Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/13/22: Polling Data, Ukraine War, Gay Marriage Fight, DOJ Investigations, Rail Strike, Student Debt Lawsuits, & More!

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about the midterm polling data, Ukrainian counteroffensive, gay marriage battle, DOJ closing in on Trump world, Brian Stelter's new job, online censorship, railway workers, & student debt cancellation lawsuits!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Jeff Stein: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/09/01/republicans-sue-biden-student-debt/?itid=ap_tonyromm  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is

still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Oddly. We got a lot of things to get into. We're gonna gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about.

I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know.

Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Cable news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, making it impossible to function as a society and to know what is true and what is false. The good news is that they're failing and they know it. That is why we're building something new.

Be part of creating a new, better, healthier, and more trustworthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points premium member today at BreakingPoints.com. Your hard-earned money is going to help us build for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of interesting news that we are looking at this morning. So first of all, some big questions about just how accurate the midterm polls are. A little bit of deja vu here. So a lot of caveats about some of the numbers

you may be seeing coming out. Nate Cohn at the New York Times has been digging into that. So we'll break all of that down for you. Also, the very latest developments, in terms of that Ukraine counteroffensive, wildly successful thus far. They continue to gain ground. What does it mean?

And what is the reaction within Russia? That is also very interesting. Now, we have a vote coming up, allegedly continue to gain ground. What does it mean and what is the reaction within Russia? That is also very interesting. Now, we have a vote coming up, allegedly, on gay marriage. Some real questions of whether Democrats will be able to pull sufficient Republican votes to overcome the filibuster. Some new updates about who is in and who is out in terms of that vote and what all of that means. Also, some new legal developments with regard to Trump and the whole MAGA world. Actually, very interesting. So you had sent this to me last week, Steve Bannon out there saying like 30,

I think he said 36 people's homes were raided, right? Well, maybe not exactly accurate, but we have just learned that something like 40 subpoenas were served to various former Trump aides and acolytes just in the past week. So major escalation in terms of the DOJ's effort there. were served to various former Trump aides and acolytes just in the past week. So major escalation in terms of the DOJ's effort there. We also have an update for you on our good friend Brian Stelter, where he is headed next. Today, for real, Jeff Stein is going to join us to talk about some technical issues with Jeff yesterday. But today we feel confident we're going to get him in to talk about the legal case against student loan debt being crafted by Republicans. But before we get to any of that, two things. Discount. So for the next few weeks, we have a 10% discount on the annual membership to help us to continue to build and

grow. As you guys know, Emily and Ryan launched their show this week on Friday, so very excited about that. It's going to be great. Yeah, it's going to be awesome. Help us out with that annual membership. You get 10% off and that helps us be able to plan for the future. Yes, it's very, very helpful. Like we said, both cashflow perspective, hire new people, develop all the graphics, the team, all of the cost outlays that stuff like this costs. Also, we've got the live show in Chicago. We've got one month to sell this thing out. Tickets are on sale right now for premium subscribers. It's going to be in the premium newsletter for those who just went ahead and signed up. So it will be right there in your email.

There are instructions on how exactly to do the artist presale. Tickets on sale to the general public on Friday for those of you who want to buy those. Chicago, Illinois, I want to reiterate again, Midwesterners, this is probably the major Midwest show, given the way that the economics of these things work, which would shock you if you were interested in the particulars. So Chicago is going to be the flagship show that we're going to be having there in the region. If you're there and you want to come by, it's going to be a great, great time. I've already had some interesting people say that they're going to be on their way. Yeah, for real. A few celebrity sightings will be happening in the

crowd. So I think you will enjoy that. Breaking news here. It's breaking a little bit after we finished filming the show, but it's still important enough that we want to go ahead and include it. So that's why it's a little bit disjointed today. So the U.S. inflation numbers have just come out for August. Here's what they are. Inflation is 8.3% in August year over year, very high, down slightly from 8.5% year over year in July and 9.1% in June. However, and this is the most important one, inflation actually rose by 0.1% in August when many expected it to drop. Shelter, food, and medical care are the ones which are up, which is offsetting the 10% decline in gas prices. Food in particular is the one which is really concerning, Crystal. Heather Long,

The Washington Post, noting, quote, the food index has increased by 11.4% over the last year, and the largest 12-month increase since the period ending in May of 1979. So even though gas prices are down by almost 10%, 11% over the last, I think, 100 days that they've dropped every single day, has not been enough to offset shelter and food costs. So shelter in particular coming in extraordinarily hot as to how high renters are paying. It's really a tragedy. And it just shows you that you can't just get out of this by focusing on gas alone. Yeah, that's right. So gas is down 10.6% just in a single month. So the fact that you have these other factors which have pushed inflation to continue to rise really shows you how severe the price hikes were in those key categories that you're talking about here.

So if you look year over year, some of the price hikes we're talking about here, airline fares up 33 percent, electricity up 15.8 percent, food at home up 13.5 percent, new vehicles up 10 percent, food away from home up 8 percent, and on and on and on. Shelter, year over year, up 6.2 percent. So, obviously, these are key categories that hit the household budget directly and people really feel immediately. The reason why this is such a big deal and why we wanted to do a breaking news segment on it is because the expectation had actually been that month to month, the inflation rate would tick down a bit. So maybe like 0.3% was roughly what the expectation was that it would decline. Instead, you had a 0.1% increase. Now the markets are reacting very strongly. The last I looked at, Jones was down like 500 points, all because now the expectation is set that for sure

the Fed is going to continue with those aggressive rate hikes. We already covered yesterday how Lael Brannard, who is the second policymaker in command over at the Fed, was sounding notes of, we're going to continue this aggressive policy, this in spite of the fact that their own research in certain instances shows that there is a risk that they move too fast and too aggressively and spark a severe recession. Of course, we also now know that Jerome Powell, who is the president of the Fed, has said that he wants there to be some pain, that he thinks that that is necessary. And of course, you have people like Larry Summers out there saying, oh, we have to have unemployment at 10 percent in order to get inflation under control. So this is only going to continue to make the case to the Fed to hike interest rates.

Even as you see thus far, they've taken some aggressive action and it hasn't worked. Why? Well, one reason could be because as we've documented many times, as Elizabeth Warren, to her credit, has been pointing out, the Fed's tools do not get at the core reasons that we are having this inflationary spiral. So that's why this is so significant. It really determines, you know, the Fed. After we had seen some signs that inflation might be easing and certainly gas prices have come down a lot, that has made consumers feel a little bit better, consumer sentiment ticking up. With these new numbers, this is going to almost set in stone that the Fed will at least do another 0.75 rate hike next time.

At the very least, that's happening. One of the important points pointed out by Derek Thompson as part of the reason why inflation is so high in shelter is that, yeah, the current rent rates might be down, but everybody else is still locked in at the past one. So housing policy and rent inflation and shelter is still going to very much be high for six to eight months. Fed policy has no impact on the current locked-in rates at all, or many of the other things that people have had to pay. So look, we'll see how it works out. But undoubtedly, it means the Fed will hike rates. What's the Dow at right now? Did the markets drop? Oh, yeah. I'm assuming that that's going to happen. Yeah. So we're down 625 points when we're filming

this segment. Not great. So we'll see how it all works out. Yeah. All right, guys. Show continues from here. Let's get to the show. Okay. So let's start with the polls. Big breakdown from Nate Cohn over at the New York Times, seeing a lot of the same signs that we saw in 2020, that the polls in some key states are once again overstating Democratic support. So let's go ahead and put this first piece up on the screen here. The headline here is, yes, the polling warning signs are flashing again. Let me read you a little bit of this because I think it is very illustrative, this one example they give in particular. He says that early in the 2020

cycle, they noticed that Joe Biden seemed to be outperforming Hillary Clinton in the same places where the polls overestimated her support four years earlier. The pattern didn't necessarily mean the polls would be wrong. It could have just reflected Mr. Biden's promised strength among white working class voters, for instance. But it was a warning sign. Of course, that warning sign did turn out to be correct in 2020. Of course, Joe Biden did win, but you'll recall some of the polls were wildly off, especially in places like Ohio, Wisconsin. Certainly, the industrial Midwest has been a real issue for pollsters lately. So, they give the example of Wisconsin. On paper,

they say the Republican Senator Ron Johnson ought to be favored to win re-election. The 538 Fundamentals Index, for instance, makes him a two-point favorite. Instead, the polls have exceeded the wildest expectations of Democrats. The state's gold standard Marquette Law School survey even showed the Democrat Mandela Barnes leading Mr. Johnson by seven percentage points. But in this case, good for Wisconsin Democrats might be too good to be true. The state was ground zero for survey error in 2020 when pre-election polls proved too good to be true for Mr. Biden. In the end, the polls overestimated him by about eight percentage points. Eerily enough, Mr. Barnes is faring better than expected by an almost identical margin.

Now, most pollsters, he also says, haven't made significant methodological changes since the misses of 2020. I mean, at least after 2016, there was a theory of why the polls might be better. In 2016, they had a theory about why they were so off. It was like, oh, we're underestimating. We're not looking at the education status and class status. We're undercounting white working class voters in particular. Okay, we've made the adjustments. This time we've got it. And then 2020 comes through and you have a very, very similar polling miss in some of the very same states that they missed in in 2016.

But this time around, the pollster didn't really even pretend to know why. There were some theories and there was some conjecture that we covered, like liberals are home during the pandemic or liberals are just really excited to answer polls, but nothing was really adjusted in the methodology. So it would follow that you may have some of the very same polling errors that you had last time around. This is the thing I don't understand, which is that, and people who are polling nerds might recall this, the polls in 2012 were actually very good. Everybody remembers Nate Silver, the FiveThirtyEight website called almost all 50 states, most of the Senate races. His book became a national bestseller. I mean, me, many others were like, oh my God, it's finally been cracked. And I think

really what has happened is that Trump genuinely did change everything about American politics. He changed the type of people who voted. He changed the type of people who came out. It basically made the models of the people who do come out to vote just completely change in the demographics and traditional ones that you could use. And from that point forward, they just haven't been able to figure out. In a way, it's like a reflection of our society. We've got a political realignment going on. We have a much more online population, people not answering phones as much. And at a certain point, the industry also just doesn't know what to do. And it does make it so that many of these have to be greeted by people like ourselves. We have the best data that we possibly can.

