Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/14/21: CA Recall Day, Booster Shot Truth, Travel Mandates, Woke Blackmail, Hunter Biden, Epstein Update, Facebook Protecting Elites, US Life Expectancy Drop, and More!

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

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right now. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com, become a premium member today, which is available in the show notes. Enjoy the show, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. A lot of good stuff to get into today. First of all, some scientists pushing back on the idea that every American needs to get a third booster shot. We'll dig into the science there. Dr. Fauci throwing his support behind a travel ban for people who are unvaccinated. There's a new venture being launched by some Kamala Harris alums that I think you all are going to find very interesting and kind of right on the nose with that one. Also, a weird moment

in the hearing yesterday, Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, was being pressed on the nose with that one. Also, a weird moment in the hearing yesterday, Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, was being pressed on the Afghan withdrawal and how things went there. But one Republican congressman seemed to press him very specifically on whether or not he'd been interviewed by the FBI with regards to Hunter Biden. We're going to dig into what that was all about. We've got Derek Thompson on, just wrote a fantastic piece about why Americans are dying at much higher rates than any other developed nation. But we wanted to start with the big California gubernatorial recall. Today is the day, the last day for voters to head to the polls to find out whether they're going to keep Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom or go in another direction. The top Republican candidate at this point has been Larry Elder. He is a conservative right-wing radio host. Here's the state of the polling averages. This is from FiveThirtyEight.

You can see, and we've covered this, and I talked about it yesterday in my monologue. Back in early August, this thing was tied. It was really close on the question of whether or not to recall Gavin Newsom. Since then, effectively since Larry Elder became the clear alternative, things have changed quite a bit. So at this point, you've got about a 15 or 16 point spread in favor of Gavin Newsom. That means that even if you factor in the normal poll bias of like eight points for Republicans, you're still pretty well in the clear. Also, the turnout data seems to back that up. Originally, Democrats very apathetic, Republicans much more fired up. That was always the question mark is, are Democrats going to turn

out to save Gavin Newsom's bacon? Because of course, there are way more Democrats in the state of California than there are Republicans. It seems like Democrat turnout enthusiasm has surged and they are, in fact, going in, casting those ballots, making it very, very difficult for Republicans at this point. Well, our premium subscribers heard it, but, you know, in our discussion after your radar or monologue, sorry, yesterday, what did we talk about? We talked about exactly this, which is that as long as it was a referendum on Newsom with no clear alternative, the way that it kind of was with Gray Davis back in 2003, then people were like, I'm not voting for Gavin Newsom. I can't stand him. But the sooner it became about Larry Elder with about three weeks

to go, just enough time, mail-in ballots, at the same time that we have people who will be energized out to vote and could be targeted, it wasn't a late surge type thing. People said, wait, I don't actually want some like boomer Republican to be the governor of California. So as much as I hate Gavin Newsom, or I don't even like Gavin Newsom, or I'm totally apathetic about Gavin Newsom, I don't necessarily want somebody who opposes like the minimum wage, for example. That's really the issue that I think that Larry Elder is. He let the race get defined about him specifically, and it was never about Gavin. But you polled, and look, we try to do as good of a job as we can to look into the absolute details of what's going on here. Let's put this up there on the screen from the LA Times. It's really fascinating.

So that piece on the right, that graphic of California, just for those who are listening, it shows the Google ads that were spent targeting both Democrats and Republicans. So for Democrats on the left side of the screen with the state of California highlighted, it shows the majorly populated areas, San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco, all of those. On the right side of the screen, you can see where Republicans and Larry Elder groups spent a lot of their money. And it's basically all of the rest of the parts. So once again, even inside the state of California, the recall election is about what? It's about class. It's about geography. It's about so much more educational divide, the downwardly mobile versus the upwardly mobile.

It really just goes to show you who exactly they are trying to target and trying to drive people out. Well, and it's interesting, too, because when you look at those maps, it looks like mirror images. Yeah, it's like a puzzle piece. I mean, they're truly speaking to totally different zip codes, totally different audiences. And we're about to show you their messaging, also to those groups are radically different. The one area where there was overlap, according to this LA Times piece, was in some of the majority black neighborhoods in some of the big cities,

where Larry Elder thought that perhaps his background and his sort of like up-by-the-bootstrap story might appeal in those areas. He was targeting them with messages about charter schools and stuff like that. But really speaking to two very different constituencies, two very different ideologies, that shows in the ad. Let's take a listen to one of Larry Elder's closing ads here and what his pitch was to Californians. People are leaving California for the very first time in this state's history. The state is 170 years old and people are leaving. Why? Rising crime, rising homelessness, the outrageous cost of living, the way this governor shut down this state in the most severe way compared to the other 49 states. Vote to recall Gavin Newsom. I'm Larry

