Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/11/23: BP Focus Group: Republicans FIGHT Over Trump, Predict Covid Election Rigging, React To Each Candidate, FL Arms Dealer Prints Billions Off Ukraine, Pelosi Re Election, Secret Service JFK Assassination, New Mexico BANS Guns, AI Destroys News

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Krystal and Saagar reveal the very first BP Focus Group with NH voters on a range of topics, Voters fight over Trump re-election, predict COVID election rigging by the Democrats, and react to each candidate. Additionally we look at a Florida based arms dealer printing billions of the Ukraine war, G20 rejects the US view on the Ukraine war, Pelosi announces her re election bid at the age of 83, a Secret Service agent breaks their silence on the JFK assassination, Saagar looks at New Mexico banning Guns, and Krystal looks at how a Tech Oligarch could use AI to destroy independent news.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys, ready or not, 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. We are making a little bit of breaking points history this morning. That focus group that we have been teasing now for, I guess, weeks at this point. We have some results

that we can share with you. The gentleman who ran the focus group, James from JL Partners, is going to be here to go through some of the top clips. We've got stuff for you, though, that we're going to be unrolling all week. So we're very excited about that. In addition to that, we have some big news stories that we want to cover. There was a real big expose in The New York Times about an American arms dealer to Ukraine that is very revealing. This is just as the G20 summit has also wrapped up. We have some big news I know you guys are going to be excited about. Nancy Pelosi has announced she is running for reelection again, Sagar. So everyone rejoice about that. And in terms of JFK news, this is an interesting development. One of the Secret Service agents that

was there in Dallas at the time of his assassination has decided he wants to tell his story, and it does not line up with the official narrative. So we'll break those details down for you as well. But before we get to any of that, huge, huge thank you to the premium subscribers who made this focus group possible. Yes. Look, we keep saying it. We finally have a finished work product. You guys are going to be able to see it already. Our coverage, our focus group has been getting mainstream media attention. And that's only possible because of all of you. That's a big deal for an independent show like ours. And these things cost a lot of money. We want to continue to keep doing them. They're well under the five figures in terms of the cost. So any one of you who is signing up, you are being tremendously helpful

in funding these expansion endeavors. So breakingpoints.com, if you are able to, it means the world to us. And we're producing good work. One of the things I'm most proud of in our focus group, not only about the attention it's already got, even though it's been one day, is that we got to things that the regular media companies just were not getting to. And I think what we really did is we are giving people a very good view of like, this is what people actually think. Show don't tell is the most important thing. Too many people are always speaking on behalf of others. And we're very proud to be able to elevate just normal voices and be like, listen, these are the people who support Trump or support DeSantis or support Vivacor.

Some people who are undecided. This is where they get the news. This is what they think. We got a Doug Burgum supporter in this group. Yeah, we got a Doug Burgum supporter, which is hilarious. But the point, you know, from watching the whole thing, which our amazing crew did such a good job, is I was like, I just came away with a way better understanding of, like, how people think. Of, like, people who are engaged in this, you know, normal, everyday life, on Facebook, moms, school teachers, people who are retired, and they're like, this is what they actually think about politics. So refreshing,

actually, to take a break from whatever, you know, pundits and how they're talking about. Yeah. I mean, listen, like polls have some use that can be limited, but to actually hear voters in their own words, describe who they support, why they support them, what they think about the major issues of the day. I think, you know, it's not scientific, but it's incredibly valuable. Just to give people a sense of how we're doing this. So for the main show, we're going to be showing you some of the top clips every day this week and providing you, you know, with our thoughts and reaction to some of the really interesting moments. Today, we're going to focus on kind of the top line, who is everybody supporting and why and some of that information. And then throughout the week, we also have some more issue-specific clips

that we can show you as well. For premium subscribers, you are going to have access to the whole thing this week. So you'll be able to get access to all of that first. And then later in the week, we'll have put it all together for everybody. There you go. Yeah, so as you said, premium subs, you guys are going to get the full thing before anybody else. We're going to give you a full, completely produced version of which we're working on.

Again, we're really, really proud of it. With all of that, we've got James Johnson of JL Partners standing by. Let's get to it. As we have been discussing at length at this point, we here at Breaking Points, with the help of our premium subscribers, commissioned a focus group of New Hampshire Republicans to offer their insights, how they're thinking about this primary, who they're interested in, who they're not interested in, what issues are the priorities, et cetera. And if you want to help us do this sort of work in the future, and if you want to get the whole beautifully edited piece of video and all the focus group details first in your inbox, make sure you subscribe breakingpoints.com. Without further ado, though, we want to bring in James Johnson of JL Partners, who was the moderator of this focus group, and by the way, did a fantastic job

getting a lot of very interesting information out of these voters. Welcome, James. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, of course. So we want to show some of the clips, but before we do, what were sort of your top line takeaways being there with this group the entire time? I think it's first worth saying who we actually selected. So we went for likely New Hampshire primary voters. Almost all of them were registered Republicans. And there was one independent, because obviously, don't forget, independents can vote in the New Hampshire presidential primary, who intended to participate in the primary. And we got a mix of people, some who made up their minds, some who undecided. So we really didn't know going into the room who they were going to say they were voting for. And as we'll see, it is still Trump's game to lose, that he dominates

this focus group, even though there is a split view on him. Some are sort of okay with him. Some love him. Some really don't like him. It's all about Trump. We asked them, what are their most important issues? And we had the economy, we had reproductive rights and other issues. But really, when we got down to the nitty grittyitty it was trump that it was all about one of the defining ones that you guys did was where you get your news from which actually revealed a lot about all of them so we have that clip why don't we take a listen i was saying to these guys we did have a fight once in the UK. So, you know, you have to make sure that you beat the good people of Britain by not having a fight. First name, what you do for a living, where you get your news from.

Okay, James, I work in IT and I get my news from podcasts or the internet, like a news site like CNN cnn or nbc yeah any particular podcasts uh 5 538 podcasts yeah yeah hi i'm dana i'm a full-time homemaker and i get my news from like a daily email briefing right which which one the morning brew hi my name is Neve. I am a homemaker homeschooler. And I get most of my news shared amongst other moms and folks in non-mainstream media type groups. Right. What kind of sort of group? Can you give an example of any of those? Like health freedom groups or folks who are more leaning, like opposing mainstream media.

Hi, I'm Jennifer. I'm a business analyst. And I get my news from mostly the Internet, different websites, NBC, CNBC, Fox News, and whatever the one that pops up on my computer that I don't even ask for. It shows me the headlines. And also when I check my email, the headlines there. My name is Debbie and I am a homemaker, part-time teacher, and I get my news from my husband. But I do watch Fox News and Tucker Carlson. Great. Thanks so much, Debbie. Is that Tucker Carlson on X now?

Yes. Right, right. Got you. Jim, I'm in advertising sales, and I get most of my news from either Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and the two guys at Noon on iHeartRadio. Hi, my name is John. I'm a retired service technician, and I get my news from Newsmax.

Hello, I'm Alexis. I'm an administrator for a state agency, and I get my news primarily from the internet, local TV stations, as well as national ones, primarily WMUR, as well as the local Concord Monitor and other local newspapers. So what did you make of that, James? What did where they got their news from eventually then inform some of their answers? Because before we preview what they actually say about who they're going to vote for. Well, I think what's very worth noting there is that there's a lot of sort of independent news sources, some alternative news sources, and really what sort of fed through the entire focus group was a real skepticism about traditional news media. And they were skeptical

about stories they'd heard. They talked about how they would go and Google stories, you know, after they'd seen them to check, to fact check them and see that they're right. And it's worth saying that is something we see in all of our focus groups. There's a big move away from those traditional sources, including in the United Kingdom, as well as in the US. So I think we see that informing a bit of that. And you saw the chap there mentioned Newsmax. You saw others mention other sources. They are coming at this from a very diffuse perspective, not just relying on one classic cable news network or one newspaper. Right. That was what jumped down at me, was just how many different answers were given. I mean, no one gave the same answer. And Fox did not dominate at all.

That's what I was gonna say. If you had asked this question of Republican primary voters a decade ago, I think almost all of them would have been like Fox News. 100%. But the landscape is so much more fractured now. Now, I will say, if you're like, you can kind of very closely expect

who's gonna be where on the political spectrum and what things they're gonna focus on based on the news preferences that they give at the top there, which is part of why we wanted to introduce them to the audience with that clip. Now let's take a listen to another section where you ask them, who are they supporting and what are they thinking about the candidates? Let's take a listen to that. So write it down, the name of the person, the name of the candidate who you're currently supporting. I would say Trump. And the reason being is because I would look back at his presidential days and all that was accomplished and what America was like. And then I would fast forward to where America is now.

And I wouldn't want to keep going that way. Trump, there we go. And the reason being is his past accomplishments. to where America is now. And I wouldn't want to keep going that way. Trump. There we go. Yes. Sorry. Yeah. And the reason being is, um, his past accomplishments we did in, you know, four, three and a half, four years. And he does support the, the working class a lot more, I think, than the other party does right now. And also what he's fighting now, what he's going through the political

firestorm of all these affidavits. As he said, I'm fighting for you because if this can happen to me, it will happen to you. If you say the wrong thing, you're in trouble today. Trump, definitely, because he needs to put us back where we were with oil independence, secured borders, great economy, just looking out for us. He gave the military a raise when they haven't had one for decades or years, I should say. And he made the VA better than what it was. And he needs to take over where he left off, which is making us where we were, especially with the oil independence.

You're going to hate me, but I can't remember the guy's name from South Dakota. I was looking into some of his ideas, and I think that we should still stay with a Republican, but not necessarily Trump. I'd like to see some little bit more of rational thinking come through. While I like how Trump had some ideas that were great and his financial abilities were leading us in the right direction, some of his changes that he put in while he was in term directly affected my work. And I didn't agree with some of them. Doug Burgum, is that who you were thinking of? Yeah, that's who it is. Great. Okay. I'm currently undecided, but I would be leaning towards Governor DeSantis.