But unfortunately, most people in the media, Crystal, are not giving the caveats outside of this one guy. And even he's being criticized. I saw some people- He's getting a lot of criticism. People, the Democrats, predictably are like, well, no one's ever wrong for understating Democratic support. It's like, well, that hasn't happened in like eight years. So, you know, I don't know where you're coming from. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, there are occasional polls, like, for example, Colorado seems to be a state where the polls kind of consistently underestimate Democratic

support. So there are a few states that are like that, but overwhelmingly the issue has been in the other direction. And especially in states where you have a large white working class vote. I think it's, I mean, this is speculation because no one really knows exactly why this is going on, but I think it's not just changing who's voting, the types of people are voting, the coalitions of the various parties. But I think with Trump, you have such an overt like anti-institution messaging and orientation that he's also making his voters more skeptical of responding to polls and, you know, talking to pollsters and those sorts of things. So I think that might be part of it as well. But, you know, like everybody else, I don't really know. Let's take a look at this next piece, which is a chart showing if the polling miss is as big as it was in 2020, what will the results actually look like? And let

me just go through these. So in Colorado, basically, right now the poll says Dem is plus nine. If there's a 2020-like poll error, the Dem will win by nine. So Colorado is pretty much on the money last time around. In Pennsylvania, right now the polls have Fetterman up by eight. If you have a 2020-like poll error, you will end up with Fetterman by five. So he still wins, but by less. In Arizona, you cut the Dem lead from eight, which is reflected in the polls, down to six. In Wisconsin, this is the big one, you cut the Dem lead from four to a Republican win by four. In Nevada, you have plus three for the Democrats right now. That one would be a true toss-up, less than one for the Dems. In Georgia right now, you've got

plus two Dems. Georgia has been fairly accurate. And lo and behold, Georgia is also one of the states where the polling has continued to be very, very tight, basically in line with what your expectation would be for that state. North Carolina right now is showing down plus one. With that 2020-like poll error, you'd get plus two Republicans. Ohio, this is another big, big one. Again, industrial Midwest, large white working class, voter base. Right now, you've got Tim Ryan, the Democrat, leading by less than one percentage point with an error similar to 2020. You've got J.D. Vance easily winning here by seven points, which I think is more in line with what you would expect. Florida is the last one on the list here right now.

They have Marco Rubio leading that, the Republican, by five. If you have a 2020-like poll error, Marco Rubio will easily win that race by 11 points. So if you look at this in totality, first of all, you see the Senate, the race for the Senate to control the Senate is extremely, extremely close. Republicans only have to net one single seat. So essentially, you're looking at probably control of the Senate coming down to very close races in Nevada and Georgia to determine control of the Senate. If you look at, and this is the commentary from Holly Otterbein here, she says, as it happens, the if polls were as wrong as they were in 2020 column from today's New York Times story seems more in line with where

political insiders actually think these races are. So, you know, our general rule of thumb here has been, especially in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, to knock a few points off of the Democratic, whatever their polls are saying. That's kind of a good rule of thumb if you look at this chart. Oh, completely. Look, I mean, the idea of runaway Democratic victories in these formerly, quote, blue wall states, I just think it's a fantasy, has been since 2016. The Fetterman plus five as opposed to plus eight, 11 or whatever people are saying, that reads much more in line with what Pennsylvania appears to be. I still think plus five for Fetterman. Yeah, it's probably still too high. Exactly. I mean, listen, Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016.

It's just a very closely divided state. He only lost Pennsylvania by one percentage point. It's like in that environment, there's just no way a Democrat's going to win by 11 points. Even if they do win, it's going to be like Virginia where Glenn Youngkin, how much do you win by? Like 1.5%? I don't know. In an absolute red wave victory. So that's what people have to consider.

Same Wisconsin. Everybody's like, people have to consider. Same Wisconsin, everyone's like, oh, Ron Johnson. And listen, we'll talk about Ron Johnson later in the show. Maybe he's trying everything he can do to lose, but he did that last time and he also won by basically coming out and defying the polls. You also found this, which I thought was really important. Let's put this up there, which is that those of us who were in 2018, the media cast it very much as a blue damn wave. But as Philip Bump points out here, you know, 2018 was not the outlier that people think. Senate polls that year were also very off the mark. It's the National House polling, which wasn't. Everybody focused on Pelosi and all of that.

But I remember also at the time, people were considering, oh, my gosh, Marsha Blackburn might lose in Tennessee. Yeah, that didn't happen. They're like, oh, we're going to see big red gains in some of these states. Amy McGrath going to win in Kentucky. None of these things happened. And everyone does seem to just memory hole. I mean, I will never forget ahead of the election, Wisconsin supposedly being Trump minus 17 or Biden plus 17 in Wisconsin, or even in 2020. I mean, remember Jamie Harrison? They were like, Jamie Harrison is within one point of South Carolina. He lost by 17 points. He literally lost by the same margin as the last person who ran against Lindsey Graham.

He just took $18 million more to do it. And now he's the DNC chair. Yeah. Somebody go in and riddle me down. Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? Well, the important point about 2018 is, first of all, part of why the result, even though it was a good year for Democrats, you know, women really came out, the sort of suburban vote consolidated behind Democrats. They did, you know, they gained control of the House. Like, it was a good year for them. But part of why it fell short of expectations is because you did have polling misses. So there's been this kind of conventional wisdom that has developed of like, oh, well, the problem with polling only happens when Trump's on the ballot. Happened in 2016 and happened in 2020. What this chart shows is that's not really true.

You also had significant polling misses in 2018, even when Trump wasn't on the ballot. Now you might say, okay, but he was in the White House and the election was really a rough random on him. And it truly it was. But, you know, Trump is kind of still central to our politics right now. It's not like the guy is sidelined and not being talked about. He is very, very central to whatever is going to happen this midterm. So what I would say is if we think back to that chart showing, okay, well, if you have as much of a polling miss in this year as you had in 2020, what is the result going to be? Ultimately, if it came down that way, Democrats would still end up with control of the Senate. It would still

be on balance, a very good year for them and much, much better than what they were expecting going in. But it's not going to be as good as some of the most hopeful estimates and what the polling reflects right now. And also, by the way, this is a landscape with the, you know, assumed pollingness where Republicans easily gain control of the House, but that's not really in question. So, you know, we have been talking a lot about how much the mood has shifted, how much things have shifted towards Democrats post-Dobbs. That's all totally true. But just keep in mind, that doesn't mean they're going to win control of the House, certainly, and it doesn't mean they're going to win control of the Senate. It's going to be very, very tight, and it is probably going to come down to very

close races in Georgia and very close races in Nevada. So those things are all really important to keep in mind. Yeah, absolutely. Let's underscore that. It's tight. It's much tighter than people will have you believe. I think Dobbs made it so that it has the chance of a couple of Democratic victories and upsets, but the chance is all that exists. Not like the shoe-in that people are casting. And let me just play devil's advocate here and give the other side of the case, which is that, okay, but we've had special election results. And not only have they gone for Democrats, those polls going into those special elections have actually understated Democratic support.

So that's what someone who would argue in favor of, no, it's actually going to be a blue wave. No, actually, Ron Johnson is on the ropes. No, actually, Tim Ryan could pick up the seat in Ohio. That's what they would point to. Now, the, again, reason to sort of temper expectations, even with those results, which I do think are important and maybe the most important piece of data that we have that does indicate something is different happening here in terms of Democrats. But what we saw in those elections is, first of all, in a special election, you're going to have a smaller voter turnout. You still had Republicans doing very well in rural areas and actually increasing their vote total even over Donald Trump in certain instances

in rural areas. But there was a huge flood in these sort of like liberal, especially college towns. That's not going to be representative of everywhere across the country. So that's a reason to take some of those results for, with a little bit of a grain of salt. I think that's exactly what I was going to say. I was like, yeah, well, the special elections are interesting, but they're more suburban, more educated. That's not the whole electorate that doesn't work out in a white working class state, smaller turnout, higher national mood. You know, the midterms are just going to be more of a national referendum. And so whatever the way the winds are blowing, that's probably going to be more indicative. very good for the Democrats and continues to show Tim Ryan really in contention to actually win this Senate race in Ohio. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is a USA Today, Ohio Suffolk University poll found that 47% of Ohio general election voters said they would vote or lean towards Ryan if the Senate election were held today, while 46% said they could back J.D. Vance. Of all the polls that we

have been seeing lately, these ones out of Ohio are the ones I am the most skeptical of. Yeah, and we should be. Ohio is the state, and I have mentioned this before, actually used to live in the district in Ohio that has moved the furthest, the fastest to the right of any congressional district in the entire country. Of all the places in the nation where you've had a real, real, I mean, West Virginia is one of them, but in terms of the swing states, like Ohio has shifted very far to the right. You have a hardening partisan divide there. And we also have on the record from Hillary and from 2018 and from Biden evidence that Ohio is one of these states where pollsters just cannot get a good read on what is going on here. So, listen, it's true that if you wanted to make the opposite case, Tim Rye has been running very aggressively.

His messaging, I think, has largely been pretty smart for Ohio, even as I'm not a huge fan of his. J.D. Vance has been pretty lackluster in terms of campaigning. He hasn't really pivoted to a general election message. His fundraising has been completely pathetic. And he's been starved for cash in terms of putting up ads, hasn't spent enough time in all of these things. He's not running a particularly great campaign. So that would be the argument. But, you know, ultimately, I don't know that these candidate quality issues matter to the extent that they seem to be mattering in these

polls. Couple points in one direction or the other in a tight race? Yes, maybe. But in terms of, you know, a massive like 10 point swing in the direction of Tim Ryan over J.D. Vance, I just don't buy it. I don't see it at all. And look, to be fair, in the last month or so, he's gotten a major cash infusion from the NRSC. He's got a little bit more cash on hand. They're buying more ads. He's been spending, I think, almost all of his time in the state. They just came out with a new blitz that I was looking at that they're blanketing the state across, very much in line with national GOP messaging. It's like pivoting to a normal campaign, right? The other thing, if you wanted to make the case for Tim Ryan, you would actually point to the fact that

the NRSC is like coming in in a big way to bail him out. Because this shouldn't have to happen. I mean, it does show, it shows that they don't feel it's in the bag. They feel that they have to spend some money. And it was like $30 million that I think the Senate leadership fund or whoever is dumping into this race. They're having to spend in a place where they really shouldn't have to spend any cash. This should be a gimme for Republicans at this point. So, you know, some people have been saying, well, okay, but the Republican internals look the same as the public polling. So maybe that's an indication that the polls are actually accurate. I just think that the Republican internals look the same as the public polling. So maybe that's an indication that the polls are actually accurate. I just think that the Republican internals are probably also polling in a way that is missing some of what is going on ultimately, because that is what happened last time around

as well. I think you're right. I mean, all we will say is, let's put this up there. We had our producer James compile this little tear sheet here. Biden leads Trump by 17 points. Jamie Harrison tied with South Carolina. The tide has turned. Susan Collins trails Sarah by 13 points in a new Quinnipiac poll. I mean, all of those in front of you should just give you a tremendous amount of pause as to these Ohio polls, any battleground state that you see, and just remember the national environment. And I think it's what's shocking is, and I will stand by this, I think almost every time we've ever covered any of these, we will give a tremendous caveat, say, remember 2020.

