Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/12/23: BP EXCLUSIVE Focus Group: NH Voters On Age Limits, Trump Indictments, Ukraine Funding, WH Praises Saudis On 9/11, Covid Impacts Rural America, Kids Shift From TV To YouTube , IRS Targets Rich Tax Cheats, Media Freaks On Elon's StarLink, And MORE!

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

Krystal and Saagar react to BP's New Hampshire GOP focus group on age limits, Trump indictments and Ukraine funding, as well as discussing the White House praising Saudi Arabia on 9/11, Joe Biden lying about where he was on the day, the impacts of Covid population shifts on rural America, young Americans bailing on TV shows in favor of YouTube creators, the IRS targeting rich tax cheats, the media freaks out over Elon Musk's Starlink approach in Ukraine, and Ro Khanna joins to discuss Ukraine and ending corruption in the US government.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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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 Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of interesting things to bring you this morning, including more results from that exclusive

breaking points focus group of New Hampshire Republican voters. They get into age limits. They get into Ukraine funding. They get into whether or not they would vote for former President Trump literally from prison. All of these things are very interesting. So we'll show you those and we'll, of course, give you our thoughts on and reactions to them as well. We also wanted to take a look at a weird phenomenon yesterday on 9-11. You had both the White House praising Saudi Arabia of all countries. You also have the New York Times publishing some sort of Saudi-backed propaganda in the paper of record. So we'll dig

into that as well. And quite a moment from our current president, Joe Biden, about where he was the day after 9-11. That is raising a whole lot of eyebrows about what he says there. We also have some really interesting data about, as you guys know, we've been covering here the fact that there was a huge shift in terms of population, where people were moving to, where they wanted to stay, et cetera, during the pandemic that has persisted post-pandemic. And interesting report about how that is raising some tensions in some of the rural areas that attracted a lot of new folks. So we'll get into that as well. Also, Wall Street Journal had an interesting breakdown of how parents are kind of freaking out

about what their kids are watching and how they are not going for the normal Disney movies. They have these obsessions with different YouTube creators and YouTube shorts that the parents have no idea what's going on. I include myself in that phenomenon. So we will dig into that as well. And this comes right as Disney has also finally struck a deal with Charter Communications, which has a lot of implications for the future of the cable news business. Congressman Ro Khanna is going to be back in studio with us today. We're going to ask him about Ukraine war funding. We're also going to talk to him about a new anti-corruption plan. But before we get to any of that, thank you again to all of the premium subscribers who made this focus group a reality. Yes, thank you all so much for supporting our work here.

And as a reminder, we'll be giving you the full view of the focus group in a couple of days. You'll be able to watch it before anybody else that we put it out because you guys are the ones who helped pay for it. As we said, we're really excited with the results so far. We've gotten coverage in Semaphore, a write-up of it. We've got quite a bit of reaction as well outside of this. So this has been a big deal, I think, for Breaking Points. It's a validation of a lot of the work that we're trying to do here in order to iterate and actually compete in the areas that we're able to against the mainstream media. You guys are making that possible.

BreakingPoints.com, if you're able. I'm very proud of our focus group, Crystal, because I think some of the issues and the way that our moderator, James, pressed people, but really getting into the questions about not only the politics, but in getting into the questions about not only the politics, but in some of the policy ones that we're going to be able to get in today, very distinctive from how most people actually conduct these things. Yeah, you know, it's funny, James being a Brit with that great accent, he actually has a great poker face, number one. And number two, since he doesn't have any of the

American context cultural signifiers of which side he might be on, I think it actually was very I think it actually was very effective and comes through in some of the responses we were able to get. So let's go ahead and dive into this latest piece. So obviously, with both our top presidential contenders, the current president and the former president being quite elderly, and with, you know, recent incidents with Mitch McConnell, recent incidents with Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi announcing at 83 years old, she is once again re-election. A lot of concern, I think, across both parties and independents and literally everyone about how aged and elderly our elected officials have become. So James asked our focus group participants whether they supported hard and fast age limits for politicians

here in Washington. Let's take a listen. Age limits. Some people have talked about age limits for public office, whether it's in the Senate, whether it's in the presidential race. You know, it's like kids in the candy store. They make money for themselves. They go in, then they don't have much money. They come out, they're millionaires. I don't even know where they got their money from, but they end up becoming millionaires and they vote themselves raises all the time. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. As far as term limits go, they're the ones that vote for it, where it should be the people who vote to the term limits, not them. And what offices are you thinking about term limit for?

The main government itself in Congress. It's just ridiculous. Just ridiculous. Is there anyone in particular you might have in mind there? All of them. All of them. I just think career politicians. Like you said, they go in. Come out millionaires, multimillionaires. There shouldn't be anybody in there over 50 years, you know,

making their way to the top after just being in there for life. Is that an age thing or how long people have been around thing? I think it's how long they've been around. I think that people are just so entrenched in the way that they're doing things, that they've been doing it so long, they can't see other ways of doing it. I just feel like it becomes routine. Like, it's just a routine. It's routine. And I feel like the voices of the people,

even though they say that they're listening like the voices of the people even though they say that they're listening to the voices of the people it would be a different world if they truly weren't listening to the voices of the people you got nancy polis who's going for four more years today i mean my goodness i don't think there should be age limits but let's look at their cognitive abilities that's you know of course that's all becomes a judgmental issue i realize that but you know it's just um because some people who are older have better wisdom because of years of experience. So we don't want to start limiting their age. But if there's maybe some kind of test they could take, you know, once again, who's going to define what the test limits are?

People need to know their boundaries. And I don't think that we should judge them and say, oh, you're this age. You can't do that And I don't think that we should judge them and say, oh, you're this age, you can't do that, because we don't understand. But I also think that if you look worldwide, as you get older, you do forget things. And you do, like, that's just a known fact. But I feel like taking on the responsibility

of a president or a senator, like, I do think age is a factor. Does anyone disagree? A bit, just because I know some elderly that are sharp as tacks and then some young people that have no common sense. So I think I would like it to be able to be a case-by-case basis. But they won't always know their limits. Not everybody stops driving when they should stop driving. I don't think you need age limits because

everybody's different at different ages. The question is, why do Senator Feinstein and McConnell keep getting elected when they're not competent? And it's because the entrenched incumbency makes it very, very difficult to get somebody out of there. Because once you have your connections, you have the fundraising, you have years and years and years in there, the Congress does not turn over like it should. You have people in there for 50 years, even when they're not competent, because it's just too hard to beat them. Who's in support of an age limit on the office of president? Okay. I don't know. I think past 75, there should be a limit as far as that there goes. Just like

voting, you have to be a certain age. But I think if we had term limits, whether they have it upstairs or not, they would be out. And whether it be four years or eight years or 12 years, you know, they'd be gone. And it's good to have fresh new blood in there with fresh new ideas instead of keeping the same people over and over and over. It's a broken record. Well, I like the idea of being in the 70s. You're past your retirement age. So you can still understand that demographic.

And you've been through pretty much all the stages of going to school, working, raising families, and then retirement and grandkids and all that. So you have a good idea of everybody at their own stage of life. But I'd say like mid-70s, like 75 or so is good. I really feel like 80. I don't know. I'm probably the outlier in that age, but I feel like that could work. Pick your hand up if you'd like to see some sort of cognitive test for those who run for office for president hands up if so yeah interesting yeah like i said earlier how do you judge that because some things make a definition what is cognitive and what isn't and with this government today they'll

twist it any way they can to get their agenda down what they want to do. And I've seen some people who, you know, I mean, think of President Reagan. He was in his lower 80s when he left office. And some of his better years, his second term. Donald Trump, too old to be president? Or is he still the right age? I think he's the right age because he's got the ability to do far more than most 30-year-olds can do today. I mean, the guy just goes.

I don't think, that's why I'm not sure age is significant. I think it's more about their capabilities. So I don't think he's too old. What about Joe Biden? Put your hand up if you think Joe Biden's too old to be president. I thought that was a very interesting exchange around age limits and cognitive tests and how do you draw the line and who do you draw the line with. What did you take from that, Sagar? I mean, I think they actually identified a lot of the catch-all.

So you had the black jacket guy, the Trump guy. He actually said 75. I don't know if he knows his chosen candidate is 77, Donald Trump. That's fine. But that shows the challenge with this. And I actually thought the lady who was like, eh, like she was aware Trump is 77, so he's over a lot of these age limits. But I still think he's up to the job. So I don't know if drawing these hard and fast lines is the right move.

That's why it's difficult. It's one of those where, as she correctly identified, there are people who are 89, 90 years old who are very with it, who are very, I wouldn't say capable of like the highest function of their, like in the highest level of their game, but the idea that they have dementia or they're totally gone is not true. But if we just look at risks and all those things, I think it obviously makes them uncomfortable. Also, in terms of term limits,

I've never necessarily been a proponent of term limits. I think there's a lot of trade-offs in terms of that. We can have faith in democracy, but then also the one gentleman, the guy who was a DeSantis voter, he was like, look, at the same time, you have incumbency problems. If I had to say that there's a real solve to any of this, it's actually disrupting the incumbency issue and primary because allowing fresh blood into the system really comes from that pipeline that feeds into elected office rather than once they're there and entrenching, they're set on power. But it's a very thorny one.

I personally, I think I'm coming around to actually an age limit. And yes, I understand that could be discriminatory against people who are, you know, still with it or not, but it's just, we have too high of a tail end risk for somebody who is just far too old or the risk of you losing it, you know, is just it's far too high whenever you're that age. And I understand that can be uncomfortable, but, you know, we're about to get into it. The American people definitely agree with me. Yeah, I mean, I'm very sympathetic to the view, but I don't agree with it because I think the solution isn't when you start putting additional limits on, whether it's term limits or age limited limits or cognitive test limits, you're actually constraining the choices in democracy. What I would like to see is more democracy, more to the point of the guy who said, you know, the real issue here is we got to disrupt the power of incumbency.

