Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/5/21: Andrew Cuomo's Downfall, Chris Cuomo's Silence, Eviction Moratorium Extended, Amazon Union Busting, Dem 2022 Worries, Lab Leak, Nina Turner, Inside DC, and More!

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

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What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. We got some big updates for you on Governor Cuomo. We'll start the show with that in just a moment. Biden's belt face on the eviction moratorium. We'll tell you what you need to know there. The NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board, has ruled that Amazon did, in fact, violate labor law in that Bessemer Union election. We'll give you the details there. Turns out Democrats are pretty worried about midterms. Really bad. Really bad numbers that they are admitting to, that they need a dramatic turnabout if they're going to have any shot at holding the House.

In some ways, that chance may have already expired. We also have the great Jeff Stein on to talk about all of the things that are happening in Washington, from housing and the eviction moratorium to the infrastructure bill to the reconciliation bill. Going to get updates from him on all of that. But we do want to start with all the details of exactly what a scumbag Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York is. Of course, we've been covering for a long time all of the many scandals that he has been enmeshed in. Now, personally, I would argue that basically allowing elderly people to die in nursing homes, covering that up, giving VIP treatment to his brother and a ton of other people, using state resources to write his million-dollar, multi-million-dollar book,

I would say that that was already enough. That was enough to impeach him. Have him go on his own. Yes. But now we also know new details from an investigation by Democratic Attorney General Letitia James. Just what a jerk and a scumbag and a bully and a disgusting sex pest he was, allegedly, in terms of his operation within his office. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what she had to say. Governor Cuomo sexually harassed current and former state employees in violation of both federal and state laws. The independence investigation found that Governor Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, many of whom were young women, by engaging in unwanted groping, kisses, hugging, and by making inappropriate comments. Further, the governor and his senior team took actions to retaliate against at least

one former employee for coming forward with her story. So there was a lot we learned in this report. We're going to get to Cuomo's defense in a moment. Basically, he's like, I'm Italian. I'm friendly. I do this with everyone. Yeah. Okay, some of this goes way beyond being a little overly friendly or touchy with people.

This includes feeling women up under their blouse. This includes a state trooper. You really, this really caught your eye. I went through, I read the entire thing. This one really pissed me off. I actually tweeted about it. I rarely tweet. That's how mad I was.

So I put it up there. Cuomo arranged the transfer of a female state trooper to his protection detail that he found attractive and then sexually harassed her constantly. Repeatedly. Including unwanted kissing, being like, do you want to come upstairs? And you can actually see there on the left side in that first graphic that she did not

even technically qualify to be on the protective unit for the governor. But he and his staff, like he saw her, apparently was attracted to her, arranged her transfer onto his protective detail. Then she was the only woman and she didn't know what to do. And she was constantly being harassed by the governor and she would go to her colleagues and be like, what do I do? And they're like, yeah, I don't know.

This is really gross. They even started to all make a joke about how they should try and keep her away from the governor or who are they really protecting. Really, really disgusting stuff. I think that one is the most egregious, in my opinion. And this was a pattern, though. He would find these women.

He would intentionally pull them into some position where he was going to have access to them. And then, I mean, this really, it is actually consistent with all the other power abuses that we talk about. Because this is just classic abuse of power. I'm going to do it because I can, and there's really nothing you can do about it. And he would use the fact that he had all these women in his office and had elevated all these women into senior positions that he found attractive. He would use that to paint himself as some great feminist the whole time. Meanwhile, this is the reality of what's going on, putting women, you know, who really, some of them really like their job, really care about their job, the state trooper

in particular, she's elevated to this high level beyond, you know, really where her experience would have ultimately put her. She thinks this is a great opportunity. And then she's in this awkward position because what do you do when the governor asks you for a kiss? You don't want to lose the job. You don't want to piss him off. You don't just have no idea how to handle it. So that's the type of behavior that we're talking about here. And if it was one woman, if it was two women, you might be able to say, oh, it's a misunderstanding. They interpreted the wrong way. He's just overly friendly. We're talking about 11 women here, just that they spoke to in this report, including nine current and former employees. That is a direct violation of both

state and federal law. Really just gross and indefensible behavior. No, that is exactly what it is. And you see this with his assistants, with many of these lower women who were working for him, most of them who were young, and all of them describe the same pattern of inappropriate comments escalating to physical contact, escalating to being creepy in private areas, especially within the governor's mansion. They describe a culture there in which it was common for them to sit on his lap or like seniors, junior and senior. I mean, look, and that's what they said, is that it doesn't come out of a vacuum,

is that there was all this permissible kissing and sitting on his lap in the behavior which was encouraged by the governor, specifically in order to normalize his own behavior here. And as you said, I think what's actually more disgusting is his response. He's basically saying that all these people are liars. And okay, you know, you have to go ahead and prove it. But even worse, he's saying if there was any misunderstanding, it's because I'm Italian. Just look at what he said in response to all of this.

I do it the street. Oh, my God. Oh, so he holds, like, yeah, holding the chin of a boy is not the same thing. He goes, I do it with everybody. I mean, first of all, that's not cool. Maybe we shouldn't. Yeah, that one photo that came out months ago of him with a young girl at a wedding reception. Yeah, and her face is like, ugh. She's like, please, please, don't touch me, creepy old man.

It's like, yeah, first of all, maybe don't. Second, pretty actually racist against other Italians for saying, like, oh, all, yeah, actually, we're all constantly sexual. I'm like, dude, I've been to Italy. Like, I'm pretty sure people don't behave that way. I'm glad someone here is standing up for the Italians. I stand up for them. I've spent time in New York. I know some New York Italian people.

They don't act this way. Why can't you get to act together? So that's the way that his response has been. But even worse was this particular one, where trying to normalize his behavior of touching and kissing, he says, he put a slideshow together of other politicians hugging people. And he includes, has the gall, for those who are just listening, he includes photos, which we have here up on the screen, of George W. Bush and Barack Obama hugging hurricane victims. The hubris and the, I don't even know what to call it, to compare Barack Obama and George W. Bush hugging victims of hurricanes who lost their family members and their homes to you and your creepy behavior of young women on your staff

who you have power over there are no words for what that even describes yeah of like what who who does that it's like what is wrong with comparing that to him literally grabbing titties and asses yeah that's that's the comparison he's trying to make here. And, like, those two things are equivalent, allegedly. I don't know. I mean, it really, really is something. I mean, his response, 85 pages long, and the majority of it was just a bunch of pictures of him, like. Of that, of what we showed you. Embracing people, these presidents embracing people and all of that. Another thing that's in this report, which is also really disturbing, which we kind of saw in real time, is Lindsey Boylan, one of his accusers.

They went to all these aggressive lengths to smear her and her reputation. Leaked her file. Leaking confidential personnel files to the press in an attempt to smear her. Cuomo apparently drafted some like really nasty op-ed revealing some of those details himself. And then that was ultimately quashed. But you can see the way that his aides collaborated with him in this entire orchestrated effort to try to smear the reputation of at least Lindsay Boylan, potentially many others. I will say that, you know, this behavior is disgusting. And on its own, you know, you should not be in this kind of position of power

when this is how you view and treat people, period, full stop. It is interesting that this is the trigger for people. We're about to say, like, now the bottom has fallen out. Assembly Speaker has said, you know, impeachment's got to move forward. He says they've lost the confidence of the assembly democratic majority. He can no longer remain in office. That's the first time that the assembly speaker, who I believe has been an ally of Cuomo, has come out that forcefully. So impeachment likely moving forward. Apparently it's going to take about another month to finish the impeachment

investigation and draft the articles of impeachment. That's kind of Cuomo's last lifeline, as he's hoping in that month that things kind of die down again and the public just forgets all of this and only remembers what he did when they loved him during coronavirus. Joe Biden, who had previously said, hey, let's let the investigation play out. He and Cuomo have been close for a very long time. Cuomo was at Bo's funeral. Biden spoke at his nominating convention for governor. They've been friends and allies for a very long time. So Biden now officially calling for Cuomo to step down amid these revelations. I just do think it's interesting that apparently the nursing home, like totally corrupt dealings with nursing

homes to start with, like the nursing home lobby basically writing the immunity shield law that Cuomo pushed that Republicans then picked up. You also had the fact that he had this policy in place that required nursing homes to take back in people who had been infected with coronavirus, leading to thousands and thousands of deaths in nursing homes. Then there's a cover-up of those numbers that is well-documented at this point. Not only the nursing home numbers, but now we're learning apparently he downplayed the numbers overall of coronavirus. The very thing that Trump and DeSantis were accused of, he really, it appears, engaged in. That's horrific. You have the fact that he gave VIP treatment to his brother and a bunch of other friends and family at the beginning

of COVID when nobody could get tests. They were getting VIP service, concierge service with their tests. You have allegations that he abused state resources in writing his book. None of that was enough. Like, there are five different things there. Each one of them should have been enough to say, this guy can't hold power anymore. But they held on. It took till now before the bottom really fell out. All of those were enough at the time.