Elder and we have a state to save. So you see Elder there very much trying to localize the race. Let's talk about crime. Let's talk about homelessness. Let's talk about local California issues. Gavin Newsom, on the other hand, and I think successfully, wanted to nationalize this race. Make it about Donald Trump. Make it about Republicans, the law that just passed in Texas, tying Larry Elder, and justifiably because he has some really out there views, but tying to Larry Elder's the most extreme elements of the party, bringing in big influencers with a lot of cachet in the Democratic Party, like Barack Obama, who cut this ad for Gavin Newsom. Let's take a listen. Hello, Californians. You've got a big choice to make by September 14th. Governor Newsom has spent the past year and a half protecting California communities. Now Republicans

are trying to recall him from office and overturn common sense COVID safety measures for health care workers and school staff. Your vote could be the difference between protecting our kids and putting them at risk, helping Californians recover or taking us backwards. Protect California by voting no on the Republican recall. A couple of things that are noteworthy about that ad. Number one, for those who are just listening, picture there of Larry Elder next to Donald Trump, which is like a mainstay of like every ad that Gavin Newsom cut in this race. I played a different one yesterday that had that same picture of Larry Elder and Trump. There's also another image there of January 6th and the rioters at the Capitol. And then their messaging is really

around the coronavirus. They're leaning in actually to some of the restrictions, the vaccine requirements that Newsom has put in place for teachers and health care workers, et cetera. And I have to say, you know, as much as some of these other issues, homelessness, crime, et cetera, those are things that are important to people. Delta variant and COVID is still the number one defining issue. And in the state of California, in particular, Democrats are on the right side of what people want with regards to that issue. Also, look, here's the deal. Biden won that state by 29 points. And actually, only 10 years ago, it was won by a Republican by 12 points. So the margin doubled in terms of the way that California continued to be Democratic.

Although, interestingly, Trump picked up 1.5 million more votes last time around than he did in 2016. Very true. And there's a lot to be said exactly about who those people were. Orange County, a lot of Latinos. And, you know, that's a discussion, I think, for another day. But if you see exactly what was President Biden's closing argument, he was there. It was very late East Coast time. But here's what he said last night at a Gavin Newsom rally. Quote, you either keep Gavin Newsom as your governor or you'll get Donald Trump.

It's not a joke. Don't take anything for granted. So there you go. Yeah, classic Bidenism. It'll get Donald Trump. It's not a joke. Don't take anything for granted. So there you go. Yeah, classic Bidenism. It's not a joke. It's not a joke, folks. We never think it is. But what do you say from that?

It's all about Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And you talked a lot about this back in the 2020 election, which is that for a lot of Democrats, that was all you have to say. He's not Trump. It's all about Trump. Do you want Trump back? This is as close to Trump as you're going to get. That's another thing that Biden said. Gavin Newsom said, we defeated Trump, but we haven't defeated Trumpism, as if Larry Elder is, you know, some paragon of Trumpism, but whatever. It just goes to show you how Trump himself is such

a lightning rod in these races that defining it around him is the best strategy that the Democrats have. They do not want to talk about Gavin Newsom. They don't want to talk about French laundry, and they don't even want to talk about closing outdoor dining, even though it's LA and there's no evidence of outdoor transmission. And what does Trump do? Does he do the smart thing? Does he sit out on the sidelines, try to raise money for Larry Elder, his friend, right? No, he does the dumbest thing possible. Exactly what he did back in Georgia. Let's put this up there on the screen. Puts out a statement, goes ahead and says that, oh, even though the election hasn't even happened yet,

that the election is rigged. Quote, does anybody really believe the California recall election isn't rigged? Millions and millions of mail-in ballots will make this just another giant election scam. No different, but less blatant than the 2020 presidential election scam. Now, an astute observer might point out the fact that, oh, I don't know, given the fact that most Republicans in 2020 actually came out to vote on election day and didn't vote in the mail-in ballots, calling it rigged on the day before the election might just depress turnout. Now, Mike Cernovich, who is one of those Larry Elder supporters, he actually lives in California, was one of the only MAGA people that I saw even be

willing to point this out. Go ahead and put this up there on the screen. He says, quote, Telling people on the eve of an election that it's rigged is voter suppression. Trump is literally suppressing pro-recall votes. Unreal. So many of you idiots can't see this. Unfollow. Much respect to Mike and much respect to anybody who can see the obvious truth. This is exactly what happened in Georgia.

If just the number of people in the state of Georgia who voted by mail in the Republican primary, in the primary, in which Trump won, obviously, not even a competitive primary, had then voted in the general election, he would have won the state of Georgia in the 2020 election. And if he had not gone after mail-in balloting, he explicitly would have won the state of Georgia, no question. Then in terms of the Georgia Senate races, it's the exact same thing. A lot of people stayed home. He literally suppressed his own vote. Lin Wood and all those people talking about how the election was stolen. And they said, we're not going to go out and vote for these Republican senators. Congrats. You played yourselves. Now look, Larry Elder, was he probably going to go out and vote for these Republican senators. Congrats. You played yourselves. Now look, Larry Elder, was he probably going to lose anyway?

