Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/9/21: Infrastructure Latest, Chris Cuomo's Vacation, Student Debt Outlook, Obama's Birthday Bash, Bill Gates, Andrew Cuomo Fallout, Right Wing Cancel Culture, Miner Strike, and More!

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

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I'll put a twist on it. Thank you. We have a fantastic show for you today. Now I'm going to patent the word fantastic. I see what you did there. So, I mean, let me just say up front, like, everybody relax, I'm not permanently taking Sagar's place. I know the way that these shows work. I know that you guys, you know, people who watch the show are either crystal stans or they're Sagar stans or they're stans of both.

Yes. And so usually whenever anybody fills in, it's like, what the fuck is this shit? It's like if you go to school and you really like a specific teacher and that teacher's gone and there's a substitute who's an asshole and you're like, fuck out of here. Yeah.

So everybody just relax. This is temporary. It's for a week. I'm really excited to do it. I hope I can, you know, fill the shoes of the person who sits in this seat because I know he does a phenomenal job. He does do a phenomenal job, but we are very lucky to have you filling in this week. Does not require you to adopt any of his catchphrases, particular topical obsessions, or, you know, bad views on

drug war or anything like that. Funny enough, we actually are doing some of the stories he loves. Like, we're doing one that involves Jeffrey Epstein. Yes. But we organically came to that. I'm very interested in. And which one? I'm sorry, I didn't hear. Bill Gates. Oh, and Bill Gates. Yeah, Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein. Yes. So it's kind of, I mean, it's a marriage of all the things that are important. A couple of things we're going to talk about. We got a bunch of updates for you on both Andrew Cuomo and Chris Cuomo. We got a big update for you from the Biden administration on student debt, but they are still gigantic hypocrites. We will lay out why. All the news you want to know about Barack Obama's big birthday bash is actually pretty

interesting. Some of the details that came out and I think are rather revealing about the personality of our former president. So we'll talk about that. The aforementioned Bill Gates and Epstein story. Kyle's inaugural breaking points. Very excited about that. And we've got Kim Kelly on the show. You guys probably heard Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, died suddenly. We're going to talk to her about that, what he's meant to the labor movement, what the future at the AFL-CIO likely is. And Kim, as you guys know, has been on the ground from the beginning covering that four-month-long coal likely is. And Kim, as you guys know, has been on the ground from the beginning covering that four-month-long coal miner strike at this point. They've gone up to BlackRock and protested in New York. They finally, for the first time, got a little bit of mainstream news

coverage. So we're going to talk to her about all of that. It took longer than four months for them to get the first mainstream media coverage. Which is insane. But she was featured in the package. Pretty interesting story. So we'll talk to her about that. But we wanted to start with some big updates on that infrastructure package, which is moving through the Senate this week. That's right. So I'm actually really happy that the first story that we're doing is super substantive, and it's about the infrastructure package. So let's go ahead and jump right into it. The update includes the former president, Donald Trump. Let me show you this media headline here. This is pretty interesting. Trump threatens to withhold endorsements in last-ditch rant to try

and sink Biden infrastructure deal. So let me give you some of that quote you see there. He said, Joe Biden's infrastructure bill is a disgrace. If Mitch McConnell was smart, which we've seen no evidence of, he would use the debt ceiling card to negotiate a good infrastructure package. It is a gift to the Democrat Party, compliments of Mitch McConnell and some rhinos who have no idea what they are doing. There is very little on infrastructure in all of those pages. Instead, they track your driving so they can tax you. It is Joe Biden's form of a gas tax, but far, far bigger, far higher, and mark my words, far worse. They want to track you everywhere you go and watch everything you do. So let me just pause there real quick to say,

it's hilarious to make this argument because, where have you been, dude? Did you not know about Edward Snowden? Did you not know about Glenn Greenwald? Did you not know that we learned that the NSA is spying on every single one of us and they've been spying on us for like over a decade? For him to say, oh, the infrastructure package is bad because they might spy on you is like, that train is late, dog. They've been spying on us for a really a decade for him to say, oh, the infrastructure package is bad because they might spy on you.

It's like, that train is late, dog. They've been spying on us for a really, really long time. And also, I don't even know what the fuck he's talking about. I don't know what he's talking about. What in the package is he talking about? I do know what he's talking about. And of course, it's like absurdly the most ridiculous stress stretch of all time. So let me first say, I don't like that they're doing this, but they're doing a

pilot of a mileage tax. So instead of a gas tax, moving to tax people per mile, because there's this issue coming with the Highway Trust Fund, where because people are moving hopefully more and more to electric vehicles, the gas tax is no longer providing enough revenue. So rather than doing the sensible thing of like, why don't we tax rich people more? And by the way, it was the Republicans who wanted that out. Yes. The Democrats wanted to tax the wealthy and that's how you pay for the infrastructure package. The Republicans said, hell no. Republicans were the ones who were floating the gas, a heightened gas tax or a tax on electric vehicles. So what regressive taxes here, which are all regressive, which hit the working class the hardest, what they put in here was a pilot program you can opt into

where you would be taxed per mileage rather than by gas. So again, this is not something that unless you decide you want to opt into right now, this is not something that's going to affect you. It's like a two year, one or two year pilot program to see how this works out. Again, I think it's a terrible idea, but it's also not remotely what he's saying. Exactly. And by the way, I got one more for you with exactly that thought in mind. So he continues and says, Joe Biden's infrastructure bill will be used against the Republican Party in the upcoming elections in 2022 and 2024. It will be very hard for me to endorse anyone foolish enough to vote in favor of this deal. So again, let me just pause to say,

he keeps bringing this up of like, this is a giant gift to the Democrats. It's a giant gift to the Democrats. Which means what? He's saying, if this thing becomes law, it's going to be really popular and you can't have something popular become law because that'll help the opposition party.

So in other words, this is like a party over country idea. So he's trying to say both, this is really terrible, but also this is really a bad thing for Democrats. But it's great, and don't do it because it's great. Exactly. So that makes absolutely no sense. And then the even more out of context thing is he says, understand that this is the way to get the horrendous $3.5 trillion, actually $5 trillion Green New Deal bill done in the House. So that, he's totally misleading argument.

He's misconstruing it because he's referring to what they're calling the human infrastructure reconciliation package. And he's calling that the Green New Deal. The hilarious part of this is the thing that's most likely to get cut if it hasn't already been cut is anything involving the climate in that bill. So what we're left with in that bill is stuff like two years free community college. Is elder care in it? Did that make the cut for the— Elder care is in it. There's also some child care provisions.

There's universal pre-K. Universal pre-K. That's the other big one. And he's saying this is like the Green New Deal. This is what you do when you don't have an argument. You just use, like, the boogie words on the right. Make some stuff up. Exactly.

And so that's where he is. Well, so the question is, do you think it will work? Clearly he's trying to put pressure on Republicans and show that he still has power in the party and try to persuade them to vote this thing down. Because I do think he genuinely believes that if they pass this deal and pass the reconciliation deal. It's good for Democrats. It's good for Democrats. And it will make it harder for him if he decides to run for president again. So do you think that anyone is going to listen to him here? Because on the initial trial vote that they had in the Senate, it wasn't close. I think it was like 67 people who voted in favor of the bipartisan package. So they have quite a bit of, you know, room to work and maneuver here in terms of the number of votes. So do you think that anyone

switches their votes because of pressure from him? And also a lot of Fox News personalities, we were watching some of the clips, a lot of Fox News personalities are now putting pressure on Republicans. Tucker is against it. By the way, I love that. Maria Bartiromo is going hard on it, all this stuff. Any like, remember Josh Hawley,

everybody was saying, oh, he's a populist on the right. He opposed a $15 minimum wage bill. And he's for the right-to-work states, which is really right-to-work for less. You just make less money, 11% less than unionized workers. So I hate, like, nothing pisses me off more than the fake populism stuff. But I, honestly, I'm skeptical that this bill is going to pass because really what I'm seeing is death by a thousand cuts, even though you said it was over 60 senators who were in favor of it. Yeah, I think it was 67.

Because guess what? Because what a lot of them are saying is, oh, we're for the bipartisan bill, but only the bipartisan bill. And we're not in favor of the reconciliation package. And Pelosi has been clear on this. And a bunch of others have been clear on this. The House progressive, the House progressives that if you don't do the partisan reconciliation human infrastructure package, we are not supporting the bipartisan deal. So there's so many ways for this to go down. Like at the last minute, you could have people ditch out who are Republicans supporting the bipartisan infrastructure deal. They could get scared. They could get cold feet. They could back out because they think, oh, we're going to get Democrats to win. They don't want to be under that Fox News pressure or whatever. Exactly. But then even if that passes, you got plenty of people

saying we're going to tank the human infrastructure bill. So I don't know. I'm skeptical that it's going to pass. What do you think? Well, there's certainly some barriers to it passing. I do actually think that it's ultimately going to get through because they've gotten it really close to the finish line. One of the provisions that they've been haggling over, which is interesting, and I confess I don't have extraordinarily deep knowledge on, but is this cryptocurrency piece. There's interesting alliances of some senators who really want to regulate cryptocurrency more, especially to have more visibility in order to tax cryptocurrency transactions. So some progressives like Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown are on the side of that, as well as some like neocon hawks who are worried about this being used to fund terrorism. And then on the other side, you have like libertarians and both of the right and the left variety, people like Ron Wyden. Pat Toomey weirdly teamed up with Ron Wyden.