We knew everything we needed to know to get rid of Cuomo back in May of 2020, which we have documented many times, both on Rising and on this show, regarding the nursing home order, the immunity shield. Assemblyman Ron Kim, who we had on our show multiple times, had been calling this out, and nobody wanted to listen because of Trump. He was the useful counter to Trump. And this is the perfect segue, really, to our next segment, which is how the media has behaved with regards to Andrew Cuomo. We cannot let these people off the hook. Whenever it was convenient, they held up this man who is responsible. Just so you all know, New York has the second most amount of COVID deaths in the

entire country, only behind New Jersey, both of whom had egregious nursing home orders. So there are a lot of deaths on the hands of the policy. Now, I've even said, if he had come out and said, look, it was the early days of the pandemic, we didn't know. I didn't know that this was going to be rampant through nursing homes and all this. I'm sorry. That's actually what a real leader does. But he hasn't done that. He covered it up. He wrote a book. But during that entire period, just because he appeared strong and he was in the vein of orthodoxy, the media held him up like he was a hero with regards to Trump. We have a mashup. I've played it previously, but it is always worth remembering how these people treated this man at the height of his power and when it mattered, when they really could have exposed what he was doing. Let's take a listen to that. Governor Cuomo out there day after day after day.

Everything Trump isn't honest, direct, brave. Real leadership of the kind the president of the United States should have provided. Governor Cuomo is clearly living in a totally different reality, the actual one, than the president of the United States. Governor Cuomo has become a national leader. For a lot of people, Andrew Cuomo has become the leader of the Democratic Party. He is conveying incredible strength. You spoke to National Guard troops today in a stirring speech that, if I wasn't listening carefully, I thought you were sending soldiers off to war.

This has been a remarkable show of leadership by Governor Cuomo in recent days. He's providing hope, but not false hope. That goes on for two more minutes. I'm going to spare you. Well, let me add to that mix. Drew Holden on Twitter compiled the quintessential thread of bad Cuomo takes. Let me just give you two headlines from BuzzFeed News.

One is, take this poll and settle the debate. Who's the hottest Cuomo brother? Here's another one. Andrew Cuomo and Chris Cuomo can't stop cracking jokes about each other on live TV, and it's glorious. It's glorious indeed, yeah. It's glorious in what it represents to us about how these people conduct themselves. And look, we don't have to play you again the infamous clip in which Chris Cuomo is joking with his brother, Andrew Cuomo, on CNN's air about the size of his nose and the multiple interviews that he conducted at the height of the pandemic, which he never once pressed his brother about the nursing home. And then the moment that all of this becomes scandalous, Cuomo disappears from Chris Cuomo's CNN tonight. Cuomo, Chris Cuomo, then does a segment on his show saying, I know what's happening with my brother. Obviously, CNN is going to cover it, but I am not. But he didn't even have the gall after the exposure of this report to even address it, to even tell CNN viewers

on his highest rated show. And look, the ratings aren't that great. It's a low bar, but he is still the highest rated show on CNN. He has the most amount of eyeballs. He did not do the due diligence to his viewers to say, at the very least, acknowledge what was happening. Here's how he opened the show after the top story of the day was the conduct of his brother and those revelations. Take a look. Thanks for the coverage. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to Primetime. We're focused on COVID here, especially until we get the Delta variant. Yep, we're focused on COVID here. And then attacked Governor Ron DeSantis. You can't even make it up. And just so you know, put the media one up there on the screen. He did not address it for the entire part of the show. The show before Chris Cuomo,

the show after Chris Cuomo, both of them led their segments on Andrew Cuomo. But once again, he is the person who has the highest rated show on all of CNN and is ignoring and gaslighting his own audience about his role within all of this. And one of the things we learned, Crystal, from the report is that he himself was intimately involved in helping Cuomo's crisis communications when that was happening. Yes, that's exactly right. There were, in an appendix, there was an email that CNN primetime host Chris Cuomo appeared to draft on behalf of his brother to try to get out in front of these sexual harassment and assault allegations when they first came out. So we already knew that Chris Cuomo had been involved in strategy calls, but we did not know how much and how often. So this report contains new details about these

were regular. This was not some one-off, not that any of us ever thought that was really the case anyway. This was not some one-off strategy call. He was involved routinely in regular political strategy calls with his brother, with his brother's aides, with the lawyers, all of this, even going so far as to draft his brother's first initial response to these harassment and assault allegations. And CNN and he himself say nothing about that. They have no words. Nothing. I believe we have the email. Yeah, we can throw that up on the screen. Yeah, there it is there. So you can see this is from Chris Cuomo to the whole team, it looks like, of suggestion of how his language,

questions have been raised about some of my past interactions with people in the office, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's a very similar line to what he's still taking of like, you know, is this just how I am? I do this. I'm sorry if anyone was offended type of line here. I joked around on Twitter, like, I can't wait for Chris Cuomo to not cover any of this on his show tonight.

I didn't think it would be a joke. I actually thought that he would have to say something or that maybe they'd pull him for the night or something. He's directly implicated not only in this, but he also, again, was receiving the VIP treatment. He is directly implicated in all of this. It was certainly one of, if not the biggest story of the day. John Berman, who we handed off to Chris Cuomo,

he started, led his show with it. He put it in the prime position, uncomfortable, in his show, and then hands off to Chris Cuomo, who says not one word. How do you have any credibility, not just Chris Cuomo, but CNN? CNN? How do you have any credibility about your journalistic integrity when you're just completely silent on this whole thing? It's so disgraceful. Look, when you're a news host, you actually do have a responsibility. I think whenever we cover politicians, if one of them is a friend, for example, I think we talked about J.D. Vance. I was like, look, J.D. Vance is a friend of mine. I'm going to be totally upfront with all of you. My mom looked on Nina earlier this week. I was like, I Probably not. And anything I say, you should know that I'm like, look, personal friend

of mine who I've known for a long time. Obviously, I'm rooting for somebody who I know on a personal level. So you guys should know that. And yet Chris Cuomo doesn't have the gall to go to his audience. And once again, to even take Chris Cuomo out of it, if you're Jeff Zucker, if you're the president of CNN, and take it even higher, if you're the CEO of Time Warner, how can you possibly with a straight face tell your investors that you are running the best news organization on the planet? You cannot. to say that, look, the guy's his brother, and be like, listen, Chris, I'm putting something in the teleprompter, and you're going to read it, or you're fired, and you're going to get your ass out on the street. Or you know what? If you want to take the week off, go for it. But we are covering it in your time slot, whether you like it or not.