And main reason why? Just executive experience, all the things he's accomplished in a very purple state, can get things done. Had the largest victory in recent memory for Florida, even though it's a divided state. So, you know, he can get things done. And I just don't think he's quite as divisive or antagonistic as President Trump would be. I'm considering Vivek for my vote. I think he's sort of an outsider and I don't think he has any political ties that are going to influence everything, I think. So that's what I'm considering right now. Leaning to Trump because he isn't a politician, he is a businessman, and his list of accomplishments was tremendously good for our country.

My main hang-up is that he pushed through the sort of COVID things, the shots and whatnot. I honestly don't know yet. I really don't. I agree with the warp speed, kind of did it for me. So I'm not 100% for Trump. But DeSantis, I see some good points, but I'm not really positive yet. I haven't really made up my mind yet. Might be naive, but I was hoping for somebody out of nowhere to come in. I want to pick up on why you're sort of leaning away from Trump. I think we'll have a much better shot of winning without Trump at the top of the ticket. I honestly think if Trump isn't on top of the ticket, we're going to lose all the state races in New Hampshire because he's very unliked, very unlikable.

I appreciate all the things he did in office. I think he did do a good job, but he's not a likable person. He's not a great person. And I think it would be a devastating effect on Republicans across the country to have him at the top of the ticket. I think we would feel that everywhere. Not worth it. What would be your defense? We're going with the vaccine. I, too, do not agree with the vaccine. I never got vaccinated myself. It's a free choice to do so. I know Trump did say I would not force the vaccine on anybody. I do believe that Trump was given some bad advice, particularly with Dr. Fossey, and I forget the other woman that was there.

There's a lot of manipulation going on that the media will not be truthful about, but that is a lot what took place. I think he got some bad advice. Well, there's many things that I agree with them on. I mean, the four years, there are some things like, I think a lot of times he speaks without thinking. And I think that that's a detriment to himself. But I do think that the media warps so much of what is truly going on. And I feel like that's a huge problem in many areas, like with many of these candidates. I mean, it's hard to know the true person underneath them because it really, it depends. If you listen to CNN, it tells you one thing. If you listen to Fox News, it tells you a different thing. How can we make

America great again? Because it's not great right now. It's not great. And I've got six kids and I'm watching them have to grow up in this. And that worries me about what they're going to have to live with. If somebody doesn't start shaking the boots somewhere. He's a businessman, and he has a lot of hard bark on him. And that's why he says some of the things that he does, because he's just a businessman. But he does right by the people. He can walk away anytime he wants with all his money, but he's still fighting to come back and say,

I have to finish the job. I have to make this great again. When he put the tariffs on China, he was bringing jobs back and doing the border. So that's why I like the guy. And yes, he doesn't say a lot of presidential things that he should be saying. But he also says a lot of things that people are thinking, but they won't come right out and say it.

So let's call it what it is. I've seen you shaking your head a couple of times. I'm baffled by these arguments. I mean, he got bad advice. You want a president who got bad advice? That's really a cop out. But I think mail-in ballots are here to stay, so they're here. The media trumping up COVID and bringing COVID into the story, do you think that helps President Biden to have a

COVID outbreak on his watch? That definitely does not help him. Could Trump beat him? Maybe. We all agree that Biden is totally incompetent, I think, and Trump already lost to him. Now, maybe it was a rigged election, but it shouldn't have even been close, right? Biden is totally incompetent. He shouldn't even win five states. So why don't we choose a candidate who doesn't come with all the baggage and all the issues and all the media hating him and all that? And let's get a fresh voice in there that can really whoever is the Republican nominee should wipe the floor with by not be in a situation where a mail in ballot or media thing could swing it. It shouldn't even be that close. You know, don't leave it to the refs. Right.

So obviously, these things aren't scientific. They're just a snapshot. But that being said, I feel like you got a lot of the like, that was everything. Yeah, that was a lot of what you see in some of the interpersonal dynamics and some of the things they like about Trump and some of the question marks they have. Also, love the lady who's the Doug Burgum supporter who doesn't remember his name or what state he's from. And I genuinely mean that. Like, I appreciate she's like, I researched and I liked his policy positions. But what did you make of that? Because it does seem like even though there was some favorable sentiment towards DeSantis and even towards some of the other candidates, Trump is really still the central defining issue of this whole thing.

He is. And this audience matches really what the New Hampshire polls look like, around half backing Trump and the others sort of diffused across other candidates. Yeah, that's right. There are three key groups in this focus group that are in that New Hampshire electorate as a whole. One of the sort of Trump true believers, and you saw that with those three people at the back there, you know, they were, he had made a values connect with them. He was their guy. He smashed it as the president in his view, in their view, and they really wanted to see him come back. Then we had the sort of Trump agnostics, those people in the middle ground. You saw the lady in the front row there talking about she liked him.

She had a few concerns about COVID. They doubt Trump's effectiveness, but you can still see them backing him come a general election. Yeah. And then you have that third group, really sort of exemplified by James on the front row there, who we just saw. These people who are opposed to Trump, they think that he's not only lost his effectiveness, he's lost some of his sort of moral right to govern. And those three groups are absolutely key to sort of who can win because Trump only needs to carry the first two of those groups and he's got it. There you go.

He doesn't even have to carry all of the first two of those groups. Absolutely. And so part of what, I'd love to get more from you on to me. Well, yes, Trump is the dominant central figure. It did show if you did have one candidate that could consolidate the other two groups, they maybe would have a path. They maybe would have a shot. And there were some questions raised there that were part of the DeSantis pitch. We're going to talk more about COVID in a minute. But I was actually surprised how many people at this late date are bringing up COVID. And as a core critique of Trump of like, well, I liked a lot of what he did, but what he did in the pandemic, I have some questions about that. I'm not sure about that.

That's something that DeSantis has tried to run on. What did they think of some of the other candidates? Well, Ron DeSantis came out of this pretty well. OK, they're not saying they'd vote for him, but when we asked them about their views on him, they were uniformly favorable. One of the Trump true believers at the back there said, why couldn't he run in four years' time? And others were positive. These Trump attack lines on DeSantis haven't landed with Trump supporters. And also you see that with Tim Scott as well. There were positive things said about him. Nikki Haley was a little bit more divisive. Mike Pence a bit more divisive. Coming up against that,

coming up against those pro-Trump people, rubbing up against them badly a little bit. But the DeSantis, the Tim Scotts, they are liked. The problem is, as you say, there's no one name for them to rally around. And as long as that field stays diffuse, it's exactly what happened in 2016. Trump won in New Hampshire in 2016 because he had a split field up against him. And we're headed towards the same thing. Well, the important thing- I think it's Doug Burgum's race to lose. The important thing to also see is that they disagree on where they depart from Trump.

So like James, the IT guy, he's like, well, I think he was divisive. I think he got bad advice. But then the other people are like, well, actually, I don't like the fact that he did Operation Warp Speed. You know, it's like they have very different views about how exactly that's gonna go,

which is why I don't think one person could unite. And let's turn then to COVID because COVID actually leaped out to us. It became really interesting. The mainstream media who we shared our focus group with, they actually picked up on this immediately, was a lot of the fears around return of COVID restrictions and of impact on the election, mail-in balloting and all that. Let's take a listen to that. We're going to talk about it afterwards. The candidates have said it. I've said, can Donald Trump beat Joe Biden?

The problem is the fair election. So here we go again. We're starting to crank up with the COVID, supposedly with the masking. And, you know, it's the same play they did four years ago. They're going to play the mail-in ballots and cheating is going to take place. And, you know, it's just, it's going to be the same scenario again. Like I work in the schools and a couple of the teachers were like, you know, already COVID's coming in, the masks,

some of the schools are already going online. Some of the things are getting, some of the colleges are getting shut down. Like it's, it's like a deja vu. And then you think about it. Okay. So then the mail-in ballots got to come. Like, do I think he can beat him? Absolutely, if it's fair. So you think that COVID stuff you think is linked to the election? And who's doing that? Who's orchestrating that? The Democratic Party. It was an article that was written by, I forget what the news magazine was, but it was a liberal news magazine. And they came out and basically said it was planned to have the election go the way it was. And a lot of Republicans went along with that plan because they wanted to keep the swamp.

They wanted to keep the dirty politics. And some of the Republicans are involved with that. And it was a planned event. And they used COVID as a way to push it in. With the plandemic, we see it coming again, and there's a lot of writing on the wall. I think there's a lot of money exchanged. There's big farmers behind it all. As far as can Trump beat Biden, I think I could probably beat Biden at this point. The guy's stumbling around, forgets where he is, can't remember his words, doesn't

know what he's talking about. And so I wonder, like, really, who's running? We put the name Biden on it, but who's really holding those puppet strings? And can Trump win over those? Put your hands up if you think the 2020 election was rigged. I'm repeating what some of you guys have said back to me here. This idea that COVID is coming back up again, put your hands up if you think that's a deliberate plan to try and basically stitch the next election up for the Democrats. It's all about fear. And that's what it is. It's all about fear. Scare everybody. Stay indoors. Wear your mask. COVID's coming back. I'm here to help. It's fear. It's control to divide

people. Well, if you think that's the case, I'll ask the question again. At least four of you nodding there. You know, I don't know about the exact semantics, but repeating about what you said to me. Put your hands up if you do think that there's at least some connection between COVID coming back and the next election being rigged for the Democrats. So clearly it's not only about return of COVID restrictions. I've seen this too in terms of people talking about stories. There's one college bringing back mask mandates. They're like, oh, well, that's going to justify this.