And you know, we've talked before about the reason why we've ended up with all of these elderly people staying around in Washington forever and ever. And at its core, it is a failure of democracy. So I'd be much more in favor of things that would, instead of a cognitive test, which they correctly identify. That one guy is right. We can't do a cognitive test. It's very problematic because who defines who's up to the task? It's impossible to come up with the test that everyone's going to feel comfortable with. Like, yes, this is determining whether they're really up to the job or not. Instead, they need to be required to subject themselves to the job interview portions of the democratic process

that allows voters to assess for themselves whether this person is up to the task. And there's a lot of things to weigh here. I mean, on the one hand, you have, do they share my values? On the other hand, you have, are they really up to the job? Do they have the level of vigor that will be required? What are their communication skills, et cetera? And so I continue to think enabling democracy and allowing voters to have more information and be able to evaluate this themselves is probably the best way to go. But, Sagar, you're absolutely right that especially given the incidents we've had lately with Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Dianne Feinstein, now, you know, Nancy Pelosi re-upping for another re-election. Overwhelmingly, Americans are in support at this point of age limits because they're like, listen, these people are not recognizing when it's time to go. So we need to put some sort of hard limit, hard ceiling on this, even if it is kind of clunky. Put this up on the screen

from Axios. They found that over three quarters of Americans think there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials. This is according to a CBS News YouGov survey. They say the concern was bipartisan. 76% of Dems, 79% of Republicans called for maximum age limits for elected officials. They diverged somewhat on where the line should be drawn, but 45% say the max age should be 70, which, you know, would rule out a lot of members of Congress that we have in there right now. That's like half the Senate. And both top presidential contenders, obviously.

Another combined 30% of respondents said either 50 or 60. Good for them. Should be the maximum age. 50, that's pretty wild, guys. That's wild. I'm against that one for them. Should be the maximum age 50. That's pretty wild, guys. That's wild. I'm against that one for sure. And only 18 percent said that 80 should be the max age limit for elected officials. But, you know, it's very interesting to me because I wonder if part of why there was more discomfort in this group, because remember, only three of these folks actually raised their

hand and said, yes, I support an age limit for President of the United States. And I wonder if more discomfort came out in this group, number one, because they have opportunity to voice nuanced opinions rather than just like a yes or no question, like what you would get on a poll. But number two, because this whole thing is about who they support for president and many of them support Trump or at least open to supporting Trump. And so since they have that in mind while they're being asked the question, I wonder if that changes the way they respond. It may. But that's part of why, you know, making it and zooming out, trying to look at it as a bipartisan problem is, in my opinion, the best thing. I mean, here's the thing about age limits. We already have age limits. Whenever you have to be elected to Congress, like you can't be 25 for,

I think, for the House of Representatives. You have to be 30 for the U.S. Senate. So why can't we have an age limit on the top? We're going to restrict the pool whenever it comes to the, which is literally written in the Constitution. Yeah. I'd be fine with getting rid of those age limits as well. Yeah. I mean, I guess, but it's one of those where I'm like, look, if we can have a lower bound age limit, then I think we should have an upper bound. And, you know, looking at this, it's like pretty obvious that the absolute super majority of the American people, vast majority of the American people, when you get to 80%, 80. 80 sounds pretty damn reasonable, especially whenever you peg it to an actuarial table. Whenever you're talking about retirement age for 50 or 60, that's not as crazy as we think.

I actually often look to the commercial airline business because risk is so high for them. Guess what? Their mandatory retirement is 67. They say that there was, quote, new risk after that age, that your declining faculties make it so that you can't effectively serve in that position, and you have no choice. You have to retire. And they just raised that from 65 just last year. So if you consider, like, well, the pilot, you know, his health and his condition, his age is so important because the risk of him being even 5% bad at his job means imminent death for everyone involved. Basically the same thing whenever we're talking about nuclear war or any of these others. Arguably, it could be even more important whenever we're looking at that.

Yeah, but the problem is, I mean, if you are dropping age limits as low as 50 and 60 years old, the amount of constraint on democratic choice you're putting on the electorate, Like, I just don't, I don't support that at all. I'm not saying I agree with 50, but I'm like, if you can make a good case, and I think there is a great case for why a pilot shouldn't be flying over 67. This is according to many pilots themselves. Well, then you can, you can make the case too whenever it comes to elected office. I mean, I don't think, it's not exactly comparable, obviously, but also the big thing here is the, the core of like people having real choice in a democracy. And so if you have a candidate who, you know, like these people love Trump. They want to vote for Trump again. And I would be loathe to just completely take off the table like anyone over 70, anyone over 60, anyone over 50, sorry, you're not eligible. That is just ruling out such a vast swath of society

and really constraining the choices that voters have in front of them. I just can't support that. I think going the other direction of making sure that they're able to adequately evaluate and really feel like they know what they're getting with these candidates, to me, that's a much better choice. Because in my opinion, and I know, look, obviously the American people disagree with me, but even if you have a 90-year-old that, you know, is super sharp and people in that locality love and feel like they've delivered for them and feel like they're continuing to deliver for them and feel like they represent their values, I don't want to take that choice off the table for them. Yeah, but we do have, look, we have all kinds of, like the 22nd Amendment, which requires only two term limits. I mean, Obama could have run for a third term. In

fact, a lot of polling shows Obama probably would have won a third term. Or Bill Clinton probably would have won a third term. Harry Truman, well, he probably wouldn't have won a third one. Dwight Eisenhower probably would have won a third term. But we put that in after FDR because we had to restrict and we wanted to be able to make sure that we never had an American Caesar. Yeah, but I liked the fact that FDR was there for so long. You can. Super majorities of the American people afterwards are like, I don't know. I don't think so.

And that's why three-fourths, I think it was state legislatures or whatever, ratified the amendment through the democratic process and changed the Constitution. So I think we can all agree, you know, in some of these cases, like we should have some sort of limitations. We agreed, you know, after FDR left office in order to change that. I think it's for the best. I honestly do, because it creates real turnover. And even if I think the FDR third term was a very great term of the presidency, I mean, if you were looking at it, he did actually implement some very anti-democratic things when he ran for his fourth term. He only lived 83 days. Nobody knew how sick he was. He basically was coronated because of World War II. I don't know. That's not really right. Everybody looks past it, but

we put these limitations in for a reason. Which is why there should be more transparency and more ability for people to actually evaluate the condition and abilities, not only of presidential candidates, but also of House, Senate, and elected officials. Okay. We also, of course, asked this focus group, or not we, but James, on behalf of us and JL Partners, asked this focus group how they feel about the various Trump indictments. And also, and this gets really interesting, whether or not they would still vote for him, even if he is actually literally in prison at the time of the general election. Let's take a listen to what they had to say.

What do you think of these charges, the charges that are happening? How do we feel about those? It's nothing but a lynching by the Democrats. They're so fearful of them that they're going after them left and right. And this has been going on, what, seven, eight years? So it's definitely just a lynching and they're just afraid of them. That's why they're doing it. Otherwise, they'd leave them alone. As far as the charges go, I mean, I don't have a huge stock in the government conspiracies being like, oh, this is all against me.

It's a witch hunt. I'm like, no, it isn't. You broke the law. You're being indicted. It's surprising to me that he's even a candidate. I'm all for having a Republican candidate to like stop all this nonsense spending. But him is just, you know, if you go to jail, just like everybody else, it makes it very clear that you are not above the law. I think some of it is a witch hunt for sure. And I think some of it are legitimate claims like him telling, you know, the governor of Georgia or the secretary of state of Georgia that he needs to find votes. I mean, the president calling someone like that is obviously trying to intimidate and influence the election. And that's something we should all stand up for and say that's wrong.

I wish the charters weren't there because it makes folks like our friends here in the back row really solidify behind them. And he's been able to turn it into that sort of, I think someone back there said, if they can come after me, they can come after you. Well, you're not intimidating secretaries of state, so you're probably not in trouble. But I think it's bad because I think it helps the Trump supporters circle around Trump and make it look like he's a victim, which I think he likes.

In one word, stupid. I think it's stupid. I think they're wasting a ton of time. And, yeah, they want the money. And so. Welcome to the banana republic of America. This is what other countries do to their other candidates i mean yeah if there are things you've done wrong i think some of these things that were done wrong they wouldn't make any issue out of it if it wasn't a republican or trump it's deliberately

done um by i think actually on a more global level to have a candidate who could fix America taken out so he can be kept under somebody's thumb. Who's doing that? Probably Bill Gates. I don't know. If he does get convicted, if he ends up in jail, would you still vote for him in the general election? I would vote for him because other politicians haven't done their political duties from jail.

I definitely would vote for him. You have to. Everyone here agreed that something's going on crooked with what they're doing to him. So how can you believe anything that's going on in the courts or these affidavits or anything else they're going after him for? I would vote for him. And I would hope that the truth would eventually come out.

So thinking ahead to that general election, let's assume it's Trump versus Biden, and Trump is fighting that election from jail. Would anyone here be put off voting for Trump for that reason? I would vote for anybody who wasn't Biden, whether I like them or not. I think that it would be odd to vote for somebody that's in jail, somebody who's supposed to be burning our country.

The commander-in-chief from jail doesn't make sense to me. Put your hands up if you would vote for Trump in that election if he was in jail. Dana, you're a no. How come? How can you govern from jail? Dana, you're a no. How come? How can you govern from jail? Like, I think even if it was not a fair process, I just don't see how you can govern effectively when you're taken out of communication that way. I mean, that's quite significant, right? We've got four registered Republicans or independents who might leave Republican in this room, and half of you are saying

wouldn't vote for Donald Trump if he was the nominee in a general election. It doesn't matter what you say. You could say, what if he's dead and they'd still vote for him? I mean, there is no line, right? There is no line. Anyone want to come back on that? How about if Biden's the nominee and he's in a hospital, a mental hospital, still going to vote for him then? Didn't really address my question. I see a little bit of tension there on that question. You know, they're very respectful to each other. Yeah, they definitely are. I really like that.

I mean, I think it was a very representative group. James broke this down for us yesterday when we had him in studio and he was talking about, you know, you've really got three groups of voters here. You have the hard Trump, like, you know, all the folks who were like, I'd vote for him from jail. I don't care. It doesn't matter. In fact, I feel like I'd have to vote for him if he's in jail. You've got the group that is like open to Trump and likes a lot of what he did, but they're also open to other candidates. And they have that like normie instinct of, I don't know about having a president who's in prison. Not sure that might be too far from me. And then you have the two who are anti-Trump, you know, who are like, no, he did something wrong.