Yeah, maybe. But what's the margin now going to be like? It could be like 15, 20 points. Maybe it would have been five. If Larry Elder came within five, seven, I would say anything more than 10, that's still, look, pretty scared. Like when Ted Cruz only won by two points over Beto, a lot of people still took a lot of notice of that. So once again, Trump is probably

the dumbest political operator of our generation. The only person he seems to benefit is himself and destroys many national Republicans because of it. He's pretty decent about getting himself elected. That's about it. It's like Obama. I was going to say, it's very Obama-esque, in fact. There is one other thing we should say here, which is that this recall process is extremely stupid. This is crazy. Like the fact that, so the way that this works is voters get asked two questions. The first question is just, do you want to keep Gavin Newsom or recall him? And then the next question is, okay,

who would you replace him with? So you're not putting him head to head against who his likely opponent would be. And that's why Republicans had a shot here to begin with. So you could, in theory, have a situation where Gavin Newsom effectively gets 49 percent of the vote and then loses to someone like Larry Elder who gets like 30 percent of the vote. Right. So that's a stupid system. And I think one of the things that we'll see, it's been in place for over 100 years at this point in California. One of the things that we're likely to see out of this is I think that Democrats are probably going to change this process because it does not make a lot of sense. But look, you can see in the polling, Republicans had a shot here. They had a shot because Democrats were kind of apathetic. They'd gone back to brunch. They weren't really taking this seriously.

They weren't in love with Gavin Newsom, although his approval ratings haven't dipped below 50% during the course of this recall election. So he wasn't that unpopular. He just was kind of uninspiring. The minute that this became a choice, instead of a referendum on Gavin Newsom, became a choice between Newsom and Elder, the polls moved dramatically. Now, look, polls, who knows? Who knows? This would be, if it did end up in a Larry Elder victory, it would be even more of, it would be like double the miscalculation, the error of what we saw in 2020. So that's the level of miss that you would have to have. But you know, who knows? I guess anything is possible.

Crazier things have happened. But today it looks pretty bad for the GOP chances. Yeah, it certainly does. Trump, of course, you know, just pouring gas on the fire. Just never learns his lesson. Just helpful as always, right, Sagar? It really is. All right.

So interesting news on those booster shots, Sagar. Yeah, so I mentioned some of this, a little bit of this news, about FDA officials within the government who resigned. And it appeared that they had resigned over the Biden administration's, what they saw as too speedy of an embrace of recommending that all Americans get a booster shot after six months. Well, they've now actually come out and specifically panned the Biden administration's policy. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.

The experts who resigned there say, quote, the average person doesn't need a COVID-19 booster yet. So including the top two U.S. regulators from the FDA who left there. They published this in a scientific journal. Here's what they said. Even in populations with fairly high vaccination rates, the unvaccinated are still the majority drivers of transmission. However, and what they point to in the Lancet is that intense scientific debate about who needs the booster and when is not something that the US had followed through specifically on before they kind of got ahead of their skis and recommended that

all Americans go ahead and get a booster. Why does all of this matter? Public health community, number one, do you need a booster or not? Is that going to be part of one of the official government recommendations? Would that become part of vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, all that nonsense, you know, in terms of like, oh, are we going to get the, like, are you going to be allowed to eat in New York City if you don't have your booster in six months? That's a big question, right? All of that, of course, comes into play. But really what it is, is that the messaging around this, or should I say the mess of the messaging around this, dramatically undermines confidence in vaccines. One of the things that you most common hear from anti-vaxxers or people

who don't want to get the COVID shot is like, oh, little piggy, like lining up to get your ninth booster or whatever once a month. And then they'll also point to the fact that many people on the booster can't even really agree who needs one, what, where, does everybody need one? And then when you pare that back, it becomes and undermines confidence overall in the entire public health regime. I pointed that data out to you, Crystal, about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, that every single day leading up to the pause in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had seen an exponential increase. Now, look, obviously, it was still early in the process, but the moment that vaccination appointments began to dip and never recovered, critically, was exactly after that pause over the blood clotting issue. It was

such a dramatic mistake. And I think it's very much in the same thing where, you know, they got ahead of their skis. They wanted to make sure that they could, they're like, we want to project confidence over these rising Delta variants and more, but the actual science and specifically the scientists themselves within the FDA did not agree, resigned over the plan, now hitting back at them in the own pages of The Lancet, which is, you know, a medical journal, you know, didn't exactly color itself in glory with the whole lab leak thing,

but still, within the public health community. That actually tells you something. That's right, but within the public health community who deeply respects all this stuff, this is a very serious shot across the bow at what they've done. You know, I think it's dicey to get into the psychology of like, how are people going to interpret it? And this is, is this going to fuel more vaccine resistance, et cetera, et cetera. All I want is to know whether the data

justifies it. I agree. And what it looks like and, and what these scientists have also seemed to indicate is that the Biden administration made a decision here that was more political than based on data. Now, what they looked at that made them move in this direction, they say, of booster shots for the general population, not just the elderly, not just the immunocompromised. There are populations where it's pretty clear at this point they would benefit from a booster shot, but we're talking about for the general population here. There was data that came out of Israel where they saw for people who were 60 or older, they had better results if they received that booster shot. So that was what essentially they seized on to say, okay, well, we should encourage booster shots for the general population. But again, that's really just for people 60 and older. So again, that's not the entire population. And there just isn't

much in the way of data supporting this otherwise. And in fact, we know that through a billion trials around the world at this point, that the vaccines continue to be very effective with regards to Delta variant when it comes to hospitalization and death, which are the big things that we ultimately care about here. So what these scientists are arguing is that it's really two things. Number one, there's a risk that if you have rich countries like the U.S. having booster shots when much of the developed world hasn't gotten their first shot. I saw a stat just this morning that I think it's like 20 percent of lower income countries around the world. Only 20 percent of people in those nations have received the full vaccination.