That's how things should be. But they want to put this under the rug. And honestly, they're probably going to get away with it. Nobody in the mainstream media, yeah, you know, the New York Times tweets about it. Washington Post, they had a story about it in the past. Cuomo survived, let's be honest. He signed a multi-million dollar contract in the middle of COVID. He is the anchor to their entire network. And so they've decided the conflict of interest is enough. But I think what's worse is they know the audience won't punish them for that. I think that's actually the worst part, in my opinion, is that they know the audience is so slavish and will cover up or is okay with the cover up as long as it's a Democrat that they're not going to

do anything about it. And that tells you a lot about the state of where we're at right now. I saw a lot of people on Twitter. They were like, it's his brother. I understand. It's like, what? I mean, listen, he's not the first person to have this type of conflict in terms of having a personal relationship with somebody they're supposed to be covering as a journalist. There are ways that you handle this. He did the polar opposite. So now his whole line, I'm not going to cover my brother at all because obviously I can't cover him because I'd be biased. Well, you can't do that him on the show and joke around with him and lob him softball questions when the news was good and when the media climate around him was favorable. You can't

have it both ways. You either have to cover him good or bad, sit out all together and let someone who has integrity cover him, or you keep your hands off altogether from the beginning. You don't get to have it both ways. And so that's what's really disgraceful here. And the fact, again, this is supposed to be a journalist, okay? And it is different. Like, Sagar and I are upfront about what our ideology is, what our worldview is, who we're cheering for. I mean, we're really upfront about all of that stuff. We don't try to pretend like we're some down-the-middle, neutral, no-opinion journalist. Honestly, nobody is. But with this guy, this is how he paints

himself. He paints himself as the just calling balls and strikes here, holding power to account no matter who it is, et cetera, et cetera. And then you see behind the scenes, he's engaging in political strategy calls with one of the more powerful people in the country, with one of the most prominent people in the country during the coronavirus pandemic, and he's routinely engaging in strategy calls. Not again, some one-off, oh, my brother called me, and we're having dinner, and I happen to say this. No, on a regular scheduled basis. It's just completely counter to the way that he wants to paint himself and the way that CNN has built him and portrayed him. And like you said,

the sad thing is the audience probably doesn't care. Yeah, no, I really don't think they do. It's just egregious. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was? Well, here we are again to remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen

to our constant pleas for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to BreakingPoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. So lots of big news since we last talked to you guys. Obviously, we've been covering a lot. The fact that that eviction moratorium nationwide elapsed over the weekend, just completely shameful on the behalf of the Biden administration and also the House. They knew this deadline was coming. They knew the courts had said Congress is probably going to have to handle this. And they did nothing. They did nothing. Jeff Stein, who we're going to have on the show later, his reporting suggests that the Biden administration for all their, oh, we did, we checked and we triple checked, we quadruple checked, et cetera, et cetera, about getting the CDC to extend that moratorium,

that before Friday, they hadn't even looked into whether there was a legal avenue for them to extend the eviction moratorium. They were hoping this just elapsed quietly and no one said a word about it and they could just say, oh, that's too bad. We did our best. Let's move forward. Well, that is not what happened. There was a major public backlash. And a big part of that was sparked by Congresswoman Cori Bush, who you all know experienced homelessness herself. That was obviously an incredibly searing event for her. She said, you all are going on vacation. I'm staying right here on the Capitol steps and I'm camping out. And by the way, I'm not going to vacation. I'm staying right here on the Capitol steps, and I am camping out. And by the way, I'm not going to be shy about naming whose fault this is.

And I think that's what was different here from Corey and the rest of the squad and some of their allies, including Ro Khanna, who we had on this show. They didn't mince words. They didn't try to be like, well, it's mostly the Republicans, but maybe Democrats are a little bit. That's what they usually do. No, they were direct about, it is the Democrats in control and it is their fault that this is happening right now. So what happened on Tuesday

is the Biden administration effectively caved and said, now it's not going to be a full nationwide extension, but it is, according to the White House, going to cover 90% of people in apartments. So anywhere where there's a high or relatively high spread of the Delta variant coronavirus, for 60 days, they're going to have the eviction moratorium extended. This will certainly go to the courts. We don't know how

they're going to rule ultimately, but the very least buys them some time, both for Congress to potentially act more likely what's going to happen is to put more pressure on states and localities to actually get that rental assistance funds to get those allocated so at least some people can potentially be made whole. But, you know, this was this was funny to see because, of course, listen, behind the scenes, Democratic leadership hated that Cori Bush did this and that the squad did this and made them look bad and really embarrassed and shamed them and showed the distance between what they were saying and what they were actually doing. Once Biden came around and Cori scores her, suddenly Chuck Schumer shows up to congratulate her. Let's take a look at that.

They're walking to the steps. Boy, oh boy. You guys are fabulous. I mean, it's just so funny. Like, they're after, you know, after it happens, after Biden caves, after they win, then he comes around. Oh, you guys are so fabulous. Love you so much. It's interesting, too. The White House press corps definitely picked up on it. I mean, look, let's be honest.

This is a total flip-flop. Biden came out and said, I don't have a legal authority. The CDC told me that they can't do it. And then 24 hours later, it's like, I have now learned that I have the legal authority. It's like, okay. And, look, credit to the press corps who pressed him on this, who were like, what are you talking about? How could you say one thing and not the other? Here's what Jen Psaki had to say. I think what's important to note here is that the president would not have moved forward

with a step where he didn't feel comfortable and confident in the legal justification. It is also a reality that there are legal steps that have been taken by the Supreme Court in the last few months, and we have spoken to that publicly. We're not going to hide from that. But he asked the CDC and his legal experts to look at what is possible. This is a narrow, targeted moratorium that is different from the national moratorium. It's not an extension of that. It's a different moratorium from a policy and legal standpoint. So he felt comfortable in the justification and the legal approach to this effort. Come on. No, he didn't. It wasn't the same thing at all. I don't know, Crystal. I got to say, given the fact that the court,

I think rightfully so, said if you're going to supersede all of housing law, Congress should pass it. Then the Biden administration and Pelosi should get off their ass and they should try and pass it through Congress. I actually think Ro Khanna had a good point, which is that actually if you force these Democrats to vote, you really think they're going to vote against it on the record? I just don't. I honestly don't think so. And I know you're skeptical. I think from what I had asked around, probably a handful, maybe 10 or a dozen Republicans would have voted for the same thing. So I'm telling, look, from what I had learned, there was at least some people on the fence, especially in districts and places where Delta was high and where there were problems, that there were at least some members who were willing to listen. All I'm saying is this,

it should come from Congress. I really believe that. I don't think it's fair to the people who are being evicted to live in this crazy quasi-legal gray area where obviously the Supreme Court already ruled. Then if it gets struck down next week, then we only bought them a week in their house. The executive and the legislative should come and look, if there's a compromise, if there's only two weeks in order to pump out assistance and so be it. I just feel like putting people in limbo like this is wrong. I've always felt it that way. So there are every, I mean, as I said, everybody sucked on this. Everybody sucked. They have known

for quite, first of all, they've known since they set the date that this date was coming, that the end was coming. Second of all, they've known for more than a month that the Supreme Court was at least very, very skeptical of the CDC's ability to extend this moratorium. Given the fact that they waited for it to lapse and that it obviously would take a lot of time for Congress to be able to get this through, and it probably would have to be done through reconciliation since they're married to the filibuster. That's a long process to be able to get their act together on that. I mean, it just it just is a long process to be able to get that done. So given where we are, I am very glad that they made this decision, extend the moratorium, even though now it's going to go to the courts, at least it buys people a

little bit of time, a little bit of lifeline. But you're 100% right. The fact that this lapsed at all put a lot of people in jeopardy and allowed evictions to go ahead for a couple of days. How can you live that way? The Washington Post had a piece that said, listen, when the nationwide moratorium lapsed on Saturday, states and cities allowed the courts to go ahead and process these filings. So you had some people that just in that gap period were already kicked out of their homes. And these are real lives. This article from The Washington Post I'm referencing, like, they interviewed some of the people here who are hoping to be able to stay in their homes and who are facing evictions. They talked to one guy in Central Florida who his gigs as an artist and editing

for a production company, of course, dried up during the pandemic. He got by for a while, but he couldn't keep up on his rent. By the way, he also has leukemia. By the way, he also then came down with coronavirus. And so he says for him, the new moratorium is at least it's temporary relief. So at least it's something. But you're right. And this was the other thing that Ro Khanna said to us, that rental relief program is only $5,000. Now, for some people, that's going to be enough. If you've got people who are behind on their rent months and months, even that's going to be insufficient. So this is a tiny Band-Aid. We don't know how long it's going to last, how long before the courts potentially strike it down.