They're not doing that, even though we know that the polling was wrong twice in a row, anyway, three times in a row, 2016, 2018, and 2020. It's irresponsible to mislead people. Most importantly, I think it's very irresponsible. If you're one of these act blue types, which are pouring millions of dollars into some of these campaigns, Tim Ryan, for example, this guy's raising money, cash over, you should be honest. I mean, at a national level, he obviously is going to do whatever he needs to do, but he should say, hey, listen, you know, you can't be bilking people out of money whenever you're telling them, oh, this guy's up by

12, 15 points. I mean, that's just outrageous from a national perspective. I wonder what you think, because my thinking is if they get burned, what, several times in a row, like, are they always just going to fall for the Amy McGraths of the world? Like, somebody's got to wise up sometime. Like, it's a lot of money that people are giving up. Yeah, you might be right. Hope springs eternal, Sagar. I guess you're right. be right. Hope springs eternal. Sagar. I guess you're right. Hope springs eternal. I don't know if, yeah, I don't know if people would be as quick to jump into like a Kentucky

versus Mitch McConnell kind of a race. But, you know, it wasn't that long ago Ohio's a swing state. If you start to drink the Kool-Aid and think that, okay, this is starting to be a good year for Democrats, I think it's going to be hard to dissuade the grassroots donor base from giving money in large amounts to guys like Tim Ryan. On the other hand, I mean, Democrats really aren't suffering from a fundraising issue. It's not like the fact that they're giving to some of these races that are more of a reach, I would say Tim Ryan and Mandela Barnes. Although, actually, I still think Ron Johnson is going to win. I think Mandela Barnes has more of a chance than a Tim Ryan does. That's just in my estimation, because

I think Wisconsin is a closer state ultimately. Well, it's always been close. It's been much closer. Exactly. Ohio's like plus eight. Yeah. Ohio at this, I mean, it's, look, I think Democrats, if they actually did some different things from a national level, maybe they could put Ohio back in play, but that's not where we are today. So anyway, they're still raising tons of money into the states that are the swing key states that are showing the polls are really close. I mean, Raphael Warnock has raised like $100 million. Mark Kelly has raised a lot of money. They have real shots. I think that one's fine. Oh, absolutely. But that's what I'm saying is that these other races that may ultimately end up being a distraction don't seem to be hurting them on the fundraising front in

the places that are going to be key. And then, you know, the other counter argument there would be the fact that Tim Ryan is raising so much money and at least making the polls close, even if the race doesn't end up being close, is forcing Republicans to have to spend there as well. So it's forcing them to have to play in states where they didn't really want to have to spend there as well. So it's forcing them to have to play in states where they didn't really want to have to focus and put so much money, spend so much money that's causing problems for Blake Masters, for example, in Arizona,

because McConnell is not too eager to pony up for him, begging Peter Thiel to come back in and sort of rescue his butt because his fundraising has been really lackluster. So it actually hasn't worked out terribly for Democrats in terms of the fundraising fields. I can't blame any candidate for doing everything they can to make the case to the public that they have a shot and that they can win. If you've got polls coming out saying, hey, I'm up by one, I'm up by two, I'm tied, I'm down by one. Of course, you're going

to put those out and try to make the case and try to get people to believe in what you are attempting to pull off. Yeah, I think that's fair. We'll see if it, yeah, you're probably right that it won't burn anybody. Well, at least we tried, you know, after watching Democrats always pour money into Texas. It's not like they ever learned. Well, bottom line, just as you're looking at all of these polls, again, the ones where the biggest misses have consistently been since 2016 are where there is a large white working class vote. Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, any of the industrial Midwest. Those are the places where I would take,

Pennsylvania, another one. Those are the places where I would be the most skeptical of the polling that comes out. Actually, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, the polling has been relatively good. And again, lo and behold, the polls are very tight in those states, reflecting probably a more accurate picture of what's going on there. But there will be only one way to find out, and that is to wait to Election Day and see what happens. That's the fun part of covering politics and elections. Everything keeps us on our toes. Let's go ahead and move on to Ukraine.

So Ukraine, the offensive is continuing there in the eastern part of the country. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Since yesterday, not as stunning gains, but still some pretty dramatic ones. President Zelensky, again, I want to emphasize, this is not confirmed. This is according to the Ukrainians themselves. They claim that they have taken 6,000 square kilometers, which is about 2,300 square miles. That's about 1,000 square kilometers more than what the number was on Sunday. The exact battle lines and all that are relatively fluid, moving back and forth. But in general, we seem to

have seen an expansion of Ukrainian territory there in the eastern part of the country, in the Kharkiv offensive, retaking settlements and towns. Russia basically increasing its shelling and its bombing, including use of missiles against the area and against Ukrainian supply lines. Their hope really is to try and stop the offensive and reform a front line that they can use for a defensive attack. I found an interesting map. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Here, what you can see is red territory is Russian-held territory after February 24th. So you can see where all of that was. Then the other, you know, the dark red, what you're seeing for those I'm just describing is Russian-controlled territory from before February, whenever they

invaded. But blue is actually all of the territory that has been reclaimed by the Ukrainian military forces. So obviously in the upper northern part of the country near Kiev, that's the part of the territory that has been reclaimed by the Ukrainian military forces. So obviously in the upper northern part of the country near Kyiv, that's the part of the past military campaign. But the success of the current military operation is really seen in the Kharkiv area and where they have been able to just have a stunning victory in the Kharkiv Oblast over the last couple of days. The question now is, do they keep rolling? Do they have the capacity for this offensive capability? Do they have really the capacity in order to create a new front line, defend said front line in the face of an anticipated Russian counterattack? That has not

yet materialized. Don't yet know if it's happening. As much as the Ukrainians have 45 days, so do the Russians. And clearly their supply lines are a goddamn mess. It's really stunning. The more I've gone and read about this, which is that the Russians are suffering from command and control problems all the way up and down, which is that at the tactical level, their guys are giving up their weapons, throwing them down, running away. Their tanks are not working. They appear not to have any capacity to maintain their equipment. But also, at a tactical level, their generals and other leadership, despite cycling through many others, they clearly don't know what they're doing, or they don't have a very good idea of how to maintain this posture,

even defensively. One of the reasons why I, many others that I've been reading were not, or were deeply skeptical of any sort of Ukrainian counteroffensive is the defensive always has the advantage in war, especially a great power military. That's literally what they're designed to do, is to hold lines, have supply, logistics, all of the things that are supposed to be intrinsic to what really makes, you know, first class or a quote-unquote second class military. But the Russians are acting almost like a developing force at this point, which is, you know, really stunning. We saw some of that in Kiev, but, you know, given the fact they had months in order to reinforce their supply lines, they had the entire summer, you know, in order to work out some of these kinks, it's just humiliating for them. And more and more,

things are turning for them on the domestic front in a pretty stunning way. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's just no doubt about it. Ukraine, with our help, really caught Russia with their pants down. I mean, I think that they were, and they continue to have more trouble on that southern front, which is where they were sort of feigning that they were going to focus a lot of their resources. And then they go with this lightning effort in the northeastern part of Ukraine with stunning success here. So Russia had really sent some of their more seasoned operatives down south thinking that was going to be the focus of this counteroffensive. So, you know, you have that. You have the fact.

Look, just on a basic level, the Ukrainians are fighting for their homes. They're fighting for their lives. They're fighting for their way of life. They're fighting for their families. So this is the most motivated group of people that you could possibly get. Russians, on the other hand, are basically fighting because they have to, because they don't want to be thrown in prison and they have, you know, they want to get their paycheck and hopefully make it back home to Russia. Putin approached this thinking that he would just be able to roll through, that they

could do a sort of like a little bit of war over here and that the domestic population really wouldn't even notice. He did not build an ideological case for this invasion and for this effort. And I think that that also shows in the results that they've gotten here on the ground. You know, now there is a lot of pressure on Putin domestically to go forward with a full general mobilization because ultimately, yeah, they are not going to be able to succeed or even potentially hold the lines of the February 24th lines where they were before this invasion started

if they don't put more resources and make the moral case, whatever they can come up with for their population, that this war is worth the effort and worth the cost and worth the sacrifice here. The sanctions haven't had the bite that, you know, the Western powers thought that they would have, but they are having an impact on the Russian economy. They are having an impact on regular folks in Russia and in Moscow, and they are making it more difficult for Russia to be able to resupply here ultimately, which is why you see them having to cut deals with North Korea is one example. Yeah, that's correct. And look, I mean, the long-term sustainable, the whole issue is who can hold out the longest. Obviously,

the Ukrainians dug in, have now the capacity in order to have an offensive victory, which is going to bolster them for months to come and their case to the Europeans and to the Americans if they need even more and more and more not to break in the face of a natural gas problem over the summer. So we'll see how exactly that works out. It'll be interesting in order to see it all come through. I wouldn't count the Russians out just yet. They still obviously, look, this is part of the issue, which is that we've seen many times in the past. You see a breakthrough, some sort of offensive, but then the great power gets its act together and will push you back given its inherent advantages in war. But for that to kick in, Putin has to fully mobilize his society to more of a wartime footing, which he hasn't yet been willing to do.