Of course, he's being held accountable. And, you know, these people over here would say they'd vote for him even if he was dead. I would note even the DeSantis guy, though, he was like, well, I think some of the charges are a witch hunt. I mean, yeah, I think that, see, for them saying they would vote for him even this early just means that, in my opinion,

I think a lot of those people would vote for him. So some people say they may not, but then when it came down to it, if the actual choice, it also could be it, you know, if the actual choice, it also could be ambiguous, you know, jail, like he could be sentenced, but he may not actually be in jail then at the time. Then he becomes president,

he can make the case that he won't go to jail, which, you know, who the hell knows how that's gonna work with the Supreme Court. I do think that the vast majority of people in the room would end up voting for him as a result. And the fact that though, that he does have that, again, of the four people who said that they wouldn't, they all disagree on who they want to choose and on which way they want you have one

bergam person who's like pro-choice then you have another person a guy here is like desantis and then this other lady who i believe she's the one who said plandemic but she's also not the one who was going to vote for trump there was none of them agree on anything a vivek yeah the lady one of the one of the women there in the front with the dark brown hair who said that she just couldn't get her head around

voting for, how could he govern if he's in prison? I think that was the Vivek supporter. So, listen, I think I agree in terms of the primary,

a lot of these folks are going to end up voting for Trump or they're going to end up dividing between Vivek and Ron DeSantis and Nikhil or whoever, right? Doug Burgum, apparently.

The bigger question for me, though, is in a general election, if this legal trouble for Trump and the trials are ongoing. And I don't even know if the timeline is going to be such that we'll have convictions or results by that time. But it is possible. It's possible he's awaiting sentencing. How is that going to weigh even on some of the people who are kind of sympathetic to him? Even if you have, like, that's a room of Republican primary voters, right? These are

some of the most committed, even the ones who claim their independence. These are committed Republican voters who show up in elections, who show up to focus groups, etc. And if half of them are saying, I don't know, I can't vote for him if he's in prison, I do think that's a problem for him in a general election that may not be showing up in the polls right now. I'm excited to see a focus group, you know, or polling and all that from the actual general election in genuine swing states, because I agree with you. I think that there is far more actual independent, like people who are not going to vote in a primary process, who might be very different whenever it comes to real charges, prison, or any of that. I've said this, you know, and I know people don't like to hear it, especially if they're very online, but, you know, a lot of people in this country still do trust the justice

system. Don't ask me why, but they do. A lot of people still have, you know, a real, like, they have a reverence for the courts and for the idea of, idea of jury trials and prosecutors and the law and all of those ideas. So if Trump is convicted of something, well, wow, clearly that's wrong. The other side of that, though, is that they had that trust. And if it is blatantly political and they see it as such, which most people do, well, it can erode trust instead, justice system. So I can argue it both ways. I think it's going to have an electoral impact no matter what. You know, what was interesting to me

was that lady I was referencing before, who I think is the big supporter. And she said, even if I feel like the process is unfair, it's almost like a level of national embarrassment. Yeah. Like I can't vote for this guy to be president from prison. Like that's just too embarrassing. It's too weird. It's too outside of the norm. I just can't go there. And, you know, a lot of traditional Republican voters, even though Trump was the guy that upset the apple cart and, you know, anti-institutional and all of this stuff. You still have a lot of Republican voters who are, you know, personally conservative, meaning that they actually like some of the norms and for things to stay within the lines. And I think that's the visceral reaction that you're getting, especially from the two women there in the front row who were like, I just can't go there. Like, even though, even if I think the process is unfair, even if I like some of what he did

when he was president, even if I'm considering voting for him in the primary, which I think both of them are open to voting for him in the primary. That's a bridge too far. I just can't do it. I thought that was interesting. Absolutely. Yeah. So, I mean, look, there's a lot there, guys. And like I've said, one of my favorite things about this is just hearing people show, don't tell, like let people, some people are contradictory, but this is how people really think about the election. And a lot of people who are very, very tapped into politics often forget that there's millions of people who actually vote and the stuff that they digest is not necessarily the same. It's snippets. They're living their daily lives. And this is a snapshot at the very least

of what we can look at. Next, we're going to talk a little bit about Ukraine. And this is, again, a very significant part of our focus group, where even though, as I said, people tune in and out, there was universal findings amongst our focus group, even when pressed by moderator James, about funding to Ukraine and about how they view the conflict. There's a lot to get into here. Let's take a listen. We'll break it down on the other side.

But the Ukraine war, has the funding for that been too high, about right, or too low? Too high. I'm not convinced it's being used effectively. Too high. I don't think we can afford it. Too high, unnecessary. Much too high, and I'm not sure there's enough accountability for it. Too high, and we'd like to see more accountability as to where it's going. Exactly too high, and I think some of the money is going places we wouldn't want to see it go. It's too high, I think there's a lot of scamming going on with the money, and look how they forgot about Maui. Too high, and I don't believe it should be always us paying for everything.

Who would you rather, sitting here, who would you rather see be the victor of that war? Ukraine, Russia, or if you don't care, say you don't care. Ukraine. Ukraine. Ukraine. Don't care. Ukraine.

Ukraine. Ukraine. Ukraine. So the Ukrainians might be watching this and go, but we need the weapons. We need the funding to do it. Seriously, this is what they can say, right? So what's your argument back?

But it's such a crooked government. We just have a history of trying to fund the right side that we think is the right side. We look at Cuba and Castro. And we have a hard time picking winners like that. So we could support Ukraine, but we don't need to be funding their entire military. Don't forget, there's a lot of Russians in Ukraine that are for that, that are living in Ukraine. People don't realize that. They think they're all Ukrainians, but there's a lot of Russians who want Russia to take it over. I just think that America needs to

be a little bit more concerned about America. My heart goes out to Ukraine or any country that's being maybe under the thumb of a larger force. But I think we need to take care of America first. I mean, look, I love that clip because in it, they're all like, I think it's been too high. But every single one of them, save for one, said that they want Ukraine to win. They're like, my heart is with Ukraine. I feel bad for Ukraine. but we have to have an actual priority here. And a lot of them were very aware, Crystal, of some things which a lot of people in the media do not like to talk about, except very recently until Zelensky fired his defense minister, where they're like, listen, I'm concerned about

corruption in Ukraine. I'm concerned about where this money is going. I feel like it's been too high. People feel as if we're getting ripped off by the Europeans. I mean, these are not views that you are going to hear articulated in the media. And yet still, it is the overwhelming consensus, the unanimous consensus of our entire focus group here. That's shocking. I mean, that actually even flies in the face of polling that we've seen from previous months out. Put this up there on the screen, please. This is from NPR. This is from a few months ago. And this showed, you know, that rural voters and GOP voters were beginning to have a turn against this. This was in May of 2022. And then we found that even more so again in May of 2023. But, you know, Crystal, now to be sitting here in September of 2023 to see a unanimous finding in our focus group, we're not

going to claim that that's, you know, in any way representative of all GOP voters. But these are primary voters. These are people voting in the state of New Hampshire. And, you know, I even found it fascinating. I was telling you before, even the guy who said of Nikki Haley, strong foreign policy, he thinks she's been sending too much money to Ukraine. Yes. Even he. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things that's so fascinating. When you actually talk to voters, you realize there's a big disconnect oftentimes between, you know, if you ask them about the policy, where they are, and then how that connects to their political candidate choice. And I think that's somewhat on display here. But also you have to say, I mean, there's a reason why, obviously, Trump, he's got his finger in the wind. He was the first one to sort of like come out on the side

that these voters have now found themselves on. You can see why Ron DeSantis has found this issue very difficult to navigate because he can read a poll. He sees where the base is. He knows the donors that he depends on, who, by the way, have been like sort of fleeing his campaign in droves. Many of them are on the other side of that. You can see why Vivek has positioned himself the way

that he has and as clearly as he has. But it's so funny because on the other hand, when he had that direct exchange with Nikki Haley in the debate, even though the majority of Republican base voters would say on the policy level, they're more in agreement actually with Vivek's stance, that exchange did a lot for her in terms of people saying like, oh, she won that debate just because she came off in this strong way and leads to one of our focus group participants who says we're spending too much in Ukraine to say, oh, I like her foreign policy.

So, I mean, it's just, listen, this is not to like, you know, shame them or anything. They're just like normal people going about their lives and trying to sort through these things the best that they can. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But it does show you that there is not a one-to-one connection between, I think, X on this issue. And this is the way I even feel about this candidate on this particular issue. So that was fascinating to me. But obviously, the fact that it was unanimous, I was surprised it was 100% unanimous. I was surprised too. Because we obviously had in that room a lot of very different

people with a very different view of the political landscape. Also who were taking in very different news sources. We played that clip yesterday. You know, you had people, one guy who's like, and you probably remember which is, you know, the hardest Trump guy is like Newsmax 100%. And you have Tucker Carlson, but then you had 538 and you had other mainstream sources. So there was a wide variety of news input going into this group. And yet all of them, 100%, had come to the same conclusion for maybe a variety of reasons. But even though we are really sympathetic to Ukraine, we feel that it should not be the U.S. 100% floating this thing, and what we are doing is too high here. Yeah, I mean, I'm talking in my monologue.

There's a very interesting moment. President Zelensky finally defined pro-Russian. He's defined it as anything that goes against the counter-Ukraine consensus. And what I would show President Zelensky is that clip. You know, there are many people in this country, including me, who are like, yeah, we feel terrible for you. We think that what's happened to you is unjust. That doesn't mean that we're going to bankroll this conflict for all of time and you get to do whatever you want and you get your pick of the US weapons armory and that we get to sacrifice our national security on your behalf.

I feel bad for a lot of people. How many times today do you walk down the street and you're like, wow, I feel awful. Could you realistically go through and pay each person homeless bill? No, that's not how it works. And these are realistic tradeoffs that everybody makes in our daily life that we all make in our foreign policy. And yet we don't make apparently at all whenever it comes to the conflict in Ukraine. And it's one of those where the inability to have nuance in the discussion is just been maddening now for the last almost two years of this entire conflict. And I guess the only thing I'm heartened by

is voters get it. Now, I mean, let's be clear, this is a focus group. These are GOP people. I guess they're probably the most predisposed to hear this. I am really very curious though, to hear what an actual broad general election focus group would have to hear this. I am very curious, though, to hear what an actual broad general election focus group would have to say, too, because I'm beginning to suspect it's a hell of a lot more than people are thinking. I think it's a lot more nuanced than the

media portrayal would have you believe. So don't worry, we'll be looking to do maybe some general election focus groups. Oh, don't worry. When the time will come, if people keep signing up, we can afford it. Yeah, exactly. Okay. All right. Got to get the sales pitch in there. All right. Let's go to Saudi Arabia.