So anyway, that one provision has been a sticking point, but I think they'll figure that out. Another sticking point is they have been saying they want every dollar paid for. We can throw this tear sheet up on the screen. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, that scores these things and says, you know, how much they cost and what the taxes are going to be brought in and all of that. They say, you're using a bunch of, like, gimmicks here, and it is going to add to the deficit. Now, personally, I don't care about that, but all of these people at least pretend to care about that and have said it has to be paid for. Does that give anyone cold feet? That's an open question. But the big question mark here is the one that you're talking about, Kyle, which is there is a divide among the Democrats about how to proceed

with these things. So obviously, progressives are saying saying like, listen, we're not in love with this bipartisan infrastructure package. It's okay. And we're willing to tolerate it as long as we get the reconciliation deal that Bernie Sanders has been working on. So the mechanism in order to ensure this, and forgive me for getting into like these very boring and annoying DC details details is the Senate passes the infrastructure bill and the House does not take that up until the Senate also passes the reconciliation bill. Now, will Pelosi hold, though? Will Pelosi hold strong? That's the deal that Pelosi and Bernie made. Like, we'll do your infrastructure deal, but we are not in the House passing the infrastructure deal and making that law until you go forward with the reconciliation package.

So that's been the sort of state of play. A bunch of the blue dog and quote unquote problem solver caucus types, the Josh Gottheimers of the world, are now protesting that decision to tie those things together. We can throw this tweet up on the screen. They wrote a very strongly worded letter saying, like, we don't like this. Why are you tying these two things together? We shouldn't wait. Go ahead, Eric, and put that last element up there that shows the letter that they sent out. It says, this is from Manu Raju. He says, moderate House Dems raising concerns about the Democrats' budget plans that would pave the way for passing $3.5 trillion

package. Also calling on Pelosi to give an immediate vote to the infrastructure bill and not tie it to the reconciliation package per letter from source. So there's like a growing opposition among the most annoying people in the world to not tie these two things together. So you're right. That's the question. Does Pelosi hold here? Hard to say. I mean, it's just really hard to say. But then the other thing is, let's say Pelosi doesn't hold, all you need is four House progressives to be like, go fuck yourself.

And then the whole thing is tanked. I actually think they might. No, they're gonna, because you know what? I actually think they might on this one. They have rightfully gotten so much shit on other issues

for not fighting that now they're like, we're backed in a corner. We gotta do something. So they're almost forced to act like the Tea Party, which is good, because that's what happened

with the actual Tea Party is you had people who were forcing them to act like the Tea Party, which is good because that's what happened with the actual Tea Party is you had people who were forcing them to act like the Tea Party. And so I'm totally on board with that. So I want to tell everybody the other things that are in the bipartisan bill. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, the asset recycling, the privatization is still in there, correct? I'm not sure. That was unclear to me. Okay. So question mark on that. But just to show, to go back to the original point on Trump, because he was saying that, no, this is not a traditional infrastructure bill. You tell me, here's some of the provisions that are in this. $110 billion in new funds for roads and bridges,

$39 billion for public transit, $66 billion in rail, $42 billion on ports and airports, $65 billion with a goal of providing broadband internet to all Americans, $7.5 billion into a national network of electric vehicle chargers, $7.5 billion towards electrifying buses and ferries, $28 billion on the power grid infrastructure, $46 billion to mitigate damage from floods, wildfires, and droughts, $55 billion on clean water infrastructure, particularly to eliminate lead pipes and other dangerous chemicals in today's service lines, and $21 billion to clean up Superfund sites and mines. So you tell me, Crystal, does that sound like traditional infrastructure? Because it certainly does to me. Sounds like some regular-ass infrastructure. Right. It doesn't sound like the Green New Deal. Nothing crazy. Right, exactly. Yeah,

there's broadband. It was funny. I was listening to the way that the Fox News hosts were spinning some of this. I think it was Maria Bartiromo who called expanding broadband like a government meddling in private enterprise. I mean, that's the kind of tactics that they're resorting to, to try to demonize this thing, which is, you know, very similar to what Trump was pushing and wholly unable to accomplish during his administration. So, look, I know they have grievances that'll be easier for them to explain with the larger $3.5 trillion package. Although even there, I mean, when you're talking about universal pre-K, when you're talking about free community college, these things are really popular. So even with that, all they can do is say, oh, it's so much money. And then you

look at them and you're like, yeah, but you all didn't care about spending money during the Trump administration. You didn't care about adding to the debt and the deficit when it was giving away the store to rich people. And suddenly you're concerned about pinching pennies. Give me a break. To your point, a lot of the Republicans who are whining about the deficit and the debt right now, they supported the 2017 GOP tax cuts, which added nearly $2 trillion to the deficit over a decade, and nobody said dick about it. They just did it because they prioritize it. But when it comes to stuff for regular people, all of a sudden they're like, no, my God, the debt and the deficit. Don't talk about the debt and the deficit unless you say some shit about it when it comes to endless war or Wall Street

bailouts or tax cuts for the rich. If you're not going to complain about it across the board, I don't want to fucking hear it. I don't want to hear it. Yes, indeed. And the last piece on this that I think is another sticking point is Manchin, obviously, is one of the big obstacles here. Kyrsten Sinema, also always a pain in the ass and a gigantic obstacle. But the piece that Manchin has specifically expressed concern about, surprise, surprise, is anything regarding climate change. And let me just be clear that this is not about representing the interests of West Virginians, okay? The United Mine Workers of America have backed moving towards renewable

energy as long as jobs are shored up and guaranteed. So let's be clear, far closer to what Joe Manchin is doing here is advocating for the interests of ExxonMobil and Chevron and all of these other people. We played here that what was an Exxon lobbyist who was explaining, oh, we're going to attack the payfors because actually both climate change stuff is pretty popular at this point. He's following that same script to a T. But so he's concerned about the climate change provisions. And, you know, there's a new report out today we'll probably talk about on the show tomorrow from the UN just spelling out how dire of a situation we are already in with climate change. The infrastructure package, the bipartisan one, contains very little with regards to climate change. That is all in the reconciliation deal. How much of that is he going to accept and be okay with? And how much of him stripping stuff out are progressives going to tolerate when they really have been focused in particular on this package and making sure it does enough with regards to climate change?

So that's the other sort of point of contention here that I think is going to be tricky to smooth over. Yes, absolutely. And just real quick, final point on this. Where, if you were in Congress, where do you stand on these two bills? How would you proceed? And then I'll tell you what I would do. So as long as they follow the plan of, like, let's say I'm in the House, as long as they follow the plan of we're not passing anything until the Senate passes the reconciliation bill, then I would go along with one of these. Yeah, I'm exactly where you are. I'm exactly where the House progressives are on this. They just have to follow through on it.

I'd actually be very curious. Maybe we'll get in contact with Sager at some point this week. I'm curious what he would do in this situation. I'm curious if he would agree with us on this or if he would have a different take. Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not 100% sure. Well, we'll figure it out. All right, guys.

Next, we wanted to bring in, there's actually so many developments with Governor Andrew Cuomo, who, of course, that bombshell Attorney General report came out last week about just how many women he had harassed and bullied and assaulted and abused during his time in office. One thing that just broke that we don't even have a tariff sheet because it's so new is his top aide and advisor, Melissa DeRosa, who has been with him through thick and thin, who is implicated in some of the worst actions of, you know, bullying and her own sort of harassment and covering up for the governor and trying to retaliate against at least one of the women in Smear, at least one of the women, Lindsay Boylan, who was accusing the governor of sexual harassment. So she has actually resigned and is apparently telling people she does not see a path forward for the governor to continue in office. Of course, Joe Biden finally called on him to resign. All the New York Democrats have called on him to resign. So he really is left without almost any allies.

So that's kind of the big development on the front with the governor. But we also have a media development here, which is Chris Cuomo, his brother, who happens to host a lowly rated but still the highest rated at CNN show. So while all of this is happening last week, we tracked this really closely. Every other show on CNN, they basically led with the story of what's going on with the governor of New York, because this is a dramatic downfall, obviously incredibly consequential. He was completely silent, did not say one word about it. And now we're learning that, oh, it just so happens it's his birthday week. So he's going to take the week off. So he's just going to skip town. And that way he'll be out you know, out of the lot and fire, not have to say anything. Here's the New York Times tarot sheet.

Chris Cuomo is taking a birthday week vacation. A scrutiny on his brother increases. And there's another interesting nugget here, which is sort of funny. The way we found this out is apparently, I don't think anyone knew this, Chris Cuomo hosts a weekly podcast with Don Lemon called The Handoff that literally no one watches, I think. But on that podcast, he said that, you know, he's taking the week off for his birthday. So that's how we know what is going on there. But I think it's clear that Zucker, the head of CNN, wants to stand by Chris Cuomo, likes this guy, wants to protect him, whatever.

So he's just taking the week off and hoping that things sort of die down so people stop giving him a hard time for what is just an unbelievable breach of any sort of remote journalistic integrity that he pretends to have. So I have a slightly different take on this. I think they're considering axing him this time. I really do. Because now he is a perpetual problem for them. I don't know. No, I really, because how many times has Fox News done this where they say somebody's going on vacation and then that person never comes back from the vacation? I've seen it a number of times. They didn't even punish him when this all came out. Because remember, this is just, this isn't just he was collaborating and advising his brother, which we learned in this report, that it wasn't that wasn't just a one off.

He was doing that on a regular basis. Part of these political strategy calls wasn't just that. It was also that he got VIP treatment when he himself was worried about getting coronavirus at a time when you remember. I mean, you live in New York at the beginning of COVID. Nobody could get tested like you thought you had it, and you weren't able to get a test. Well, this dude was getting VIP treatment from his brother, so he's implicated in that as well.