I know Alex Jones and others have been talking about it. So clearly that is going through to a lot of the voters. But then you also saw the divide in terms of somebody like James, the person in our focus group, who didn't raise his hand whenever he said the election was stolen. He was the only one who departed in the previous clip. He's like, why would that be good for President Biden? But I mean, the divide there seemed one of the starker ones and one of the things that really jumped out that we didn't expect to see. Absolutely. And it's correlating with some sort of pro-Trump on the one hand, concerns about 2020 election and these couple of people in the group who are resistant to those kind of things. But that was the majority view in that group, that COVID is linked to the

next election basically going the same way in their eyes as the previous one, which they view as being rigged for Joe Biden. Now, this says to me that, you know, if we fast forward to an election where Trump and Biden are the candidates, which obviously is not guaranteed, but let's assume that is the case, and we get a Biden win in that election, that is going to cause a lot of rancor and a big, you know, big pool of distrust amongst these voters. They've already been set up for it. I mean, I've seen these, I've just noticed this in the past few weeks. There were a couple of little stories. There's like an elementary school near here that did masks for 10 days or something. And these stories have been blowing up huge in right-wing

media. And, you know, it's partly what those media outlets are choosing to coverage cover. And it's also partly what these voters are primed to really believe. And so they, you know, they, when they see that story, it fits into their mental pattern of, oh, this is what happened last time is what's going to happen again. You know, I thought not only in terms of, geez, we saw what happened last time. A majority of Republicans thought the election was rigged. It was catastrophe on January 6th. And it was, you know, a genuine sort of threat to the core of democracy here. But if we have that happen again, obviously that's a scary scenario. The other thing that I thought about, though, is doesn't this end up being sort of self-defeating for Trump? If your voters think it's going to be

rigged anyway, does it make it harder to motivate them to the polls? And we saw a little bit of this in the Georgia Senate races that happened, you know, came right on the heels of 2020. And you had some influencers and I think the president's son, Don Jr., going down to Georgia and basically saying like, it was rigged, it was stolen. And there was a lot of analysis at the time that this really demotivated people because what's the point of, you know, upending your day and doing some of the hurdles that it takes to show up at the polls if you don't think your vote is going to count anyway? So to me, it's sort of a double-edged sword for them that they already have this idea baked in that the election is going to be rigged and their votes are going to be stolen. Absolutely. And particularly when you think the Republicans do skew older and older people tend to use mail-in ballots more. So that is obviously a factor as

well. What I would say is that local Republican parties, state parties, have been changing their message on mail-in ballots over the last year, since the midterms at least, saying, you know, we actually sign up. We need to do this. We need to play the Democrats at their own game. We expect that to have an impact. But what these focus groups tell us is they tell us not just what people are thinking in terms of their vote, but whether they might vote. And this turnout question is going to be absolutely crucial at the 2024 election, because which side can get its people out is critical to the result. And we're going to see that with the election integrity argument, but we're also going to see it on abortion and reproductive rights. Democrats will be hoping to put abortion plebiscites on the ballot in various states to try and boost their turnout overall.

So these focus groups also give us an insight into that. What's driving them? Are they actually going to turn out? What's their enthusiasm like? Yeah. And to turn now to more of what these individuals thought about some of the other candidates, I mentioned before I was surprised how much the pandemic came up in the context both of, you know, the election being rigged again and also in the context of some of the critique of Trump. And, you know, this is one of the things that Ron DeSantis had been leaning into. I actually haven't been hearing him making this case as much, but this raises for me, perhaps, perhaps he was onto something with that original, uh, with that

original critique and contrast that he was making with Donald Trump. You did something really interesting, which was you, you know, asked them all to, to write down what they thought about each of the candidates. Let's take a listen to some of what they had to say. If you don't know who this person is, I think you might have been living under a rock. Donald Trump, a word or a phrase to sum up how you feel. I don't mean it rudely, but my word is loser. I'm confused.

He's not confused. I'm confused about how I feel. Competent. Competent, but I don't necessarily trust him. Competent. Unwavering. Making America great again. Unhinged. Vivek Ramaswamy.

Refreshing ideas, but not serious. Optimistic. Suspiciously fake. I don't know enough. VP for Trump. He's well-spoken, but I don't trust him. He took money from Soros and denied it. And so I don't trust him. He took money from Soros and denied it. And so I don't trust him.

He looks like a, and he acts like a clear politician, but he has no shot at being a president. Nikki Haley. Strong on foreign policy. Consensus builder. I'm afraid I'm completely uninformed. I don't know who she is. Kind of naive. I have to hear more about her, but she's very liberal. Liberal, leaning on social issues.

Rhino. She seems confident, but I feel like she's not strong enough to be our president. Mike Pence. Experienced, has a good temperament for the job. More of the same. Not necessarily a bad person, but not necessarily anything to offer. A sellout. Confident.

Kind of likes to try to please everybody. That can be an issue sometimes. Rhino. Ultra, ultra conservative. Next one, guys. Tim Scott. Word or phrase, Tim Scott. I like him, but when I see him speak, it just seems unremarkable. Like, doesn't set himself apart. He strikes his honorable. I want to say too new, but I don't, that's not quite what I want to say,

but I can't think of any other words. I'd say he's more experienced. He's well-spoken. He'd make a great VP for Trump. I think he's too strict on reproductive rights. Chris Christie. Tells it like it is. No way. Yeah, Frank.

I think he's a phony. Outspoken. Chris Christie. Tells it like it is. No way. Yeah, Frank. I think he's a phony. Outspoken. More liberal. Rhino. If he didn't have Trump's name to mention, he won't go anywhere. Let's not forget Bridgegate. Seems like he's too indated with the Jersey Shore. Ron DeSantis. It's a strong record of getting things accomplished. Experience. Morally solid. He's got a lot going for him. Myward was experienced. Could you wait four more years? He's well-spoken. I think he's hurt Flava in a lot of ways too, but he's well-spoken and he's a takes charge guy.

He certainly can talk very well, but he's done some bad things for Florida that has directly hurt, you know, the elderly as well as some of the families down there. There's so much to dig into there. Let's actually talk first about Trump, who, of course, is, you know, the elephant in literally every room in this entire country, I feel. The critique of him was lacking in competence, but then there was obviously a lot of strong sentiment in favor of him as well. There was, and people who liked him did pick up on the fact that, okay, he might not always be the most presidential. He might say things that perhaps he shouldn't, or he might come on and tweet things or whatever else. But that was funny to them. They liked that. This is not going to be

the thing that ruins Trump with them. To be honest, I thought that those three at the back were locked in for Trump. They're going to vote for him at the primary. It's very hard to tell the way. It's those people in the middle that are the key, I think. Yeah, I absolutely agree. It was interesting, too, to see them on Nikki Haley. That one woman, she was like, I don't even know who she is. I'm totally in it for her. Yeah. It's worth saying, I think,, no candidate here has not only had not had a breakthrough moment But also no one's had a new Hampshire moment. No one was sort of saying oh they have turned up to a lot of events That's true They've done a lot and you know

That's bad news for candidates like Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy who spent a lot of time in New Hampshire They weren't they weren't noticing that I think actually the comments about Vivek were some of the most critical You had some people who said, you know, I like him. He seems pretty good. But then they would float like, maybe he could be Trump's vice president. But some of the negative critiques of him were also interesting.

They found he came across politician-y and also like they didn't trust him. There was some skepticism of him that clearly existed in this group, even among people that you might think had a favorable impression of him. Yeah, and it seems that Vivek Ramaswamy, we did a poll after the first debate, which I believe Breaking Point's covered, and Vivek Ramaswamy came top on that poll. But he does not seem to have converted that debate performance into sort of solid support.

We've seen that in the polls. He had a boost before the debate, but he hasn't really had a boost in the numbers since the debate. And it seems like actually his manner and his style on that debate, even though people like what he was saying, seems to have rubbed off a bit negatively

on some of these people. Now, big caveat, it's only one focus group. You know, there's lots of time to go. But certainly this is not someone who, you know, got a clean sweep and got a lot of momentum from that debate, as perhaps some were predicting he might. There were two people who got less negative comments than what I was actually expecting. And that was Mike Pence and Chris Christie. Chris Christie, even some of the people who were like, you know, sort of Trump curious or

Trump supporters were described him as like, he tells it like it is, you know, he's Frank. I mean, there was also, he's a rhino. There was that sentiment there as well, but I actually expected basically everyone in the group to be like, he's a rhino and I don't like him. But there was this sense of like, oh, he's brash. He tells it like it is. There was more of that in the group than I expected. The other one was, as I mentioned, Mike Pence, where because there's been obviously January 6th, you had people running around saying he wanted to hang him. He has now at this point become more outspoken about Trump and about Trump's governance and, you know, just gave this big speech, really contrasting his vision with Trump's vision, et cetera, et cetera. I thought there would be more negative sentiment towards

him. And again, there was some of that, you know, he was described as a sellout. The one gentleman who's clearly like very strong Trump supporter called a lot of these folks rhinos, but Mike Pence was one of the ones who got the rhino label. But you also heard people saying, oh, he's experienced. You know, they felt like he was a good person. They just disagreed with some of the values and some of the direction that he wanted to go in. So I was actually surprised it wasn't more sort of vicious

and negative on Mike Pence. This is the perennial burden of doing these focus groups. It's saying never overestimate how clued in people are. Because, you know, people are not following the contours of this like we do. You know, they're not following the ups and downs of the race. And to some people, they see Mike Pence in that debate and they think, oh, he came across quite strongly. He came across quite principled. And they quite like that. It's come off a little bit in the numbers now, but in some of the early primary polls of this cycle, we saw quite a large chunk of Trump voters were saying that Mike Pence was their second choice.

And that still exists in the big team. He was the vice president. It makes sense. I think it makes sense. Yeah. And then the last one for you to weigh in on is actually two of them. So Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis,

people didn't have really strong views on Tim Scott. There was a sense, again, of sort of like, yeah, he's fine, but maybe he needs some experience. He seems honorable, but I'm not sure. Ron DeSantis actually had a pretty positive reception. You know, the one gentleman who was very hard Trump and called almost everybody else a rhino, he didn't say that about Ron DeSantis, even though Trump has been obviously aggressively going against Ron DeSanctimonious, Meatball Ron, whatever the latest nickname of the day is. He said that he sees him as well-spoken and kind of a take-charge guy.

