggest mistake or disappointment of the Biden administration? Oh, wow. The biggest mistake or disappointment? The cocaine in the White House. The granddaughter in Arkansas. Let him respond. The border. No, the border. No, not at all.

Well, I'm from Texas, so I'm just saying. Oh, you're from Texas? Yeah, so I'm saying open border is not really my thing. I'd like to see a stronger border. Anyway, listen, I'll try to answer the question, but if you were... I'd say no cards have been broken. Link, let him answer the question. You had your chance.

If he wasn't answering, it was dead time. Yeah, Harry, you got to give us an answer. Of course, of course. If he was honest and not disingenuous, he wouldn't be talking about an open border. But in terms of administration, one failure, I think that the Build Back Better,

we had something great there, and it passed, was unfortunate. And I wish that the child tax credit would have been longer. And I understand that politics got in the way and maybe it wasn't it was wasn't possible with Manchin and Sinema. But I wouldn't necessarily call it failure, but something I wish it would have happened under his child tax credit. OK, gentlemen, this is fun. This is a lot of fun. But Link, tell people where they can find you.

And then here you can find me at itslinklauren on TikTok and Twitter. And I also want to say thank you guys for having me. And also for Harry, I really do wish you the best. I went to NYU also, and I do like your content. I like seeing young people involved in politics for sure. And as a big brother, I just want to say, I'm so excited to see you travel across the country and meet more voters in different areas

and hear their needs and their concerns. Because I do think your content will become more nuanced and you'll have more empathy for other people. That was a little condescending. Go ahead, Harry. No, listen, listen, listen. I won't throw the low blow. I won't throw the low blow. Listen. No, no, I'm seriously throwing the low blow. I'm wishing you the best. They have a show to do. They have a show to do. We can't talk. They have a show to do. All right. Anyway, sorry, guys.

You can find me on every platform, Harry, J-Sys, and likewise, Chris. Appreciate you guys so much. Thank you. There you go. Thanks, guys. Go Bobcats. Right? Is that the right one?

Harry, is it the violet or the bobcat? I don't know. I don't know. All right. Whatever. All right, gentlemen. That was fun. I really enjoyed that. For people who are just listening, you got to watch that, man.

That was- There was a lot of emotive reaction, for sure. You have to watch it. That was must-see content. Thank you very much to our producer, Griffin. It was his idea in order to get this done, and he wrangled all the scheduling for that. So we appreciate everybody who watches the show

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