Maybe he is. You also found this, which is that we shouldn't presume that domestic turmoil in Russia is necessarily a good thing for us or for Ukraine. Let's put this up there. This is from the Financial Times. Quote, if Putin is deposed, perhaps by a palace coup, his replacement is more likely to be a hardline nationalist than a liberal. The most vocal dissent being expressed in Russia is from militarists and nationalists who are calling for an escalation of the war. So it's not like the First World War where the dissenters were the ones who were saying,

hey, we need to be done with this imperial ambition and more. No, no, no. The people who are emboldened inside of at least the people who matter, whoever might replace Putin, they're worse than Putin. And I think that's a sobering reminder of what the problems and the inherent characteristics towards Russia, its regime, and how it operates really are at a strategic level for what the future may look like even once he is gone.

He's not getting pressure from the doves in Russia. I mean, they don't really exist. It's only like 10, 15% or whatever. And to the extent that they do, they're afraid. See, some of the like right wing hyper nationalists, the bloggers and stuff that we covered yesterday, they really are kind of protected by the FSB, by the military. So they can go further in terms of their critique without being fearful of being jailed or having any other sort of consequences. So they are a larger faction in Russia, and they are a much

more vocal faction. And that's the area where the pressure is coming from. It's coming from the people who are saying, you need to declare all-out war. You need to have a general mobilization. We need to go all in on Ukraine. So that's really important to keep in mind. And they go in in this article to say, listen, a defeated Russia would not disappear off the map, and it would still possess large numbers of nuclear weapons, as well as a replenished stock of grievances. So something to keep in mind in terms of the risks inherent even in a total Ukrainian victory and a total defeat of Russia, there are still risks and a lot of volatility there. They also point out in the same piece, they say, from the beginning of

the conflict, Putin has hinted Russia might use nuclear weapons. The White House has always viewed this possibility seriously. And as the war has dragged on and gone badly for Russia, fears that Putin might resort to nuclear weapons have receded a little, but they have not gone away. As one senior Western policymaker put it to me last week, we have to remember that almost every Russian military exercise we've observed has involved the use of nuclear weapons. Another thing they float in this piece is remember the daughter who was car bombed and was like this sort of Russian right-wing nationalist figure. There's a theory that the murderer, her name is Daria Dugan, that she was actually murdered by Russian security services

as a warning to Putin's ultra-right critics. I don't know that there's any evidence for that, but that's one of the theories floating around in Russian circles is basically because they see the threat to Putin coming from his right, from the ultra-nationalist circles, this was an attempt to sort of send a message to them to sit down and shut up. I mean, doesn't seem to have worked, but I've heard crazier theories. Certainly one possibility. You can't count it out. I mean, it's these guys all die in mysterious circumstances all the time. Who was it that just fell out of a hospital?

It was the natural gas executives. Yeah, some high level natural gas executives. That's right. Fell out of a hospital window. Interesting. Yeah. So these guys die. I remember covering before the invasion of Ukraine, like 2015, 2016, the same thing happened. If everyone recalls those militia leaders who all accidentally shot down the Malaysian airline flight over Ukraine, same thing. A lot of those guys ended up dead in verying on hospital windows or whatever. Very mysterious circumstances. There's a lot of falling off of balconies and things that seem to happen.

You'd think they'd get more creative, you know, but listen, I don't know. If it works, why change the model? It's not like anybody in their society dissents, though that's not necessarily the case because for the very first time, let's put this up there, which is that something new is happening on Russian TV. Debate. So they point here, we wanted

to play you guys some of the clips, but because we have such a large podcast audience, all in Russian, Russian, and it's not like the subtitles would really help you out, but they just point to the fact that even political talk shows on state-owned TV are really beginning to question the Kremlin. Here's what one said, quote, we are now at a point when we have to understand it's impossible to defeat Ukraine using those resources and colonial war methods with which Russia is trying to fight. The Russian army is fighting against a strong army fully supported by the most powerful countries in the economic and technological sense. Note the undertones there, which is that he's calling it colonial war. He's characterizing it as like a sideshow.

So the intrinsic nature of his comments is we need to act similarly. This is a full-scale war against NATO, against the West. Here's what another one, this is from a member of the Duma, quote, we have been dealt a very serious psychological blow. He continues, we must destroy the infrastructure that is being used for military purposes, advocating for a total war against Ukrainian society and probably an intrinsic also to that, which is every time they say infrastructure for military purposes, that's NATO supply lines that are coming into the country.

Quote, we cannot expect their affection if we tell the Ukrainians they don't exist as an ethnicity, but there isn't a Ukrainian language. That was what one political scientist. That was one of the most interesting to me was actually sort of like going up against the what they describe as the ideological pretext that Putin used to launch the invasion. I mean, they're basically saying like, and I watch there's some longer clips floating around social media of some of these shows, which are kind of funny to watch. They've clearly borrowed some of the like, like the CNN mega panels that have like 30 people on them or whatever. Like that's the vibe of these shows. But they were saying essentially like, hey, what do you think? They told us that the Ukrainians were going to greet us with like flowers and greet us as liberators, I guess, just as we were sold on the Iraq war. And he's saying, what can we, we can't expect their affection if we're telling

them like you don't exist as an ethnicity and that there isn't a Ukrainian language that it's fake. Of course, they're not going to love us. Of course, they're not going to greet us with flowers and open arms. Because I think that's been, that was one of the things that was sold to the public of like, oh, these Ukrainians are looking to be liberated from the Nazis, right? They, they're hoping that we come in and save them and rescue them. And then when the Ukrainians are like, no, we're going to kill you bastards. That was a bit of a shock to the public who had been sold a very different bill of goods. Yeah. And then a very ominous statement from the Kremlin spokesperson overnight. Let me just read it

because we didn't have time for the element. Quote, Russians support the president as long as the critical points of view remain within the boundaries of the current law. This is pluralism, but the line is extremely thin. You have to be very careful. Yes. So they're

saying, watch out. Yeah, watch your back. And just be careful. Stay away from watch out. Yeah, watch your back and just be careful. Stay away from hospital windows. Yeah, absolutely. So I just think that this does show you that debate is happening at a micro level. I mean, what we always saw during the Soviet Union and what people would talk about is that, of course, it didn't exist at the national, but people would whisper, People would talk. Not even Moscow in the villages. But part of the problem also is that a lot of these villages and settlements and elsewhere outside of the major urban areas, they only have access to state-controlled media. So I'm always a bit of a cynic with Russian society. One of the things their biggest critics always emphasize is that even dissent in Russia is all controlled. It's all part of the plan at the national level. So maybe

this is all a campaign to try and press, like a fake press on Putin to mobilize more of society. So he's like, okay, fine, and gives in to that without really entertaining any of the more dovish elements of society. Again, I'm just being cynical. It's very possible that's what's happening. It could be organic too. I don't know. Could be. Could be. Although I think sometimes we give Putin too much credit as like this brilliant puppet master, master strategist, whatever, who has everything under control and has a plan for everything. I think part of why they ended up with these massive unexpected losses and that Putin launched this campaign in such an incredibly foolish way now that we see how it's played out,

is because, like, he was probably being lied to by the generals about the fitness of their troops and their readiness and their supply lines and what they were capable of doing. Because ultimately, you know, he's a strong man leader. He wants to have people around him who are just going to tell him, yes, everything's great. And of course, and you're brilliant. And that's what we should do. So anyway, I think, you know, he was given probably, he probably didn't have an accurate understanding of how poor they were likely to perform or how well prepared the Ukrainians ultimately were. I mean, in fairness, we can't really blame them because a lot of Western military analysts got all of that wrong as well. Yeah, exactly. The last thing I want to say on this

before we move on to what's happening here domestically with a potential gay marriage vote is the reporting is the Biden administration is actually fairly skeptical that Ukraine would be ableensive and what an incredible victory it is. I mean, now they think they've retaken landmass. I saw it's like the size of like half of the New York metro area. So that's a sizable, you know, it's a sizable region. It's definitely not nothing. But also keep in mind that this counteroffensive was specifically designed in a way for U.S. audience. I mean, this was really specifically designed to boost domestic morale, but to make the case to European nations who are facing a very difficult winter, in part because of the ongoing war, and the Americans who have been, you know, the sole, almost the sole supplier of weapons to Ukraine, that it was worth the cost, that it was worth the effort, that it was worth the pain for their domestic populace.

So as you're reading these accounts, it's just important to keep in mind that in some ways this counteroffensive was designed to market the Ukrainian cause to the U.S. audience. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be able to continue to achieve these sorts of gains. And as I said, the Biden administration is actually skeptical that they will be able to continue in this fashion indefinitely and actually retake all of the territory that Russia has claimed. And even more skeptical of the idea that they could push Russia back, you know, say out of Crimea and out of the eastern part of Ukraine, you know, that they had seized before February 24th. So in any case, I just wanted to put that out there as a caveat to temper expectations to keep in mind as you're reading these accounts. And even as we acknowledge, like, this is a huge, massive victory, very, very critical for Ukraine coming at this point in time. Right. You know, it's always important to have a very heavy dose of realism when you're discussing these things.

Yes, indeed. Let's talk about gay marriage. So you probably will remember that in the Dobbs decision, Justice Thomas issued his own concurrence that said, hey, not only do I think we should overturn Roe versus Wade, I think there are some other decisions that we should overturn as well. In particular, one of the things he name checked was Obergefell. That is the Supreme Court decision creating a right for gay couples to get married. So that has led to a lot of strategizing on the Democratic side and a lot of angst about, okay, well, where could this be going and where would the Supreme Court stop? And he's floating this very clearly, so this is something that we need to shore up. So the Senate, Democrats in particular, have been working to try to get enough Republicans on board to actually codify

gay marriage at the federal level. And I do want to say it would be very easy for Democrats to sort of like intentionally tank this vote and put in some poison pills with regards to religious liberty that they know would be a no-go for Republican folks and to sort of engineer its failure. They don't seem to be doing that. They seem to be earnestly trying to gather enough support and respond to the concerns of Republican legislators in order to actually codify gay marriage at the federal level, which I think is interesting. So let's go ahead and put this first piece up on the screen. This tweet says, talks designed to win enough Senate GOP support to clear legislation protecting same-sex marriage

rights are making headway. It appears likely that at least 10 Republicans will help move it through the chamber later this month. That is according to Republican Tom Tillis, who has been sort of spearheading the efforts on the Republican side to try to gather 10 votes in order to overcome the filibuster and codify gay marriage. Still unclear exactly when such a bill would come to the floor. The last thing I read said that this is a critical week. They're continuing to work to win over enough GOP senators. This is in the Washington Post. You also had their efforts bolstered by a letter which was signed by more than 400 former

and current GOP officials. And it's not just resistance types. You did have some sort of like Trump-aligned figures who were on that letter. You also had Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, who's running right now, who sees this as a good issue for him to plan his flag on here a little bit to try to appeal to the general electorate. It's also really not clear, so not exactly clear when the vote will come, but it looks like in the next week or so. It's also not exactly clear who those 10 GOP votes will be. And those who are involved in trying to wrangle the votes are not even saying that they've got a firm commitment from 10 GOP senators. They're just saying they think that they can get there. So one of the people who had previously seemed to indicate

that he was on board is now walking back some of that support, at least rhetorically. Senator Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is from More Perfect Union. They have audio here of Ron Johnson saying he will not support the same-sex marriage bill. He says, I'm not happy with the Baldwins, referencing Tammy Baldwin, of the world opening that wound. Tammy Baldwin, they point out, was the first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Senate. If you listen to the audio here, though, Sagar, it's not as cut and dry as him saying like, no, absolutely no, I'm not going to support it.