And so across this group, with the exception of the one woman who's the Doug Burgum supporter, there seem to be pretty positive sentiments towards him, presenting possibly an—I mean, if he were to consolidate some of that and consolidate the people who are like, eh, I'm not sure about Trump, consolidate some of the people who are definitely anti-Trump, then he would have a shot. I think as Sagar was pointing out before, the challenge in doing that is that people's reasons why they don't want Trump again are so different and so various that it makes it really hard to have one cohesive message that would bring all of those individuals together. It does. And I think Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott would now be thinking, we need to have a moment. It's not good enough for Tim Scott to have a solid debate. It's not

good enough for Ron DeSantis to have a solid debate. They need to start really carving them out as the clear opponents and challengers. And they need to do that quite quickly. Now, look, there is time, but look at what happened in 2016. You know, you have Iowa, you have New Hampshire, you have South Carolina. And then it's not long until you're into Super Tuesday. Now, if there's still a fractured field by then, Trump mops up. He gets it. But, I mean, if I was advising, you know, one of these candidates, whether it was Tim Scott or Ron DeSantis, you know, how do you break through? Well, clearly they need to have a big sort of presence on the debate stage.

But it might also be worth thinking for them, what's the sort of policy issue that they can really make a splash with? And one of the things that really united this group, quite different perhaps from sort of what we might expect Trump supporters to be like, is that they were very, very keen to see the federal government become a lot smaller. They were keen to see spending cut. They were keen to see the government step back from their lives. Now, if DeSantis or Tim Scott could come up with a really punchy economic policy, don't quite know what that is. Perhaps it's a flat rate tax. Perhaps it's something that really appeals to those sort of small state Republicans.

Then you could see them start to break through a little bit. It really makes sense in the live free or die state. I'm curious about how it would look like, you know, on a national level. I think one of my takeaways was with DeSantis is the COVID critique, for some reason, he has that critique of Trump from the very beginning, criticized Warp Speed, criticized Montfaucie, but not a single one of those people was like, yeah, but that's why I'm supporting DeSantis. The one DeSantis guy didn't even cite COVID.

The other people were not used, they were like, yeah, I kind of agree with the critique, but they're not immediately saying his name. And if he hasn't won them over at this point, I'm like, man, that's kind of, I'm just curious, you know, what could possibly, we had those two undecided ladies, both of whom were very concerned about COVID, but none of them, they're like, yeah, I'm considering, you know, but he still has not been able to win that over.

So I, actually a bit of a red flag, you know, he needs consolidate that if to the extent that that's a large group in there, but I'm just not sure given the amount of the disparate kind of concerns about Trump are just so all over the map from right to Left. I don't know if a single candidate can do that Maybe the big moment comes if Trump attends one of the debates, right? Yeah, somebody can pit themselves as the sort of anti-trump candidate But who also appeals to that key group in the middle and I think you know to listeners

I think I'd say the key thing to take away from this focus group is that group in the middle, these Trump agnostics. You saw a couple of them there. If they can be one round, then it's possible that Trump's lead could fray. But look, there's no doubt, based on this, Trump is the clear front. Yeah. Very true.

The last thing I'll say, we're going to have, guys, some of the more issue-specific questions and some of the clips from that, you know, on abortion and Ukraine and other things later in the week. So we're going to have some of that as well, just as a preview. Yeah, we've got a lot more, don't worry. But, you know, I was curious from your perspective, because you're saying, you know, they're interested in smaller government, they're interested in, you know, the pandemic, they have these things that they raise.

But when they're actually talking about the candidates and how they feel about them and why they're supporting them, it's very little that's issue specific. It's much more seems to be about personal characteristics. So what was your sense in the room of how much these, is it the vibes? Is it the like, you know, the personality contest? Or do you think it comes down more to like, here's my top issues, here's how I'm prioritizing them?

I think come a general election, that matters a little bit more. And I could certainly, it was interesting when they were talking about things like the economy and abortion, they were talking about it not in reference to different Republican candidates, but to against Joe Biden. Correct. So I do think that matters later. But at this stage, I think one of the problems is, for anyone trying to differentiate on this, we've seen, you know, Nikki Haley, for example, take a different position on social security. We've seen Mike Pence take a different position on abortion. The problem of that sort of approach is that these voters sort of assume most Republican candidates are probably on the same side on these issues.

They sort of instinctively trust a lot of them to be so. And that makes it hard to differentiate. So I think it is personality. Us pollsters call it brand. It's the brand of these candidates. In the same way you might go to your favorite chocolate bar provider or your favorite telecoms provider, it's the candidate and how they come across. Are they competent? Are they good? Are they reliable?

Are they strong? Will they stand up for you? And policy matters as a flag for that, but it's also so much more about can they convince the room? Can they persuade them? It's personal characteristic and great point too about how it matters also in terms of how they see the other candidate and whether they'll get some of what they want vis-a-vis Joe Biden. So anyway, James, you did a fantastic job. You really did. Hopefully we'll see you again. Great work here. And we're excited to continue to bring everybody all of this work that we've

done in conjunction with JL Partners. You guys do amazing work. As we said, we've cited previous polls and other things. And we're glad we got to work together. I don't know if people remember, we showed before these word clouds that you guys did of all the candidates. I mean, they were really interesting because again, it's like, you can pull on these issues and people, oh, I support this on Ukraine. I support that on abortion. But like their gut check of when I hear this candidate's name, what's the first thing that comes to mind? That's in some ways the most revealing material. So that's why we're so excited to work with you guys. And you came through. This was phenomenal. Thank you. Thanks so much, guys. Appreciate it very much. And we will continue on with the rest of the show now. Last week, we brought you the news that President Zelensky had fired the defense

minister over corruption. We're apparently allowed to talk about corruption in Ukraine now. And the New York Times, because they've gotten their marching orders now that they're allowed to talk about it, are giving us an even better insight into what this looks like. It's effectively like the plot of the War Dogs movie or of Lord of War. Crazy mercenaries who are very unscrupulous are getting hundreds of millions of dollars from the US government on their ability to procure weapons and pump them into the Ukraine conflict. Let's put this up there on the U.S. government on their ability to procure weapons and pump them into the Ukraine conflict. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is just one view. Remember, this is just one, what, 20-something months or so into the conflict. They look at Florida-based

arms contractor. His name is Mark Morales. He has regaled people with stories on his new $10 million yacht called Trigger Happy Crystal that manages his company's nine-digit portfolio. Said portfolio includes like hundreds of millions of dollars that are given to Mr. Morales. They have awarded his company approximately $1 billion in contracts, mostly for ammunition. Records show he has built roughly $200 million side business just selling to the Ukrainians directly. He employs multiple Ukrainian officials, some of whom are pictured there, one of them literally a former defense ministry advisor. I mean, why would you employ such a person, right, whenever you're trying to sell weapons to the government. But the thing I love about Mr. Morales is that, quote, the Justice Department indicted him in 2009 on conspiracy of money laundering charges after it said he was caught

on tape discussing methods for paying bribes to foreign officials. Quote, this way said, you just got to be smarter than the government, Mr. Morales said on one recording. Ultimately, FBI agents badly botched the case and prosecutors had to drop charges. So he's not been convicted. He stands innocent of the charges in the eyes of the law. But what they really go into with Mr. Morales, and again, we're using him just as a stand-in for how many, there's probably dozens of these types of guys who are operating inside of Ukraine, is these guys were instrumental in the Syria and Afghan conflict. Yep. They have deep and shady ties for ammo, ammo dealers all across the world. They can snap their

fingers and they can get a plane full of ammunition. And the Pentagon was like, hey, the guy can get the job done. So we're just going to pump money, you know, into his pockets. And it doesn't really matter where it's coming from or what's going on or where this money is doing or who exactly he's paying inside of the country. And it's just so obvious. I mean, one of the reasons they tried to indict him in 2009 is because that directly violates the Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act that the United States government has in place in which U.S. businesses are not supposed to be bribing foreign officials or engage in any of this corruption to procure business. And that specifically would be a violation, a business violation in terms of that revenue. But when

that revenue is directly based on the government itself, they're obviously looking the other way. So I thought this was just a perfect example of, you know, now it's 20 something months into the conflict. The Biden administration is on the verge of sending long range missiles to Ukraine, of which they directly had said before it would escalate the conflict. And we don't have enough said missiles because if we ever get into a conflict, we may need them. Of course, I've said this before on a long enough timeline, Ukraine always get what it wants. But it's people like Mr. Morales

who are the go-tos between these. It's not just a direct arms transfer. We take the money, we give it to people like him. He gets it from God knows where. And then he gives it to Ukraine and he's making a very tidy little profit enough to get a $10 million yacht in Florida. Must be nice. It's a nice life he's got down there. He's gotten a billion dollars in contracts from the Pentagon. I think this story, first of all, some of the details here, there are so many yikesy details

in this, starting with the image of him on his quote unquote trigger happy yacht and partying with these Ukrainian officials and current members of the Ukrainian military that he also employs in order to help him get the meetings with the Ukrainian government that he wants to secure further contracts. So he's not only doing business with the Pentagon, you know, the Pentagon is hiring him to procure and supply certain weapons and in particular ammunition, but he's also getting money directly from the Ukrainian government. He is walking right up to the line of directly bribing foreign officials.

I mean, there's just no other way of describing this. One of the people that he employs is a sergeant in the Ukrainian military. He has done a lot to, so he pays this man and then this man gets him these meetings with foreign government officials. So you tell me what that is ultimately. I think it's also important outside of the details of this particular individual, that people really understand the nitty gritty of how this business is done. And that they remember that this man is becoming wildly wealthy off of this horrible, tragic war. And he's not alone. There are a lot of others who are just like him.