And they didn't even punish him. He wasn't even taken off the air for one minute. So to do a total about face and then pull him off entirely when he's their highest rate of anger, I'm skeptical. Well, here's last time, if you remember, he came out and did this thing where he was like, everybody knows I can't really comment on this because it's my brother. So just letting everybody know, I know what's going on with my brother, but I'm not going to comment on it because it's my brother. So he did that. But of course, when,

you know, Andrew Cuomo was on and they were sucking him off all day and they were talking about how great he's doing with the coronavirus as people were dying in nursing homes nonstop. You know, they could talk about him when it was positive, but all of a sudden when it's negative, oh my God, we can't talk about it anymore. But I'm telling you, the stuff has piled up enough where there's somebody, I don't know if it's Zucker, but there's somebody near the top of CNN who's like, I don't know about this dog. We're really going to drag ourselves through the mud over and over again for this fucking meathead. Well, you remember last time around, Jake Tapper actually got asked about it in an interview. I think it was with like Mediaite maybe. No, it was at the New York Times. Here I

have it. And he said that the whole thing put us in a bad spot and that I cannot imagine a world in which anybody in journalism thinks that was appropriate. See, this is what I'm saying. This was the last time around, but I don't know. I'm skeptical. All I'm saying is they're considering it, Crystal. That's all I'm saying. I definitely think they're hoping that it kind of dies down. He's able to be out for a week. The pressure is taken off because the sad fact of the matter is, do I think CNN's viewers are going to punish them for any of this? Not really not really and so ultimately that's all they really care about he's still bringing no no it's about it's not like advertisers are ditching him or anything like that so i don't think they

care that they're considering it because i'm telling you it's about the veneer of seriousness and respectability and as long as they can keep that veneer, they're happy. They're at the point now where ain't no fucking veneer left. The veneer is crushed. Of course, in my view, that's been for a long time. Oh, no, me too. Obviously, obviously. But, you know.

I mean, they're taking heat even from, you know, mainstream outlets. That's what I'm saying, exactly. So they're thinking about it. Because it's just so shameless. It's very possible that ultimately they're going to end up exactly where you're saying, which is like he comes back in a couple weeks and acts like,

whoa, what are you talking about? Nothing happened. I was just lifting weights for two weeks straight. Right. Because that's all I know how to do. The Hamptons. Yeah, exactly. Probably sneaking into Obama's birthday party or whatever. More on that later.

Final point I wanted to make about at least Andrew Cuomo here is that I don't think he's going anywhere. I mean, it's possible that, let me be clear, it's possible that New York impeaches him, that they have the lawmakers to impeach him. Yeah. But Homeboy's going out like Scarface. He's shooting in every direction. He is definitely not stepping down. No, he's pulling a Ralph Northam. Remember the Ralph Northam scandal where he was caught doing blackface about 48 times? Yeah. And then he was like, I'm good. I'm not going anywhere.

And everybody was like, all right, I guess he's not going anywhere. There was all this outrage. Then it just died down. And he was like, sort of fuck off. I'm going to do what I want. You remember what happened there, though, which makes this a little bit different, is his thing came out that he had done blackface.

And it was like everybody else had some problem. The lieutenant governor got accused of sexual assault. Remember, just in Fairfax. The AG also, it came out, had done blackface or something like that. Oh, there were like blackface Wednesdays in Virginia. So then the problem for Democrats was like, oh shit, well, if we're going to get rid of all these guys, then it's going to be Republicans in charge. So I guess we're just going to accept all of them and their blackface pasts and, you know, potential harassment or assault or whatever. We'll just keep moving forward here. What's different is, you know, within the New York Democratic Party, because

it is effectively a one party state, there's long been this divide. Right. The more Bernie left this divide within the Democratic Party. And it's not even between like the Bernie left. This divide within the Democratic Party. And it's not even between like the Bernie left. And Cuomo was aligned with Republicans to keep to keep giving Republicans control of the Senate. I mean, this guy has been a real enemy of anyone who is remotely progressive. What's really fascinating is the political story behind Letitia James, who's the attorney general, who came up as like a sort of lefty Working Families Party candidate in order to become attorney general, had to effectively renounce the Working Families Party and join up with Cuomo. And now that she's got a chance, she's sticking the knife in and she's really more responsible for his downfall than maybe anyone

else. So you have this divide already in the Democratic Party, and you have most of the Democrats having, if not all of the Democrats, having turned on him at this point, which means impeachment, I think, is fairly likely. And it looks like, I mean, public opinion has moved against him dramatically. We've got a poll we can throw up here. This is the latest from Quinnipiac that finds seven out of ten voters, let's say 7 out of 10 voters say Cuomo should resign. 55% think that Cuomo should be charged with a crime, by the way. This is in New York, by the way. New York voters.

Yeah, exactly. And this is, a criminal complaint has been filed against him at this point. In Albany, I believe, right? He may well be, yes, he may well be charged with a crime. So he's definitely lost the public almost wholly and completely. He's lost the Democratic Party. He may not resign,

but I'd be pretty surprised at this point if he's not impeached. And they seem like they're moving that impeachment investigation along very quickly. His dodge is honestly hilarious. When he's like, I don't do sexual harassment and assault. I'm Italian.

I do it to everybody. Here's a picture of me kissing Al Sharpton on the cheek. Here's a picture. He showed this montage of him hugging people and touching their faces. Was there a picture of him grabbing Al Sharpton's breast? Well, see, that's the point I was about to make. He likes to take the examples where it's the weaker evidence and be like, I do this with everybody. I'm so handsy.

And then you listen to the Attorney General in New York and they lay it out and they're like, he literally reached up a blouse and grabbed some titty. Right. He was grabbing women's asses on the regular. He would say things when he's the boss, he would say things like, I'm so lonely and I want to be touched. And you know, he did, he was, he was touching inappropriately a fucking state trooper. Do you believe the balls to do something like that? Who he made to be assigned to his detail. She didn't even technically have the qualifications. She hadn't been in service long enough.

And he's like, no, I don't care. I want you on my detail. That's right. And then he is, you know, just routinely touching her and making comments and asking if he can kiss her and all of this stuff that's so uncomfortable. But I will say this. I would like to see him say something along the lines of, if he gets the boot, which he may in New York, say something along the lines of, have you all seen, have you heard of Tara Reid when it comes to Joe Biden? See, now it's open season because Biden said, you got to go. So he could turn around and be like, have you heard of Tara Reid, bitch?

Yeah. There was a rape allegation. He could turn around to Trump and be like, this motherfucker's got at least a dozen women who are saying all sorts of shit about, why are they okay, but I'm not okay. And I do want to say, there are a lot of people on the right who are, you know, gleefully celebrating his downfall and like, oh, he's such a creep and he's such a pervert and all of that, which he is, but said none of that when it came to Trump. That's what I'm saying. There's no like consistent standard and that does drive me crazy.

Yes, indeed. 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. All right, student debt, what do we got? Okay, so we have a big update actually on student debt. Let me go ahead and throw this New York Times article up on the screen for everybody. Biden administration extends student loan repayment pause. So I'll give everybody some more specifics on this. Student loans are now on pause until January 31st, my birthday, 2022. When you look at how this came about, originally the CARES Act froze student loan payments. It's one of the only good things in the CARES Act, in my opinion. Then Trump actually extended it along with Betsy DeVos.

Biden also extended it one time, and now Biden is doing it again. Now they do say, it's a really important fact here, they do say this is the final time that they're going to do it. They're warning everybody. Very clear, like, we're not doing this again. In fact, let me give you a quote from Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. He says, as our nation's economy continues to recover from a deep hole, this final extension will give students and borrowers the time they need to plan for restart and ensure a smooth pathway back to repayment. I love how they make that sound like so flowery. Like so easy. Yeah, it's like, I'm just going to go to the money tree. Yeah, I'll go to the money tree and grab it and we'll be all

good. Also, the confidence that it's not going to be necessary again when, I mean, you've got Delta variant. Is there another variant? Like, we don't know what the world looks like. Even if we don't have another variant, people can't fucking pay this. There's $1.7 trillion worth of student loan debt. Now, I do want to remind everybody what Joe Biden said when it comes to this issue on the campaign trail. Roll that video. These degrees, you end up with all this debt and you're in a position where you can't get a job because no one's hiring or they're hiring, they're hiring at very low wages. And so what we have to do is we have to make sure that you get the opportunity. That's why I'm going to eliminate a lot of your student debt. If you, in fact, are, if you come from a family less than 125 grand and you went to a public university. I'm going to make sure

that everybody in this generation gets $10,000 knocked off of their student debt as we try to get out of this god-awful pandemic. Wow, that would be nice of him to do. Yeah. So actually, let's talk a little bit about this because I'm curious what your interpretation of it was because he said, I'm going to eliminate it if your family makes less than $125,000 and went to a public university. Yeah. So that means what he says, right, which is if you fall in that category, which most people do fall in that category, he's going to eliminate it fully? Was that his argument? I believe so. So, and that's my recollection from the campaign trail, too, because remember the divide between him and Bernie and I think Warren and a couple others was like whether or not you were going to eliminate debt for wealthy people as well.

Right. And they make this obnoxious argument about like, oh, you're going to get rid of Don Jr.'s student as if fucking Don Jr. has student college debt. You know, I mean, it's just a silly argument. But I remember that being the divide, not so much like 10,000 or 50,000. Those numbers seem to have come in after the campaign when you had Schumer and Warren actually saying, hey, let's get rid of $50,000 in debt. And then the Biden people flow. Well, maybe we'll do $10,000. But they said do it through Congress. Yes. Knowing it's not going to get through Congress. Knowing that that's not going to happen. It's not going to get through the Senate, I should be clear.