He says as it stands now, he wouldn't. He has some religious freedom objections that he wants to be reflected in the bill. So and Ron Johnson obviously running in Wisconsin, a swing state, he's up for reelection this year. That's part of why people thought he might be on board with this vote previously and he had indicated that he was. So it's still possible that he could end up coming around

if they address some of his concerns. He said that, he said, quote, he is working with other, this is from his spokesperson, he's working with other senators on an amendment to try and remedy these concerns. The bill is an example, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. But the reason why I think that's important is they won't say no. Like, almost nobody, except for very few senators, are against actually voting for the bill. They're all saying there's a religious liberty concern. You know, I tried to look into it. I've actually been able to find the exact concern that they're pushing. Well, a lot of them don't really,

so like Marco Rubio, for example, Ted Cruz as another example. Some of these guys, they say, oh, this is a distraction. We don't really need this. So I'm going to vote no. It's like, well, if it's a distraction, but you support it, just like freaking vote. You vote on all kinds of bullshit all the time. Like just vote yes and move on. But so they're trying to use this argument, which is what Ron Johnson also brings up here. Like, oh, yes and move on. But so they're trying to use this argument, which is what Ron Johnson also brings up here. Like, oh, this is over the top. We don't really need it. It's not really necessary. I can't really imagine the Supreme Court actually rolling back these rights. But, you know, you can understand, especially if you are a married gay couple,

looking at the words of Justice Thomas and saying, you know, I kind of like to have that added protection in there of a federal legislation saying, no, no, this is the law of the land and it's not going to be rolled back. Well, politics wise, of course, it's a very smart tactic by Schumer and by others in order to actually force it to the floor. It's one of the things I've been talking about. Yeah. I mean, actually, you know, on abortion, too, it's like, OK, you know, you may not get Roe. Put 15 weeks on the floor right now. Make people vote against it.

Put them in the Blake Masters position and be like, well, actually, I support 15 weeks. Like, do you vote for it? Are you actually going to vote for it? Because this is, it's very, very smart. Take, you take positions, which are 50, 50, uh, in the way that they're generally described, move them into 75, 80% territory. And then just say, all right, do you actually oppose this thing? Get on the record. What do you think? I mean, look, it's a smart, very smart political strategy. And that's part of the reason Johnson and others are like wriggling and saying, oh, I'm going to vote against it on this particular one. But, you know, look at Ted Cruz. Let's put this up there.

Here's what one evangelical leader tweeted and Cruz agreed with. He said, quote, no matter how GOP Senate spins the tail of their yes vote for the Disrespect Marriage Act, its passage will threaten religious liberty for generations. And their yes vote will be a complete betrayal of a party platform and their base. Now, on the party platform thing, from what I can tell, if we will recall, Trump and the MAGA GOP basically declared peace on gay marriage. Trump himself, I believe, is the first openly pro-gay rights president to be elected, which a lot of people don't like to discuss. Which with Ted, it's interesting because he is very much sounding the evangelical critique of Obergefell back in 2015. It makes sense for him from a political positioning perspective. That's always been like his base, the true conservative people in Washington and constituencies,

people who voted for him in Iowa and elsewhere. But for other leaders, I mean, look at how battle, you know, battleground Republican Dr. Oz, let's put this up there. Dr. Oz coming out very strong saying, I'm proud to join this effort with fellow Republicans. I believe same-sex couples should have the freedom to get married as straight couples. This is, I mean, look, this is the, you know, Battleground Senate candidate. I haven't heard yet. I don't know if J.D. Vance has been asked about it. I'd be curious to hear what he has to say. Yeah, I wonder what he will say. That's going to be a tough find for him. He'd probably dodge it. If I had to guess, he'd probably dodge it. I bet he does the thing that

Ruby is doing, like, oh, it's a waste of time. It's settled. You don't need to do this. It's settled. It's probably the smart move in order to go with, if you don't want to fall on either side. Well, because, I mean, the reason the thing that Ted Cruz retweeted was important is this wasn't just any activist. This is Bob Vander Plaats, who's the president and CEO of the family. What is it called? The Family Leadership Council. Or one of those.

Yeah. So anyway, very influential group. And it shows you that, first of all, there's a real generational divide within the Republican Party on these issues. And that older core evangelical base, they never moved on from this. They're still very committed to, you know, marriage is between a man and a woman and very opposed to the Supreme Court decision. So Republicans have mostly just wanted to not talk about it because they know that they're

in a difficult position here. They know that a very energized core part of their base is very adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage. And they're well-organized on it. And these are the types of people who can be incredibly influential in Republican primaries. But at the same time, they know overall the population is overwhelmingly in favor of same-sex marriage at this point. And so they know that this has been a difficult place for them and have been happy, honestly, for the Supreme Court to have taken it off of the table so that they could just sort of move on from the conversation where they are at odds overwhelmingly with mass public opinion. So, you know, the search for the 10 votes continues. If I had to guess, I would say that they will ultimately be able to find 10 Republican—

I think they probably will because Tom Tillis are on board. 10 Republican senators. It's North Carolina. Yeah, it's another—I mean, North Carolina is a swing state as well, and he's in a tight race too. He's in a tight contest for re-election, so he's calculating that in his state being on board with this and not just being on board but kind of leading the charge is smart and beneficial. But, you know, even in a state like Texas, Ted Cruz is clearly making a very different calculation. And I think Texas is probably a more religious state than North Carolina at this point. No way he won't pay a price for it. Again, you know, his political

positioning is to hold down his core constituency. That's evangelicals. They've always warped with Ted Cruz. They're kind of the people that came over to Trump last in the GOP coalition. It's the Dr. Oz's, the Tom Tillis's, the Ron Johnson's of the world. Those are the people you got to watch very, very carefully. Yeah. Well, and ultimately this is an effort. I mean, I think it, first of all, it is a genuine effort to codify this at the federal level. Because as I said, if they wanted to tank this with Republicans, they could do it very easily and be able to have the talking point of like the whole Republican Party voted against gay marriage. So there is a genuine effort to actually get this codified. And that's a good thing. And it's really positive. On the political messaging front, this is part of the very clear

Democratic strategy, which is pretty effective right now, of painting the Republican Party as extreme, as extreme on, you know, elections and wanting to overturn legitimate election results, as extreme, certainly on abortion. That's the place where they're making the case the strongest. And this is another piece of that puzzle and why they see this as an important vote to get on the record right now. Yeah, I think that's right. Okay, let's move on to Trump. So, some more in the saga of the subpoenas, the investigations. What exactly these even concern? We still don't really know. Let's put this up there on the screen. The Justice Department has issued 40 subpoenas in the last week. This is on the January 6th inquiry. So,

if we're keeping track of our inquiries, we've got the Super PAC investigation. We've got the January 6th investigation. And we have the classified documents one. Now, we haven't had any real developments on that front. There's some special master wrangling. We'll bring you anything important if it does rise to that level. But these all actually come to even the level of seizing the phones of two Trump advisors and escalating investigation, again, also ahead of the midterm elections. And these appear to involve what happened on January 6th. It's kind of interesting because this is probably the least noticed investigation. Let's get into it a little bit, which is that

a criminal investigation is into the action specifically which led to the riot at the Capitol on January 6th. The investigation, quote, has come into focus in recent days, even though it's been more overshadows by the current classified documents. One, federal agents with court-authorized search warrants took the phones from two people, Boris Epstein, who was an in-house counsel who helped coordinate Mr. Trump's legal efforts, and Mike Roman, who was a campaign strategist, director of election day operations for the Trump campaign. Both Epstein and Roman were linked to a, quote, critical element of Trump's bid to hold on to power and specifically for the fake elector scheme to try and appoint different electors

in Pennsylvania and in other swing states where they had claimed the, quote, vote was rigged. So it's interesting here. What they're really saying is that the subpoenas rose to the level of outright seizing phones in two cases, but many other subpoenas to quote, quote unquote, Trump allies and other activists who were involved in the entire Stop the Steal effort who could face some serious criminal liability, not even necessarily on the investigation of like the riot at the Capitol, but it looks like the fake elector scheme is what they're zeroing in on because that's what Georgia is also looking at. I don't really know what level that would rise though, Crystal. Would it just be defrauding the government or conspiracy to, what is it, stop a government proceeding? I think that's

the charge that would make the most sense. I think that's probably correct. I think for seditious conspiracy, you need plans to commit violent acts. And so it does seem like from the reporting, the fake electors investigation in D.C. and also the grand jury that's in panel down in Fulton County, Georgia, are the two that are kind of the furthest along. But they also, the questions about his fundraising that we talked to you about yesterday, the Save America PAC that was started right after Election Day. And, of course, they raised like hundreds of millions of dollars. Oh, we're going to stop this deal, whatever. And then they like, you know, just like gave it to their consultant friends and actually didn't spend that much of it.