So yesterday was September 11th. Obviously, it's a strange day, 20-something years onwards because it's like, how do you think about it? Some people who watch our show, actually a lot of people who watch our show weren't even alive whenever happened, or they have no memory of that. And it's difficult in order to think about it, you know, in terms of the day itself. But what's not difficult is to assess the legacy. And I always actually like to think about September 12th, 2001, because that's the day that everything actually changed. We are now, what, the 22nd anniversary of Paul Wolfowitz deciding, of floating Iraq and Saddam Hussein in the Camp David meeting. So exactly, you know, literally the day after 9-11, they were already planning on

invading Iraq. You can go read about it if you're interesting. And it's 22 years, I guess, you know, on the date since we began covering up the role of the government of Saudi Arabia in this conflict. And our friend, Glenn Klippenstein, flagged this in one of the most disgusting displays that I've seen from the White House yet, where they openly praised Saudi Arabia on 9-11. This was the spokesperson, Adrienne Watson, of the National Security Council. She says, quote, we welcome this weekend's announcement by Saudi Arabia committing $20 billion to support President Biden's signature initiative, the Partnership for the Global Infrastructure. So even if they are funding said global infrastructure, is 9-11 really the day that we should be praising the Saudis? As you flagged also, Crystal,

the New York Times ran some bizarre agitprop, let's put this up there please on the screen, a pro-Saudi normalization op-ed on 9-11 and did not even disclose that the writer works for a think tank, which is funded by the government of Saudi Arabia. And I mean, literally, the column itself is directly pushing for like a South, look, they're pushing for Saudi, you know, Saudi normalization ties between the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia. And I think that's all like, that's a legitimate point of view. But, you know, right there at the very top, a resident scholar

at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, lo and behold, like, where does that money come from? And then they have the gall to run it on 9-11, you know, without any shame, without any mention. I just find this an exact run through of what's happened over the last 22 years, where we've erased the government of Saudi Arabia's role in this entire conflict of their inability or at least complicity in order to stop this plot. Some say fund this plot. Some say at least very aware of what was going on. on our show not that long ago who talked about how there was a confirmed FBI informant in Saudi Arabia, Saudi National, who was interacting with two of the 9-11 hijackers before the entire plot happened. There's still so much to be said about their role with the Taliban and how deeply they

were involved and knew of what bin Laden was doing. And then that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. The Bush administration openly flying Saudi people out of the country and covering for their safety at a time when 3,000 Americans were smoldering dead at the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center and on United 93. So anyway, there's so much to say there, 20 something years on,

in terms of what the impact has been. But I really think today is the anniversary I always look to in terms of the jump-off point for really where everything went wrong. You know, the entire modern era that you and I are living in began that day, September 12th, 2001. Yeah. I mean, listen, it's been said many times, so it's worth saying again, if we did absolutely nothing in response to 9-11, it would have been far, far superior than what we ended up doing, which has been a complete calamity, obviously, for our men and women who served and were injured and died and still suffer PTSD to this day. The rates of veteran suicide are absolutely a tragedy and really a moral stain,

I would say, on the country. That's to say nothing of the unbelievable toll on Iraqi civilians and civilians throughout the Middle East. So the way that we upended an entire region with complete disastrous results, the amount of money, I mean, this is like the least of the problems, but the amount of money that was spent there when we could have been investing in things that would have helped people here instead of just murdering people and creating chaos. But, you know, on that, I think it's worth spending one more minute on that Adam Johnson piece, which flagged the Saudi propaganda in the New York Times, because he had a really good paragraph in his sub stack right up here. He says, listen, laundering influence through think tanks is but one way the Saudi government attempts to influence the U.S. public and lawmakers.

He goes through, you goes through Saudi funding of Vice News that led that company to pull punches on their coverage, including removing a documentary critical of MBS from its YouTube page. They are the second largest investor in Twitter, helping Saudi authorities gain favorable treatment, jailing or executing regime critics. Saudi Arabia is now a major player in Silicon Valley and Hollywood and the D.C. lobbying world. But, he says, nothing quite has the subtle and respectable impact of a well-placed think tank op-ed in the English-speaking world's most influential newspaper. The pretense of academic credibility, the serious foreign policy person prose, the inability for even the most skeptical observer to know who is footing the bill for the writer in question.

If the Times wants to publish writers commenting on Saudi affairs who are backed by the Saudi regime on 9-11, no less, that's their prerogative. But if they do so, they should at the very least let readers know about the glaring conflict of interest at work. Because obviously that would inform how you read this piece. So yes, this could be a completely legitimate perspective, one point of view that this individual is sharing, but it matters that you know who this person is being paid by and why they might hold that view. Of course it matters. It matters a lot. And especially again, the paper of record and, for the times that, but this is still the worst media screw up of our entire lifetime,

of which, look, we got a little bit of accountability, but we didn't get nearly enough. This is the New York Times. They basically helped drive us into the war in Iraq with their ridiculous Judy Miller coverage of yellow cake uranium. But even post 9-11, there's a lot still to be said. Glenn Greenwald has done some incredible work. I still recommend people go and look at it in terms of how the media dropped the ball on the anthrax crisis and then end up using anthrax in order to manufacture consent for even more

like WMD freakout, which led to the invasion of Iraq. It is the single most insane period of our entire lifetime. And if you weren't alive at that time, or if you were too young to remember, I was really on the cusp. I've really only read more about the most insane parts, but at least cognizant enough to remember the day that we invaded Iraq.

And even at the time, just being like, this is great, this is nuts. You don't want to watch this. And then the subsequent fallout, you're talking about so many people we know who've been injured or wounded in combat or came back and never felt the same. This is the reality, I think, of the fallout. It's also funny because I was flagging for our team. We tried our best to

find some of these ads, but we weren't able to. Put this up there. I always like to try and remind people. The government of Saudi Arabia spent billions of dollars on US ad campaigns in terms of television ads across 19 different cities and including on radio to try and prove that they had nothing to do with 9-11 and to say they'd been a loyal ally. Here's a hilarious report. August 17th, 2004, Saudis use 9-11 report in their US ad campaign, quote, stung by criticism about its role in fighting terrorism, Saudi Arabia has launched radio advertising in 19 cities citing the September 11th commission report as proof that it has been a loyal ally in the fight against Al-Qaeda. What they failed to mention, obviously,

is that there were secret pages withheld from the report, which directly discussed how a Saudi national and likely intelligence agent almost certainly knew of the plot for 9-11 and at the very least had reported some of this back to Riyadh. That wasn't even declassified until a couple of years ago, Crystal. So, I mean, just to think about how we use the 9-11 commission report, which has all sorts of problems, and then it directly covered up the Saudi role inside said report. And they used that to spend billions of dollars trying to, you know, rebuild their image. This is why, you know, we freak out so much about Live Golf and, you know, all the stuff that was going on there, even, you know, Saudi connection, because at the basic level, this government is the

most responsible for one of the worst attacks on our soil since freaking Pearl Harbor. And they got away with it. It's got free. I mean, the Japanese, you could at least say they got paid back for what they did. This, nothing. Most of the people who are responsible, they're sitting pretty, they're multi-billionaires, and they're hanging out in Riyadh today. All of the Biden administration's rhetoric about human rights and democracy. I mean, it just, our uncritical support of Saudi Arabia and Israel, I should add. I mean, it just makes a mockery of any idea that those values are really at the core of what the Biden administration is up to. Yeah, absolutely. And then that's not, none of this was even to mention an insane moment from

President Biden yesterday. He was flying back from Vietnam, came back the Pacific route, landed in Anchorage, and decided to give a speech when he was back in U.S. soil, commemorating 9-11. And during said speech, claimed that on September 12th, 2001, that he was present at ground zero.

Now let's hear from his words and we'll give you the fact check on the other side. Each of those precious lives stolen too soon when evil attacked. Ground zero in New York. And I remember standing there the next day and looking at the building. I felt like I was looking through the gates of hell. It looked so devastating because the way you could, from where you could stand. You know, Crystal, it takes not a genius to know

Joe Biden was in Washington because he was on the Senate floor on September 12th, 2001, where they voted on the Senate floor to condemn the 9-11 terror attacks and began much of the freak out in the lead up to the war in Iraq from that point forward. He wasn't there on 9-11, ground zero. And when I first heard about it, I was like, well, I was like, did he mean the Pentagon? You know, because it's conceivable that senators and other elected officials had gone over to the Pentagon to go see the room.

But no, he literally said ground zero. He talked about New York City and the World Trade Center. It's a straight up lie. He wasn't there. And this isn't the first time. Was Corn Pop there with him? Yeah, I guess Corn Pop was there. Corn Pop actually flew him there whenever no other flights were flying in the United States.

It's just like, I don't know. I mean, is it funny? It's just like an open thing that he does over and over and over again where he just makes up these stories completely. And you were talking about this earlier. This isn't just an age thing. He's been doing this forever. Right. This one you can't chalk up to like, oh, Grandpa Joe's having a dementia moment.

No, like this is very consistent pattern throughout his career. I mean, where he just, you know. He makes stuff up. He said he got arrested with Nelson Mandela or something was one of them. Remember that one? That was a big one. I just, I never understand in instances like this or like Kamala with her freedom thing, or sorry, I mean, the most ridiculous example

is George Santos who lies about literally everything. Or, you know, Trump also will just like completely embellish or make up things too. You know, Ron DeSantis came to me with tears in his eyes, whatever. Some of these things, I'm just like, why would you lie about that? Like, why do you need to say,

you don't need to say that. You can express like, you know, condolences and the gravity of the moment and really convey how much you get it without just like making shit up. And I will never will never understand it. One side interesting side note that was flagged about this was his stopover in Anchorage, Alaska. A whole suite of Biden administration officials have been like

making a pilgrimage to Alaska. And the reason is because it's the home of Senator Lisa Murkowski, who is the Republican in the Senate, who is most open to working with them on anything on their agenda and confirmations, et cetera. And so you've had Merrick Garland, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, White House Senior Advisor Mitch Landrieu, Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Boudreau, Senior HHS Administrator Tom Coderre. I think Pete Buttigieg made a trip as well. And now you've got Joe Biden making a point of stopping over in Anchorage on 9-11 to do his remembrance there. So very noteworthy, the full court press that has been put the charm offensive that has been laid upon Lisa Murkowski there.