The article sort of gestures at this massive arms market that has sprung up and the amount of money obviously flowing around all of Eastern Europe. And they say that it could reshape the politics and markets in that whole region for years and years to come, even following after the war, because this is defining sort of a new group of oligarchs who are getting wildly wealthy off of this conflict. So it's always important to remember, as these wars are going on, you know, we as the public see it and we see the tragedy of it. We

see the atrocities that are being committed. We see the absolute carnage and horror of it. But it's also important to remember that there are people who have a financial incentive to keep these things going and who are turning huge profits off of this carnage and killing. My personal favorite is that it's really not his connection to the Ukrainian government. Every Tom, Dick and Harry in Eastern Europe's got a connection to the corrupt Ukrainian government. He says, quote, it is not his ties to the government. It's his ties to the Pentagon, which give him an unfair advantage. Quote, arms brokers from around the world are competing for a limited supply of Soviet-style weapons,

mostly from Eastern Europe, to sell to Ukraine. With cash pouring in from Washington, Morales can afford to pay more than his competitors do. Several Eastern European arms dealers complained. They're mad. They're not getting in on the bonanza. He then makes good on his American contracts, then buys even more ammunition with his profits to sell it to Ukraine directly. And in several cases early in the war, Morales outbid rivals to buy explosive shells, for example, from a Bulgarian arms factory. All of this is, again, appropriated dollars from the U.S. taxpayer to missed people like him who go out and, you know, these shady factories, nobody knows what's going on in these places. They probably are most likely they're selling to both sides of the conflict. And this is a perfect example of a guy who's got Washington

wired, knows how to game the subcontracting business and contracting, enough of a profit there if he can outbid people in there and then, you know, juice things with the Ukrainian government so he's got a consistent supply. And the longer this conflict goes on, the richer people like him are going to get. And I want to be clear. This isn't even signaling the man out because there are dozens of people like him. And frankly, he's a small fish in all of this. The people who are really cleaning up are, like I said, that Bulgarian arms factory, our defense contractors who are also- Yeah, breaking on itself. Those are the people making billions of dollars whenever they are raking that in. He's just like

a side player in this entire thing. Again, I shouted out the movie War Dogs. I recommend people go and watch it because that is a great example of our government is not in control nearly as much as people think. They think we're like flying C-37s over and just dropping the weapons off. No, no, no. The government doesn't do anything anymore. We subcontract out everything, like NASA to SpaceX and the Pentagon here to arms dealers. We just write a check, and then we just expect said weapons to show up. And the biggest problem with this is not only quality control, but also who knows where are these

weapons going? We've already done multiple reports here, guys in the Azov Nazi battalion, brand new weapons just showing up. We did previously that story about the American mercenary who had told stories about how just brand new crates of weapons just show up. If you're there, grab one. Why not? You know, and who knows what are they dealing with it? And then also how who is stopping people like Morales or any of these people inside Ukraine from taking that crate? Maybe they gave a third to the Ukrainians and they sell two thirds on the black market. That's exactly what happened in Afghanistan. I mean, I've said this before, but the people who really, you know, won in Afghanistan, bankers in Dubai. I mean, I've said this before, but the people who really won in Afghanistan,

bankers in Dubai. And this is a good example. Guys like him made their bones in the Syria and Afghan conflict, being able to procure sketchy weapons and deliver it to the conflict zone. So why not? And the amount of money laundering and other chicanery that's going on behind the scenes is just outrageous when you see something like this. Your subcontracting point is actually really interesting and important because what happens, whether it's the government using subcontractors or you see this like in the auto industry or any other industry when they use subcontractors, they allow that to act as an excuse to not worry too much about the messy details about how whatever they need is getting done. And so it makes it much more difficult to have any sort of transparency, accountability, the sort of thing that you would really want inside of a democracy

when it comes to the core issues of war and peace. And by subcontracting, not just in the area of defense spending, but really across all of government, by subcontracting so many key functions out and depleting the ability of our government to actually do anything itself. Yeah, it allows a lot of things to be swept under the rug. It allows people to look in the other direction and empower individuals like this one who was formerly indicted for, you know, some sketchy circumstances. Again, he's not found guilty, so he's innocent, but, you know, raises some question marks. Anyway, allows our government to work with people like this and not look too closely at exactly what

the details are, exactly what's going on. Exactly right. And guess what? The rest of the world, they're waking up. They have a very different view of this conflict. That was especially in the air at the G20 summit, which just happened in New Delhi, where it stunningly, if you don't pay attention to the news, put this up there on the screen. The language that previously had dropped a condemnation of Russian aggression against Ukraine was actually did not appear in the joint communique that was released by the entire G20. They say, quote, G20 leaders have failed to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine in their joint statement after both China and Russia, of course, rejected language that blamed Moscow

for the conflict. But it really wasn't just them. The New Delhi actually summit declaration only referred to, quote, the war in Ukraine after a formulation of supporters in Kyiv and then also people who'd have a very different view of the conflict could not come to some sort of consensus about how things were going to refer to the conflict. The previous G20 actually did refer to, quote, aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine where Western diplomats and also Chinese officials did not put in the same place the blocks

to stop that language from appearing, which shows you clearly things have changed in the geopolitical situation where they have enough juice, not just China and Russia, but places like India, Brazil, and others that have a very different view of said conflict. They even have the external minister of affairs of India. He said, quote, it is a fact today. It is a very polarizing issue. There are multiple views of this. There are a spectrum of views. So I think in all fairness, it was only right to record what was

the reality in the meeting rooms. The big takeaway, mine from the G20 summit, Crystal, was just how far the US and Europe are moving away from the consensus of the rest of the world. Because you had big landmark meetings between Modi and MBS. You had meetings with the Chinese and the Russian officials. Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, actually met with Prime Minister Modi on the sidelines, and it was pumped up by the Indian government because they rely on them, of course, for a portion of their oil supply. But also, President Lula of Brazil

appeared prominently in a photo, not only with Prime Minister Modi and with President Biden, but came out directly afterwards, and he said, hey, I'm hosting the G20 next year, and Putin, if you wanna come, we're not gonna arrest you as a part of the international, whatever, criminal court tribunal. I mean, these are not things that you do whenever you're afraid of the West, afraid of Europe, or in terms of their view on Russia and Ukraine. It's what you do when you

have a completely different view. You're looking out for your own interests. And you think that the war in Ukraine, while you think it's important, you think it's unjust, you know what's happening there, you're like, okay, it's not the primacy of how I'm going to base my entire foreign policy. So Washington's decision to make everything about Ukraine, every single thing that we do, alienating so many of our allies, the G20 to me is a much better view of how this is going as opposed to the G7, because the G20 is the actual emerging economies all across Asia. And it's also no surprise that President Biden right now is in Hanoi and Vietnam because he needs to shore up what's going on with our Asian alliance. And Vietnam is our number 10 trading partner. Like reality is beginning to hit

us in terms of our obsession with this conflict. It's accelerated the realization of a multipolar world that, you know, we were already heading towards, but this has helped to consolidate that new reality. And you can see it when a country like Brazil is like, no, we're not going to go along at all with what you think, with what you say. We're not going to be ugly or mean about it, but we have a different view of this and we feel very comfortable asserting it and looking out for our own interest in this conflict. Same thing with India. You know, it's interesting, the news coverage of the G20, because this is sort of understandable, given that the language last time around was a little bit stronger and, you know, they weren't able to condemn Russian aggression, which, you know, I think that they should be able to do. But there was a lot of

shock that that was the case. And if anything, I'm actually surprised they were able to issue any sort of joint communique because of the size of the divisions at this point. And, you know, it was a big win for Modi, who's facing reelection, to be able to get any sort of joint statement out. From the U.S.'s side, you had Jake Sullivan, U.S. National Security Advisor, calling it a set of consequential paragraphs. They're talking about, listen, you had to compromise some if you were going to get anything done, some of their priorities in terms of getting grain exports restart in the Black Sea. That was discussed and, you know, commitment to that was realized within this communique, which is, I think, really important, not just for Ukrainians, but for people around the world in terms of food prices. There was another piece here that, you know, there was an effort to highlight climate change and to call for a reduction in fossil fuels, but there was also no deadline there. So it's just sort of like

meaningless words on that one. Saudi Arabia, obviously not going to go along with that one either. So while some of the things that were not in the communique really underscore the deep divisions at this point within the G20 and between the U.S. and Europe and the rest of the world in general. Like I said, I'm actually surprised they were able to put anything out jointly at this point. Another important point from the G20, Prime Minister Modi making a big show of inviting the African Union directly as a member of the G20. That's, again, acceleration. The African Union, very, very different view of the conflict in Ukraine than anything else going on in the West. They have much deeper ties with China. I just want to emphasize what you said. We're seeing a huge bifurcation with the rest of the world and us.

Now, that doesn't mean the rest of the world agrees with each other. India and China have all sorts of rivalry. Actually, there was a lot of questions about Xi Jinping and China ahead of this because of a map that the Chinese government put out, which shows a border dispute. But overall, I want to just underscore what you said, which is I actually thought there was criminal undercoverage of what was going on in the G20, just because what was going on there and with the BRICS, that is clearly going to define

a huge portion of geopolitical, just of geopolitical, not only tension, but division and evolution in the next century, as opposed to the amount of slobbering coverage that Western-based ones like G7 and others get. Our future is in Asia. I mean, like I said, anyone who can read an actual table can see where our major trading partners are,

where 50% of the world's GDP is. And to see the divisions also between the Japanese and the South Koreans coming together at their recent Camp David summit, as opposed to how much attention the administration pays to Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. You think it's the most important thing going on in the world. I thought it was a very interesting thing that this even happened. And to see that, again, going to Brazil and Vladimir Putin will be showing up, most likely, and facing some of the biggest critics on the world stage in a year from now, what a crazy development. I mean, think about that. President Biden will be running for reelection a year from

now, I guess if he's around, and he's going to see Putin face to face, which that's what led to that famous moment. I think it was at the G8 or maybe it would have been the G20 when Obama and Putin had the sideline conversation. So you never know how these things are going to go. It's going to be interesting. Yeah, indeed. We got some big domestic news that we're going to be excited about. You know, it's just one of those where a major failure for small d democracy. Nancy Pelosi, representative of California of San Francisco, has decided she will be running for reelection. The fact that she's running for reelection at all is stunning. She's 83 years old.