Yeah, even though they could do it with, obviously, he could do it with the stroke of the pen, but doesn't want to. So he says, if your family makes less than $125,000 and you went to a public university, we're going to eliminate the debt. And then he also did say, for everybody else, $10,000 knocked off. Yeah. And like you're pointing out, now he's like, I don't even know what you guys are talking about. I didn't say I you're pointing out now he's like I don't know what you guys are talking about I don't know anything about that yeah I mean now bring up the Pelosi thing because this is fascinating well yeah so this is interesting as well because Nancy Pelosi just came out and made like basically a right-wing argument this got a lot of attention against canceling student debt. And everybody started scratching their head, like, where did this flip-flop and this repositioning from Nancy Pelosi come from?

First, let's take a listen to her comments. Then we can talk about where it came from. Suppose your family was not—your child just decided they want to, at this time, not want to go to college, but you're paying taxes to forgive somebody else's obligations, you may not be happy about that. But you know what? We want all of our kids to reach their fulfillment. To the extent that they want to go to college, we do not want them to be prohibited from doing that for financial reasons. There's so much that's wrong with these comments, and I know you covered it on your show. But like, first of all, this very simplistic notion that you're paying taxes that go directly to X as if it's just money in and money out is not actually how the federal government works. We know we can run deficits.

We know that all, you know, the federal government does not operate like your checkbook or bank account or whatever. So that's sort of silly. Second of all, it always drives me crazy, and Republicans do this all the time, which is why this is such a right wing argument of like, well, working class Americans, they may not want to send their kids to college. It's like, no, most people want their, a lot of people want their kids to go to college. And second of all, just because you're forgiving this student debt doesn't mean you can't do anything else for anyone else. So all the way is just a bad and disingenuous argument, but it also represented a shift in what she had been saying. Someone was going like,

why are you saying this now? Where did this come from? Oh, lo and behold, turns out, and we can throw this reporting up from The Intercept on the screen, Ryan Grimm and Ken Klippenstein. Turns out her surprise flip on student debt cancellation came after a billionaire power couple, Stephen and Mary Swig, circulated a memo that argued against cancellation via executive order. So she has clearly seems to have been influenced by this. One wonders if Biden has also been influenced by this, although he seems to have from the beginning of his administration had zero intention of using executive order to get rid of student debt. And so this is a classic example where, yes, it's good that they are pausing student debt payments until January. That is a good thing.

That's going to help people temporarily. But they expect you to be like gleeful and like, oh, they're so amazing. And look at all this great stuff. Even fucking Trump did it. Even Trump did it. Right. Exactly. Like they had to. Yeah. When you have the power, and this isn't something you can say, oh, well, I would,

but the Republicans or I would, but the filibuster or I would, but the parliamentarian. No, you have the clear authority on this one. I mean, it's very little gray area here to be able to eliminate as much student debt as you want to eliminate. And you are actively choosing not to do that, even though, as you just played, he promised to do a significant amount, not as much as even as we would want, but a significant amount on the campaign trail. And even that he's just choosing not to do. OK, yeah, I'm chomping at the bit to get in here. So first of all, not only can Biden eliminate it all with the stroke of a pen, I can cite you the specific law that gives him the authority to do that. It's not up in the air. It's not ambiguous. It's

crystal clear, no pun intended. It's the Higher Education Act of 1965 signed by Lyndon Johnson. And you know what? They've already used the authority in that law to eliminate some student debt already. In fact, Joe Biden did it for about $1 billion worth when it came to these flat-out scam for-profit colleges that have now been deemed in a court of law as scams, so he returned the money to those people and canceled their student debt. So they have the authority to do it. He could do it with the stroke of a pen, and he could do it right now, and he's actively choosing not to do it. Now, to Nancy Pelosi the stroke of a pen, and he could do it right now, and he's actively choosing not to do it. Now, to Nancy Pelosi's argument, oh, my God, you're paying taxes. Some people might not want their taxes going to that thing.

Do I want my tax money going towards Wall Street bailouts? Do I want my tax money going towards endless war and tax cuts for the wealthy? Now it's so selective. All of a sudden, when it's something to help regular people, oh, some people might not want their money to go to that. And by the way, it's not even true because polls show it's about anywhere between 55% and 60% of the country. That supports free college. I haven't seen a poll specifically on student debt elimination, but free college is a good analog for that, and people support it. And then another point, if people have a genuine concern with, I don't know if free

college is the way to go, allow me to make a deal with you. I'll also give you a free trade school and I'll also give you free apprenticeships. So you can pick whatever the fuck you want. You don't want to go to college? Fine. Go to a free trade school, get a free apprenticeship. This is what you do. It's an investment in the future of your country and it helps everybody. And by the way, two thirds of respondents in a recent poll said they'd have a tough time affording payments once this freeze was lifted. So like 66% of the country says, I don't even know if I'm going to be able to fucking afford this. So what we're talking about is really shackling an entire generation of people and giving them the middle finger. When you look

at the numbers of how well off the boomers are versus all the generations below, Gen Xers are still slightly better than millennials and Zoomers, but when you look at millennials and Zoomers, they have like no wealth at all. And this is just going to screw them over more. $1.7 trillion worth. Funny enough, that's almost the exact same number that the 2017 Republican tax cuts for the wealthy, 83% of them went for the wealthy. That's how much that adds to the debt and the deficit. And they just did it. No questions asked. Not, who are you going to pay for it?

And this, they're like, no, I don't know. Or how can we pay for it? And do people even want to pay taxes on that? Let me stonewall in every fucking way imaginable. There's actually an important Wall Street Journal analysis that's just out, too, about how much debt black Americans in particular hold. And so this is another one of those universal programs that, while benefiting everyone who went to college and didn't have mommy and daddy to be able to just, like, pony up all the money right up front, but this disproportionately impacts black households. They say that more than 84 percent of college-educated black households in their 30s

have student debt. That's up from 35 percent three decades ago when many, to your point, baby boomers were at the same age. The younger generation owes a median of $44,000. Median. That's up from less than $6,000. Right. So that's just the midpoint of what people owe. The average, the median, is $44,000. They also point out that college costs have, of course, soared astronomically in recent years, but Black students get a lot less

help from their parents to cover them. In 2012, 64% of white families contributed an average of $73,000 toward their college-age children's education. At the same time, for just 34% of Black families assisted at all at an average of $16,000. So once again, this is another universal program that would help everyone who's struggling with student debt. But the promise that was made to so many Americans, but Black Americans in particular, is like, go to college. This is going to close the racial wealth. This will be the way that we achieve equity, all of those things. And it's turned out primarily because of the massive amounts of debt that people have to take on to get through college. It has turned out to be the polar opposite of the case. That's exactly right. And the final point I

want to make on this is I don't want to hear a single thing from anybody who ever said, you know, America first, for example, because I actually want to put America first. And here are just some of the countries that have free or nearly free college. Brazil, Germany, Finland, France, Norway, Slovenia, and Sweden. You're telling me we can't catch up to Slovenia when it comes to college? Not only do I want to have free college in this country, I want to have a free college program that's the envy of the world. Right. And instead we're being told we can't do it, we can't do the bare minimum, we can't eliminate student loan debt. It's infuriating. I mean, and you don't even have to look overseas.

You can look at the way things used to be in this country. I mean, if you look at California, their public university system used to be very close to free, very, very affordable. And then it was actually Reagan who started cutting taxes to fund public education, public university in the state of California. And so those tuition costs have gone up and up and up. I mean, you know, when my dad went to college and he was able to get a PhD, he came from a very poor family in West Virginia during the Great Depression. He was able to afford college at West Virginia University. We had working construction jobs in the summer. Like that pathway to go from poor, rural or urban household to middle class prosperity through education is increasingly closed because of the costs.

And because even if you do it, you're going to be piled up with a mountain of debt. And Joe Biden could change that, not just like push it off for a few months into the future and then good luck come January making up your thousands and thousands of dollars in payments. But for whatever reason, he chooses not to use that power that is very clearly at his fingertips. As you pointed out, he has already used this authority in other very selective instances. Trump used this authority in very selective instances. I think with Trump it had to do with disabled veterans. So the authority is there.

He just has decided he doesn't want to do it. And this would be legacy building. You know, all those terrible articles that compare Biden to the new FDR. If you actually want to build a legacy for something that'll last a little bit, well, this is something that you would do. But I'm not going to hold my breath. Indeed. All right. Now for the Obama news that I was obviously chomping at the bit to get to. Okay. So we talked last week about his big birthday party. Of course, people were getting uncomfortable because

Delta variant surging. We're getting all this guidance from the CDC about, oh, we shouldn't have good big gatherings. We should all be wearing masks, et cetera.

Now, personally, I think if you're vaccinated, go out and live your life. I think, honestly, like the risk of the Obama birthday party being some sort of super spreader event

given that almost everybody there was probably vaccinated given given that they were doing testing events or whatever. Like, the safety thing is not my concern. What I think is interesting is, you know, this is a guy who promised to be different. He promised to be a different sort of politician. He came in the hope and change, that messaging, et cetera, et cetera. Turns out he's just like everybody else. He just used his office to, office to make himself rich and famous. And now he's cashing in on the benefits of that wealth and that fame with his 60th party.