So there's a risk that you're taking away doses from people who really need them. And if you're worried about new variants and all of that, that's that's a major issue that you have to look at from a global perspective. But the other thing that they're saying here is that there may be a better case to be made for altering, you know, as new variants emerge, altering the vaccines to better match those new variants, just like the flu shot gets updated every single year to better match that strain of flu that is predominant in that year, that it might be better to wait until they make those updates rather than just giving everybody another booster of the same shots that have already been out there. We also know that there's been a financial incentive for Pfizer and Moderna. They've been pushing this for a long time. They've been pushing it, yeah. And

we covered a New York Times article a while back that was like, you know, Pfizer says, yes, everybody needs booster shots, but scientists aren't so sure. So they've got a profit motive that may be infecting some of this process as well. Again, look, I think it's dicey to get into the psychology and it may be the case that people would genuinely benefit from a booster shot, but it seems pretty clear the data to back that up just isn't there yet. And that the Biden administration made more of a political decision than they did a follow the science decision. We've seen a little bit of crumbs of this inside the bureaucracy. So this story back in September 4th really caught my eye. Let's put it up there on the screen. And it was health officials advised White House to scale

back booster plan for now. This didn't and flew a little bit under the radar within the media, but it was a big story, which is that the top federal health officials inside the administration had actually told the White House to scale back the booster shot, saying that regulators needed more time to collect, review all the necessary data. And they made that pitch specifically to Jeff Zients,

who's the White House pandemic coordinator. That came after, critically, after President Biden had already come out with the booster plan. And I think it gets to exactly what you were saying, what the biggest problem with the White House, Fauci, and so much more. They move the goalposts specifically to try and calibrate where the public is. By doing that, they undermine science itself and public confidence in the entire thing. And so what has happened? Fauci used to say, oh, well, we need 70% Americans to get a shot. Well, we're almost there. So now what? Is it okay? What's the problem? I'm talking specifically about adult Americans. And he'd even admitted in the past that he adjusts the level of where herd immunity needs to be based upon where he thinks Americans

will accept. He's like, well, it's 50. And then the next thing, it's like 90. And it's like, wait, what? And it's all because he's trying to calibrate via his appearances on the news. That is actually dramatically undermining the entire public health infrastructure. And specifically, this FDA story has made some of the media, I think, literally uncomfortable. Because like I said, they're very much, they embraced it. I immediately already saw these pro-vaccine doctors that apparently live on MSNBC and more. They're like, you will not be considered fully vaccinated unless you've had your third shot. And once again, all of this comes back to inside of the administration itself, per what you're saying, is that the data was never really clear.

And again, what we're saying is not you don't need a booster. If you're old, maybe. It looks like it was working out pretty well in Israel. Same thing whenever it comes to immunocompromised people. Talk to your doctor. That's the number one underlining thing that we would say. But recommending a policy for all Americans without having the requisite data there, and then having, again, the top scientists within the FDA resigning over this, and they're both on their way out in there and then having, again, the top scientists within the FDA resigning over this and they're both on their way out in October and in November, then publicly

signing onto a paper, lambasting the administration itself. It's very bad. I mean, you can imagine what would happen on the Trump administration if something happened like that. They would lose their minds. If this happened under Trump, you would know about it. You probably know about it. I hope you do.

If this happened under Trump, it would be leading the news cycle. You would would know about it. You probably don't know about it. If this happened under Trump, it would be leading the news cycle. You would know all about it. And look, that's fine, but the same thing should apply in this instance as well. There's a confusing, sort of conflicting message here that I think is part of the problem. Number one, and this is accurate, the vaccines offer very good protection. Yes. Even against Delta, right? Yes, breakthrough infections are a real phenomenon.

We can attest to that personally. But you didn't get sick. She didn't get sick. I didn't get sick. Worked for me, right? So, you know, you are still less likely to get COVID at all if you have the vaccine. And you have the confidence of knowing that you're very unlikely to end up in hospital. You're very unlikely to end up dead. That seems like a big

deal. So on the one hand, you have the messaging, the vaccines work really, really well. And all the evidence that we have says that is in fact the case. But on the other hand, but you might need to still get a booster because they don't work that well. It's like, wait a second, I'm confused by this. And it may be the case, as in Israel, that for certain populations, it does make sense because they continue to be at risk. They need that after eight months, you need that additional shot. That may well be the case. But what these scientists are arguing is that there just isn't data to support the necessity of a booster shot for the general population because, in fact, the initial doses of vaccine continue to be extremely effective against the Delta variant and all of the other variants that are out there. So that's good news.