And now Republicans are begging Trump to pony some of that over to their struggling Senate candidates. But that investigation is tied in with the other January 6th investigations that are going on here in D.C. So these subpoenas could be related also to that fundraising. They say some of the latest, in fact, the New York Times does say some of the latest subpoenas focus on the activities of the Save America Political Action Committee, the main political fundraising conduit for Mr. Trump since he left office. One thing that was interesting about this is last week it kind of caught our attention that Steve Bannon was out claiming that, like, I think he said 36 Trump people had had their houses raided. This may be what he was referring to, that there was a grain of truth here, not exactly houses raided, but subpoenas issued and some phones at least seized. So there was at least some there there in terms of what he was saying. day window where typically the DOJ, their historic tendency is to try to not make any

noticeable or public moves in investigations leading into the election. So that was one theory as to why there was such a huge rush with all of these dozens and dozens of subpoenas being issued in this week is to try to get ahead of that deadline. That's part of the reporting from CNN, who also had some details on this story. Let's go and put their tear sheet up on the screen. The way they describe it is their number's a little bit different. They say more than 30. I think New York Times said, what, close to 40. So we're somewhere in that Steve Bannon. Bannon said 35. It looks like he was right. Yeah. So there you go. CNN says top officials from Trump's political fundraising and

former campaign operation are among dozens of people who received grand jury subpoenas in recent days as the Justice Department intensifies this criminal investigation into January 6th. Among them are former, so they have a few different names than the New York Times had. They've got former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien and Sean Dolman, who worked for Trump's 2020 presidential campaign as chief financial officer, which is interesting. And they point out this came just before the Justice Department begins its standard pre-election quiet period. That's that 60-day period before the midterm elections. They also had some details about the subpoenas, both CNN and New York Times, that they got in their hands on at least one of these subpoenas. The one that CNN reviewed said they were broad in scope, seeking information on a range of issues, including the fake elector scheme, Trump's primary fundraising and political vehicle Save America PAC, the organizing of the Trump rally on January 6th, and any communications with a broad list of people who work to overturn the 2020 election results. So I guess my big takeaway with all of this

continues to be that they are taking, they are very active. They are very aggressive. And it's hard for me to believe at this point that they are going to decline to charge Trump with something in connection with something. Classified documents, January 6th. I just can't imagine that the government would be taking this type of publicly visible, you know, very clear investigatory activities with all of these grand juries impaneled if they weren't planning on ultimately doing something. Yeah, I agree. I don't think there's any, there's just no way that it wouldn't work this way

because it's like a war on literally all fronts, you know, from the documents case to this one, to the subpoena, or sorry, to the super PAC, to Georgia. Now you've, you know, it's seizing people's phones. Look, I mean, it's possible that it all comes out to nothing, but at the very least, somebody around him at the very, very highest level is getting charged. Oh, a lot of these, yeah, listen, a lot of these people are

going to get some serious legal jeopardy. Whether they get convicted and go to jail, I don't know, but it still sucks to get prosecuted. And that looks very likely if you're one of these folks. Yeah, they don't have the deference that Trump has been afforded and will continue to be afforded as a former president. They don't get that like elite circle protection. So a lot of people, you know, in the crosshairs right now, so to speak. It's very dramatic days. Very interesting. Again, this may be the last flurry of activity before the midterm elections, and we'll

see what comes out after that. But again, I go back to this sense, which is just, you know, as a layperson looking at this from the outside and considering the politics, which is definitely something that the DOJ and the Biden administration are considering, you can't put this much evidence and information of crimes into the public and then walk away from charging because that creates its own set of political problems. You know, previously, when we didn't have all this flurry of, you know, grand jury subpoenas and all of this, there was kind of like there there was some clamoring from liberals of like, ah, you got to charge Trump. But it was relatively quiet. It was not a huge focus of conversation. Now you've really raised expectations that this dude is actually going

to be charged. And so, like I said, now they've created a political problem for themselves on the other side if they do decline to charge him. So that's why, you know, I tend to believe at this point that there will be an indictment of some sort coming at some point. But who knows? I'm not a DOJ insider. This is pure speculation. So we will wait and see like everybody else. That's right. Okay. Final update here. A good friend of the show, Brian Stelter. Let us never be said that you can't, if you are in the quote in club, you will never be out of a job. And Brian Stelter, he got fired at CNN only a week or so later. Let's put this up there on the screen, a major career announcement for Mr. Stelter. He's heading to Harvard as his home base while he figures out his next game.

How nice of Harvard to do this. So let me read you guys. This is from the Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy Center, where he will be a recognized fellow. The media center brings high-profile figures at the forefront of media and politics to Harvard's Kennedy School to work with students, faculty, and public on important issues of the moment. Stelter will convene a series of discussions about threats to democracy, the range of potential responses from the news media. I'm sure he has a lot to teach these students, certainly, doesn't he? It says Stelter is a nationally recognized media reporter

and expert on the state of journalism, its wide-ranging implications for society and governance. Until August, he was the anchor of Reliable Sources. I like how they put that. So he is heading to Harvard University. God bless those students. I feel kind of bad for them. This is exactly what they get. Harvard has long been a sinecure of some of the worst people in media. It's one of the places that hired, remember the Institute of Politics hired like Sean Spicer after he was fired. Did they really? Yeah, they hired Sean Spicer.

It's like they have this thing for hiring like failed Washington operatives or, you know, people like Stelter and be like, they have a lot to teach our students. I was like, yeah, I guess they certainly do. You've got to get fired from your job at CNN and be a low-rated television host. What a dramatic success. I mean, the thing with Stelter, this guy was just like a CNN corporate ship. Yes, it's, he justified journalism. He justified their worst journalistic failures when it came to the whole Cuomo situation, which caused their, you know, highest level executive, Jeff Zucker, to ultimately lose his job. So for him to be rescued after he so clearly was engaged

in this like cover up as well and just happy to tow whatever the CNN corporate line is, as you're supposed to be a media critic and like an honest broker, even when it comes to your own outlet, get out of here. It is a total, it's funny, you know, I'm actually giving a talk later today at Georgetown to some journalism students. And it's like, one of the things I always emphasize, I talk to them like every semester is, and I don't really even talk about what we do here. It's much more about like how to, you know, start out in the business and all that is I always tell them like, don't act like these people. I'm like these, you know, the CNN and all this, I mean, these days are dead. I'm like, what you guys need to do is hustle. You need to

actually be good at what you do. You need to make sure that you know how to do Twitter and, you know, listen to podcasts, YouTube, stay in contact with people who are your age. Don't just, you know, take on the hues of, uh, whatever the milieu of DC and all that teaches you because you won't get anywhere. It's like, if you really want to get somewhere, you got to be somebody who's an independent thinker, chase things that are really important. And I just can't imagine, you know, being a student, especially one of these elite institutions and hearing and thinking that this is the way that you should conduct yourself in the business, you know, going forward. What Brian Stelter has to teach is that if you get in good, if you're good at playing the inside game of getting in good with the boss and being useful to him when

necessary, which is what Brian Stelter's primary purpose there was. And clearly the minute that boss was down, he was gone because that was the whole reason that he was there. If you're good at that, doesn't really matter if you're talented, doesn't really matter if you have good ratings, doesn't really matter if you're like blatantly wrong about stuff. You will continue to rise so long as you are useful to the people who are at the top.

Now, the other thing he can teach is that the minute that you're not useful to the people at the top, then you got big problems. But, you know, he landed fine on his feet here at Harvard. He'll find another gig. He'll find someone else that he can be useful to here in D.C.

He's going to be in Harvard. He's going to come work for some fake media corporation, which has got $100 million in fake funding. And, you know, if it flames out, nobody cares. As long as you're on the right team, you will be protected for eternity. It's a shocking element. We did an entire thing yesterday on 9-11. I was talking about how the Iraq war criminals are still all rich, fat and happy, walking around town. Same thing. You can be one of these people. They don't actually have to make it out here like us, the actual quote unquote market. They've got plenty of rich patrons who will always float them throughout their fake careers. So it's pathetic. You can be so bad at your job that you even get fired from

CNN. You could still end up at Harvard University. It's an inspirational story in a way. It really is. There you go. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, anytime that I see a person, a website, or something else just disappear from the internet overnight with the cheering on of the mainstream media and the near total unanimity from the commentariat? I got a lot of questions. The difficulty in parsing the stories that I'm about to get into is the level of sensitivity which we teach, you know, scrutinizing basic facts and the notion that simply questioning people or standing up for a principle is in some way a total endorsement of the cause. So with all that out of the way, let's talk about Kiwi Farms. Personally, I did not even know this website existed until this controversy burst forward.

It is essentially a 4chan or 8chan style message board where people post a lot of crazy stuff. Like the cultures on those boards, a lot of it is mean-spirited and awful indeed. One example, they hosted a video of the Christchurch Massacre. Certainly, they've been linked to harassment campaigns, which in the past have pushed people to suicide. It's important I'm going to lay out exactly how noxious that website is, because as usual, the edge cases are where precedents are made for speech on the internet. Things burst to the fore over the last month after a Twitch streamer known as Keffels, or Clara Sorrenti, began a campaign to get major internet service providers to drop

Kiwi Farms. Sorrenti, a trans activist who unquestionably has been targeted and harassed by people from Kiwi Farms and across the internet, was pushed to make this public campaign after she quote, got swatted. Now, for those who don't know, swatting, it's a really horrific tactic online trolls will use that effectively involves calling in the police to an internet personality's house, claiming that they are in an imminent danger or imminent danger to someone else. This happened both to Sorrenti, it's happened to broadcasters like Tim Pool, many other internet personalities over the years. It's an especially vile and awful thing that has evolved. Sorrenti's campaign was rooted in the fact that Kiwi Farms appeared to be the epicenter of harassment against her.

Now, Sorrenti's main target was a company called Cloudfair. If you're not familiar, it effectively acts as a security service for websites that prevents it from being subject to denial-of-service attacks. In the modern internet, it is almost thought of as a utility, as it ensures those websites with high traffic or controversial ones that your service will continue to date has no real market competitor. Cloudflare, before the last several years, cast itself as a free speech absolutist company.