But what was really interesting here is after the backlash over this gigantic, you know, multi-hundred person event, they decided, or at least they told the press that they decided to scale this thing back. So some people, and this is, you know, going to be star-studded and Pearl Jam was supposed to be there and Beyonce and all these people. So the people they apparently decided to cut from the invite list, which they described as, we're just going to keep it small and friends and family. First of all, it still appeared to have been a multi-hundred person affair. So very large gathering still. But the ones that got left off the list were like the people who David Axelrod and the people that worked for him in his administration who got him elected in the first place were the ones that got

cut from the list. And they still kept on Jay-Z and Beyonce and all of these Chrissy Teigen and John Legend and Dwayne Wade and Stephen Colbert. Even a Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kim Fields was apparently kept on the list, but the people who actually helped him get to office were chopped off. I think we have a tear sheet from the New York Times that reported on the Obama guest list. And it says a lot to me, Kyle, about who this person is, that, you know, this is what you would do after you've been in office, that this is the people you would choose to, like, keep in and push out the ones who actually helped you achieve this position of status and power. So I thought it was pretty revealing. Yeah. So I have a bunch of stuff to say about this. On the COVID angle, I do think that's a little bit hacky if I'm being honest with

everybody. Everybody harping away on the COVID angle. I get the hypocrisy point of like, you know, all these liberal outlets are harping away on how it's still a threat. And then here's the quintessential liberal elite who's doing the exact thing that they're warning against. I get the hypocrisy angle, but I do think overall that conversation, I tend to agree with what you said there, which is like, they're vaccinated, they're going to do whatever they want to do. Breakthrough infections among vaccinated are tiny, tiny, tiny percentage. And even when they get it, the number that are hospitalized is like next to nothing, and the number who die is like even more next to nothing.

So your risk is very low. Inflatationally small, yes. If you're vaccinated, you're pretty much going to be all right, you know? So that angle's not the thing that intrigues me. The thing that intrigues me is, yes, he is fulfilling every single stereotype of the out-of-touch liberal elite. And the thing that popped in my mind as I looked at the specifics of the story, it's the Great Gatsby. Because it strikes me that Obama, it's honestly, and maybe I'm reading too much into it. You guys can come after me over that. I don't really care, but it strikes me like this

is the kind of person who has no real friends, that he has the friends that are other elites in these elite circles. And he feels cool talking to Dwayne Wade and talking to Beyonce and talking to Jay-Z and surrounding himself with these people. Has he connected on any real deep human level with any of these people that he invited to his party? Or is it almost like, you know, it's for the trophy case. It's you take all the pictures, you see yourself with all the celebrities and they're doing the exact same fucking thing with him. Oh my God, I got to party with the president. The president is such a cool person and down to earth person. You know, it's sort of, it's really empty and it's really hollow. And in a sense, it's really empty and it's really hollow.

And in a sense, it's sort of the exact opposite of what I try to do in my life, where I have like a small number of friends, but I'm really, really close with those friends. His is like, let me try to get as many friends as humanly possible who are other elites and not really get close with any of them. And it reminds me of, remember the first time he was in the news

after his presidency? Because it was giving $400,000 speeches in the news after his presidency because it was giving four hundred thousand dollar speeches to wall street i was thinking it was partying with richard branson and that's the other thing it was parasailing with richard branson which is somehow even more grotesque when you say the words so yeah that is like quintessential obama you get the sense that like he thinks well i put in my time i did what i could do and then now it's like i'm just checking out of everything. You get the sense he doesn't even really think about politics or talk about politics anymore.

The only time you see him, like, come into play is when it's Bernie Sanders or someone is going to actually do something good. This is the point that Iron Me makes. That's right, yes. And, by the way, shameless plug, we had Iron Me on Crystal Collins Friends last week. And he talked about Obama. It was a great interview. I mean, this guy is really just a fascinating thinker, but he's basically like,

look, Obama's whole job now is to protect his legacy. And what is his legacy, really? His legacy is eight years of telling people what's not possible. Right. Of convincing people. He uses the word confusing people on what the fight is, confusing people on what their government

can actually do for them. Because what is he? He goes around, Obamacare is the best we could do. It's the best we could do. His words were. It's still terrible. Yeah, there's still problems.

We'd love to, but this was the absolute most we could do. So if you have someone who's going to come in and be like, no, actually, we could get everybody health care. He doesn't want to hear that. That's very damaging for him and his fame and his powers, prestige, and all of that stuff. And that's fundamentally where his interests lie. Bernie was, in the words of Iron Me,

Bernie was not me, us. Obama was me. Right. That's what this party is. I mean, that's accurate. That's exactly what it is. And now he feels like if you get a transformative figure, if you get a new FDR,

if you get a Bernie Sanders type in there, and they actually deliver, even on 10% of the things that they want to deliver on, then yeah, it makes Obama look like a hacky clone of Bill Clinton. Right. Because he is a hacky clone of Bill Clinton and his whole job is, yeah, this is what's not possible and I'm sorry, but it's just real politic to take the Wall Street money and take the corporate money and do the bidding of the corporations and just do some tweaks around the edges. Yeah. I, you know, listen, cry me a river for the Obama administration officials who got cut off the guest list and didn't get to go to the fancy party, but it is kind of messed up.

And apparently they were really caught by surprise. This is from that New York Times article that Jay-Z and Beyonce are in and they they're watching, like, you know, the press coverage and the tabloid coverage, whatever, and they're cut off the list. It says they'd been looking forward to this reunion after an isolated year. They credit themselves with helping create that Obama legacy that has allowed the former president to settle in so comfortably with the A-list crowd. And they were left having to watch it, you know, on the TV and through the tabloids like the rest of us. There were some photos. People weren't supposed to take photos, but some people did and posted them. I think Erykah Badu was actually there and posted some photos, etc. And then they were told to delete them, by the way.

And then they were made to delete them. So, New York Post, of course, grabbed them. I think TMZ also had a write-up. And there were a couple things here to the, like, COVID hypocrisy angle. First of all, as I was alluding to, they spun to the press, like, oh, we're going to pair this back. This is just going to be close friends and family. Does that look like close friends and family to you? Number one. Number two, they were like, it's all outdoors. But then we saw the pictures, too.

It was, like, in an enclosed tent. Right. Like, one of those big plastic tents that's like closed in. So, again, do I think that this is going to be some super spreader of how we should be freaking out or there's any real danger? No, I don't. But I do think that they spun the press magnificently. And by and large, the press basically took the bait. Well, yeah, because they love Obama.

Absolutely. I mean, that's what they're going to do. They love the guy, and so they're going to cover for him. And totally expected in every way. I just wish that there was, you know, I wish that you had more of an adversarial media that was against the Democrats and the Republicans, frankly, and that would tell you the truth about what all of them are doing. Because Obama in context really is that $400,000 Wall Street speech that he gave immediately after he left office.

And the reason why they paid him that money to give that speech is because he served them while he was president. He bailed out Wall Street. He was there right at the moment when it was a pivot point. That's right. We really needed a pivot on climate. We needed a pivot on the fate of the working class. Regulation of Wall Street, yes. Yes, on trade deals, on privatization, on deregulation, all these things we needed desperately. That was the time right after the financial collapse. And he completely failed. I mean, he did the bidding of Wall Street, bailed them out, left homeowners to starve and dry up on the vine. And it's no accident that then you get Donald Trump and end up where

we are today. And like, you know, is it 100 percent his blame or anything, you know, his fault or anything like that? No. But it happened that you elected this supposedly transformational figure at a moment when the nation really, really, really needed a transformational figure. And you had control of both houses of Congress. You had a super majority in the Senate. And you just let that, all of that, basically be squandered. Why? Because you didn't want to piss off the A-list elite set. You wanted to be able to have this 60th birthday party that you had this weekend. So congratulations, Mr. President. Interesting interview that we alluded to earlier that we wanted to bring you between Anderson Cooper and Bill Gates. Now, as you know, if you've been watching this show, recent reporting about not only Bill Gates, but also the nature of his divorce from his wife, indicates that he was having a whole lot of interactions with one Mr. Jeffrey Epstein

that his now former wife Melinda Gates was not terribly happy about. To his credit, Anderson Cooper actually led the interview asking him some very uncomfortable questions about all of that. Let's take a listen to that. Melinda was concerned about a relationship you had with Jeffrey Epstein, who at the time you met him in 2011 had been already convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor. The Times reported she hired divorce attorneys around the time in October 2019 when that contact with Epstein became public. Can you explain your relationship with Epstein? Did you have any concerns? Was there ever any concerns you had about it? Oh, certainly. You know, I had several dinners with him, you know, hoping that

what he said about getting billions of philanthropy for global health through contacts that he had might emerge. You know, when it looked like that wasn't a real thing, that relationship ended. But it was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility of being there. There were lots of others in that same situation, but I made a mistake. And by the way, that's the end of the clip there. But just so you know,

Anderson does not follow up there whatsoever. And so while I do want to give him credit for even asking the question, which I think 90-some percent of cable news hosts would not have even done that, what Gates says there is just not at all consistent with what's been reported. And we have New York Post, of course, is there to remind everyone of what has been reported out before. According to this original report actually came in the Daily Beast, Epstein and Gates met dozens of times from 2011 to 2014. I think the Wall Street Journal also had some reporting to this effect. With Gates treating the get-togethers as an escape, a person who attended some of the meetings told the publication they happened at Epstein's infamous Manhattan Upper East Side mansion that's pictured there.

And this other person said it's not an overstatement. Going to Jeffrey's was a respite from his marriage. It was a way of getting away from Melinda. The reporting even suggested that he was getting marriage advice from Jeffrey Epstein. So the way he portrays it there, and of course he denies a bill never received or solicited personal advice, etc., etc. So just to put that out there for the lawyers. But the way he portrays it of like, we had a couple of dinners. I found out there was no there there. Cut off communication.

That was it. That is radically different from what everyone else who was involved in the interactions said that was going on there. Yeah, and to be fair to Anderson, he does actually go on, he doesn't ask a follow-up about that, but he goes on to ask him about a separate affair that we know that Bill Gates had. And actually, as awkward as Bill Gates was there, his answer to that question, I think, is even more awkward because you see it more and more in his body language as he talks, that he's awkward, he's evasive, he's defensive. He does the opposite of like wearing his heart on his sleeve and telling everybody the truth to get it all out there. He's basically, he's clearly trying to conceal like a number of things.