But the reasons for why she's running for reelection are very telling in what she's chosen to emphasize. Let's take a listen. Decided now that in light of the values of San Francisco, which we have always been proud to promote, that I made the decision to seek reelection. I think it's important for me to use my knowledge of the Congress, my knowledge of the city, my concern about the country for the benefit of my constituents. So it was really more about responsibility.

Did you ever think about not running? Well, you always do. I mean, for 36 years, I've thought about not running. You always have to measure what the value is of your contribution in something like this. And I never thought I'd stay as long as I did. I never thought I'd stay as long as I did, but I'm staying anyways. Let's go to put this up there. Nancy Pelosi decides that she will be running for reelection in 2024, dismissing talk of retirement

at age 83. I mean, this is just someone who is power hungry. And I think their entire identity is wrapped up in their holding office. And at this point, even though she's not the speaker, she's like still the de facto leader of the Democratic Party. She doesn't want to give it up, Crystal. And, you know, after the coup that she's pulled off by keeping Feinstein in office, rigging the California Democratic primary process so that she'll never face an opponent, so that her chosen Adam Schiff will very likely be able to get the, or at least contest the nomination? Why should she? I mean, she's one of those who's like, yeah, it doesn't matter. And she's impervious to criticism about the stock trading. She's impervious to criticism about her age. She pulls the feminism card anytime you even try and talk about it as if it's a feminist issue that people are way too old in Congress. I mean, we just should not dismiss the idea that it's disgraceful that people who are this old continue to just hold onto power and not allow

any new generation. And my personal favorite was a clip where she was defending the state of San Francisco. Someone was like, hey, how's San Francisco done under... She's like, you're running for San Francisco. San Francisco's not doing very well right now. She's like, no, that's an isolated local issue. It's like, well, why are you doing anything about it then? That's your whole ostensible reason for running. So she mentions Trump, she dismisses talk, and she says San Francisco is fine. It's ridiculous.

I feel like these people feel like they're so core to like, that they just, I don't know, they just can't give it up. You know, it's become so central to their own personal identity. They love the power. They love like the spectacle and the yes men and women around them, and they just never let go of their grip, grasping grip on whatever power they have. And, you know, this is consequential. Obviously, it's consequential for people who live in her district. But obviously, Nancy Pelosi is much more than just one member of Congress representing one

district. She is a national figure. And as long as she remains in Congress, and probably even if she did retire, you can be assured that as much as Hakeem Jeffries' name may be at the front of the caucus, you know who's really running the show there. And so I just think it continues to point to an extraordinary failure at the core of our democracy that these people feel like they can hang on forever and ever, well into their 80s, with Dianne Feinstein, my God, into her 90s, and never face real accountability and never be even pushed aside for a new generation, hopefully, that's not just a repeat of the old generation that maybe has some different ideas and perspectives to offer, or at least open it up to a real democratic process. So I just think it's a sign of more core rot at how unrepresentative our so-called democracy

has truly become. A hundred percent. And you know, one of the things that she continues to say is she even used the Trump boogeyman in one interview that she gave. She was like, well, if Trump comes back, like we're going to need somebody to stand up to him. It's like, well, what are you going to do? How has that gone? I mean- Exactly. How did it go for you? What makes you think that you did such an

effective job at that? The man almost won last time around. It's only because of his own absolute insanity and stupidity that he didn't. He's tied with Biden right now while he's facing freaking 91 different charges. And so you're really the bulwark against Trump and the fascists? Like, give me a freaking break. Where is any evidence that any of the approach you have taken to this man has been successful whatsoever? And, you know, the thing is, is that this fake turnover of leadership, I think, is even worse almost than an outright retirement, as you were talking about with Hakeem Jeffries. Because, I mean, even Steny Hoyer. Steny Hoyer is like 84 years old.

He's the same age as her, yeah. Same age. Jim Clyburn, I know, is also getting up there. Everyone is allegedly stepping down from their leadership roles, but they're not retiring. And it's like when you don't retire, then clearly you're still running the show behind the scenes.

And to see this, running for reelection to remain the main face of the party, she's still the number one fundraising draw, which is insane to me, but shows you a lot about Democratic donors. And to still be, like, pulling strings behind the scenes with Feinstein, you know, we can't emphasize enough just how much of a failure it really is. And also the inability to pass the torch and just let it, you know, who knows how it will play out. They came from the generation, all of these people, from when actually there was a huge injection of new blood in the Democratic Party. They were called the Watergate babies. A lot of people were swept into the office with the disgust of the Republican Party and institutional decline after Watergate. And it's just funny because they've effectively created

their own type of situation where their inability to let go of power has led to the same sort of cynicism which propelled them to office in the first place. But they never wanted to learn that lesson. They just keep droning on and on. I was talking with someone recently, and I think what they said is like,

look, Congress is a great place to be old. You have a mandatory staff. You get free flights all around the country no matter where you wanna go. Everyone opens a door for you. You only work three days a week. You don't have to work that hard if you don't want to. People call. Everyone has to call you ma'am or sir. You'll always get priority boarding on an aircraft. You'll always get a dinner reservation. You get free booze. You get free dinners. What's not to love? It's effectively a great retirement home,

except we all pay for it and they're supposed to be working for us. That's the crazy part. Yeah. I looked it up. You're right. Hoyer's 84. Clyburn's 83. Pelosi's 83. This is nuts. Completely. And the president's 81. He's a spring chicken. That's a great point. This came up a lot in the focus group, and we're going to show you some of this. But they were very concerned about – and they brought up McConnell, and they brought up Feinstein. Of course, they brought up Biden.

But they see this also on the – you know, this is a group of Republicans in New Hampshire. They saw this also as a really core issue. Now, it was interesting because they differed on how you deal with it. Yeah. There was some – some people were like, I definitely want term limits or I definitely want age limits. Some people were like, I don't know about that. Maybe we should have a cognitive like ability test. So there was a lot of ideas about, okay, how do we actually deal with this core failure?

But I think there is just widespread disgust with the way that these people, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, hang on to power long after the public really wants them there. Yeah, absolutely right. All right. We've got some big developments this morning in terms of what happened on that fateful day when JFK was assassinated. Now, a little bit of context just for people to remember. Core to the idea put forward by the Warren Commission that led to the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone

gunman was this idea of a pristine or magic bullet, which was discovered, which supposedly did, you know, all this damage to JFK, but also to the governor that was there with him. And the bullet itself looked impeccable, like it hadn't done anything at all. So this was always one of the points that people were like, I don't know. Found on a stretcher. Yes, found on a stretcher, which becomes incredibly relevant. But to make that whole theory work, they had to have this bullet doing things that no bullet has ever done before. Okay, that's the backstory. So now we have one of the Secret Service agents who was actually charged with protecting Jackie Kennedy, he has decided to tell his story. And he claims, and let's put this up on the screen from Vanity Fair, he claims he

was actually the person who found that bullet and he found it in Kennedy's limo. And the placement of where he found it is incredibly important because it would make no sense for that bullet to be in that location if it actually did all those things that the Warren Commission claimed that it did. Furthermore, part of what allowed them to draw that conclusion was there were two stretchers, right? There was one stretcher that had Governor Connolly, who was injured but not killed in the shooting, and one stretcher that had JFK. This Secret Service agent claims that he put the bullet at the hospital because he wanted to make sure that they had it. And it was an important piece of evidence. But he himself is shocked and horrified and suffered clearly with a lot of PTSD, et cetera. But he decides to put this bullet,

he says, on Kennedy's stretcher. Now, for it to make sense that this bullet did all the things they said it did, it needed to have been instead with Governor Connolly's body. So I know this can sound really like in the weeds, but this one bullet, like the Warren Commission really hung their entire conclusions on what happened with this one bullet. And so the fact that you now have a Secret Service agent who, you know, for a variety of reasons, mostly his own trauma, didn't want to speak out before, didn't actually dig into the Warren Commission report, didn't dig in until recently until any of the, you know, the other alternative explanations that are out there for what might have actually happened on this day. He has decided here now, while he's probably close to the end of his life, to come out and tell this story. So he says that he spotted this bullet resting on the top of the back seat. He picked it up, put it in his pocket, brought it into the hospital. Then upon entering trauma room number one, at that stage, she was the only non-medical person in the room besides Mrs. Kennedy, he insists.

He placed the bullet on a white cotton blanket on the president's stretcher. And this, Vanity Fair says, as it turns out, may upend key conclusions of the Warren Commission, the body created by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the assassination. And part of why, Sagar, you have to have this one bullet doing so many things is because the type of gun that Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly used,

like there was no way he could have himself fired sufficient rounds in a short period of like two seconds that he would have had to fire sufficient rounds. And witnesses on the scene said, many of them said they heard more rounds than what the official conclusion in the report was. So you can see the way they sort of like cobbled things together to try to make this theory work and to rule out the possibility of any other gunman. Yeah, the magic bullet theory was invented by Arlen Specter. It was like the golden bow tie on the Warren Commission to be able to explain how exactly the amount of bullets that were technically fired, possibly, or thought to be by Lee Harvey Oswald, was able to inflict the damage that it had been.