Yeah, you're right. It's odd. It's also, yeah, like to do it from Alaska. There was also the White House. It was pressed. They're like, hey, why is President Biden not at ground zero today? And they were like, well, 22 years after Pearl Harbor, it's not like the president was still going to Pearl Harbor, but actually people went back and checked. JFK did go to Pearl Harbor for like 22 years. I'm not, look, I'm not saying you need to go. I'm just like the justification that you're saying as to why you didn't go.

And then to spend the day, again, lying about what you're doing. I think it's a self-aggrandizement thing. There's stories like Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was a notorious liar as well and embellisher. And one of the things he didn't realize is that when he became president, people would actually begin to check some of the things that he said. And he just couldn't, it was congenital. He'd been doing it for so long that he just couldn't get away from telling stories that were false. And his aides would be like, sir, you need to stop saying it.

That didn't happen. But in his mind, it did happen. I think Biden is the same way. I think both of them are very similar, lifetime in the Senate, lifetime in Washington. He's probably spent a lifetime at cocktail parties, dining out on stories, which is completely not true. And by the time you're that old, it's baked in. And there's also a media thing here where he just gets away with it. I only saw conservative media do something like this. There was once upon a time when, you know, the New York Times and others would have been like, hey, just so we're all aware how the president, you know, marked like supposedly a hallowed day and remembrance, all that actually just didn't happen at all. Like he told an outright falsehood

on that. Didn't see one, not one story. It's an interesting point about LBJ because I think part of it with Biden too has got to be, I think probably, yeah, he's told these stories so many times. They're just ingrained to the point where he, I don't know, thinks it. Yeah. I mean, he just doesn't even think twice about rolling them out. But then the other part is probably the fact that people now with the internet can just easily, like they don't need the New York Times to tell them where you were on September 12th. They can just easily look it up and the record is all there and available for the public. Like he hasn't probably really grappled with that new reality. Good point. With that now multi-decade old reality hasn't sunk in for him yet.

This is a very interesting story. I know that a lot of you are very interested in, and it just highlights the changing nature of our demographics, of land use, and of the housing market. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is about how the pandemic population boom in rural areas has sparked resentment from a lot of local residents. And one of the things that we have there on the screen, which is really useful, is this map. If we can keep it up there, you can see how populations by county, which have gained over 2,000, or at the very least have gained a population, disproportionately are in the heartland and in counties which previously had never seen that type of growth. Counties that

lost over 2,000 people, you'll see, are overrepresented, like the Miami-Dade area, population centers in Texas, population centers in California, and population centers in the industrial Midwest. All of this was driven by work from home, people retiring early, people deciding that they want more land, the suburban life. We've talked about that before. But part of the problem is that the booming of rural America, which would be a good story if it was the rural Americas themselves who were booming, is creating both a land use crisis and an infrastructure crisis and a housing crisis in many of these areas. So for example, Montana has seen a massive amount of net in-migration from California, second homers and others.

Population increases in some cases, Crystal, have sent skyrocketing prices of 40% in rural areas. Schools are overloaded. Farmland prices are dramatically higher. Land use is becoming a huge problem. Many of the people who live in said areas are finding it completely unable to sustain the way of life that they already had or to be able to purchase the house. Some of the counties in particular that they show which have boomed the most, Jackson County, Georgia,

Flathead County, Montana, Hawaii County, Hawaii, Gallatin County, Montana, Moore County, North Carolina, Harnett County, North Carolina, Iron County, Utah, Bonner County, Idaho, Twinsville County, Idaho, and Bullock County, Georgia. So basically it's like Georgia, Montana, Hawaii, North Carolina, Idaho. These were states with pretty smaller populations. They definitely were not ready for the infrastructure boom that they would need to cope with this. And residents

themselves are left with lesser services and more expensive quality of life. It just, again, just goes back to the housing supply problem that we have right now. And I don't know. I mean, it's hard to villainize people who just wanted to move somewhere else. This is America. There's nothing wrong with that. But there is something wrong with, if you live somewhere, Flathead, you know, I've been there. It's a beautiful part of the country. It's one of my favorite parts. It's really tough, you know, for me to imagine you live there, grow up your whole life, you know, it's the outdoors and all that, and everything starts to get more crowded and you're getting crowded out of places that you've been going to for a long time. That's really difficult to swallow.

It's like a rural version of the problem of gentrification in cities where people have been longtime residents. Suddenly their neighborhood becomes like the cool hip place for young professionals. And next thing you know, there's luxury high-rises going up and they are priced out of the neighborhood

where they grew up back when it wasn't so cool and Hipster I think this is in a sense sort of like the rural version of this and what makes it interesting and even more complex Is the fact that it's not like there was an even Dispersal of people from cities into places across the country is very concentrated in certain areas So the two places in particular that saw a lot of growth, the two types of places that saw a lot of growth were suburbs, which we were talking about how rent has become just like insanely expensive to get an apartment in a suburb and that people who move to the suburbs during the pandemic because they know they wanted more space and

they no longer had to worry so much about a commute, they aren't moving back. So this is kind of like new reality and there's a rush to try to figure out housing and do we do rent controls? How do we surge a lot more apartment housing and affordable housing for people in the suburbs? And I mean, in some ways, those locations, because at least there was some level of density before, may be better positioned to be able to cope with the influx of residents. But then the other category of places that really surged in terms of population growth were these sort of like vacation hotspot destinations. Yeah, like Montana is a great example of that, where, you know, it's really beautiful. And if you're a person who's super outdoorsy, this could be a dream come true to be able to live in the town of your dreams in Montana.

But these are small rural communities that weren't prepared for this influx. And so and we shouldn't understate, too, there's like a culture clash as well. You've got a very red conservative state in Montana. And some of the folks who've moved there are from California and have very different, you know, values and worldviews and outlooks. And so there's also even beyond the concerns about being priced out of their own hometowns, people coming in and, you know, still maintaining their LA or San Francisco jobs and the commensurate salaries and what they're able to afford. But there's also a sense of like, is this town even going to be what this town was to me?

It's like a sense of an attack on a way of life. It's tough, too, with the farmland I was referencing. Farmland is at the highest level that it's ever been. Farmland prices are up over 7.4%. We also have seen that a lot of this land, at least if zoning allows for it, even though it's been zoned or was used for agricultural purposes in areas where they're able to, they're just buying it, they're building developments. And once again, I'm like, okay, well, we have housing prices,

we have problems with land and all that, but we all gotta eat. And whenever that happens, you're destroying an entire way of life that's existed there for generations. There's a lot to say here about what that is. I don't know what the answer is. It's really hard.

It's one of those where I really feel for the people, if you lived in an area your whole life and you're now not able to afford the place that you were, and you know, in some cases, like Flathead, we're talking, I only know because it's the one place I've been to when I went to Glacier National Park. It is one of the most pristine, incredible places that I've ever been in my whole life. I totally get it. Why anybody would have the time and the money or the resources or whatever would want to relocate there at the very least for the summer. But there's a thriving population of people who've been there for a long time, long before any of these lake houses and all those things started to pop up. What do you do? And especially if you were on working poor or you work at one of these

ski resorts, one of the things they point to is that the North Carolina counties I mentioned, they just have a bunch of golf courses. Well, what if you work at the golf course? Like, how are you supposed to get to work? So if you can't even rent or anywhere in the area, I was just in Martha's Vineyard. They were telling me about the same thing. They're like, yeah, the biggest problem here is all these rich people moved here during the pandemic, but now, and then they want all these services. And then they're shocked whenever nobody can afford the rent or that the prices are super high because the rent is sky high for any of the people who are in the service sector have to live on said island. Like it's a huge competition for housing.

It's a very difficult problem to actually solve. I mean the economic piece is not easy to solve but it is solvable in terms of surging affordable housing and innovative programs there. I'm optimistic that in terms of the culture clash, that these things kind of work themselves out over time as people get to know each other. And, you know, the way that you feel about someone theoretically when you're just encountering them in like an online exchange or like, you know, through the prism of whatever news outlet that you happen to be consuming is very different from when this person is your neighbor and you're meeting them and you get to know their kids and their reasons for being there and what their lives are all about. So, and by the way, I live in a rural area where I grew up.

So even though I'm not conservative, I am also very personally attached to like the rural character of my town. So I have sympathy for the view of like, you're changing this place that I like it the way it is. You know, this is how I think of it. This is my perception of it. And I don't want it to change. So I'm very sympathetic to that perspective. But I do think those sort of like cultural tension probably somewhat works itself out over time. And then you've got to, I mean, housing is the key. It's the core of so many of these issues that we talk about. And it's just the most basic building block

of people being able to live and feel stable and be able to have families and be able to raise kids and, you know, be able to really like achieve the things that they want for themselves and their families. So that's so much at the core of all of this. Absolutely. Okay. So speaking of culture clash, Wall Street Journal had what I thought was a really interesting article, which perhaps, you know, I related to a little bit too much in terms of my own children about how kids these days, they're not watching, you know, they're not really watching TV shows as much. They're not really watching like the Disney movies that I grew up on. It's a there's a little bit of that, but it's not what they're really going for. Many kids are super into certain YouTube creators. Put this up on the screen

from the Wall Street Journal. They say, sorry, mom and dad, but sitcoms, cartoons, and Disney movies are out. Kids today prefer to be entertained by the likes of Mr. Beast, Unspeakable, and Lanky Box. And the basic dynamic here won't surprise anyone, which is that now that it's not just like, you know, one or two family TVs that everybody has to, you know, gather around or that's on in a way that everyone in the household can at least see what sort of content is being consumed, everybody has their own screen. And so they can choose their own entertainment options, including kids. And they are choosing things that are, you know, not that their parents are not even aware exist, let alone have any interest in consuming alongside of them. And since it's on their own individual screen, they're not even getting sort of like ambient awareness of what's going on.

So let me read you a little bit of this. They say an entertainment gulf has long existed between adults and their children. Stars and shows that attract kids can repel parents. Happened with Motley Crue, Beavis and Butthead, South Park, even Elvis. Today, though, we consume media, the way we consume media has widened that chasm. Not long ago, a single TV blasted from the living room.