In 2011, the company ridiculed the idea it would take down an objectionable website, specifically noting, quote, Cloudflare is firm in our belief that our role is not of an internet sensor. There are tens of thousands of websites currently using Cloudflare's network. Some of them can contain information I find troubling. Such is the nature of a free and open network, and as an organization that aims to make the whole internet faster and safer, such inherently will be our ongoing struggle. In effect, Cloudflare's declaration was inherent to an open internet is society's problems. That by trying to litigate speech outside the bounds of what is already against the law, in this case specific doxing or someone's personal identity

publicly, child pornography, and other things, they would err on the side of not deciding who and what is on the internet. Over the years, Cloudflare and its CEO provided service to websites from Al-Qaeda, white supremacists, but everything changed after the great awakening of 2017. After years of ridiculing the idea that the $20 billion company could decide what to censor and what not, the bounds of the law, the CloudFare, changed its position. The CEO, Matthew Prince, wrote in 2017 after the Charlottesville riots, he was suspending service to a white nationalist website called the Daily Stormer. He wrote, I'm almost a free speech absolutist, and quote, I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided

to kick them off the internet. He underscored, quote, it's important what we did today not set a precedent. Prince acknowledged that under US law, he is allowed to effectively ban whatever he wants and noted he probably should not be allowed to do that. It was a major demarcation point for the internet. Of course, it came at one of the most fraught points in Trump's presidency. The entire problem, of course, is that once the seal is broken, despite Prince's promises, it has now happened again and again. Cloudfare next acted when it took down 8chan in 2019. The cause for the denial of service was the fact that El Paso gunman had posted his screed to the website before going on his killing spree, and Cloudfare noted that the Christchurch shooter had done so as well. In his decision, here's what Cloudfare said, quote,

The rationale is simple. They have proven to be lawless, and that lawlessness has caused multiple tragic deaths. Even if 8chan may not have violated the letter of the law in refusing to moderate their hate-filled community, they have created an environment that revels in violating its spirit. Notice that phrase, even if 8chan may have not violated the letter of the law. This itself is the problem in a whole nutshell. We have one company which is basically capable of this. They started out for free speech. As what happens to societies, there are really some sick and terrible people who use the internet, like Exist,

and much to the chagrin of many users in the free speech era. As long as those people don't break the law, they don't lose their freedom. Now, of course, it's Cloudflare's right under the current system. They can do as they please. And the reason I'm framing things is this way, because getting bogged down in those exact details of who harassed who or who didn't is genuinely beside the point when we're talking about exact policies which govern the entire internet, the method of mass communication in 2022. So with all that exposition, that brings us to the latest episode. Cloudflare continued after the denial of service

to 8chan to say that it stood for free speech and did not want to act in a similar manner. After the Sorrenti continued her campaign with the help of mainstream media supporters who rallied to her cause, Cloudflare initially responded they were sticking to their guns. The CEO noted that the company regretted

taking down 8chan and Daily Stormer, saying they were, quote, troubled by it, especially because it encouraged foreign governments to campaign for their websites and to drop service to drop human rights organizations in their countries. The CEO and other executives argued CloudShare should be treated as a utility company on the internet, saying, quote, Just as the telephone company doesn't terminate your line if you say awful, racist, bigoted things, we have concluded in consultation with politicians, policymakers, experts at turning off security services because what we think you publish is despicable is the wrong policy. I agree with that, while acknowledging that what was done to Sorrenti and the threats against her are horrific. Here's the problem. The moment Cloudflare realized major enterprise clients might drop them because the mainstream media started asking why they supported harassment, they reversed course literally overnight.

72 hours later, the company reversed its policy, saying that they were there is an unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life, unlike that we have previously seen from Kiwi Farms or any other customer before. That moment was celebrated by Sorrenti by the mainstream media. They cheered on the decision, including censorship advocate Taylor Lorenz at the Washington Post. The issue is the facts do not line up with CloudFair's version of events at all. CloudFair miraculously things had changed after it published its defense of Kiwi Farms, citing a so-called imminent threat to human life. But as journalist Jesse Sengel has uncovered, there were exactly two violent threats that were published on this website. Both were immediately yanked down. Sengel's version of events reveals that harassment against Sorrenti was undoubtedly

happening, that Kiwi Farms was a major place for it, but that within the bounds of current law, it appeared not to violate it. Here is where I see the problem. Cloudfare, the mainstream media, others, are effectively now establishing a new rule for the internet. If you can get enough people to complain, if you can get the media on your side, and effectively, if you can claim your life is in danger, whether true or not, you can get a website taken off the internet. Just to show you how bipartisan weaponization of personal grievance can be, here's Marjorie Taylor Greene, also advocating for taking down Kiwi Farms, because it may, again, may have been the place where a similar swatting incident was organized against her. But isn't it concerning that such a website exists? Like, why does that

even exist? That website needs to be taken down. There should be no business or any kind of service where you can target your enemy. That's absolutely absurd. When removal of websites is on the table, any aggrieved party will seize on it for their own benefit. Kiwi Farms is now dead. That's not really an exaggeration. As the administrator of Kiwi Farm says, it will likely never be available on the open internet again. I underscore, litigating the exact facts of the exact threats belies the point. The point is, this power cannot and should not reside with a single company. And these single points of failure should not be litigated by pressure campaigns and vibes. We need rules, actual rules, laws in place that govern this thing. Otherwise,

just as we see with Cloudflare's evolution, the rules simply just change with the times. In fact, after Cloudflare's decision, Kiwi Farms has now been dropped by its competitor. It's been removed from the Wayback Machine, meaning you cannot even read its archive. Iceland sees its domain in the country. Google delisted it completely from search results, and Google Voice has booted the administrator. It's as if the site literally never existed at all,

all because it became a cause celeb online. The First Amendment has 200 years of case law that established the extremely limited exceptions to which free speech is allowed to be limited by the government and authority. This standard has stood the test of time because at times being uncomfortable for whatever social movement is considered acceptable. Its existence is a recognition that dissent is vital and must be protected. The absence of this law, the existence of the human element, which effectively utilities for being online, leaves anyone who occupies any area of dissent vulnerable to effective disappearance if the right people take notice. I fundamentally reject

this framework, and I'm watching in alarm while the rules and the presence of the internet just changed, marched in a more censorious direction for the third time in the last five years. It is capable to understand and acknowledge that while also acknowledging the horrific harassment that was directed at Ms. Sorrenti and many others who are online, we have to solve this problem as soon as possible, because if we don't, the journalists will be in charge. Given how wrong they are, that should scare the living hell out of you. So this took me way too long to get to the bottom of. And if you want to hear my reaction to Saagr's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, we could be facing a massive rail strike in a number of days, and President Biden is apparently in total panic mode over it.

So we've got Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg holding emergency meetings to try to avert a shutdown, which would upend the economy and could tank Democrats' midterm prospects. President Biden has reportedly personally intervened as well. So I'm going to break down the whole situation. We've been covering this for a while, but keep in mind, as we dive into all of this, this is a completely avoidable crisis, could be immediately averted if the railroad bosses would just treat workers humanely with some really basic provisions, things like time off and sick days. Now, I have been warning of this for a while.

You'll recall railroad workers have been furious with their mistreatment by corporate bosses. Freight rail prospered during the pandemic with companies including Warrant Buffett-owned BNSF recording historic profits. Workers, though, of course, have not been cut in on that deal. Quite the opposite. As demand surged, workers have been forced to shoulder the burden with

insane schedules. Literally no sick days, literally no weekends. Many of those workers voted to authorize the strike months ago, but because of the peculiar quirks in the law governing railroad labor, these workers were barred for a time from taking any action. Instead, President Biden appointed a board to propose a potential compromise contract. That compromise had some decent provisions on wages, but left unresolved the quality of life issues that for many workers was the main primary point of pain.

After all, workers right now are being fired simply because they have to take care of routine doctor's appointments or because they get sick. So for the largest two unions representing a bulk of these workers, the proposed compromise was wholly unacceptable. An informal survey of rank-and-file rail workers found that more than 90 percent would reject the board's recommendations. 96% said they should strike once they are permitted to by law. And that date is now just days away. Workers could strike as soon as Friday

if no deal is reached. And by the way, these employers could also have a shutout, a lockout by Friday as well. So what will happen now? Well, ideally, management will come to a deal that everyone can live with. But the signs right now, they are not good. Instead, the railroad CEOs seem to be pushing

for Congress to get involved here. Because railway labor relations, again, are governed by their own set of laws, one provision allows Congress to cram down a deal that both sides would be legally bound by. Right now, rail bosses are weaponizing their economic weight to try to scare the politicians into taking action since the railroad bosses expect that they would get a better deal

with elected officials who are worried about donors and midterms than they would directly negotiating with the unions and the workers. So already, even in advance of the potential strike or lockout, freight carriers are putting an embargo on certain types of shipments and warning that rail shippers could be blocked from making any shipments at all. Effectively, what they're doing here is trying to hold rail shipments hostage to gain leverage in the negotiations and try again to force Congress's hand. The unions, who sense that Congress would side with industry, are adamantly opposed to congressional intervention. In a joint statement, they wrote, quote, These self-appointed titans of industry complain constantly about government regulation and

interference, except now when it comes to breaking the backs of their employees. It's time for the federal government to tell the CEOs who are running the nation's railroads into the ground that enough is enough. Congress should stay out of the rail dispute and tell the railroads to do what other business leaders do. Sit down and bargain a contract that your employees will accept. Now, if Congress keeps their nose out, that would leave a third possibility that we face an actual strike or a lockout. Now, the economic impacts of this would be huge. We're talking passenger and freight rail, vegetables rotting, consumer goods stuck, backlogs growing, and threatening the Christmas shopping season. The last thing we need right now is more supply chain issues, just that there have been some positive signs on inflation.

Although we got a new report today, things aren't looking so good there either. And all because rail bosses don't want to let people have enough time off to go to a freaking doctor's appointment. Although I have no doubt most of the mainstream press will frame this all as the workers' fault, given current historic levels of support for unions and public support for recent strikes, they might have a bit of a tough time trying to manufacture consent on this one this time around. Regardless of whether the public sides

with the workers or industry, however, doesn't take a political genius to figure out such an outcome would be a disaster for Democratic midterm prospects. Hence, the emergency meetings and general panic that set in at the White House this week as they stare down the barrel of a September surprise that could easily undo all the polling gains they have made in the past couple months. I'm sure Mayor Pete's got this all under control, right guys? The media is just now waking up to this story and what a big deal it could ultimately be for politics,

for economics, and obviously for workers. Keep a close eye on this one as that Friday deadline approaches. We are about to find out just how committed Biden actually is to his pro-worker rhetoric. So Steny Hoyer, Sager has also, you know, congressional leader, House Democratic. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. And joining us now is the one and only Jeff Stein. Great to see you, Jeff. Good to see you, man. Thanks for having me back on, guys. Really appreciate it. Got to work in today. Excited about that. Let's go ahead and put your latest reporting here about the Republican plan to use the courts to block Biden's student loan debt relief. Let's go ahead and put your latest reporting here about the Republican plan to use the courts to block Biden's student loan debt relief. Let's go ahead and put that up on the screen.