And to your point, yeah, oh, I had several dinners with him. No, bitch, you were besties with the guy who runs like Billionaire Pedophile Incorporated. That's what it was. And, you know, you look at the list of the people who were close with Jeffrey Epstein, whether it's Bill Clinton, Alan Dershowitz, it's sort of like a who's who of sciencey people and a who's who of billionaire creeps. And listen, my default position is that all of them were doing the creepiest, grossest things you can imagine until proven otherwise. Because, you know, she has tee-hee-hee, whoopsies, I cuddled up to the owner of Billionaire Pedophiles, Inc. That doesn't happen.

And listen, maybe you could make an excuse for people who associated with him before the conviction, which happened, like, what was that, like 2009? Oh, no, the conviction, which happened, like, what was that? Like, 2009 that it happened? Seven, I think. Oh, no, the conviction, okay. But Gates, this is long after, right? So he is a known... And his wife was like, what are you fucking doing?

A known predator, enough so. Melinda is like, what the fuck? Like, you gotta stop this. This is insane. And Melinda has been very involved in, one of her causes has been fighting sex trafficking. So here's her husband going to get marital advice from Jeffrey Epstein and having like boys nights out with him. Yeah, that's like getting morality advice from Ted Kaczynski.

And so why does this story matter. First of all, Bill Gates is a very, very powerful, influential person who basically runs public health, got all of his riches from his own monopoly. Ruthless monopolist bullshit. Yeah, I mean, he's, you know, he's criminal monopolist who's now forcing the rest of us to deal with criminal monopolist in terms of big pharma. And we've talked about the way that that's really hampered the ability to get vaccines out to the rest of the world. So very significant to know what's going on here. But it's just this mystery of how was Epstein able to ingratiate himself with all of these people over so many years and be completely protected for years and years and years from any sort of consequences for his horrific actions to the point where he can be palling around with what you have to say is one of the most powerful

people on the planet and giving him marital advice. Like, that is really shocking. Yes. Now, there's the official story, which is at least partly true, probably mostly true in terms of how Epstein got his wealth. There is a billionaire who was the head of, I think, Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret. It's the, yeah, the limited company or L or whatever. Limited, Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, they're all part of one company. Right. So this Midwestern guy, mild-mannered, and apparently this guy was very lonely, had no friends. Leslie Wexner. There you go. The sophisticated con man, Jeffrey Epstein, was able to snuggle up close to this guy and basically was his everything, was his financial advisor, was his friend, and he ended up getting a lot of that dude's money.

Now, that's the official story. That's definitely at least partly true. My speculation, my suspicion, is that the only way Epstein got that close to that many powerful people, politicians and celebrities and billionaires is because it's either U.S. intelligence or Israeli intelligence. And they wanted dirt. And that's what you do, is you find a guy like that who is really dynamic and can snuggle up to these people. And then all of a sudden, you got pictures of Bill Clinton in a dress. You got pictures of some celebrity billionaire jack-off getting sucked off by some transgender 14-year-old. And you got all this dirt. And then he has the capacity and the ability to take them down. Do I hear the people in the control room laughing? I think I was just hearing that as well, yeah.

I still got it, boys. I still got it. Allegedly, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, this one certainly plausible explanation for how someone gets away with this stuff with impunity. That's exactly. For years and years. And there were all these weird deals that were cut early on with the different, you know, police departments and whatnot. That was down in Florida. He gets that was the one conviction was this incredibly sweetheart deal that Alex Acasio goes on to become Trump's labor secretary cuts.

And the deal itself certainly appears on its face to be illegal and violated the rights of his victims in not informing them that this deal was ultimately cut. Dershowitz and Ken Starr were his lawyers at the time. But yeah, I think, you know, part of what's going on here is because he was able to ingratiate himself in these circles, he's able to get compromising information. Like, you don't want to be the one to blow the whistle on this guy when you know you were at the parties and who knows what else you may have seen or, you know, been affiliated with. I'm vaguely remembering, wasn't there some sort of quote, like, from one of the people, one of the police departments, one of the attorneys general, where they were like,

getting this guy's above our pay grade. I think there was something that was really ominous like that that I remember reading where I paused and I was like, whoa, that's a weird thing to say. So, yeah, I mean, let's also remember, though, that when it comes to Bill Gates, one of the only reasons why anybody ever accepted him for any amount of time is that he had a fantastic PR team. And one of the theories is that the reason why he did all of this charity early on

is that it sort of changed his image. Because there was a time in the 90s, early 90s, I think, when he was viewed as like this ruthless monopolist who was snuffing out the competition. He was known as a huge asshole and he was doing all these unethical things. Yeah, and then he started doing this charity stuff

where he changed his public image to the point where there was some glowing Netflix documentary or some shit that was made about him. It was really gross. But yeah, all of that is PR bullshit. And to your point, I learned this from you. When you look at what he did with public health when it comes to the COVID vaccine, this is a guy who said, oh, we're going to vaccinate the world through our charity, through COVAX. And they were only able to get, what, a couple hundred million vaccines when they needed like billions? Totally pathetic. And he was fighting the patents. He was fighting to keep the

patents in place. So in other words, that means that all the pharmaceutical companies can get phenomenally wealthy as people can't get vaccinated. They won't let them make cheap generic vaccines to vaccinate the world because of people like Bill Gates. Yes, that is precisely right. And just completely parroting big pharma talking points because, yeah, he got his money from being a monopolist. He got his money from being able to use and abuse these patent protections. So he is an ideologue where this stuff is concerned, which not only has dramatically impacted the fight against COVID, like if you care about fighting the Delta variant and all of

these things, which everyone should, and making sure that we don't have an even more deadly variant come around, like, the best thing you could do in the entire world right now is to get the world vaccinated. Of course, we could do better here. Of course, there's things, you know, we need everybody here who can get vaccinated to get vaccinated. But there are so many countries around the world that have barely administered their very first dose. And there's almost no one more complicit in making that the case than Bill Gates. And one thing that's really sad is, I don't know if you covered, I covered this polling a while back on like the way liberals and conservatives feel about billionaires. Bill Gates, wildly popular with Democrats. Democrats love this guy on a personal level.

Do you think that's dropping, though? Is that dropping? I doubt it. I really doubt it. Because this kind of stuff gets so little mainstream coverage. Like, most of the world— Anderson Cooper is the definition of mainstream. I know, but most of the world does not know about his involvement in making sure that the world does not get these life-saving vaccines.

Because our media is broken. Exactly. Everybodysaving vaccines. Because our media is broken. Exactly. Everybody should know that. Is broken. So that's why it's sort of shocking when you say Anderson Cooper-esque, even a moderately challenging question of Mr. Gates. Indeed. 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. All right. So there is new fallout from that bombshell AG report detailing Governor Andrew

Cuomo's years of illegal harassment and abuse. First of all, Cuomo's former executive assistant is filing a formal criminal complaint against him, that woman who is named Brittany Camusot. She alleges she was summoned to the governor's mansion where Cuomo proceeded to fondle her breast under her blouse. So just as his political peril has dramatically increased, his legal peril has also escalated. But I am tracking the collateral damage from the report, which implicates a number of key figures in working to protect Cuomo and to smear at least one of the women who alleged harassment. So here's the New York Times on that cover up. Mr. Cuomo sought counsel from former administration officials like Alfonso David, who is now the president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization

in the country. Also, Tina Tchen, who heads Time's Up, a group that supports victims of sexual harassment, supposedly anyway. Roberta A. Kaplan, a founder of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, and the governor's brother, Chris Cuomo. So look, we already knew about how his brother, primetime CNN anchor and supposedly neutral journalist, had conspired with the governor repeatedly. Chris Cuomo's taking the week off from his job to celebrate his birthday, according to CNN. Very interesting. Now we are learning that two of the top people at Time's Up were also happy to help counsel Mr. Cuomo. Now, if you aren't familiar, Time's Up was founded in the Me Too era supposedly to help victims of sexual harassment and abuse. You may remember Time's Up as the very same group that refused to help Tara Reid

when she was attempting to go public with her own allegations against Joe Biden. Clearly, the goal of protecting powerful Democrats supersedes any Me Too mission. But the most egregious involvement in covering up Cuomo's abusive behavior appears to have come from Alfonso David. Now, David is the president of the Human Rights Campaign, but previously he was lead counsel for Governor Cuomo. Apparently, he never entirely gave up that job. According to the report, David was central to the plot to smear Cuomo accuser Lindsay Boylan. He provided a confidential file on Boylan to Cuomo aides. He helped draft a never-published op-ed intended to attack her credibility.

He even collaborated on a never-executed plot to secretly record both Boylan and another accuser. He then worked to reach out to women who had worked for Cuomo to help provide the governor with lady cover and even agreed to sign on to a public letter attempting to discredit Boylan if the governor needed him to. So that is disgraceful behavior for anyone, but especially for the leader of an organization that bills itself as a progressive civil rights organization dedicated to social justice. Staff there are reportedly furious. So on a leaked internal all-hands meeting, HRC staffers berated David for his behavior. They

called on him repeatedly to resign. That tense meeting lasted nearly an hour and a half. Not a single person defended him. The very first question in that meeting was a demand to know, quote, what did Alfonso David personally know about Governor Andrew Cuomo's harassment of multiple women? One staffer told David he was creating a toxic environment where partners can't trust us. When are you resigning, they demanded to know. Another informed him, Alfonso, we will band together and take this to the board to request your resignation before asking, are you willing Now, for his part, David was unflappable, smoothly brushing off and deflecting questions like the highly trained lawyer that he is. He insisted he did nothing wrong.