Parents didn't always enjoy what their children watched, but at least they were exposed to it. And then they've got some quotes from parents who are posting on parent forums, what do I need to know about the YouTuber Beluga? I just looked it up. It is a cat, said one reply. In the Chicago area, Emily Ryan's oldest son, Bear, started constantly talking about Unspeakable. Who is that? What is that? Ryan, who's 40, recalls asking. Yes. I recently, Sagar, had a very similar experience. Introduce me to this gentleman, or these gentlemen, or whoever run this channel. Yes. Yes, so my son who is 10 and his bestie we were driving them to their soccer game

And his best friend is they're both really into YouTube and his best friend is always interested in the fact that we're on YouTube He's always talking to us about it, whatever and he's also always shaming us. He's like you only have a million subs like mr You know how many subs mr. Beast has. And so we got into this conversation about some of the most popular YouTubers. And they started talking about some YouTube show called Skibbity Toilet, which I was like, is that? I've never heard of that. Is that a real thing? What is that? Put this up on the screen. This is what this thing looks like. It's this bizarre animation. Okay. It's these toilet head people who are apparently in a war with cameraman people. There's a lot of music, their shorts. These are YouTube shorts. So they only last like a short

period of time. It's, and none of it really, at least to me, I watched several episodes, quote unquote of this. It all just looks like this to me. None of it really, at least to me, I watched several episodes, quote unquote, of this. It all just looks like this to me. None of it makes any sense. But this is getting like hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. And not only was I not aware of it, like I can't relate to it at all. So this one sort of landed close to home for me. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. It's funny because, you know, we make our living on YouTube. As you said, it's funny whenever I meet kids, the coolest thing is being a YouTuber. They're like, oh my God, I used to have a YouTube sticker on my phone, which I never thought about, which ended up being a big deal for a lot of my, yeah, a lot of children that I have interacted

with and met. It's funny because apparently when you ask them, every single one of them wants to be a YouTube creator. Like they all want to be YouTubers. Yeah. Whenever they grow up. It makes sense. I mean, and I kind of sympathize what the journal points to is like, they're like parents have always been baffled by what their kids are into. It's like they pointed out South Park

and these other things, which seemed ridiculous at the time to a lot of people who grew up with different type of animation. But then this is like very cheap, but it's funny and it's crude. And then, you know, for this, again, I'm not going to pretend I've never been an anime guy or some of our staff are very into

anime. I'm just looking at both of our producers and that's fine. You know, it's okay. Especially for what these kids are into. I actually, the Mr. Beast one is the one that makes the most sense to me because I really like some of his videos. Yeah. Like my favorite videos is private plane. I really like to fly. So for me, like I loved watching that video. I've always been obsessed with Antarctica. He's got a great video on that. But even some of them, I mean, if you're into gaming, again, I'm not a gamer,

but I know a lot of people who watch hours of game content. If that's something that you like to do, then watching, I mean, I sympathize with this. I love to watch anybody who is the best at what they do. And especially if I can relate to it a little bit. So if you're really into gaming, if you watch somebody who's in the top 0.01% or whatever of that, I would totally understand.

It would help me think. I'd be like, oh, maybe I can do this. Whenever I'm into the game, it would be very entertaining. So I'm not going to put a value judgment on that. Oh, there's no value judgment. I just think it's interesting. So I even noticed a difference between my oldest daughter's 15 when she was little versus now.

When she was little, you know, it was very like she really loved Dora the Explorer. And, you know, she really liked like there were various Disney movies that she was really into. She liked this cartoon I think it was called Madeline. And I was very aware of these things, right? And then even when my son, who now is 10, when he was very little, there was more of a connection between what he was watching. But now my youngest daughter, who is six, like, she's not really interested in watching a Disney movie, which, you know, again, very different. She loves this channel on YouTube called Ninja Kids. She loves these people.

She will do like, you know, the fandom is very large. She's always asking for their merch and she wants to meet them. And do they do anything in public? Can I go see them? This is like, this is her thing. And so it just is very different. And she's still at an age where she doesn't have her own screen in her own device. So that's why I'm sort of more connected to what she's watching all the time versus the older ones are doing their own thing. Now, the last thing I'll say about Skibbity Toilet, which both our producers were like, oh yeah, we know what that is. Yeah, they both knew it. Yeah. And they watch it. I asked though my 15-year-old daughter about it and she was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And she's on TikTok all the time. And apparently this is also on TikTok. But so

that could be like a gender thing. I don't know. So, I mean, it just goes to show that even within this generation, the level of silo goes to show that even within this generation, the level of silo between the content that they're consuming and that they're being pitched and that the algorithm is serving them is also really vast. Because I guarantee a lot of the boys that she goes to school with are all about skibbity toilet and she had zero awareness of it. Absolutely. The toddler video I'm aware of is Miss Rachel. I know she's a big, big celebrity amongst people who have babies. I saw a video of like a toddler meeting Miss Rachel and it was like watching a toddler recognize a YouTuber. It was interesting. I'm like, huh, that's something. They're really growing up with it from a very early age. Her videos have hundreds of millions

of views. Yeah. Her most popular video is 490 million. I don't know how she only has 6 million subscribers. That's wild. She should have a lot more than that. That's crazy. I don't even know who this person is. So I guess it's because toddlers can't subscribe to YouTube channels. There you go. But I think a lot of parents put it on.

I mean, some of these, they look good. It's like baby learning with Miss Rachel. Baby songs, speech and sign language. Wheels on the bus, more nursery rhymes and kid songs. Learn animals with Miss Rachel. So these all seem like very productive. I was a parent. You know, I guess when I become a parent, I'll probably lean on some of this stuff. It's interesting to think about. At the same time, it relates a little bit to a news story I've been

very interested in. Let's put this up there on the screen. Disney and Charter have ended their dispute and have restored ESPN and ABC to 15 million households. This dispute was very interesting because it pulled ESPN and ABC off the air for charter communication subscribers. That's almost 15 million households in the U.S. which were unable to watch college football. They ended up coming back so that they could watch Monday Night Football for the big game that happened last night, the New York Jets, RIP Aaron Rodgers. Best Aaron Rodgers out there. I hope he's feeling better. The interesting thing about the dispute- RIP to his season, we'll say.

Yes, to his season. The best that we can say about Disney and Charter, and the reason I was watching it closely, is the fact that they were only able to come to some sort of consensus eventually was overpriced. And it's because Disney wanted more money for ESPN. And Charter was like, what are you talking about? More and more people are dropping cable.

We don't even think cable is a huge part of our business anymore. And the only reason they even came to a deal was for live sports. But a lot of other Disney programming is not going to be in the bundle anymore, like FXX and some of the other channels that they've been running for a long time. That will no longer be included. So this is a big story because even though they were able to come to a deal, we don't know yet what the financial terms and all of that look like. The fact that a cable company was willing to stand up and be like, I'm not paying you what you want, that has never really happened before whenever it came to ESPN. And it shows the diminishing power of Disney and of these cable companies. And it's a foreshadowing of what I think will come with CNN, Fox, and MSNBC

in the years to come. Yeah, it's notable that number one, they came to a deal hours before I think it was Monday Night Football was set to air. So clearly like the live sports part of it was really critical to them feeling, all right, we've got to figure out something here. But the underlying business story is really interesting because Disney, to use one example here, they feel like the streaming is their company's future. However, right now it's not really profitable for them. So today with their business model, the cable carry fees are far more profitable for them. So they're effectively using the money that they're making from this dying industry to subsidize their streaming product

that they feel will be the future. And obviously, you know, Charter and other, you know, paid cable TV companies are not happy about the fact that they feel like they are subsidizing the very thing that is going to destroy their own business. So that's sort of like the core tension here. And Charter wanted Disney streaming apps, Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, to be made available at no extra cost to their pay TV customers. And Disney was like, get out of town.

There's no way we're doing that. But that's sort of the central fight here. And everybody who's involved effectively recognizes that cable TV is a dying format. And so everyone's trying to protect what they see as the future and for Charter to be able to protect what they have and hold onto it as long as they possibly can. And so that's why this fight is so interesting because it really foreshadows some of the battles to come and just the fact that this whole model is dying

before our eyes. Well, I can only hope. I wish Charter had not given in. I wish they could have let them burn, but it's okay. We'll get there one day. I'll enjoy seeing it. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Turns out rich people cheat on their taxes a lot. Research suggests that the top 1% hide roughly 20% of their yearly income. The amount for the 0.1% is even higher. Also turns out the IRS hasn't exactly done a lot about this situation. In fact, low-income Americans earning less than $25,000 per year are five times more likely to be audited than anyone else. In other words, create a bunch of shell companies and hide millions in the Bahamas. You'll skate by the feds. No problem. Fail to fully record your

cash tip income from your job at the Waffle House and the IRS will be at your door tomorrow. Now, there's a pretty obvious explanation for this. The IRS has faced huge budget cuts. It's way easier to go after the poor. Their tax avoidance is less fancy, and they don't have high-priced lawyers and accountants to defend them. So after public outrage about these numbers and this blatantly unfair situation, Democrats actually secured some funding through the Inflation Reduction Act for the IRS to hire more agents in order to go after wealthy tax cheats who routinely stiff the government. So everyone must have been happy, right? Problem was identified, there was widespread outrage, and now for once the politicians are trying to do a little bit of something. Joy must have spread across the land, right? Of course not. Instead,

Fox News, apparently desperate to protect rich tax cheats, concocted a conspiracy that the IRS was hiring 87,000 new agents, not true, who would be armed with guns, also not true, to target the middle class. Take a listen to a sampling of their freak out. On their website, they listed the job requirements for a special agent's position. The major duties require agents to, quote, carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force

if necessary. A little like James Bond, but instead of hunting down evil maniacs, these agents hunt down and kill middle class taxpayers. On the heels of passing legislation to fund this new Gestapo at the IRS, the organization is going to be used in the same abusive, corrupt manner as the FBI and the DOJ have been used. That's an army.