That's good news. And by the way, there's been a decline in new cases and hospitalizations. There are still places in the country that are really bad. But we also should talk about the fact that there is starting to be a small decline in Delta variant across the country. That's really good news, too. California, actually, cases fell off a cliff yesterday, which was having big trouble with Delta. Look, we have no way of knowing exactly where we are within the curve. The UK obviously had a dramatic spike in Delta and then it completely collapsed. So are we where the UK is? At the same time, temperatures are beginning to drop. I was in Maine recently. It's already cold up there. So, okay, what's going to happen? Are

people going to begin to congregate inside? Are we going to see the November, December spikes that we saw? Again, this is speculation. I literally have no idea. But really what it comes down to, we need clear communication from the government. We need it to actually be backed by science, not expectations of where the public is or not. which is let's keep elderly and the most compromised amongst us out of the hospital and not dead so that we can all go back and live our lives. And right now, I think we're actually in the best position to do that. I know that might be a controversial statement. We have a vaccine. It works. It will protect you from death. Generally, it will decrease the amount of infection, your chance of infection, both in getting it and in spreading it. So I don't really see what exactly the holdup is, but that, you know, I'm not in the government. So there we go. Yeah. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was?

Well, here we are again to remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen to our constant pleas for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to breakingpoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. That being said, the people who are in the government, let's get to our next segment here, are revising some of the things that they've said. And this is probably, I mean, in my view, one of the most troubling things I've seen yet out from the administration. So let's put this up there on the screen. Dr. Fauci in a new interview with The Skimm, which I didn't know was still around. It's like one of those women's email newsletters that writes the news in a cringe.

Anyway, it's called The Skimm. He says, quote, I would support. News for the ladies. Yes. Do it in like a sassy way. Kind of patronizing. Yeah, I was like, I don't really understand why news can't just be news for everybody, but that's just me. Whatever.

Here's what he says. Quote, I would support that if you want to get on a plane and travel with other people that you should be vaccinated. So this is something which we have not yet seen from fully embraced by the Biden administration, but we have seen in the past that Dr. Fauci had spoken weeks before mask mandate went back into effect on federal property. That did become national policy. The booster shot was something that Dr. Fauci had been talking and pushing quite a bit. That became national policy. And at the very least, if he feels comfortable saying this out in public, it will become a vector of pressure then, Crystal, on the Biden administration. He's influential, no doubt about it.

Why do you disagree with your top advisor that you don't have to have a vaccine mandate whenever you travel? And I think this would personally, I mean, for me, really just be a bridge too far and across the Rubicon moment. Because, and look, you know, transmission in air travel is pretty, you know, pretty scientifically proven not to happen. That doesn't mean they can't happen inside of an airport, which is actually where I think I got COVID, but that's another different story. Really what it is is that when you look at this, it comes towards a mindset which we have seen prevailing throughout cable news and the elite intelligentsia, which is very much like not even

offering a testing, whatever. It's just like you have to be vaccinated. You have to be able to, you don't have a right to interstate travel. You don't have a right in order to move about the country. And I think that, you know, cutting people off and, you know, effectively putting them on a no-fly list is something which would really raise both the temperature of the country. And I just think is, is just way too far in terms of the actual critical infrastructure. What do we hear every time we have to bail out the airlines? They're like the most critical part of the U.S. economy. Well, if it is, then I think everybody's entitled to it. Yeah. And in fact, I mean, there is some judicial precedent for, like, you don't have a right to air travel, but it being an essential

part of, you know, day-to-day human activity. So you can go, you know, for business or for weddings or for funerals or whatever it is. I mean, that is where I have a problem is when there is a lack of compassion, a lack of just sort of basic humanity. You know, when you have people saying, like, they shouldn't be allowed to be, the unvaccinated shouldn't be allowed to be in public, period.

That's insane, right. That's insane. Yeah. Right? That's insane. Now, what I would say with this is this is kind of, he's asked a question about, it's kind of an offhand comment. If they did implement something like this and it had the either you're vaccinated or you get tested, I'd be okay with that. I think, to me, that is the balance that makes sense. I think it makes sense in the workplace. I think it makes sense, you know, on airplanes and for travel and all of those sorts of things. Because, look, it is a problem if you have people traveling domestically or traveling internationally. That can fuel further spread. So it is an issue and there is a balance here. If you just have an actual, like, no-fly list for people who aren't vaccinated, that is definitely a bridge too far. And it's something that, you know, liberals have understood in the past, certainly when it came to the war on

terror and Islamic extremism and the fact that you could have this just like random list of people who can't fly without requiring any sort of adjudication or rationalization, just if you're on the list, sorry, you're screwed. You know, this is a very troubling direction to ultimately move in. And one of the more extreme voices on this has been Dr. Leanna Nguyen, who was formerly the head of Planned Parenthood, who's been making the rounds at CNN in particular, with just very extreme and divisive and non-compassionate, I guess I would say, views towards the unvaccinated and really very strongly in favor of curtailing all of their rights, saying they shouldn't be allowed to go in public at all. Let's take a listen to what she had to say. I absolutely think we should have that requirement. I think it was a major oversight on the part of the Biden administration to not issue this yesterday. And we have to talk about the reason. The reason isn't so much that we need to keep our train travel and plane travel even safer.