So are they going to get their act together? Is Congress going to get their act together to shore up that rental relief program, which obviously was completely flawed and designed from the beginning, and then states and localities have done a poor job of implementing in many instances? Are they going to change the parameters on that so that there are more funds that could be distributed? Like, what happens next? Because this is a very temporary fix that doesn't even apply to everyone in the country. There's a lot of people who are going to fall through the cracks. I don't think it's going to last more than two weeks on its face. And then even then, it's like, look, I think the most important thing, states, get the money out the door. You could probably stop a majority of the evictions if they get the money out the door

into the hands of the landlords and into the hands or the tenant. I'm not, all states implement the program differently, which would make it so that you could buy people another month or maybe two months. And then that gives them time to find another job, maybe make up rent. I'm not saying it's perfect, but what I'm saying is that that is better than nothing, I think, in my opinion. I just do think that they should pass an act of Congress, pass it again for a month, and then after that month, use that entire month with the directive to the states, like, hey, if you don't spend this, we're going to fine you or whatever. That's a way that we routinely compel state behavior. And then they'll actually get their act together, they'll dedicate

the resources, and we can forestall the majority of this, and then we can move on and go back to normal. I really think that that is generally the way we should move. Now, I'm not stupid. You know, I don't think any of that is going to happen. The most likely scenario is some Texas judge strikes this thing down within days. It goes back to the court. Kavanaugh immediately cancels the order.

And then one week from now, that guy is out on his ass for no reason. I mean, it's not his fault. Like, it really is the fault of a lot of the politicians here in Washington. Well, and so to make the counter legal case, and I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a Supreme Court watcher. This is just, you know, these are the counter arguments that are being made by people who are. So Kavanaugh, in his concurring opinion, said that effectively, like, I don't like this being done through the

CDC. If you're going to extend it again, it needs to go through Congress. But I'm going to allow it because we need to give people more time for that rental relief funds to go out the door. So two things have, one thing has changed and one thing has not changed. The thing that's changed is, of course, Delta is much worse than when he wrote that opinion. And the other thing that did not change is that rental relief money did not go out the door. So there is a possibility that he would look at those two factors and allow it once again. I tend to agree with you that that's probably less likely to happen than that ultimately it gets struck down. So this is far from an issue that is solved, far from an issue where we have any kind of satisfying resolution. But I do want to say

it's not nothing. They've given temporary relief to a lot of people who are terrified of being out in the street with themselves and their family and their kids. Rent has skyrocketed. So whatever they were paying and unable to afford in their apartment, they're not even going to be able to find something at that price now going forward, making this all so much more difficult. Consequences, as you guys know, and as we've been talking about here, for experiencing homelessness, even for a temporary period, are incredibly grave, especially for kids. That can just send your life into a downward spiral. It really is a tragic potential situation.

So I want to say, I want to give, and I think I was a little too cynical when we first covered this, I want to give Cori Bush a lot of credit here and say also something that we talk about here a lot is there's a lot of focus on diversity in Congress. In terms of class diversity, we've been flatlined in terms of the number of working class people who have actually experienced anything approaching this in their lives who are either in Congress or representing you at the state or local level. The fact that you had one person in there who had experiences personally actually forced Biden to at least do something. And I think that's an important, I think that's really significant. I think that's

important to see. Yeah, I think you're right. We also have a big update for you, as I mentioned before, on Amazon. So obviously we covered extensively their election down in Bessemer, Alabama. Union overwhelmingly lost in that election. But from the beginning, there were a lot of signs that Amazon was up to some really dirty tricks in terms of forcing that vote to go their way. And now, officially, the National Labor Relations Board agreed. So the director of an NLRB hearing recommended, well, they haven't recommended yet whether a new election is going to be conducted or what is going to happen. But the NLRB did rule that Amazon violated labor law in that union election. So their tactics went beyond just, you know, hardball, but still within the realm of legal. The core allegation here, and this wasn't the only thing

that they found that they did improperly, but the core allegation here revolved around a mailbox that Amazon had installed on the property within sight where they could view workers going and dropping off their ballots. Now, the government had told them you can't do this. This is not allowed. They did it anyway. And workers felt that this was incredibly coercive because you have this feeling of like, oh, my boss is watching me when I'm dropping off my ballot. I better vote the right way. They also said that overwhelmingly the ballots that were put into that drop box, that there was a fear that Amazon may have access to even, that those ballots were overwhelmingly no votes in terms of the union. And so that was one of their core allegations was that this Dropbox, the government had already said you can't install it. They did it anyway. There were fears that the company had access to it and that it at the very

least created a very coercive situation for the employees. There were other allegations as well. Remember, we covered the way they got the traffic lights changed. There were also allegations that they were sending out communications that effectively said, hey, there are going to be layoffs and you might lose your job if this union goes through, which is the hallmark textbook definition of illegal union busting. So looking at the totality of all of that, NLRB says this was illegal, and next thing we have to find out is what exactly they're going to do about it. This is a big deal, and I think we should also be honest, which is Amazon probably still would have won the vote anyways, even if they had done this.

And that's the thing which always I find fascinating about this company is that even though the odds were dramatically stacked in their favor, as we saw in the vote count and all of that, I'm't, I'm not personally, I don't think that this Dropbox would have made all that difference. They still did it. Like they still went out of their way in order to throw everything to make it as crushing of a defeat as possible, which really fits with Bezos's vision of the company. Bezos's vision is we are generous. We are going to give you the best wage, $15, $17 an hour, whatever, healthcare, et cetera. But don't you dare ask for a scrap more than what we give you. Don't have an idea in your head that you're going to get anything which we don't decide is best for you. I personally just don't believe in that type of labor market. I do not believe that that is how people should be treated, especially what did we just cover? Amazon is the largest employer, second largest employer in the United States. One out of 169 workers in the United States works for Amazon.

They have massive control over our labor market. They have, I think, hired over half a million people just in the year of 2020. They have an exponential growth trajectory. I think they'll be number one within the next five years. The way that this company governs its employees is the way that America itself is governed, especially in rural America, where they are one of the largest employers of those without a high school degree, or even with only a high school degree. And I personally just, we have to look out for those people's well-being. That's really the story here. What Iron Man and I always talk about, he always says to me is effectively like Amazon and the monopolist Walmart and all these like monopolist effectively have already rigged

the macro level situation so that it's almost impossible for these union elections to succeed because workers very rationally look at the landscape and say, this is the only job in town. I don't really want to piss these people off. And so even though, yeah, I hate it. I hate the way I'm treated. I hate that my hours are so long or I hate that I'm treated like a robot. I hate the way that I, my hours are so long or I hate that I'm treated like a robot. I hate the way that I'm tracked, like whatever. Or I hate the low pay. I hate the fact that they chew you up and they spit you out and they don't treat you like a human being. This is still the only game in town. So I don't want to screw it up. Even if there's a little bit of a chance

that this is going to cause me not to have a job here, there are just no other options for me. And so you have the whole landscape, not to mention like our labor law already sucks and it's toothless and that's why we need the PRO Act and all of those things. So you already have at the macro level basically a rigged system in favor of Amazon. But that's not enough for them. They also have to, like, rig at the micro level. They'll do everything. With the Dropbox and the anti-union meetings. The traffic lights, remember that? And the threatening emails and the traffic lights

and the, like, thugs surveilling and all that stuff. They still have to go that extra level to make sure that there isn't even a sliver of a chance that one of these workplaces will be unionized because I think they do fear, you know, the theory of organizers here and the Teamsters have launched a nationwide drive to try to organize Amazon. The fear is that if one shop floor falls and they're able to unionize, then that could set off a domino effect. I don't think they're wrong about that because then that fear factor starts to lessen. If you see other workers who are able to do it and they did keep their jobs and they did earn better pay or better

working conditions, then you start to think, oh, maybe this is a possibility. Maybe I can stand up to them and get something a little bit better for myself and my family in this workplace. So I don't actually think it's – I don't think they're crazy to be so concerned that if one place were to unionize that it could trigger ultimately a domino effect. a little part of a video that they put together that encapsulated a lot of the allegations from the union of the illegal labor practices that were being engaged in. Let's just take a listen to that. Amazon transitioned to a new phase of its campaign. It compelled Jefferson County to change the traffic light signals outside the Bessemer warehouse to rob the union of one of its most effective messaging tactics, speaking to workers at red lights as they headed into the office warehouse. Meanwhile, Amazon pummeled workers with anti-union messaging via text messages,

Twitch ads, and notes on bathroom stalls and break rooms. Do it without dues, Amazon propaganda explained. Every time we go to the bathroom in your stall, in the men's bathroom, as soon as you go to the stall, you got an anti-union flyer right there in front of you. You got flyers in the break room. You got when you're walking in and walking out, you got big binders saying, early vote, vote no.