Headline here is Republicans are readying lawsuits to block Biden's student debt plan. GOP attorneys general, top lawmakers, and conservative groups are discussing legal options alleging the White House's move to cancel student debt is illegal. What are they looking at here, Jeff? So when the White House announced its student debt plan, there was this question of how are they going to defend this? It's a huge unilateral action, a huge expansion of executive authority, and there's a question of, you know, can they do this without Congress? The White House cited a law that Congress passed after the 9-11 attacks in 2003 that gave the president, they say at least, broad discretion over the student loan portfolio, essentially. And Republicans are saying that the context in which that law was passed was clearly emergency measures after 9-11, not an attempt to allow the

president to completely write higher education law. So that's what they'll be focused on. But as we can discuss, the critical issue for Republicans, according to the legal analysts I speak to, is not necessarily even that question about whether the 2003 law can be justifiably cited. I think a lot of legal analysts think that Republicans may have a winning argument there. The key question for Republicans is going to be, can they prove or find someone withstanding, someone who can bring the case forward and say that they are legitimately adversely affected by this and get the case heard by the courts. That might actually be the bigger obstacle to getting this overturned for Republicans. And obviously, we should talk

about the consequences for tens of millions of people who would be affected. Yeah, and that's the thing I was reading, which is that as Ted Cruz pointed out, you need to kind of have it just explained, you need a student loan debt servicer who's not for the government? Like who exactly would the plaintiff be in the case? So this is exactly the right question because according to the Republicans I've talked to, they're sort of searching high and low for the right person that could be this person withstanding, their dream plaintiff. And the reason they're doing that is because it's actually harder than

you think to bring a case alleging that the president has violated the constitution. As I said, you need this plaintiff to get the courts to hear the case. It's pretty clearly established, and Ted Cruz has admitted this, or acknowledged this, I should say, that someone who's a taxpayer or someone who didn't get their student loans forgiven or someone who never took out student loans, the courts are pretty unlikely to look at that as a justification for bringing standing. And so you need someone who shows that they were adversely harmed and not in this sort of general, oh, maybe my taxes will go up in some vague, indirect way, or maybe I should have qualified this, but I didn't. Or even the other argument that Ted Cruz had sort

of been flirting with was maybe we can find someone who's a current student, didn't qualify for student debt forgiveness, but their tuition costs, one could argue, will go up as a result of the cancellation. Maybe that's a plaintiff. And Cruz has sort of said that he doesn't really think that that option is going to work either. And so what Cruz is now suggesting, and he said that he spoke to a top conservative legal analyst who's likely to argue this in front of the Supreme Court, is that they'll look for a student loan servicer. The problem with that, as you were alluding to, is that the student loan servicers have lots of business in front of the federal government. So you need one of them to take the political risk or the financial risk

themselves of saying, this fight, we're going to lose so much business from this, but we're willing to potentially directly antagonize our main clients. And that is going to be, you know, I think they'll find someone, but that's the challenge for the conservative legal movement right now. Got it. That's all very interesting. Well, to your point about how Republicans feel like they might have a decent case here, you spoke with an analyst who

is in support of student debt cancellation who said, if they keep going with this argument, with the particular justification that they use to go ahead with student loan debt relief, and this interpretation of the statute is likely they will lose six to three, it's possible they could lose by more than six to three. I foresee this good policy being rightly struck down by the courts on legal terms. Why did they use this 2003 statute rather than using the statutes that have used previously by presidents to justify all manner of student loan debt relief, albeit more targeted student loan debt relief? But why did they decide to use this particular justification? And are they sort of locked into that, or can they change their mind and come up with a different legal justification?

It's a great question. So the professor you're alluding to, Professor Jed Sugarman, whose name just stuck with me because it's quite colorful. He was making the point that, sort of what you were explaining, in 1965, Congress passed a law that gave the president lots of authority over student loans. And he's saying, if this 2003 law can be challenged on the grounds that it's not really an emergency anymore, why didn't the White House just cite this 1965 law that gives the president broad authority and is not clearly based in post 9-11 statute? And the speculation among the legal analysts I've talked to is that someone in the DOJ found some reason, there's a bit of a mystery that I haven't quite gotten to the bottom of, that someone in the DOJ

or the DOE in the Department of Education has discovered that the courts are not likely to look favorably on the citation of that 1965 law because it really isn't explicable. And what Sugarman and other legal analysts are saying is the White House still has time, that the Department of Education hasn't put out its final guidance yet. This has not really begun moving. And the White House could still come out and say, you know, this 2003 law is important, but we should also keep in mind that even if it was invalidated on those grounds, there's this 1965 law that we can cite, and we should go with that. We haven't heard that yet. I spoke to Lawrence Tribe, who's a Harvard Law professor that the White House talks to a lot. He also said, you know, we should also just throw out this 1965 argument, because why not? But the fact that they haven't, you know, they're a really

smart and a huge team of people working at the DOJ. And it's kind of inexplicable to me that they would just like miss this. You know, I could find it and I don't know anything about the law. So, you know, I'm sure there's some justification there. So then Milo, last question then is the White House. Do they see this as a threat? Were they aware of it? Are they preparing for it? How much is this on their radar for something they consider a major achievement on their part? Well, it's a tough thing to answer because some of the legal analysts I was talking to were saying that if you look at Biden's speech, what he gave when he was introducing the student debt forgiveness plan, there's basically, I think, almost no mention of the idea that this is an emergency measure. I mean, he talked about the crisis in student loans and

higher education, how broken the financing is, but he never really said, which the legal memo the White House released said that this is partially motivated by the COVID crisis and that this is an extraordinary economic circumstance, which of course the White House doesn't want to go out there and say, we need to do this because the economy is a nightmare and people need help. He wants to say, we're taking corrective action to this long running structural issue in the economy. But that might be sort of at odds with the legal argument that his attorneys are going to have to make in front of the Supreme Court. And the conservatives I'm talking to are saying, we're going to use Biden's words against him and say, the president never talked about this as a COVID emergency economic measure. He

talked about it as sort of long-term social policy goals. Do Republicans see a political risk here? Because you're talking about taking away a very significant and potentially transformative benefit from literally tens of millions of people. I mean, I'm sure you spoke with people who will be impacted by this in a positive way. I've certainly read the accounts that you and other reporters have been sharing and people are saying, this is literally going to change my life. This is going to enable me to be able to get on the road towards homeownership or be able to start a business. This completely changes how I was looking at the near term and the midterm in the future for myself.

That's a very difficult position to be in politically to then say, nope, we don't like it. We're going to fight tooth and nail to take it away from you. So are there any voices on the Republican side that are saying, you know, guys, maybe we should just let this one go? No, I have not heard a single Republican say we should just let this one go. No, I have not heard a single Republican say, we should just let this one go. What's their political calculus?

I mean, I think that's like a genuine ideological conviction here. I mean, I know obviously like politics is everything in this town, but I think there's like a real revulsion to the premise of this policy. I don't know if you guys share this, I'd be curious for your take,

but the premise of this policy. I don't know if you guys share this. I'd be curious for your take. But the intensity of emotions that the student loan fight provokes is on par with anything I've ever covered from people who feel like this is not nearly enough to people who say that this is a slap in the face of hardworking Americans. This is just such a fraught issue. And I think Republicans are really committed to the idea that this is a bailout for people who don't deserve it.

And the polling, from what I can tell, has been pretty good for the Democrats. Biden has had a really serious and meaningful bump with young voters since this was announced. Maybe there's other things that are part of that. But that's a big change that the White House is really excited about. And the Republicans willing to fight this, I think they just really don't like student debt cancellation. And they're hearing from people who are also really, really pissed off about it. And I'm sure the comments on this YouTube video will be incredibly split because that's how this has gone. So I'm just curious if you're ever seeing that. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

I mean, I would say politically, you're always gonna- Your comments are very kind to me, honestly. Well, I mean, you see it in like, and so I watched like the way Sean Hannity was talking about this issue, for example, and they really see it as like a moral issue, you know? And so it does cut at this deep level.

Politically, I always think the people who are actually gaining the benefit and now have something really directly to lose, obviously, they have a much more vested stake than people who have an ideology and they sort of like theoretically think maybe sometime in the future, my taxes could be increased. That's why you see something like Social Security as being so difficult and why Republicans have like tripped on that landmine a million times and still seem to want to continue down that path, even though they fail over and over again. So, yeah, I think politically at this point, it's hard to deny the evidence that for young voters, this was a huge boon for Biden. Their approval rating of him has like completely flipped. He was dramatically underwater. Now he has a positive favorable

rating with youngest cohorts of voters, as I've seen in the latest polls. So for Democrats, I think this has definitely been net positive thus far. And then Republicans have this, you know, they have their own constituencies that they're responding to that are very powerful in Republican primaries, for example, and really have their ears or maybe in the donor set who are very, very upset and may push them in this direction. Even though, again, I think it's very politically perilous for Republicans to be in the business of trying to strip what is a significant and transformative benefit for tens of millions of Americans. Yeah, it's going to be interesting, Jeff. I'll go ahead. Sorry, I don't want to overstate this, because I think this is only one policy. It's kind of limited interesting, Jeff. Oh, go ahead. Sorry, I don't want to overstate this, because I think this is only one policy.

It's kind of limited in some ways. But I think we're seeing the, at least attempt of, during the Clinton era and when Hillary ran for president, there was sort of a lack of attention, I think a lot of Democrats felt, to delivering tangible material benefits for people and seeing if that would lead to more political success. And this could be a sort of a test case for that premise. Yeah. Indeed. Indeed. A very interesting one to watch. Jeff, thank you so much for bringing it

down. Great to see you, my friend. Thanks, man. Thank you guys. Great being on. Our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. Really appreciate it. Take advantage of the discount. Go ahead and buy your Chicago tickets. It's all going to be down there in the link. We deeply appreciate all of your support. And we will see you all on Thursday. See you all Thursday. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there.

Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Oddly. We got a lot of things to get into.

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

Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.