They are pretty safe, although I definitely think that having a vaccine requirement would make it even safer and probably encourage many people who are vaccinated or who have young kids and want to protect them. Maybe it'll help to encourage those people to start traveling again. But there's an even bigger reason, too, which is I think we really need to make it clear that there are privileges associated with being an American, that if you wish to have these privileges, you need to get vaccinated. Travel and having the right to travel interstate,

it's not a constitutional right as far as I know to board a plane. And so saying that if you want to stay unvaccinated, that's your choice. But if you want to travel, you better go get that vaccine. So again, travel's not a privilege. Is it written in the Constitution that you can get on an airplane? No, it's not. But do people have basic rights to, you know, move about the country? Yeah, they do. Yes, they do. So, look, it's, to me, it's a balancing act. There are principles and tension here. But if you're just really fully in favor of putting the unvaccinated on a no-fly list with no testing out, that to me is way too far. But we should say, actually, a lot of the population is pretty on board with all of the measures that the Biden administration has taken so far. I mean, I am personally in favor, strongly in favor of the announcements from last week, but we can put up on the screen.

A lot of the public shares that view. This is the first polling we've gotten with regards to Biden's specific vaccine requirements. This is from Morning Consult and Politico. So they asked the question, do you support requiring all employers with 100 plus employees to mandate vaccinations or testing? 58% support that and 36% oppose. Do you support requiring federal workers and contractors to be vaccinated? 57% support, 36% oppose, almost exactly the same numbers. Healthcare workers, even stronger support, you've got 60% support. Generally speaking, though, you're talking about like 56 to 38. You've got a public at this point that is majority at least vaccinated. You've got 73% who have had at least one dose. It's a minority at this point that are totally unvaccinated.

And so you do have a population that's getting pretty frustrated with like, I did the thing I'm supposed to do. And I'm sick of, you know, being put at risk or having my life interrupted by people who are unwilling to do it. So there is a lot of public sentiment in favor of, you know, pretty stringent vaccine requirements at this point. My one caveat on always these polls is I also remember the lockdown polling right before 2020. And then in the way it politically manifested, it wasn't like that at all. Like, we saw that, you know, huge majorities of people in the polling, at least, said that they supported lockdowns. They said they supported masking. They said they supported all this. And then a lot of

them went out and they voted for Trump. So it was like, okay, well, which one is it? This is a little bit more robust than kind of the lockdown polling that we saw, but I still just err a little bit more on the side of, I just don't know whether this, look, maybe it is the soft way that it expresses itself. For example, 60% of Republicans are vaccinated, but only 32% in the same poll say they support a vaccine mandate. So people who are themselves vaccinated are not saying that they support the mandate itself. So how does that express itself in who they vote for in politics? given how polarized these issues are, that you even have a third of Republicans saying they're in favor of mandates is telling. And independents side with Democrats overwhelmingly on these issues.

I would also say in 2020, it's a little more complicated than just, you know, people turned out to be against the lockdowns. Republicans had an economic message and Democrats had some fuzzy like soul of America, blah, blah, blah. And people care about the economy, right? They want to have a job and they want to have economic prosperity for themselves and their community, et cetera, et cetera. And Democrats really didn't speak to that at all. Their entire messaging was around safety and lockdowns and sort of like shutting things down indefinitely to the extent that they had any messaging around the economy whatsoever. But, you know, I do think that this is an important part of the story, too, in California, where you've seen a huge divergence in the polls. Newsom has leaned into the vaccine

requirements that he's had there. Clearly, Biden feels very confident politically and where he's standing. He does see that very much so. Terry McAuliffe in Virginia, which is, you know, a more closely matched state or more sort of swing state than California. Terry McAuliffe also leaning into this similar messaging. So I do think Democrats feel like they have a political winner, particularly in the suburbs, where there's been some concern that there might be some erosion back to Republicans around these issues. Now again, full caveat, do I think Democrats are still screwed in the midterms? Yes, I do. But on this particular issue, and there has been some signs actually that Joe Biden's approval rating has started to tick back up. That might just be

that the Afghanistan news cycle where media all trashed for like the best thing he's ever done in his life is starting to be behind us. And people are starting to, you know, focus on other issues. But I do think that that's an interesting indication. Yeah. I'm really curious to see how it manifests itself politically. Yeah. Because that is going to be the ultimate test here. Yeah.

Okay. This is a fun one. You found this. I love this story. This story is too perfect. All right. Throw this Axios tear sheet up on the screen. A group of Vice President Kamala Harris veterans is launching a firm to protect CEOs from being canceled. Now, what exactly does that entail? Well, effectively, they want to get paid to advise companies on how they can make sure that they're observing cultural norms and having enough diversity in their workforce to avoid having any negative press consequences.