We had the pristine bullet that was found on the stretcher. The important thing from Mr. Landis' thing is I think it's not just trauma, I think he obviously was afraid. I mean, that's really what comes through. If you go through and you read Tom O'Neill's book, "'Chaos,' and you have all these people who were involved in Manson, it's clearly that CIA op gone terribly wrong. And many of the cops and

others who are involved in that, even decades later, they're terrified to be able to speak to Tom O'Neill whenever he wrote that book. Well, it's the same thing here with many of these Secret Service agents. And don't forget, I mean, these guys were close up. They probably had blood smeared all over their clothes clothes and they were witness to a horrific murder and then probably put through the ringer and pressure from the FBI and investigative sources. Another thing that he points to is that the scene was not secured at all.

That's very important, really, where he says that he was very concerned about how the scene was not secured properly, about how law enforcement was handling the evidence that was around. And look, what are we to make of what he says? Like you said, it cast doubt on the original magic bullet theory itself,

which never made any goddamn sense. But really what it is, is the only doubt we could say is, well, people's memories, they age over time. Who knows if he's telling the truth or not. I'm inclined to believe him just because there's never been any real scrap of evidence for the magic bullet theory in the first place. And because so much of the processing of the scene, of the evidence and all that was so

obviously manipulated by the FBI. I recommend Oliver Stone's, you know, nearly four hour docuseries on this that just came out. I think it came out last year or something like that. It was on Showtime. I'm not sure where it's available. Now, he goes through this in exhaustive detail, like in terms of the chain of custody, the autopsy photos, some of the manipulation that was going on there, the people who were actually at the book depository, whether they saw Lee Harvey Oswald, whenever they should have seen Lee Harvey Oswald. I mean, just to me, this is so odd. There's no way that the Warren Commission's narrative of what happened makes any sense. Zero. Anyway, I find it important that we're also talking about it on 9-11, of course, because it's very important

to keep up on all of these things because a lot of people believe this, at least at the time. But then, as the time went on, increasingly, increasingly, throughout the 70s and the 80s, there was a feeling with so many of the people who were not only were involved, who were present on that day, but with the American public, they're like, this just doesn't make any sense. I think the latest polling was something like 60% of the American people do not buy the Warren Commission official explanation. You know, just to underscore some of what you're saying there,

because it becomes really critical, you know, in this telling which stretcher the bullet ended up on. Was it Governor Connolly or was it JFK? And this Secret Service agent, Landis, he says that it was he definitely placed it on JFK's stretcher. There was even testimony at the time of how the bullet went from one stretcher to the other stretcher. There was a Parkland Memorial Hospital engineer named Daryl Tomlinson who originally testified that the two stretchers were in very proximate locations and the one that had JFK on it got bumped and he saw a bullet fall off of that stretcher onto the floor. Now under under badgering and bullying, basically, from Arlen Specter, his testimony became a little different when it came time for the Warren Commission,

which shows you again how this was not just a straightforward fact-finding mission. Arlen Specter and many of the other people who were on that commission, who influenced that commission, they had a certain narrative they wanted that they tried to get all of the facts to fit. There's also a lot of questions about the autopsy that was performed and some of the pictures that disappeared and were never released and may have shown some evidence of other shrapnel, which again would point to additional rounds, which again would basically rule out the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. So somehow those pictures disappeared.

Don't know why, but could be very convenient for people who wanted a particular narrative to go forward and to be able to put this in the rearview mirror and not have a lot of people asking a lot of questions. I thought it was interesting. Jefferson Morley, who's a JFK researcher and a former, I think, Washington Post journalist and has a substack called JFK Facts. His reaction was, he said, the importance of this story is that the newspaper of record,

because this was originally published in the New York Times, now acknowledges the official theory of a, quote, lone gunman is not very credible. Twice in three months, the paper's ace reporter has broken JFK News

and he goes on to say that his sub stack is going to have more revelations on the way. But I do think that the fact that the dam has broken in some ways in terms of mainstream news

questioning some of the official narrative that has been pushed for decades and decades at this point, I do think that that is noteworthy as well. 100%.

Got to give all the credit to Oliver Stone. He's the one who reopened this entire thing in 1999 with this film. That film had the JFK Assassination Records Act. That didn't end up working out because we still didn't get it. But that really reignited public attention and in terms of interest.

And it's been going on now for, that was before I was even born, that movie came out. And still, people like me are able to watch the movie and then engage with this documentary and more. So I give him all the credit in the world. I really think he's almost singularly responsible for bringing this back

in terms of public attention and then paving the way over the last 30 years and opening it so that people like Peter Baker can publish this in the New York Times. Really excellent stuff. Yeah, absolutely. So we'll keep a close eye on that one. Sagar, what are you looking at this morning? Well, people in the gun world are often derided as paranoid conspiracy theorists. Nobody wants to take your guns. That's mostly the

conventional line. It's held up recently until the 2020 Democratic primary race when Beto O'Rourke proudly declared, quote, damn right, we are coming for your AR-15. I actually appreciated when he said that because it's just obvious and true in the intent of what the end goal for a lot of people who are opposed to gun rights actually want. At least now you can have a real debate. The mask off moment from Beto is now the second in terms of what those opposed to gun rights would do if they had the power. After a stunning episode in the state of New Mexico, the governor of the state, Michelle Lujan Grisham, has unilaterally declared a 30-day ban on carrying guns in public areas or state property in the city of Albuquerque

through use of a public health emergency declaration. The details of the ban are almost too incredible to believe. The governor decided to put into place this blatantly unconstitutional ban after the death of a five-year-old girl, and believes that the gun ban will provide a quote, cooling off period of gun violence for the state so they can figure out the best way to address public safety. What really chills the blood though is not how draconian the ban is, but the words that the governor used to defend it. You took an oath to the constitution.

Isn't it unconstitutional to say you cannot exercise your carry license? With one exception, and that is if there's an emergency, and I've declared an emergency for a temporary amount of time, I can invoke additional powers. No constitutional right, in my view, including my oath, is intended to be absolute. There are restrictions on free speech. There are restrictions on free speech. There are restrictions on my freedoms. In this emergency, this 11-year-old and all these parents who have lost all these children, they deserve my attention to have the debate about whether or not in an emergency we can create a safer environment. Because what about their constitutional rights? I took an oath to uphold those two. And if we ignore this growing problem

without being bold, I've said to every other New Mexican, your rights are subrogated to theirs. And they are not, in my view. Wait a minute. You're talking about crimes. There are already laws against crimes, so how are there rights? But again, if I'm unsafe, who's standing up for that right? If this climate is so out of control, somebody should do something. I'm doing as much as I know to do. That is the purest distillation of the doctrine of safetyism I've ever heard. The governor declares that her commitment to the Constitution is not absolute,

and worse, uses the justification of all evil. If I feel I'm unsafe, then my rights trump yours. That's the extension of COVID ideology, became normalized with lockdowns during the pandemic. No surprise to me that the governor's then using the public health emergency as justification for the order. And just to be clear, this order does directly violate the US Supreme Court and the US Constitution. In June 2022, the court ruled Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense after striking down a New York state law that sought to implement a provision that said you must need proper cause to carry a gun outside your home in the state. The case, colloquially known as Bruin, fundamentally altered any state's ability to infringe upon carry laws in public

and directly set up this challenge now to the New Mexico governor. The iron is, you do not need a pro-gun person like me to tell you any of this. Listen here, anti-gun activists David Hogg or Congressman Ted Lieu both tweeted some version of the following. I support gun safety laws, but this order violates the U.S. Constitution. There is no state in the union that can suspend the federal constitution. There is no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution. And I guess the worst person you know just didn't make a good point, as the meme says. As both Hogg and Lieu have said, gun groups already are suing the state of New Mexico. It likely won't even survive much longer.

Sheriff's offices are wary about even implementing it because what the governor wants, even though they could open themselves up now to civil litigation for blatantly violating, as I said, constitutional rights. So at least in this case, it doesn't look like it may work. But don't delude yourself. If they could do it, they 100% would.

And worse, all of it is a cover for much bigger problems that we are all trying to move past. The governor was spurred to action by this death of children killed in recent shooting spates, including one road rage incident in a minor league baseball game, or the shooting of a five-year-old killed in a drive-by shooting. Let's take the case of the five-year-old killed, for example. You can see why this ban doesn't even make any sense. Of the five people who were charged in the death of the five-year-old, only one suspect so far is even an adult. That adult is the girlfriend of one of the alleged shooters who is 17 years old. The others charged in the incident are age 15 and 16, along with

other teenagers. So other than the girlfriend of the person primarily thought responsible for the death of this young child, not one of these people could even legally buy or carry a gun. In fact, if we're talking about handguns, then not a single person even involved in the shooting could legally buy or carry one in the state of New Mexico. Or in the case of the 11 year old, the shooter is actually still at large. We don't even know anything about them or if the gun they carried was legal or how it was obtained. They should be focusing on catching the killer instead of infringing on the rights of actually

law abiding citizens. And it just strikes at the core of actually law-abiding citizens, and it just strikes the core of what the gun-first people always reach for. They're trying to paper over what is an obvious societal illness that runs so much deeper than guns. Teenagers are doing drive-bys and people are killed in children and road rage accidents. That's what happens in a sick culture. And yes, you can say other countries have societal ills and they don't have shootings. You would be right. But don't forget, in our country, we do have an enshrined right to own and carry a gun if we so choose. In such a country with already hundreds of millions of gun in private ownership, that is just simply how it's going to go.

That is not to say that we don't have a responsibility to each other. Only we must understand and define the actual challenge we seek to address. In this case, it's clear, crime was used to justify then an unconstitutional power grab and it shows the people who are gun owners too what the real agenda is and always has been. I'm curious what you think of this, Crystal. I know you're supportive of some gun restrictions as well, but what did you make of the governor's order and then kind of what I was talking about in terms of the crime and paper over, and we've had this discussion before.