He informed the staff that rather than resign, the best way to protect the HRC brand was, quote, to highlight how harassment and discriminatory behavior hides in the darkness and how my experience can actually be used to affect change. A bunch of words which, when taken together, mean literally nothing. But apparently, David is right to be confident. While the rank and file might be pissed off, the board is fully behind him. On the very day the report was released, they signed him to another five-year contract as leader of that organization. The wealthy and well-connected board also released a statement proclaiming,

the Human Rights Campaign and Human Rights Campaign Foundation boards have full confidence in Alfonso David as president of the organization. And I feel bad for the HRC staffers who appear to have sincerely believed they were working for a progressive civil rights organization. I feel bad for the HRC staffers who appear to have sincerely believed they were working for a progressive civil rights organization. But based on HRC's track record, this protection of Cuomo and of Alfonso David are not even a little bit surprising. After all,

this is an organization that backed Hillary over Bernie in 2016 in spite of the fact that Bernie had been supporting gay marriage for literally decades, long before it was remotely palatable inside Democratic politics. They backed Congressman Richie Neal, a top ally of Big Pharma in his primary fight against Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse. Neal, he has worked hand in glove with Pharma to keep drug costs high, something plenty of gay and trans people would be significantly impacted by. Alex Morse, on the other hand, was not only immeasurably better on the issues, but also happened to be gay. HRC then stayed completely silent as Neil's Democratic allies launched a homophobic smear campaign against Morse that ultimately cost him that race. Human Rights

Campaign is also an organization that casually puts out corporate scorecards that award companies like Lockheed Martin with perfect scores for their commitment to equality. It is literally that meme come to life. Cool to build bombs and kill brown people, so long as the drone operator is trans, I guess. In other words, HRC is a wholly captured entity dedicated to preserving power for corporate Democrats, cloaked in the trappings of progressive identity politics. And in that, they are completely typical. In fact, show me an activist organization devoted solely to identity issues with no economic or labor mission that threatens the status quo, and I will show you an organization that is solely a vehicle for protecting power. Emily's List, supposedly about electing more women, basically the ladies' arm of the DNC, Planned Parenthood.

They jumped into presidential politics for the first time in 100 years in order to bolster Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders, even though obviously Medicare for All would guarantee health care access for all women, something they supposedly care about. It all goes to prove an extremely important point. The type of hollow identity politics exemplified by these organizations and led by operators like Alfonso David, they are not just ineffectual, they are actually dangerous. Whatever their initial good intentions, they are ultimately captured by corporate interests and democratic elites. Their veneer

of progressive politics is used as a shield for powerful, abusive men like Andrew Cuomo, and used as a Trojan horse for the kind of regressive politics that has left working class people of every race, gender, and orientation crushed in a new gilded age. When the chips were down, time's up, and human rights campaign, they chose covering for power over rights, equality, or anything approaching progressive politics. Because whatever pretty language they might put on their website, covering for power is their true core mission. This whole thing, Kyle, to me, so incredibly revealing. 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, Kyle, what are you looking at? So on a recent episode of Joe Rogan's podcast, he had on Black Rifle Coffee Company CEO and founder, Evan Hafer. The New York Times describes Hafer's company as a quote, Starbucks of the right. It's a veteran-owned company, and they also describe themselves as pro-military, pro-firearm, pro-law enforcement, and I like this one, anti-hipster. But that didn't stop the far right from canceling Hafer over his denunciation of extremist elements on the right.

Namely, Kyle Rittenhouse, he denounced. He denounced racism and racists. He denounced anti-Semites. And one of the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th was actually wearing a black rifle hat, and it was the guy who had zip ties, so Hafer denounced him as well. Hafer said, quote, it's such a repugnant group of people. It's like the worst of American society, and I got to flush the toilet on some of those people that kind of hijacked portions of the brand. The racism really pisses me off. I hate racist, proud boyish people. Like, I'll pay them to leave my customer base. I would gladly chop all of those people out of my fucking customer database

and pay them to get the fuck out. Now, this seems relatively benign because he was clear about who he was denouncing, but PJ Media, Andy Ngo, Kurt Schlichter, Nick Fuentes, and many other prominent voices on the right responded by canceling him and labeling him a, quote, grifter. So Joe Rogan had him on and Rogan said the following, quote, it was so weird to see cancel culture come from the right. I didn't know it worked that way. I didn't know you fucking idiots would do the same shit. It was the weirdest dog pile I've ever watched.

When people were attacking you, I got butt hurt. I was like, come on, Evan, get the fuck out of here. So now I want to go ahead and give everybody a history lesson of right-wing political correctness and cancel culture. Because Joe Rogan is right. And I'm about to give you many examples of how it's as real as a heart attack. And it's just as prominent, maybe if not more so, on the right than it is on the left. So the Dixie Chicks were blacklisted by thousands of country radio stations, and they got death threats, all because they dared to say that they were ashamed George W. Bush was from Texas in the lead-up to the Iraq War. They were angry

over the war, they made that point, and they were canceled as a result of it. By the way, that sounds very similar to something that Donald Trump would have said in the primary that he ended up winning on the Republican side. Franklin Graham in 2015 called for boycotts of every single pro-gay business to, quote, fight the tide of moral decay that is being crammed down our throats by big business, the media, and the gay and lesbian community. Recent example, Pete Davidson was forced to apologize after joking about GOP representative Dan Crenshaw on SNL. He said the following, quote, this guy's kind of cool. You may be surprised to hear he's a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hitman in a porno movie. I'm sorry, I know he lost his eye in war or whatever. Now, does anybody actually think he's in favor of Dan Crenshaw losing the eye? No, but he made a joke, and for that, he was canceled.

Conservatives whined so hard about a movie called The Hunt that they got it pulled by Universal. The movie is about hunting deplorables, but it was originally called Red State versus Blue State, and in the movie, this fact escaped the right, the deplorables were but it was originally called Red State versus Blue State, and in the movie, this fact escaped the right, the deplorables were actually the good guys. Sacha Baron Cohen was sued by Roy Moore over a joke. Sacha Baron Cohen used a fake pedophile detector on Moore, and it started beeping, and Roy Moore was so triggered by that, because he's a snowflake, that he took Sacha Baron Cohen to court, and he was basically laughed out of the courtroom. Emily Wilder, another recent example, was fired by the AP for pro-Palestine activism in college.

Colin Kaepernick is the classic example. He lost a job in the NFL largely because he kneeled in peaceful protest. Candace Owens was recently outraged over Ken Klippenstein trolling Republicans. He's good. Trolling Republicans to retweet a picture of Lee Harvey Oswald with glowing praise. Again, a joke. Tommy Lauren and the conservative establishment

wanted Michelle Wolf, the comedian, punished for, quote, crossing the line after she made fun of the powerful and the elites at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Gwen Berry turned away from the flag, and conservatives wanted her kicked off of the Olympics team. Little Nas X and his Satan shoes. This is another very recent example.

You had Republican governors calling for him to literally be, quote, canceled, and this is a governor, by the way, in North Dakota who prides herself on being anti-cancel culture. Ben and Jerry's wanted to stop selling their ice cream in the illegally occupied territories, and Republican politicians called for banning it completely, and of course called Ben and Jerry anti-Semites. Some conservative House candidates called for banning Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion over the song WAP, and Ben Shapiro gave us some gold on that front as well. Porn star Brandi Love was kicked out of CPAC for being a porn star. Even on social media, where normally people think it's only the right that gets

backlash. Turns out Chapo Trap House was banned on Reddit. Large Antifa accounts were banned on Twitter for, quote, oh, I'm sorry, Chapo Trap House was banned for, quote, consistently hosting rule-breaking content, whatever that means, and promoting hate. Large Antifa accounts were banned on Twitter. Countless left-wing outlets like Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig, and Naked Capitalism were deranked in the Google algorithm after being put on a shady proper not blacklist. Then, of course, there's the patron saint of political incorrectness himself, Donald Trump. Trump called for banning burning the American flag, and he wanted to punish it with up to a year in jail. By the way, wildly unconstitutional and against the First Amendment and free speech. Trump said he supports, quote, opening up the libel laws in this country,

just like England. Again, restricting speech. Trump threatened to sue Bill Maher over a joke where he was compared to an orangutan. Suing over a joke sounds pretty much like cancel culture. Now, finally, I want to talk about the laws here, because this is the biggest point when cancel culture becomes the law. So in Graham, North Carolina, they banned protests to protect Confederate monuments. Nine states have introduced 14 anti-protest bills ranging from barring demonstrators from public benefits, barring them from government jobs, and offering legal protections to those who shoot or run over protesters. This is real in a number of states. We also have anti-BDS laws, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement against Israel,

which is to try to bring about Palestinian human rights there with the same tactics that worked in apartheid South Africa. Anti-BDS laws are in 26 states. 26 states. That's where the laws are enacted. And in 13, they're pending. Some of these proposals, by the way, would allow protesters to be held without bail, which again is wildly unconstitutional. So here's the conclusion, guys, overall. If you're going to embrace political incorrectness, for the love of God, embrace it across the board. Just like Noam Chomsky said, if you don't believe in freedom of speech for those you despise the most, you don't believe in it at all. And for the left, I'd say this. You can admit when your side goes

too far. If there's joke policing or banning speakers on college campuses, you can and should denounce that. The real left-wing position shouldn't be that cancel culture and political correctness isn't real. It should be that it is real and we're even more against it than you are. And the culture war has a unique ability to turn people into moronic hypocrites flipping on their stated principles. So I beg of you, just be self-aware enough to avoid that. So Crystal, these are my thoughts on right-wing cancel culture. You know, it's one of those things where... Very excited to have with us today Kim Kelly. She's an independent journalist doing incredible work, labor reporting. She's been on the ground from the beginning

covering that coal miner strike that no one effectively was covering the mainstream press until very, very recently. We're going to get to that in a moment. She is also writing a book that you're definitely going to want to get. It's called Fight Like Hell, The Untold History of American Labor. Great to see you, Kim. Good morning. Great to be back. So we wanted to start with Richard Trumka passed away suddenly, very unexpectedly. I think he was 72 years old. He's the president of AFL-CIO, came up through the Mine Workers Union. Just talk a little bit about his life, his legacy, his death, and what you think is going to come next at the AFL. Right.