Yeah, it's a Praetorian Guard that will be unleashed again. Joe Biden said he was going to grow the middle class, Harris, and unite the country. Instead, you have a government targeting the citizens and now arming this Praetorian Guard to go out and grab all the cash they can. These are the people who created the crime wave America is suffering under, and now they're blaming you for it. And for good measure, they're disarming you because you cannot be trusted with guns because you're too dangerous. And just in case you missed the theme here, they're hiring another 87,000 armed IRS agents just to make sure that you obey. Got it? Got it? Is it clear? Now, let me offer a little bit of sympathy, not to the liars and fabulous at Fox News,

but to the ordinary Americans who had legitimate concerns about how this increased IRS funding might be used. Perfectly reasonable to be skeptical about the likely use of these government funds after many prior government abuses and failures, legitimate to want to see results before blessing this whole program. But now we've actually got some results starting to come in, and the early indications are actually pretty good. In July alone, the IRS was able to collect $38 million in back taxes from the rich explicitly based on just a few months' work. And now they are scaling up that effort, announcing a new initiative to pursue 1,600 millionaire tax cheats plus 75 large businesses that are behind on hundreds of millions of dollars in their taxes. According to the agency, the effort to collect on these obligations is thanks to the new funding, which allowed them not only to hire some more

staff, but to develop technology internally that helps them to identify wealthy tax dodgers for enforcement. The overall enforcement goal for the wealthy, even with the additional funding, it's actually still really modest. The goal is just to get back to the audit rates on the wealthy, which prevailed back in 2011 before sequestration and Republican-pushed budget cuts stripped the IRS of funding, leading it to be critically understaffed. In 2019, for example, the IRS audited just 0.4% of taxpayers who are earning more than half a million dollars. Back in 2011, it audited about 4.5% of that same group. But there are other good things which could actually come out of this money, too.

Not only could we end up getting more from the rich, but we could also end up with a smoother, less expensive, less exploitative system for the average American. This year, the IRS is piloting a new public-run, free tax filing system similar to what is available in many other developed nations. For decades, tax-prepped companies, including H&R Block and Intuit, which owns TurboTax, they have blocked the government from creating such a direct e-file system. Why? So that these corporations can maintain their grip on the highly profitable tax prep market. In the early 2000s, these companies struck a deal with the government. The basic deal was, you stay on the tax prep business and we will offer a free version of our software to middle and lower class tax filers. But surprise, surprise, Intuit was caught cheating customers, tricking them into using the paid version when they should have qualified for the free one.

ProPublica did some fantastic reporting on all of Intuit's various schemes. That reporting led to a lot of public pressure. That public pressure led to an FTC investigation and a New York state lawsuit, which won victims over $100 million for these tricks. Lawmakers were paying attention too and put money for a direct e-file program into the Inflation Reduction Act. Now those efforts are beginning to bear some fruit,

moving us one step closer to the possibility of an easier and completely free tax filing system for many. This, in some ways, it's a small thing. In other ways, though, it is meaningful. Research suggests that some 73% of taxpayers are interested in the direct e-file option, and 68% of those who currently use self-preparation software were at least somewhat likely to want to switch. And if the government can show any green shoots of rebuilding capacity to actually serve the public, that, in my opinion, is a positive step forward. So definitely keep your skepticism. Keep demanding proof that public money is being used to benefit the public. And also keep being skeptical that the rich aren't

getting away with cheating and scamming you at every single term. But also keep your skepticism of the narratives being pushed by self-interested blowhards who will use any trick they can to protect the two-tier system that they themselves benefit from. And sorry, I was heartened to see... And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Alright, so how are we looking at? A new Elon Musk biography is making waves in recent days, with particular focus on his control of Starlink and its use on the battlefield in Ukraine. The entire episode reveals a lot about how little capacity our government and the Ukrainian government has over our future,

over the way that the media treats even a slight deviation away from the Ukraine consensus, and about what the future of this entire conflict will look like given said media environment. Let's start with the basics. The first explicit details of some long-known news came out from a new passage of the Walter Isaacson biography of Elon Musk. Isaacson originally wrote that in September of 2022, Musk learned via the Ukrainian military's use of Starlink that they were planning a sneak attack on the Russian fleet based in Crimea. The attack consisted of six small drone submarines packed full of explosives

that relied on Elon Musk's Starlink to guide them to their target before exploding on the Russian fleet. Upon learning of the attack, per Isaacson's telling, Elon decided he should switch off Starlink access because he believed such an action would escalate the war and that based upon communications

to give him from the Russian government, that it could lead to a retaliatory nuclear strike. The claim, which corresponds with multiple other reports of different instances where Elon's direct intervention had the war, set off a firestorm of criticism. Elon is taking the Russian side. How dare he cut off the Ukrainian axis? The Ukrainian government, which itself is literally entirely dependent on Starlink, even tweeted out a direct condemnation of Musk. Top advisor to Linsky said this, quote, by not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military fleet via Starlink interference, Elon Musk has allowed this

fleet to fire caliber missiles at Ukrainian cities. He further accused Elon of, quote, desperately wanting to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder. The media had a field day with this. They accused Elon of undermining the Ukrainian cause and even of treason. Here is Jake Tapper on CNN pressing Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Why is the government not punishing Elon for his transgression? SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has recently confirmed a report that's in Walter Isaacson's new biography of Musk that last year Musk blocked access to his Starlink satellite network in Crimea in order to disrupt a major Ukrainian attack on the Russian Navy there. In other words, Musk effectively sabotaged a military operation by Ukraine,

a U.S. ally, against Russia, an aggressor country that invaded a U.S. ally? Should there be repercussions for that? Jake, I can't speak to a specific episode. Here's what I can tell you. Starlink has been a vital tool for the Ukrainians to be able to communicate with each other, and particularly for the military to communicate in their effort to defend all of Ukraine's territory. It remains so, and I would expect it to continue to be critical to their efforts. Why is Elon not being punished, Jake Tapper longs to know. Then, though, a bizarre correction happened. Elon actually corrected Isakson. He says actually what happened is that an emergency request came in from the Ukrainian government to activate Starlink in Crimea, where it had remained and does remain unusable. Elon surmised that the intent was to sink the Russian fleet.

He denied the request because if he'd agreed to it, then SpaceX would have been complicit in a major act of war and the conflict escalation. The next line is actually what stuck out to me. He says SpaceX is actually building a system called StarShield for the U.S. government, which is similar to but smaller than Starlink. This will then be owned and controlled by the government. There is so much going on here to break down. First of all, so what if Elon pulls Starlink service, even if he did? At that time, Ukrainians weren't even paying for it.

If they want to strike Crimea of their own accord, they can build their own Starlink and find a competitor who doesn't mind being party to said act of war. Then, if the US government wants to co-sign Ukraine's actions, they can provide Ukraine with said satellite system if they wish, except they can't. For all the money in the world that we spend in our military, it reveals how vulnerable that we actually are. We don't make anything in-house anymore. The government is a clearinghouse for checks from the Congress that get sent out to private companies and defense contractors like SpaceX. If they wanted no say from Elon in the war, don't rely on Elon for the basics of the war. Over a year ago, I did a monologue on this show warning we will come to regret the insane degree that the U.S. relies on people like Elon Musk for critical state functions like NASA and SpaceX or betting the farm on EVs, basically on his company and

their charging infrastructure. Elon is one man. You should never rely on a single point of failure or any billionaire or their whims for inherently democratic questions. But everyone was fine with it then because he wasn't questioning the establishment line. Solution is one Musk himself pointed to. If the United States Congress wants to declare war on Russia, then they should make that case to the American people and they should be held accountable. If the U.S. president believes it is in the U.S. national security interest to sponsor and fund an attack on a great powers navy in the middle of territory they consider theirs, do it. Give Biden the best cocktail of

drugs, he can have that debate. Until that time, the mess that the U.S. government and the Ukrainians are in is one of their making. The only thing they rely on is controlling of the mess that the US government and the Ukrainians are in is one of their making. The only thing they rely on is controlling of the narrative and the media, where anything that deviates from the consensus is Russian propaganda or treasonous. As Glenn Greenwald has aptly pointed out, Zelensky himself did a useful interview just yesterday defining pro-Russian propaganda. Zelensky says this, quote, If you're not with Ukraine, you are with Russia.

If you are not with Russia, you are with Ukraine. If you are not with Russia, you are with Ukraine. If partners do not help us, it means they will help Russia to win. That's it. His most successful battle so far was defining those terms. If you find yourself with a different view, you're not acceptable. You're a Russian propagandist. Luckily for us, though, he's not our president. We get to make our own decisions here in this country for ourselves.

And Crystal, I mean, this entire episode is- And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Very fortunate to be joined once again in person by Congressman Ro Khanna, who is here to discuss a variety of issues. Great to see you again, sir. Always good to be on set. Yeah, good to see you, sir. So one thing that caught my attention is you have a new sort of anti-corruption plan that you have been pushing.

Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is courtesy of Unusual Whales, who had a breakdown of some of the core components. He says, Justin, Representative Ro Khanna, has introduced a new reform plan that, number one, bans stock trading for Congress and spouses, bans ex-Congress members from lobbying Congress after they're done, imposes 12-year limits for Congress, and bans donations from lobbyists. And Paxi goes on to say that you have asked Biden to adopt these plans. So just talk to us about the key planks here and why you think this is important. You know, whenever I put something out, I can never tell what goes viral. This one did. Yeah. And it's pretty common sense. I mean, there is a deficit of trust in institutions in America.

Because of that, you have people coming in and offering demagoguery. We've got to fix that trust. And these are common sense reforms. I mean, make sure that after you're in Congress, you can't go lobby for the companies which you were regulating. Make sure you don't have any PAC money. You don't have any lobbyist money infiltrating Congress. Have term limits both for members of Congress and Supreme Court justices. Ban stock trading and make sure that people aren't profiting off their service.

And then finally, a code of ethics for Supreme Court justices. Well, I think it's interesting. I mean, you would personally not benefit from said plan, so I think it's cool that you're actually implementing it. But I'm also interested to hear about the term limit section. We actually had a discussion earlier on our show. There was a big disagreement amongst our focus group that we had of primary voters on whether we should have term limits or not. What made you come to that conclusion? Because you actually serve in the House where seniority, I believe, on your side is still in place.