When the election began on February 8th, Amazon deployed a concerted misinformation campaign targeted at its employees. We've seen Amazon. You know, I mean, that really does sum up the entire situation. It's about power. It's about the way that Amazon treats its employees. But it's also about the way that they want to cover and maintain their image. And I think any American, even if you have different ideas around unions and more,

you should ask yourself whether you're cool with a single individual, Bezos, having this much power over the entire American labor market. This was the same conversation that we had in the 2000s and the 90s around Walmart. And it's the same conversation that we'd be having today, especially as all of the small towns lose so much of the industry and the ability that they have. and Amazon just gobbles it up. In my neighborhood recently, what just opened up is an Amazon Fresh store, which is one of those stores where you come in and you scan a QR code, and there's nobody working there. You just pull the stuff off the shelves. It uses cameras to tell what you pulled off, and then you walk right out the store. Listen, you think they're not going to be coming to your grocery store?

Where are you supposed to work if you're like 16 years old? You know those cart guys? Gone. Or they'll be owned by Amazon. I mean, Warehouse is going to be the only game in town for a lot of people. And once again, we should be— Well, and they're doing their best to automate that as well, by the way. They're doing their best to automate it, but in the interim, it's going to be all at the whims of what this company decides.

And is it right to have a country where the rural population's entire job is just to supply the people who live in the urban population or work at their whims? These are all really important questions that we should be asking. Yeah, very well said. All right. Last piece we wanted to get to here, some revelatory comments from the Democrats recently. This is really big and kind of went underneath the radar. So let's put it up there from Politico. So Sean Patrick Maloney, he is the head of the DCCC, which is the campaign chief for the House. Now, in a recent open door

meeting, he basically said with multiple people, according to we were familiar with the conversation, new polling, according to their own polling, showed Democrats falling behind Republicans by a half dozen points on the generic ballot in battleground districts. Maloney advised the party to course correct ahead of 22 by trying to promote Joe Biden's agenda. But here's the thing. He just admitted, the campaign chair for the House just admitted that their own internal polls show them trailing six points behind Republicans on the generic ballot in a battleground state. So what is the breaking points rule on polls? What do we add? Plus three, maybe four. Yeah. What we should really add is add around three or four points to the Republican and say, that's the real number. So that means- We're talking about 10 points down in key battleground districts. Actually 10 points down, most likely in a key battlegrounds. They are totally screwed and

hosed in the House. They already have only three points. And look, it's interesting, but it's going to be all culture war all the time at the congressional level. I mean, the number one issue I think that the Republicans are going to have, and I think they will win on, is just COVID restrictions. I've seen a lot of takes on this, which is like, just by being anti-mask mandate lockdown, even if you live in a place where you don't have one, people are going to be like, oh, hell no, we're not coming to that. That's going to be a problem. Defund the police and crime. We've got the highest crime murder rates in the last 20 years. That's going to be an issue. The critical race theory stuff, all of these, immigration,

Biden is underwater by two thirds on every single one of the issues that I just listed. Well, and he used to have good marks on the economy. On COVID too as well. And he does not anymore. And the optimism number, which you pointed out, I think earlier this week, which is for the first time in his presidency, the optimism number is now underwater. So he's underwater in a lot of very bad places. You guys might remember Debbie Dingell. She was the Michigan congresswoman who was really raising, sounding the alarm before Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in Michigan. That's right. Saying like, you guys got to put more resources here. I'm telling you, this guy's got a shot.

We're in bad shape. Oh, no, we got it. We got our data. Don't worry. We don't even need to spend any money there. We got Michigan. It's not a problem. We all know what happened there.

She is saying we are not breaking through. She says that Democrats are not doing enough to boost the economy back in Michigan, especially in the auto industry, which, of course, has been hit with problems because of that semiconductor shortage. So this is a person who's been prescient in the past saying forget about the culture war stuff. Even on these bread and butter issues where y'all think you're doing a good job, people on the ground feel very, very differently. And you can see how it happened. I mean, this is no mystery. It's not that the Republicans have been so brilliant and amazing. It's that Democrats did a couple good things to start with, right? They did a pretty good

job with getting the vaccines out to start with. They passed the relief bill that helped a lot of people temporarily, and now they've done nothing. Now they've done nothing. So there's a consequence to that, you know? And look, let's be fair. These first midterm elections after a new president gets elected are very difficult historically for the party in power. So you know you are already in uphill battle. Then Republicans have a very significant advantage in terms of the way that these districts are gerrymandered. So in terms of the national generic ballot, you have to win by something like five or six points in order for Democrats to control the House. So you're already set at a disadvantage. They knew all of this going in. I mean, from the House. So you're already set at a disadvantage. They knew all of this going in.

I mean, from the beginning, I think Ryan Grimm is the one who's been doing the reporting or having sort of had the insight here that if you don't pass redistricting reform, you will not hold on to the House. It is as simple as that. And we talked to, who is it who did the analysis

that said basically like, if you have the best midterm performance in history for a party in power, David Shore, then you will barely hang on. If you have the second best performance in history for a party in power in the midterms, you will lose the House. We've known that from the beginning. These people also, I want to say, they act, they will rhetorically say that the Republican Party is an existential threat to democracy, and Trump is a fascist, and it's the end of democracy, all of this stuff. But they can't get off their asses to actually do anything to try to keep control. Oh, we've got to have the filibuster. Oh, we've got to have a Senate parliamentarian. So on these basic democracy measures that they knew would be pretty much required in order for them to hold on to power, they can't really be bothered It can be done. Look, I'm not saying that our electoral system is perfect. The truth is, like, they just don't pass stuff that's popular or they don't believe things

which is popular. That's the truth. I'm not defending the Democrats, but it is true that Republicans have a sizable gerrymandering advantage in the House. I'm not disputing it whatsoever. In the Senate, obviously, that's not gerrymandering because you're just running in the states. Now, it is gerrymandered in a different way in that rural states have a lot more power. But yeah, and here's the other piece that's bullshit too is Clyburn and all the rest of them would love to say like, oh, it's to fund the police and it's the left of the party. Y'all lost rural America during the Obama years. Thank you very much. You lost a thousand state house seats during the Obama years. You lost the House, you lost the Senate, and then you lost the presidency. So rural America, you all decided that you were done with and didn't care and weren't going to do anything to win back a long, long time ago. So don't try to put it just on like, oh, it's all AOC's fault when this is a trend that is decades in the making and y'all did nothing about. That I agree with 100%.

Yeah. Which is that this is a 20-year-long trend. It's always amazing. I've said this before. I'll read books and it's like, Democrat from Arkansas. Who are these people? Not long ago. Democrat from Tennessee.

And I'm like, wait, I was alive during this period? I'm like, what's happening? Our politics have changed a lot in the 30 years. Speaking basically of Bill Clinton, 2000 and onward is when this all started the last 21 years. And so having a different map, that's what creates a lot of this tension. I would say generally, I really think they're screwed. And I think COVID has a lot to do with it. I especially think that the election is kept saying Trump is completely out of step with the public on lockdowns. It turns out that the polls were completely out of step with the public. It turns out anti-lockdown, way more popular. Well, and Democrats had no counter message on economics. Yeah, that's also true.