You've got driving the news they say here from Axios. C Street advisory group led by CEO John Heans, a former national campaign finance chair for Harris' presidential campaign, will draw on the group's broad political network to help corporate America diversify their workforce. Isn't that nice of them, Sagar? Why it matters. I have to read a bunch of parts of this because it's amazing. Why it matters. is entering an emerging competitive market with financing from Antara Capital, a hedge fund backed by Blackstone on a side that big financial firms view the diversity field as a growing industry. So let me just break down for you what's going on here.

They formed a group, these Kamala Harris veterans, to basically go to companies and be like, if you give us some money, we're gonna make sure we don't cause any problems for you or the guards getting canceled or calling you out for your lack of diversity. That's what's going on here. It also indicates in the article that they're going to call on their contacts to help diversify these workforces, meaning getting plum gigs for the people in their network while they're getting

paid for it. And Blackstone thinks that this is a great growth opportunity for them to profit off of as well. Amazing. There's no other way to describe this than highbrow blackmail. That's essentially what it is. You're like, hey we control the media, we control the calls for cancellation, pay us and you won't be canceled. Period. And the people who are all involved in this Clinton Foundation, hedge fund, Goldman Sachs, former advisors, former Kamala person. Mignon Moore, who was a longtime Clinton person too. They're banding together, going to this Fortune 500s and say, if you pay us, we can guarantee that you won't be canceled. And here's the thing.

In effect, they're mostly right. Go and look at Cuomo. Look at how long he was able to withstand the pressure. Why? Because he had the president of the Human Rights Foundation, the top gay rights group here in Washington, D.C. who used to work for him, who helped leak information about one of his accusers. You had the Time's Up CEO, the head of the Me Too organization itself, who was doing the same thing, laundering information against one of his accusers. He almost got away with it. Now, Cuomo was a governor.

Most of these CEOs, they're not going to be under the same sustained level of pressure. So if you have that same political infrastructure, you have a relative confidence that if anything ever comes out bad against you, these people will handle it for you. And that is the most disgusting part of it all. It's so cynical. It's a complete- It is the most cynical thing I've ever seen. It's just literally, I mean, hush money is what it is. That's what we put in our bottom graphic. It's hush money. It's blackmail. It is a professional attempt in order to weaponize

and create Me Too and all these other things. Like, oh, you're being canceled for saying this or dressing up like whatever whenever you're in high school. And you're basically paying insurance like to a mob. Woke mob is actually quite literally becoming the manifestation. And it's sad because they do it in the name of who? Marginalized people and abused women. These are all just rich. They're just rich folks who are looking to get even richer.

So it's disgusting. Yeah, they're just looking to, like, protect their own financial interests and that of their friends and their social circle. And do we think that, you know, they're going to pressure any of these multinational corporations to, like, oh, I don't know, treat their workers well or, you know, allow them to unionize or anything like that. Don't use slave labor. Of course not. Of course not. They're going to take the money to keep them out of the press, you know, give them some surface level diversity. Look, it's not a bad thing. But when it's content free, it ultimately becomes meaningless. Is it any better that, you know, you're getting ripped off by Blackstone or jobs shipped over CACs by Blackstone when they have a slightly more diverse board or C-suite? That's what this is really all about. And it's pretty amazing. It's just so blatant. And I think

it'll be very effective. I think they'll make lots of money. I think they'll make lots of money. I think for these companies, it's probably pretty pretty good investment to protect their brand and make sure that they're not, you know, the ones getting canceled on Twitter and taking that hit to their PR. And it just is an incredibly, incredibly cynical weaponization of something that is actually real, which is prejudice and racism and people being oppressed. And you're going to use that to benefit yourself in the most just blatant and cynical way possible. Yeah, we have to- Pretty gross. We have to do a segment. Pretty on the nose.

We have to do another segment, which somebody sent me this story about Hollywood. I'll just mention it briefly, where they're starting some show called The Activist or something like this. We should do a whole thing on this. But the TLDR on the entire thing is that, what is it? They'll have different people compete on their reality show, judged by Usher and Priyanka Chopra, about how much engagement they get online and that that's how the person wins.

It is the same thing, the cynical monetization of a lot of this. And personally, I think that's where it was always headed, but I pretty much saw this all from the beginning. And it's very revealing about who exactly controls the levers of all of this. And they're all just getting paid and they're making a whole lot of money. It's really gross. It is extremely gross. Again, using people's really good, genuine desire for change that helps regular people and just turning that into a giant, hijacking it for a giant grift. That's what's going on here. Interesting little moment from the hearings yesterday in Congress with Antony Blinken. Yeah, I wanted to make sure

we highlighted all of this. Look, Antony Blinken, he was appearing before Congress yesterday to testify about Afghanistan. But Congressman Scott Perry appeared to have some inside information about some things that have been happening within the State Department vis-a-vis Hunter Biden. And so we know that Hunter Biden, and we covered this previously, obviously his dealings with Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, his trying to leverage State Department contacts then at the time inside the Obama administration to benefit his own bottom line, had been the subject of an FBI investigation. Now, we didn't actually know that much about that investigation because Attorney General Bill Barr actually barred the reporting on that investigation before the election because he didn't want to pull a Hillary Clinton the way that James Comey did. But now it seems that the investigation has progressed, that Congressman Perry hit Secretary Blinken with a number of questions. And a reminder, Secretary Blinken is under oath, and he grills him repeatedly on whether he's been interviewed by the FBI with respect to this