Why should we have term limits? Well, there are two terms. We certainly should have them for Supreme Court justices that are out of touch with modern life. With members of Congress, I understand the argument that why don't you let the voters decide. But the reality is the Congress has less turnover these days than European monarchies, according to The Economist. There's an article that actually looked at it because you have such a huge advantage when it comes to name ID, when it comes to fundraising. Most congressional seats are uncontested, don't have a serious test. So if you don't have some term limit, you just aren't going to have change and you're not going to have newer voices. When people say Congress has everyone over 60, one of the reasons is it's really hard to get elected, to break through. Now, I think it is hard to do because it takes 10 years to get seniority. So you have to start fresh. But at some point, we've got to break through. Now, I think it is hard to do because it takes 10 years to get seniority. So you have to start fresh. But at some point, we've got to do this. How have your colleagues received this plan, especially the elderly ones who've been there

for more than 12 years? How do they feel about this? Well, the term I've even said, grandfather some folks in or grandfather folks in, in terms of getting there. But we've got to make some effort in terms of reform. I think many of them just say, OK, he'll introduce it and they don't think it's going to go and then it doesn't go anywhere. And that feeds even more, more cynicism. And my hope is even if you disagree with one or two of these things, at least do something. And the way we're going to get it to move is for the president and for the House and Senate to campaign on some of these issues. Yeah. And has there been receptivity from the president? I mean, how are you pushing the president to adopt these planks?

Well, I'm talking to a lot of his campaign team. I'm on his, quote, unquote, advisory board in terms of reelection. But what I have said is you can't allow Donald Trump, twice impeached, four times indicted, to run as the outsider. And he's going to try to say everyone is corrupt, everyone is not doing their job. And we have to show, no, there's a real difference. So let's take some key areas where we can show that difference. We won't take corporate money for our party. We aren't going to take Packer lobbyist monies.

We aren't going to do Packer lobbyist monies. We aren't going to do that in the primaries. We're going to be for certain basic reforms on the Supreme Court. These seem to be common sense. I want to zero in on something you said about going viral. We've always seen that here. I appreciate that. I mean, virality isn't always everything, but the stock trade ban in particular, this one hits home at a very visceral and deep level. And yet we had learned that the president dropped one of the lines endorsing that from the State of the Union because of vociferous pushback in the House and in the Senate. And we've seen multitudes of lawmakers now introduce this. So why is this one different? How can we actually

get this one done? Because this is one the super majority of Americans actually agree with. I agree. And this is why, to the extent that it went viral, because I haven't said anything new. I mean, Abigail Spanberger has been fighting for this. Representative Ocasio-Cortez and Matt Gates teamed up. I'm on both of those bills. What I'm saying, though, is it's not going to pass without it being part of the campaign agenda. If you campaign on it, if you promise it to the voters, then you're going to be obligated to do it. And we have never campaigned on it. We've never had it as part of our party platform. My view is adopting this as part of the party platform is going to obligate us to do it.

And no one has run on these issues, in my view, that they're very popular and we've got to get it done. And it's a distinguishing from the other side. I agree. So turning to some questions We've asked you before about the Ukraine war. There's a new report from Reuters I'm reading from here that says Ukraine could get long-range missiles armed with US cluster bombs now you've been opposed to us arming the Ukrainians with cluster bombs in particular because you know They're considered a human rights atrocity in most parts of the world. Is there any progress on trying to push forward any legislation that

would block the administration from making these kinds of moves? Well, I voted on the amendment to try to block it. I was in the small minority of House members, probably 50, 60 votes. So there's overwhelming support in the Congress for the administration. I mean, we had the vote in the House. The challenge is I don't think that those cluster bombs are making a difference on the ground, because what you have is Russia, Putin has put landmines in all of the Donbass area. It's very, very sad. But the counteroffensive because of that has been very difficult. And if I mean, I'm opposed to cluster bombs, but I also don't think that it effectively

is reducing the artillery disadvantage that Ukraine is at. And so I don't see why we would compromise such fundamental principles where we have the moral high ground by giving cluster bombs that aren't being very effective. So we're at a crossroads here, Congressman. The president has asked for $25 billion more. He's attached it to disaster relief program. How you expect to vote for that? Do you have any organized

effort against it? You've previously spoken about diplomacy. What's your thinking about this extra $25 billion? I will support it. I know some of your viewers will not like the answer, but I'm always transparent. I mean, I think we have to support Ukraine while we also seek a just peace. And if we don't support them now, we're giving license for Putin to make more gains into Ukrainian territory. And I clearly believe that Putin was morally wrong and wrong under an international law. Now, if we can support Ukraine and if they can continue to make some progress, it's been hard fought progress, but some progress, then at the same time, we should be engaging our allies, France, India, others, to seen consistent escalation. I mean, considering also in the $25 billion, as I understand it, there's no checks that Congress has been able to write in, as by your own admission here, about long-range missiles, about cluster bombs, or any of this. So isn't this just a blank check for the administration to eventually just give Ukraine whatever it wants,

with very little limitations in terms of their use of our own arms and our ammunition? Well, actually, President Biden has actually been fairly judicious in saying he doesn't want to escalate the war into Russian territory. He has not engaged in any way the United States military, either our Air Force or our Army. And he has been careful to say, Ukraine, look, you can take back your territory, but don't attack Russia. And my view is that he has those safeguards. He has said those things, but Ukraine has continued to attack Russia, including drone strikes in the heart of Moscow. So I guess what we're trying to figure out is what is the end game? What is the limiting principle? Is there a point in time where you start to threaten to withhold this aid so that you can

begin to bring the parties to the table? How do you ever get to any sort of a negotiated resolution here? Because, I mean, this has obviously been just an absolute catastrophe. The number of lives that are lost and the seemingly endless nature of it is horrifying to watch. It is horrifying. I mean, the end game is that Russia moved out of the territory which they took in the Donbas. I mean, that is, they're illegally there. They have occupied that territory. They violated Ukrainian sovereignty. And we have to figure out how do we prevail on them to do that. But at the same time, we are trying to de-escalate the conflict. And there can be efforts at working towards de-escalation, working towards ceasefires in different parts of the country while we hold firm on Ukrainian sovereignty.

So let's say there's 25 billion. The Ukrainians do with the 25 billion what they've done with 100 billion, which is use it, make very little progress. When we're sitting here nine months from now and they ask for another 25 billion, what's the answer then? You give it to them again. We pursue peace. Like what is the limiting principle on the amount of aid that we're willing to send to Ukraine? Well, look, everything is contextual. I'm not going to sit here and say for the next 20 years we're going to be funding Ukraine. But the point is that certainly I think we have to fund them in this request. And then we've got to continue to make progress in trying to see how we get Russia out of the Donbass region and where they've violated sovereignty. My view is you can engage allies in that effort,

because there are allies who have a relationship with Russia closer to ours who also believe that Russia was wrong. Right. No, absolutely. But you keep using it. So I'm just trying to understand. You don't think a peace negotiation is possible unless Russia restores the February 24th borders and pre-invasion? If that's the case, this war is never going to end. I mean, do you think they've lost 100,000 people and isolated themselves from the world that they're just going to pull out from that port? What level of ammunition would we even be able to supply that? I don't even know if it's possible in order to achieve that sort of solution, if that's what a diplomatic solution looks like in your mind. Well, that is, that's what a just peace looks like. Now,

if Ukraine has a different view, I would request, I would defer to Ukraine. And at some point, what we need to do is make sure that Ukrainian, their views, their judgment is taken into account. And I would support what they want. But my view of what a just peace would be is Russian withdrawal. If Ukrainians come to a different conclusion, obviously they have a judgment to make. I got to pick up there, though, because their conclusion is derivative of the amount of aid. They don't exist without USAID. So if their ability to contest or to have this expectation is entirely as a result of USAID, then as a result, USAID itself directly impacts what some sort of solution would come to, no?

Like if we pull out, if we pull aid, let's say we don't pass said package, then actually a diplomatic solution looks a lot more likely. Now, of course, I'm not saying that's just, and if I were them, I would be furious as well. But we also have to consider our own interests here. Well, the question is, what are they capable of doing and what do they want as a just solution? If they come to a conclusion that they themselves have had too many loss of lives and that they want some compromise that is short of a just peace,

that's very different than us pulling aid and forcing their hand, which sets a horrible precedent in my view for China and Taiwan, for Russia continuing the action of aggression. I mean, Russia took Crimea. Now they're taking Donbass. What's next? I mean, if we don't stand up and say, as a big power, you can't just take a little power or other country, then it undermines the rule of law in the international system. Congressman, to wrap up here, let me ask you a couple of political questions. So you've endorsed President Biden's reelection. You're involved in, you know, his, what did you call it, his advisory council. Now Kyle and I are on the same side, right? I saw Kyle in your clip. I said, maybe he's going to be on the advisory board. Kyle is supporting Marianne Williams.

They're not supporting her in the primary. So it is a very different position. But I wanted to ask you, why do you think it's so close in the polls right now with Trump? I mean, you've got some indications. You know, you've got some top line numbers. It's like unemployment's low and the president's obviously out there selling the economy. But the American people are also really not feeling it. And they've seen a lot of the support, the social safety net support that they enjoyed during the pandemic that actually helped a lot of people. That's been stripped away and stripped away and stripped away under

the Biden administration. So what is your just sort of political analysis of why he is struggling so much to get any kind of a lead on a guy who's facing like 91 different criminal charges? Three reasons. One, gas is still high. I mean, gas in my district is $5.50. I was in Nevada trying to get young people for the president. It's still over $5. Housing costs are very high. Rent is high. The interest rates now are at 7% to 8%. So if you're a young family and you want to buy a home or try to get a mortgage, that's hard. If you have credit card debt, that's hard. So we look at the macro numbers of unemployment low, what this president has done to bring manufacturing jobs back.

But when you look at individual families and young people, there's still a lot of economic stress in the system. The second part is that there is a total anger with the status quo. That's why I'm talking about this political reform plan. So if people say, oh, both sides are bad, all of Congress is corrupt, we have to show, no, there's a difference. We are for principled leadership and cleaning up the system and getting PAC money out and big money out, and the other side is not. I believe there is a difference, but we have to communicate that. And the final thing is, look, you've had 40 years of the hollowing out of the working and

middle class in this country. This president is bringing that manufacturing back, but we've got to tell the story and say, look, it's just the first step. We've got decades more work to do, but there's 40 years of decline that we're trying to reverse. Well, Congressman, we appreciate your transparency and engagement as always. It's very rare here in Washington. We appreciate it very much. So thank you for joining us, sir. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. We'll see you guys later. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community.

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