All they had was like lockdowns and restore the soul of the nation, which look, it was enough to get Joe Biden in, but it wasn't. Barely. Barely. 45,000 votes. Barely, which is pathetic given how, like, terrible Trump was during the entire pandemic. So, yeah, I mean, I think they're totally screwed. And I really don't know that there's anything they could do at this point to rescue it. Midterms are a game of who is energized. The Democratic base is going back to brunch. Like, Trump is gone. They're happy. They're satisfied. They don't really care that much anymore. Republicans are very, very energized

around some of the issues that you mentioned. And so they're going to show up. And I think Democrats are in big, big trouble. I think you're right. Wow. You guys must really like listening to our voices. While I know this is annoying, instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial, when you're done,

check out the other podcast I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American society. You always need more Crystal and Saga in your daily lives. Take care, guys. Crystal, what are you taking a look at today? Well, folks, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times for the American left. On the one hand, Cori Bush, as we mentioned earlier, forced a rare victory against the Biden administration, proving what could be possible with just a few committed voices of moral clarity calling out the failures of establishment Democrats directly. On the other

hand, an organized coalition of money and power was able to defeat one of the best among us. Nina Turner went down to defeat in an Ohio special election. Worse yet, Nina lost to a candidate mired in a corruption scandal and buoyed by money and support from some of the worst people on the entire planet. So as far as the campaign autopsy goes, what happened to Nina? It's really not all that complicated, guys. Millions of dollars in outside money were dropped on her head in the final weeks of this campaign. Jordan Cheridan, he was there on the ground. He said it wasn't just the negative ads, but the billboards that were everywhere in the district reminding voters of Nina's rather brutally honest assessment that voting for

Joe Biden was like eating half a bowl of shit. In typical truth-telling fashion, Nina herself laid out what she thought happened in the campaign in her concession speech. So plenty of the ads those millions bought were packed full of lies. They actually sent out mailers declaring that Nina Turner didn't support $15 minimum wage and didn't support universal health care. Can you imagine a more brazen fabrication? Now, the fact that those mailers went out tells you that much like Bernie before her, Nina did not lose because she was backing unpopular issues and causes. That'll be how plenty of the corporate types will spin it, but that is not remotely what happened here.

Again, we know that because they tried to confuse the voters into thinking that Nina's opponent, Chantel Brown, was really the candidate who would stand for the progressive values that Nina Turner actually does stand for. There's also going to be plenty of second-guessing about Nina's strategy and the campaign that she ran. Of course, you can always second-guess tactical decisions, but she definitely ran a strong campaign, a campaign to be proud of. She got a lot of local validators and endorsers. She had plenty of grassroots funds and volunteers. She put together some terrific ads that we covered,

and Nina herself is one of the most charismatic and talented politicians that we've got. But we also have to say that a core of the anti-Nina message did land with the electorate, at least sufficiently, that this race went from Nina having a more than 30-point advantage to defeat in just a matter of weeks. So what was that message? Why did it land? Their case against Nina was that she would rock the boat too much, would be too willing to call out Democrats, would speak in unvarnished language about their flaws and failings, hence the ubiquitous bowl of shit ads. Chantel Brown, on the other hand, she would never speak out. She would go along to get along. She would never challenge Joe Biden or any other Democratic luminary. That message was apparently very compelling, at least in this majority black and working class district that is ranked the 12th poorest of all the congressional districts in the country. Now, that might be a depressing fact,

but it is a fact we've got to face nonetheless. And before we get all self-righteous about all these silly voters, they don't understand their own best interests, or before we imagine and pretend that a more radical Nina would have magically held appeal in a district where Bernie Sanders lost overwhelmingly to Biden, we need to think about why it might be rational for voters in this district to respond to the don't rock the boat case that Jim Clyburn and others were making. The truth is, if you are Black and you are working class, you might not have the luxury of high expectations from your government. Talk of transformational change? It might seem downright naive and foolish. It could be an entirely rational choice, given that Joe Biden is president

and Pelosi is speaker, that your best bet is just to get a representative who doesn't provoke the ire of the vindictive powers that be, who's going to do what they can to climb the ladder in the prescribed manner, not cause trouble, and be in a position to get a few good things for the district through the nature of their cozy relationships with people in power. Maybe you feel like that's really the best you can hope for here. Especially given that the squad hasn't exactly always delivered on their promises, more on that in just a moment, a politics of getting the bits you can incrementally grab doesn't sound so crazy or foolish at all. So when Jim Clyburn comes to town and says, hey,

I'm with Chantel Brown, and by the way, this Nina Turner person, she just pisses everybody off. Well, that's pretty compelling. So what can be done about that? Well, Cori Bush just gave us a little bit of an answer here in a surprisingly hopeful development. As you all probably know, and we discussed earlier, Congresswoman Bush has personally experienced homelessness, living out of a car with her babies and no other options. She knows that pain viscerally, and that really mattered. Because when Biden and Pelosi were collaborating to let the eviction moratorium expire, effectively abandoning millions of Americans to homelessness, Congresswoman Bush, she wasn't having it. She went and she camped down on the Capitol steps, and she said,

I am not leaving here until we take care of this. And I want to say I was a little off in my analysis. I allowed my cynicism to take hold and thought this wasn't going to work without pairing it with a more hardball legislative tactic. But Cori and her allies did something that we really haven't seen much in the Biden era. They were direct in saying this is the fault of Democrats. They created public outrage and made it clear the distance between the hollow rhetoric of Pelosi in the White House and their actual actions. Congresswoman Bush created a moment of undeniable public shaming for the administration, and that was, in fact, a very powerful thing. Within days, Biden went from, sorry, guys,

nothing we can do here, to, okay, fine, we'll extend the moratorium for 90% of America. This dude did not even inquire what the CDC might be able to do until Corey and the squad shamed him into it. It's not perfect, of course. Millions are still at risk. This is only a temporary reprieve. But it's also not nothing. Just watch this moment when a family that was about to get evicted got to speak to Congresswoman Bush. When I put that up, I never thought that anybody would have reached out, especially CNN. And then to hear that a congressperson reached, my story reached you, this is just amazing.

I'm so thankful that there's people like you out there. I'm so thankful for it. Thank you so much. I'm sorry. That woman and her babies have a roof over their head at least for a little while longer. And that is effectively the counterargument to Clyburn's go-long-to-get-along politics, it is a tangible example of how having a troublemaker as a representative can materially deliver for you even when they are pissing off power. Voters are going to need a lot more examples of this type of courage creating actual tangible

results before they're convinced that this calculus is going to work out for them. But Cori Bush did just provide the model. Now, it is easy to slip into nihilism and think, geez, if even the fabulously talented and delightful Nina Turner, who did everything right, can be defeated, why bother? But that ignores Cori Bush. It ignores India Walton. It ignores $15 minimum wage in Florida and complete drug decriminalization in Oregon. It is a politics, effectively, of abandoning hope for the millions of Americans who deserve better than taking some tiny incremental access to power is the best that

they can possibly hope for. This week showed us all the perils and all the possibilities. Do not cherry pick just the doom. Take it all. Learn what there is to learn and keep moving forward. And, you know, I think it's easy, especially... One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle and Friends, where we do long form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or you can subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at?

Well, I know some of you are sick of hearing me talk about the lab leak hypothesis, so I will promise you at the top, everything in this monologue is brand new information that if you're interested in the origins of coronavirus, is vital to your understanding. As usual, absent the great Josh Rogin at the Washington Post, this has been completely ignored by the mainstream media. So, the new information concerning the circumstances of the origins of COVID comes from a new addendum by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which has reviewed classified intelligence and included key new facts to our understanding of the timeline. The most stunning headline that comes from the report is this sentence, quote, the preponderance of evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2

was accidentally released from a Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory sometime prior to September 12th, 2019. That's right, two months before reports indicate that researchers at the lab itself fell so sick they required hospitalization. Now, frankly, this statement stunned me, but it actually makes complete sense when they describe the cover-up and a new set of key facts. The report details how between 2 and 3 a.m. local time in Wuhan, China, the Wuhan Institute of Virology's online public database of samples and virus sequences was taken down mysteriously. That database contained key information about each sample in the lab, including what type of

animal was collected, where it was collected, whether a virus was successfully isolated, and more. Now get this, to date, the database has not yet been put back online. The Chinese's only explanation in January of 2021 is the database was taken down for cyber attacks related to the pandemic, but it was taken down in September, so that doesn't make any sense. Right around this time, geospatial analysis from Harvard and Boston University found that the parking lot volume of all the hospitals in Wuhan had the highest daily volume of cars in the parking lot volume of all the hospitals in Wuhan had the highest daily volume of cars in the parking lot in September and October of 2019, far before the first reported

cases of COVID. Now, that is along with a massive spike in search terms on the Chinese version of Google known as Baidu for the terms cough and diarrhea during those corresponding months. The third stunning data point revealed by the committee concerns the 2019 Military World Games. It was held in Wuhan on October 18th, 2019. The games are basically the Olympics, but for athletes in the military. There were 9,300 athletes with 109 countries that were represented there. Now, it wasn't noticed at the time, but several athletes at the Games came down with what we now recognize as COVID-19 symptoms. The craziest part is this.