I mean, this was a massive shock. He was not a young man, but not necessarily what we think of as an old man. I remember getting the news because I have some friends who work there. shock. Like he was not a young man, but not necessarily what we think of as an old man. I remember getting the news, because I have some friends who work there, I started getting these text messages like, oh my God, oh my God. Like, whoa, okay, I wasn't expecting that. Because you mentioned the miners strike in Alabama. I was just down there on the 4th and they had a big rally. And Richard Trumka, he had initially wanted wanted to be there but I think he had his grandson's birthday a family thing so he sent a video message and so he sent a big video message that was played on a big screen of expressing support solidarity to these workers and that ended up being his final public remarks talking to a big group of striking mine workers and their

supporters and veterans of the Pittston strike, which was kind of his claim to fame back when he was super involved with the mine workers before he ascended to leadership of the AFL-CIO. And I mean, that really struck me. I think he was, he's a complicated man with a complicated legacy, but that really stuck with me, even as someone who's been critical in the past of things that, you know,

positions he's taken, things of that nature. but just seeing you know your last your last sort of official appearance before you die is supporting your brothers and sisters from back before no one knew who you were like that just that hit me you know and now we're looking at an interesting couple years because we have Liz Schuller the secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO. She's now the acting president. And the thing is, the AFL-CIO is meant to be having a convention next year. And that's when they were going to officially determine Trump as replacement. And there's been kind of some rumors and some politicking about multiple people who wanted that job.

And so now I think that's going to be much more interesting to see because Liz is already there. And I think there might be some shakeups. But regardless, I think, you know, we lost, as a lot of the people who have eulogized and said, we lost a line of labor. And this is going to be deeply felt. I mean, even the president was crying about it. Like he's he was a big man that made a big impact. And I think the next era of labor is going to hopefully build upon the good things that he did and work on the less than stellar things, in my opinion, that he stood for.

So, Kim, let's talk a little bit about Warrior Met and BlackRock. 1,100 miners were on strike for four months, and there was quite literally zero cable news coverage. There were some print outlets that covered it. There were some independent outlets that covered it, Pratse, including myself. I was one of the people who jumped on as soon as I learned about it. But, you know, shame on me because it took three and a half months for me to learn about it, which speaks to just how buried this thing has been. What do you make of the media coverage uptick? Is there an uptick, first of all? And then if there is, do you think the coverage has been fair? I think we've been finally, like you said, seeing an increase. I think that really that goes back to them showing up in New York in front of

BlackRock because, I mean mean to be frank it was just a lot easier for media people to show up it's a lot easier to get to Manhattan than it is to get to rural Alabama and especially you know there's a pandemic going on I understand people not wanting to travel I don't necessarily understand they're not wanting to pick up a phone but that's on them I'm really glad people are paying attention now and And I think we've had, you know, obviously the ABC News piece just came out. That was huge. And that was the first national TV news segment. Like we're a month five, five. That's the first one. But, you know, better late than never is very much a thing.

I did really appreciate the way that they put that together i um i kind of worked a little bit with them behind the scenes they called me up a couple weeks ago and i kind of like i did an interview with them and i gave them a whole bunch of background i kind of pointed them in some directions obviously they did most of the work but i'm glad that they listened to this you know independent reporter who's been on it for a while and i think they did a good job and i'm really hoping that that'll kind of be the the breaking point and more news organizations will be like oh okay well they covered it maybe that's legitimizing this a little bit maybe we need to show up because i mean we're it's august right now it's august 9th that we are well into their fifth month on strike they're not going

anywhere you know they're already planning their christmas toy drive like even if even if someone is is looking at this and it's like oh am i too late am i a little you know you know did i miss my opportunity no you didn't write about it call them show up to a rally like this still matters and it's going to continue to matter like it's only this is really only the beginning in a way you know like as some of the workers mentioned in the abc news piece like we didn't expect to be out here this long but we're not going anywhere hopefully you're interviewed in the piece you do a great job now that you mention it i can definitely see your sort of hidden hand and voice encouraging them in certain directions in the piece. We have a little clip of it of one of the workers just explaining what he has given to this company and to this mine. Let's take a listen to that.

Chris Laurie says the workers kept the mine afloat for years. I give you my youth. I've given you my time. I've worked six days a week for the last 17 years. You bought a coal mine. You bought an underground coal mine. You knew what the wages were when you bought it. We saved this coal mine. This ain't the first time we've saved it. We've saved it from fires. We've saved it from fires. We've saved it from explosions. We've saved it from a lot of things. Coal mining is one of the most dangerous professions in the country. In 2001, the No. 5 mine in Brookwood exploded, killing 13.

These are the gaseous mines in North America. You have gas. You have water. A lot of the working areas is knee-deep in water. It's a difficult job, not to mention the dust. You have more dust around the working face because that's where you're cutting the rock and the coal. According to the CDC, rates of black lung have more than doubled over the past 15 years. The workers we spoke to say Warrior Met Coal provides them with 80 percent coverage of medical fees. They used to receive 100 percent.

And Kim, one of the things that struck me in watching this piece, which I think was well done, was about nine minutes long and provided some really important facts for people about unions, about how unions lead to increased pay, about the struggles of these workers in particular. But it really struck me of like, you know, our union muscles have atrophied so greatly in this country that even to do a story like this, you have to really remind people like what a union is and why people join a union and what labor militancy looks like and why you'd be on strike and why you'd be willing to do this for so long and what solidarity is. There's just so little coverage. I remember when Stephen Greenhouse took a buyout at The New York Times.

He's now back as a reporter there. But it left The Wall Street Journal as the only major paper in the entire country that even had a labor reporter. So that's one of the struggles of covering this story, is that there's so little public understanding left of what labor movements actually are and what they mean and why they're important that you have to kind of build the story from the ground up. Yeah, I mean, we don't learn about it in school. I only knew about it a little bit because I'm from a union family. And that's a privilege at this point. Like like you said union density is down so far but one

thing i will say is i think we're in kind of a a renewed period of interest in labor reporting labor news and labor struggles like even since before the pandemic and we started having the essential worker discourse there are a lot of younger, more diverse labor reporters out there who I think are doing a good job. You know, Greenhouse is still out here. He's the OG, but we also have a lot of younger writers with a lot of different perspectives who are covering this beat, who are really devoted to this beat.

And I do like to attribute that in part to the organizing wave that we saw in digital media from the Writers Guild of America East, my union, and the News Guild that kind of kicked off in around 2015 with Gawker and Vice, where I used to work. Like, the fact that we organized so many digital media shops meant that a lot of digital media journalists learned about unions and they bargained a contract and they started to understand why this was so important when maybe they hadn't had that exposure previously and the digital media industry being what it is most of us get laid off all the time and so every time that happens all of these labor-conscious pro-union people are sort of disseminated throughout the industry again like you know dandelion seeds and some end up at new publications. They bring that perspective, and hopefully they unionize it. So really, there's a whole new generation of people who are pro-union, who care about unions, and who want everyone else to know how awesome unions are. And we keep getting fired,

so we keep ending up in different publications. That's a really interesting point. So, Kim, I read in the Media Matters piece on this that hedge funds actually increased investment in Warrior Met when they saw that there was like no media coverage about it. So, of course, Warrior Met cut pay, cut benefits, weakened safety measures, and they've been accused of unfair labor practices time and time again. Do you have any knowledge on that? Is it true that hedge funds actually increased investment in Warrior Met when they saw that the media wasn't touching it?

You know, I would believe Media Matters if they reported it. I hadn't heard that specifically, but it wouldn't surprise me. Because, you know, it makes sense because hedge funds are evil. And if they see that this is happening and no one is paying attention, like, oh, we can get away with something else because they're always trying to get away with something. And so that just illustrates why it's so important that people, regular people and media are paying attention to the strike

because we don't want these, you know, expletive deleted to get away with this. Yeah, I think that's really well said. And last, Kim, you know, what are the updates from the strike? What are their hopes? What are their expectations about how long it's going to last? And what are the tactics? What's the latest with the tactics the company's employing? Well, thankfully, I haven't heard of any new attacks. So that's good. That's a good week. But, you you know they're hunkering down they're digging in they are like i mentioned the women of the auxiliary they're starting to plan for

christmas they're expecting this to be a long fight you know some of the workers and some of the their spouses have been finding side jobs to supplement their strike checks like they're trying to make this work basically and the big rally that they just had in Brookwood, which had thousands of union members from across the country from multiple of paper saying that they were willing to come back and get arrested if they needed to for blocking the mines or whatever else might be planned. And I have a feeling this is not going to be the last we hear of that. So watch out, Warrior Matt.

All right, stay tuned, as they say. Kim, I know you were trying to get your book written and you're like, you've sequestered yourself to focus on writing. So we really are super extra grateful for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. The best.

Our pleasure. All right, guys. And thank you so much for watching. Thank you, Kyle, for hosting. Kyle will be back Tuesday. He'll be back on Thursday as well. As always, if you want to support independent media, support what we're doing here so we can continue to bring you stories like Kim is doing on the ground there in Alabama,

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