Yeah. There's, there's a lot of thoughts I have on it. I mean, this is unconstitutional. Like it's, it's just, it goes way too far. And, but I take it a little bit of a different view because I was heartened to see that you had people who focus a lot on gun control or gun safety or however you want to put it, who were like, no, this is too far. That's true. And so, you know, far from drawing the conclusion of like, oh, this is what the gun activists really want. I actually saw the limits of what most of the mainstream proponents of gun control, gun reform, however you want to label it, where they actually want to go. So I took the opposite conclusion from that side. The other thing I would question you on is you

said that this was evidence of the cult or the view or the ideology of safetyism. Do you see it the same way when it's Republicans using or pushing authoritarian tactics to deal with crime and law and order. Well, it depends what you mean by that. Because there's more interest in or crime seems to be actually a hotter political issue on the right than it is on the left. So I'm curious if you see that same concern about like safety over everybody's rights being a problem when it comes from the right and their tactics? Well, I think that at the very least, and luckily we have a well-defined civil liberties and Miranda rights that defendants and criminals are actually subjected to. So it's not like we don't have an adjudicated process.

But I mean, absolutely. I mean, I don't support policies like stop and frisk or anything like that, for example. And I think a lot of, look, and you're not wrong. Many people are 100% hypocrites whenever it comes to this issue. And in fact, I'm an absolute defender of people's ability society where, look, if you're law abiding, if you have a gun, or if you're just walking down the street and happen to be black in the Bronx or something, you should be able to go about your business. I mean, that's just my view,

personally. Yeah, because there was a lot of support among not only Republican lawmakers, but the president of the United States at the time, a lot of Republican, like just regular rank and file people for like deploying the military when there were riots going on during George Floyd. And I didn't hear that being framed as like safetyism. And there was less concern about the unconstitutional power grab nature of that direction coming from the right. So I actually am more accustomed to seeing authoritarian power grabs with regards to law and order and a sort of like lock them up, we got to crack down on crime above everything else. I'm more accustomed to seeing that from the right. This to me was like the liberal mirror image of some of those tactics that I certainly don't support coming from the right. I think you're right. And you know, I've actually thought a lot about that. I think that

in that context, one of the reasons why people were willing to go along with it was, and I think myself included, was the idea that people's personal property was not being protected. And I think that I still believe that that was true. That said, I mean, I think I can look back on that and be like, yeah, it'd be a terrible precedent, specifically in a type of civil unrest. And just to think about in terms of what we're actually trying to achieve and what we were trying to achieve at that time. And I think this is where the Floyd people got it totally wrong. And it uses a pretext for looting.

A lot of cops and others basically stood by. But at the end of the day, I do think it was a local responsibility. And I don't think the feds should have stepped in at that time. So I've thought about that a lot since then. And specifically also given what happened after January 6th, it was really just a complete vindication of the idea. It's like, look, when you give these people an inch, they're going to take it all the way. And you just shouldn't get, you should never give it to them in the first place. Here's the other thing I'm curious about is I think for people who live in these areas,

and I looked up while you're talking, I looked up the Albuquerque crime stats, homicides are up 71% from 2017 to 2022. They did actually decline some in 2022 from the height I think was in 2021. However, 71 percent increase over that time period. You know, people are still feeling like they're a danger, their kids aren't safe, et cetera. And I'm curious what the local reaction will be to her order, because we know when people are stressed and fear for their own safety and don't feel secure in their own environment, unfortunately, too often they are willing to throw their rights or other people's rights aside for that sense of safety and protection. of sort of national level condemnation. I'm actually curious how people there locally respond to the order and if they have the same reaction or if they have more of a like good, at least somebody's doing something kind of approach.

I'm curious too, but I mean, here's the thing, DC where you and I are right now, we have the strictest gun laws in the country. Our homicide rate is actually not gone down at all. We have over 100% increase in property crime and in genuine like gun deaths. So it's like, it's not the gun laws, people. You know, you could, you literally can walk down. I mean, like, it's not the gun laws, people. You literally can walk

down- Yeah, but DC is right in the middle, right next to Virginia. And you can't expect just one locality to change their gun laws to have an impact. Sure. But more what I'm saying is you can walk, and they do this all the time. I mean, listen, go look at the DC prison and look at the number one way that they throw people in jail, gun charge. No, that's true. They'll give you five years for a single bullet that you have wrong that's in your pocket. I mean, they use it as a pretext all the time. It's not doing anything.

You know, if you're worried about homicide, people stop people here all the time now, from what I've heard recently, and search their cars and look for guns. And that's one of the number one ways that they try and crack down on crime. We still have a huge homicide rate. Yeah.

It's just one of those where it's like, it's clearly not gonna do anything. I wouldn't say it won't do anything. I mean, in this instance, I actually agree. I doubt it will do anything just because you're talking about in one little city, right? So you're not going to change the overall national culture of gun ownership by changing the rules and regulations in one particular city. I'm more, I'm curious about what the public reaction will be to it.

If there is a positive reaction, at least someone is trying to do something. And then overall, I mean, I don't think you can deny that where we are in outlier is the number of guns that we have in our society and the ease of access and all of that. And I mean, in my mind, there's no doubt that that plays into the level of violence that we have in our society versus other countries. But in terms of this order, 100% agree with you, unconstitutional power grab, don't support it. Don't think it will probably have much of an impact. Yeah, I don't even think it will have much of an impact because of some of

the limitations that you're pointing out. But, you know, it does raise for me some other questions about some of the approaches to law and order and tough on crime that seem to get more of a pass. Yeah. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? about some of the approaches to law and order and tough on crime that seem to get more of a pass. Yeah. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, a recent AI news generation program at a major newspaper was pulled after publishing hilariously bizarre high school sports articles.

Okay, here are the details. Gannett, which owns USA Today and a whole slew of local papers, started using AI to generate local news stories, and the results were amazingly bad. Here is a great example. Quote, Westerville North escapes Westerville Central in thin wind in Ohio's high school football action. Wow. Totally sounds like a human being wrote that for sure. Please continue. The article goes on. Westerville North edged Westerville Central 21-12 in a close encounter of the athletic kind at Westerville North High on August 18th in Ohio football action.

The Warriors chalked up this decision in spite of the Warhawks' spirited fourth quarter performance. In a different story, AI failed to figure out what the school's mascots were, and they published the Worthington Christian winning team mascot defeated the Westerville North losing team mascot two to one in an Ohio boys soccer game on Saturday. Now, Gannett has since suspended this experiment, presumably leaving it to the actual human beings to try to report on future thin wins and close encounters of the athletic kind. This particular situation is, of course, an embarrassment, both for Gannett, which has fired a bunch of their employees over the past couple of years as the news business and especially the local news business has declined and become

more difficult. And it is obviously embarrassing for the entire AI industry, which far from being ready to revolutionize the workforce or decimate the workforce, can't even credibly publish the most basic information about the most basic events without being utterly absurd, unreliable, and inaccurate. So at least when it comes to the drafting and publishing of news stories, I think the journos, for now, can rest easy. ChatGPT isn't any more prepared to take over the news industry than autonomous driving is prepared to take over taxi and truck driving. So for now, I guess, score one for humanity. But the victory is honestly marginal,

because in another deeper sense, the robots and their masters, they've already won a lot in terms of how news is generated and how it's disseminated, and we barely even notice the attack. What do I mean here? Well, as you know, I'm a big proponent of independent media as an antidote to corporate legacy media.

But the further we get into this new era, which is in many ways exciting and continues to hold deep promise, the more I see the limitations of what independent actually means. Because while individual creators can break free from the constraints of giant corporate profit-driven news conglomerates, they're still beholden

to the incentives created by the tech giants on which they depend. And probably the most powerful force in independent news generation is YouTube's algorithm. We all live or die by it. Its whims, preferences, amplifications, and punishments have created the independent news ecosystem as we know it. Individual creators can try to resist its siren song. We have intentionally tried to algorithm-proof and big tech-proof our business here at Breaking Points.

But it's like one person trying to stand up to a force of nature. The overall landscape is going to be shaped and built by the big tech AI reward system. And it's not just on the creator side. These robots are also shaping your brain, messing with your view of the world, driving you towards certain content and away from others. On Facebook, a whistleblower revealed how the platform's algorithm rewarded anger emojis at five times the weight of likes, aggressively pushing highly emotional content into user feeds. Facebook, like other platforms, cares more about how long you spend on the platform being served ads and having your data harvested than how much you're actually enjoying that

time or whether the quality of your experience is good or bad. They also use their user base like guinea pigs conducting social experiments attempting explicitly to manipulate user emotions and even to push them to become closer friends with some in their networks over others. Creepy stuff that we have little awareness of and even less say over. Twitter, under Elon Musk, has used the For You page to aggressively push certain content and hide other content. But unlike the other platforms, Musk's Twitter has opted to make their biggest content decisions

based on the personal whims and preferences of their sovereign lord, Elon, who can bless or punish creators based on his own ego and worldview. In a sense, I actually appreciate the blatant nature of Elon's approach. He strips some of the AI mystique away and just makes it super clear the way that our oligarchs are screwing with us every day. Now, on its surface, our universe of multi-platform news looks independent, like individual humans making individual decisions. And listen, there is a lot of that going on at the micro level and a lot of fantastic creators out there. But at the macro level, it is a garden of creators and content cultivated, tilled, and pruned by robots. Human beings,

unaware how they're being programmed by machines, who have in turn been programmed by tech giants to drive their own profits or corporate agendas. So before the chatbots and deepfakes have even really joined the war, humanity has already lost. One war that was being waged in secret under the cloak of the supposedly free market, where they declared victory before we even really caught on to what was happening. For this next battle that we're facing now,

at least the tech for now is clunky enough that we can all see what the bosses' robots are up to. A close encounter of the oligarchic kind, I guess you could say. It did really get me thinking. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today

at breakingpoints.com. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching. We really appreciate it. Thank you to all the premium members for supporting our focus group. We got more stuff for you all week that we're going to continue bringing, and we will see you all tomorrow.

Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about,

call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Audley. We got a lot of things to get into.

We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports.

This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts

or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.