The athletes remember now that Wuhan looked really weird at the time. One says he got his temperature taken at the airport. They also describe in October that the city of 15 million people looked like it was on lockdown. One Canadian athlete described this, quote, I got very sick 12 days after we arrived. Fever, chills, vomiting, insomnia. On our flight to come home, 60 Canadian athletes on the flight were put in isolation at the back

of the plane for the 12-hour flight. We were sick with symptoms ranging from coughs to diarrhea and in between. Later analysis shows that Italy, Brazil, Sweden, and France says that they had patients within their borders who had COVID antibodies from before November 2019. All four countries had representatives at the games. All of the patients that had tested never left the country, indicating a common source of community spread within those countries that comes from a single point of origin. That's the circumstantial evidence. You can draw from it what you will. It seems pretty clear to me, personally. But the report doesn't stop there. It also delves into the cover-up on this side of the Pacific. It brings us to a familiar character, Dr. Peter Daszak of EcoHealth

Alliance, who is the one who facilitated grant money from Dr. Fauci to the actual Wuhan lab. Daszak's relationship within the Wuhan lab and its top scientists goes all the way back to 2005, where the pair would go into bat caves to collect samples together. Now, the new report uncovers evidence that shows Daszak likely at the tip of the spear of a Chinese influence campaign in February of 2020. He organized a letter with scientific colleagues condemning, quote, conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus. But what we now know is that Daszak organized that letter specifically at the behest of his former colleagues at the Wuhan lab, who asked him for help in dismissing the theory. Now, I encourage you all

to go and read this report for yourselves. The link will be down there in the description. But the most important part to me is this. Show me an iota of evidence on the other side for the natural origin hypothesis, which comes even close to everything I just laid out here. Which bat? How did it fly so far? Who was patient zero? Why would the Chinese government lie about this natural origin virus, but not the one that leaked from a lab? The preponderance of evidence points in a single direction, that coronavirus leaked from the Wuhan lab sometime in late 2019. As we have stated repeatedly here, that doesn't just indict the Chinese government.

It indicts our own for its complicity. And it indicts many of the so-called heroes of the pandemic, like Dr. Fauci. But most importantly, it indicts us all. Let's be honest. Trump and the media tore us apart during the pandemic. Masks, social distancing, restrictions, it all became part of a culture war instead of something we were collectively trying to get through together. Both Trump and the media were so noxious and hateful towards each other that millions retreated into their corners to fight rather than to get through something.

And of course, we can't agree on the facts when we see two different realities. The real tragedy is, I already know this on the facts when we see two different realities. The real tragedy is, I already know this monologue won't make much of a difference. I know most people who watch MSNBC or CNN will never care about the facts. They will think we're all racists for even pointing this out. And I know many right-wingers who purport to care, but don't actually. They just really hate Fauci. That's the real tragedy of the current media environment. The pandemic cost us $6. That's the real tragedy of the current media environment. The pandemic cost us $6 trillion globally.

It killed millions of people. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead. It basically stopped life for nearly 18 months straight. Getting to the bottom of it is vitally important for mankind so we can avoid any of this in the future. And that was really my goal with this thing, Crystal, is like, look. All right, we've got economics reporter for The Washington Post, our great friend,

Jeff Stein is here with a big scoop this morning, too. Great to see you, Jeff. It's good to see you, sir. Thank you guys so much for having me back on. So you got some great insight into what exactly happened with regards to the eviction moratorium, how Biden, I mean, this was a complete flip-flop and turnabout. So what were those conversations like behind the scenes? Yeah, so I know your audience, you know, they're not that interested in substance.

They just want to know who's up, who's down. Horse race. The Washington Insider. What's going on with Mr. Potato Head? Who was spotted most recently at the Gallaudet party? Who was spotted where? You can't get that kind of stuff from Morning Joe. You will get that here.

That's good. That's our core. That is our core offering. You nailed it. I can give you the inside scoop inside the White House. All right. Tell us. And what happened essentially is that as pressure grew from Representative Cori Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the eviction moratorium.

You guys did a great job of covering that last week. The White House and President Biden in particular designated his chief of staff, Ron Klain, to find an alternative legal basis for extending the ban. The White House legal counsel had come up with an opinion that Biden had accepted that said that you did not have the authority to do this. Got it. What is the timeline on all? When did that opinion come out? And then when did she say, hey, Kleene, you got to figure this out? I'm not sure precisely when she came up with the opinion. I know that by the week before the moratorium extended, there was a private White House meeting and discussions. Gene Sperling, Brian Deese, and Susan Rice were all involved in a discussion to say,

hey, is there something we can do to get this going? And the White House Counsel Office said, no. By the weekend, Ron Klain and President Biden are talking about, well, what can we do here? Pelosi is adamant that this is the administration's responsibility and they have to figure out how to do it. So what happened was Ron Klain called Lawrence Tribe, who's a Harvard professor, and said, is there any alternative explanation? Tribe comes up with a defense, basically, which we can get into in a second. It says, essentially, if we do a targeted moratorium for places where they're dealing with COVID very significantly, that is separate from what the Supreme Court warned against and therefore valid. And Tribe also worked extensively with the White House Counsel's Office. They come up with a justification.

White House Counsel's Office changes its mind, gets behind that, and by, I think it's Tuesday, they're on board. So that's interesting. So basically he had accepted this guidance. Okay, so talk about the public pressure then. Like what were the levers and what were the arguments being made? Obviously, Cori Bush is on TV. People like us are covering it. A lot of other people are covering it. But then also you have Nancy Pelosi who's in this bind. Maybe you could talk a bit about that, which is that, I mean, as Ro Khanna said on our show,

the truth is like some Democrats in the caucus did not want to extend this moratorium. So like, what was she doing behind the scenes here? I mean, the White House sources I've talked to have said primarily that your segment was what moved the needle. Oh, right. That's what I figured. Yeah, but beyond breaking points, Pelosi spent the weekend in conversations with senior White House officials. She called claim Steve Reschetti, one of the president's closest aides. And it's my understanding that she spoke to the president three separate times after the president kicked

the ball to Congress and before the new moratorium was announced. I think this is obviously the potential for a human tragedy was immense, and in many cases still is. But there's also the political ramifications of the White House dealing with headlines about in the middle of a pandemic in many states, Missouri, Georgia, Arizona. Are those important? Potentially important states with millions of people at risk of losing their homes. And I think this is kind of the fundamental tension that the White House is currently wrestling with. They are trying to project that the economy is coming back, that this is a time to, you know, and that, you know, especially before the Delta, that they wanted to put,

you know, present an aura of economic normalcy. But the pandemic era government protections are beginning to expire. And though there's a conflict there, how do we present our economy as rebounding, as us moving beyond the pandemic, while keeping these extraordinary government measures in place? So I think that was what they were wrestling with. And I don't know, personally, I have people in the White House who told me that Biden was always open to extending it, but just was constrained by counsel's office. I think that many of your listeners will be skeptical of that. I think we should be skeptical as well. I'm skeptical of that. Yeah. Well, I do want to ask though, because part of what is so perplexing here is the timing, because

it wasn't a mystery that, you know, the Supreme Court had ruled in this way. It was not a mystery that the funds that were allocated were not actually getting in the hands of tenants to make them home. It wasn't a mystery that the state was the deadline for the eviction moratorium, and yet no one acted until the very last minute. So focusing, I guess, I'd like to know both from Biden and Pelosi, Biden gets whatever this decision is from counsel that says, hey, you can't do it. But he doesn't say anything about it until the end of last week when the moratorium is about to expire. When we talked to Congressman Khanna, his impression or what he said to us is that there was an expectation from Pelosi and others in the House that the CDC was going to

do some kind of an eviction moratorium and that they truly were sort of caught off guard that that didn't happen. On the other hand, the Supreme Court ruling is pretty clear. Congress has got to do something if you want this to be extended. And the House also didn't move to do anything whatsoever. So why did this come down to the last minute to the point where, as your paper was covering, evictions did go forward during the lapse? There were a few days there where people were kicked out of their homes and left in this terrible limbo where they have no idea whether they're going to be there or not. So how did it come down to the last minute like that?

I think your summary there is excellent and captures really well exactly that this, what you just said, that this was a fiasco and that they're really it's very hard to understand exactly why the White House even if they concluded as you said that there was no legal justification on what possible basis can they defend waiting until two days before the moratorium lapses to inform Congress. Senator Dick Durbin the number two ranking Senate Democrat told reporters that someone dropped the ball, which is, you know, it sounds like a very meek quote in a lot of ways. But for a member of Senate Democratic leadership to actively assert that is a really big deal and a sign of the amount of dysfunction there was here.

I think, you know, some people I talked to in the White House have said, look, we were caught flat footed by the Delta variant. Like we did not, we saw the economy reopening, and we felt that things were headed in the right direction. There were some positive GDP numbers, there were some positive jobs numbers. The vaccination campaign is going well. Then I think there was this mistaken belief that insofar as Delta would be a problem,

it would be localized, it would be, you know, concentrated in the regions where, you know, vaccination rates are lowest, which is partially true, but the extent to which Delta is still a problem beyond that is really striking. I talked to one senior administration official who I quoted in a Washington Post report

saying, what are we doing here, guys? Why is this taking so long? I remember you were covering this weeks before it even happened. And then I kept being like, are they going to do anything? Are they going to do anything weeks before it even happened. Yeah. And then I kept being like, are they going to do anything? Are they going to do anything? It's just nothing happened. It was really extraordinary. And then for them to be like, we're doing all we can when we were asking them about this weeks and weeks ago, and they had no explanation. I mean, I think

to the credit, I mean, maybe to try to explain what they're thinking a little bit more is they think that the core problem, and I think they're right about this, the core problem is that the rental relief money is not getting out. Yeah. And even the most left-leaning housing advocates I talk to say Treasury and Yellen are doing really everything within their power, within the confines. I thought you had a really good point on the last podcast about, Crystal pointed out that like this could have been done by the federal government. Yeah. And instead they ran it through the states. Right. Which was, I think many people would say it was a mistake. But within that construct, Yellen in particular has been very aggressive in saying states and cities push out this money to poor people and we will not, as treasuries have done in the past, hit you with

a punitive audit. Like they are laser focused on getting this money out. And I will not, as treasuries have done in the past, hit you with a punitive audit. Like they are laser focused on getting this money out. And I think they're right that that is the fundamental issue here. And that you can extend the moratorium for another three years. But if people are not able to pay the back rent that they've accumulated over months and months and months, I mean, I know the left doesn't like it when you say this, but a lot of landlords who are not giant corporations are going to go out of business. A lot of— And then BlackRock is going to buy up those properties, and that's not great from a left perspective either.

Right. It's stupid to erase that. The vast majority of landlords in America are small landlords. And I'm not saying these are like, you know, the paragons of society or whatever, but like they're middle class in many respects. It's just a shitty situation all the way around. Right, exactly. It's like, look, you can't have this, especially in a property-owning society, which I want for everybody. And I think, you know, you shouldn't, you know, downplay that.

Well, I do want to know more about how and why that program failed. Because I do think, look, on the one hand, you've got to, you know, say states and localities have done a poor job in many instances of being able to get this money out. But you also have to say when you see this is basically failure across the board, there clearly was a flaw in the way that the program was set up. Why are these localities having so much trouble being able to disperse these funds in a way that would help to alleviate the crisis? That's a great question. And I think the, just to give a little bit of background, Congress has approved $46 billion in rental assistance. From my understanding, I think it's like about $3 billion has been spent, and there's more than $25 billion in back payments. That is really not enough money for the need.

The core of the issue, as I understand it, is basically that states and cities are used to and have gotten dinged for not doing this. But they are saying what we need is documentation and proof from the landlord and from the tenant of, you know, when did you lose your job? Can you provide proof that you lost your job? Can you provide proof of an income hit? Can you provide proof of the hardship that you've undergone? So you have a mountain of paper. A lot of people don't have that. And not only do people not have that, the states and cities often, you know, like little cities that don't have a ton of staff. Some of them are trying to hire temp workers at the last minute, but that's like, that's a very

hard lift. So there's, the states and cities are looking at this program and saying, in the past, we've given out money that we thought we were being responsible about. And then the next year, the federal government will say, hey, why didn't this money get to the people who deserve it? You gave it to person X incorrectly. We're going to fine you. And so people who run state treasuries and city treasuries are understandably like hypersensitive about that happening to them. So they are, even though treasury, the current treasury is trying to say, go spend the money, go spend the money. Yeah.

They're still insisting on a lot of these documentation requirements that make it very, very hard for low income people to meet. I was just talking to a really excellent housing expert, Paul Williams at the Jane Family Institute. And he was making the point that Yellen has even said to these states and cities that they can just look at the median income within a certain, I don't remember, municipality or what the exact designation is, and push out the money on that basis. That's like 10 years ago, like in the height of deficit hysteria, that would be an unbelievable political scandal. Right. But Yellen is, I think, to a lot of the housing experts, Joy, like is actually just saying like, just go spend the money and we will not come back for it and hit you for it later. And they don't believe her.

So err on the side of getting the money out rather than being like, we must not have any waste, fraud, or abuse. Which is very different. Right. But then you have, you know, like, I get it. I get the hesitancy

because reporters and people in the media like myself will then write stories like, all the money was mis-spent. You're the descriptor who got millions

or whatever. I remember seeing that about, it's like, dead people got X million dollars. I was like, guys, this is a trillion dollar bill. You're talking about like 0.01% of the bill.

Who also gets Social Security? Yeah. Dead people. Yeah. Always such an annoying scandal. So then let's talk. I think we have a Washington Post story. So if we can put that on the screen, just about what exactly is being covered here in terms of 80% of the population. I also saw reports of 90% of the population. It's a little confusing, my understanding. So 80%, 90%, what is actually being covered here? Well, let's explain that, I think, a little bit to the audience.

Because people will say, oh, the Biden administration obviously uses the most expansive definition. So 80% are covered. For how long? What are the legal ramifications? Does the White House expect to lose in court? If so, like how soon? What are these guys thinking?

So I don't remember the precise categories, but if the community spread of COVID is above a certain level in that community, the 80-90 thing is a little confusing. I had that confusion too. Essentially, it's 80% of counties will be covered, but within that 80% of counties, it's 90% of the population. Okay, got it. What was your other question about what they're thinking? Yeah, in terms of the legal ramifications.

Oh, and the legal, so there's two things I want to say on the legal ramifications. One, there's a very interesting section of the moratorium that includes over a year of jail time for a landlord who knowingly violates the rule, which is a very big deal. And it will be very interesting, especially if any landlords initiated legal proceedings before this was in place, what people are going to try to say after the fact. We know that the Realtors Association filed a lawsuit last night to stop this, but I'm a little out of my depth on what is going to happen in the courts here, but my understanding is it could be weeks before they take this up, which could be a huge deal. I think the hope is that they don't take this up until October. That's sort of when the court is going to be back, I think. And so the expectation is that's why they extended the moratorium until October 3rd under the new guidance.

Because that's when the court comes back. Gotcha. Makes sense. So it's not just the eviction moratorium that is set to end in terms of pandemic relief. You've got also mortgage forbearance. You've got student loan debt forbearance. You have expanded SNAP program. You have unemployment insurance. This is another thing you've been really pushing and pointing out

is the fact that 20 million people are set to lose unemployment. exclusive long-form interviews a month to our awesome premium subscribers. In addition, you guys get the show a full time, or you get it an hour early, you get to listen to it, all of that, and we really appreciate your support. Quick side note, I'm going to be on vacation next week. The amazing Kyle Kalinsky will be sitting in, KKF taking over the set here. I'm very excited for that. He's excited about it too,

actually. I hope he is. I'll be in beautiful Paris, France, so if you're French and you're a breaker, hit me up, let me know, and I'll see you there. Look at this global elite over here, flying to too, actually. I hope he is. I'll be in beautiful Paris, France. So if you're French and you're a breaker, hit me up. Let me know. Look at this global elite over here flying to Paris, France. What can I say? I need to get the hell out of the country. It's been a long time.

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