investigation and whether he's had to return over documents. Blinken is totally flustered and essentially confirms that it's all true. It's a very, very revealing exchange. Let's take a listen to the whole thing. I'll ask you this. I just have a couple more questions for you. A little off topic here, but I think it's interesting. How long was your recent interview with the FBI and was it a deposition? I'm sorry, I don't know what you're referring. Are you saying that you have not had a recent interview with the FBI since becoming Secretary of State? I'm not sure what you're referring to, and I'm happy to take that up with you offline. Did the State Department turn over documents to the FBI related to Hunter Biden, Burisma, and or the Blue State Strategies

Corporation? You'll have to. So you have no knowledge of this. You have had no. You don't. Are you saying you have not had an interview with the FBI? It would not be appropriate for me to comment in a public forum on any legal proceedings that the department I'm not asking you to comment on the legal proceedings. I'm just asking if you've been interviewed by the FBI since becoming Secretary of State. Again, I'm not going to comment one way or another on any legal proceedings or not that may or may not have happened. Let me remind the gentleman that the topic of this hearing is Afghanistan.

That's what we'll... I appreciate it, Mr. Chairman, but the Secretary generally refuses to answer questions about Afghanistan, so I just figured we'd talk about something you should be intimately familiar with. Have you sought to alter any of your testimony from last year's Senate investigation regarding this topic? Mr. Secretary. All right. Very interesting. And so, look, we're not sensationalizing this. Really what we're saying is there's clearly some stuff that's going on behind the scenes. And obviously we're seeing some FBI tip-offs to the congressmen there. Now, I seem to recall a time when the FBI and the intelligence community was tipping off Adam Schiff and a lot of other members of Congress. So everyone was cool with it. I'm actually kind of okay with it because the more leaks, the better. Getting stuff out in public, I believe in transparency. Matthew Miller, though,

who is a MSNBC analyst and used to work at the DOJ, the Obama administration, and was probably one of the top Russia gators over at MSNBC, here's what he has to say. Put this tweet up there because it's just amazing. Don't know what was going on with Scott Perry's questioning of Blinken, but if he's getting leaks from the FBI about an ongoing investigation, that is a very, very bad look for the Bureau. Oh, my God. The lack of self-awareness.

I'm sure Mr. Miller has never gotten any of those leaks himself from the FBI. Can you believe this? Come on. I mean, the thing to remember about these leaks is always, like, these individual agents, they have their own political agendas. Yeah, usually they're, like, pissed off. They have their own either political ideologies or, you know, some sort of internal bureaucratic infighting where they're looking for an angle in news always. So look, when you see these leaks, you should always take them with a grain of salt because they're usually not coming from a neutral, disinterested party. However, it's hilarious for them to put hand-drawn like, oh, the FBI, how could they? How could they leak? They would never do that when, I mean,

this is what this organization does. That's what you do. They manipulate the news cycle. They put out stories that they want to put out to make people look bad or to make people look good or whatever. So you should always take it with a grain of salt. That being said, I mean, Secretary Blinken, clearly very uncomfortable here. Did not want to answer the question. As you put it, basically confirmed that there is something going on there

that he has sat for some sort of interview with the FBI. Now, does this turn out to be, have any real legs? Is it, you know, the type of corruption that sadly is like completely legal? With regard to Hunter and Burisma, what we've seen so far, that is, you know, ultimately the case. It's the type of stuff that all kinds of people engage in all the time in Washington, but we'll see. See how it goes. I'm very curious to see where it all heads. But more importantly, I think it does go to show that that last question. Remember, Secretary Blinken and them, because they worked also in the Obama administration State Department.

He was a high ranking official there and actually had some dealings with Joe Biden and the Ukraine policy. So he actually had to give some testimony with respect to it. We'll see whether a lot of that holds up, stands what they've seen both on the laptop. And speaking of the laptop, this was very interesting. So you guys might recall that Twitter actually blocked the entire Hunter Biden story back during the election. I think it was in October. Yeah. Well, that actual blocking was brought before the Federal Election Committee saying,

did Twitter essentially give an in-kind donation to the Biden campaign by blocking that story, the spread to billions and billions of people on the platform or the potential spread from Twitter and more creating its own subsequent news cycle. So the FEC rules against that contention. They say they did not give an in-kind donation. But pay attention to the New York Times' language when describing that information. Let's put this up there on the

screen. This is from Shane Goldmacher. The FEC has dismissed claims that Twitter acted illegally when it blocked users from posting an unsubstantiated Hunter Biden article. Now, here's the thing. Inside the New York Times story itself, they refer to the Hunter Biden story as, quote, unsubstantiated. That is actually fake news because it's based on emails from his laptop that he has never denied are real. And you'll remember at the time they were like, oh, it's Russian propaganda. Oh, it's a plant. This is all the hallmarks of KGB disinformation. Look, I mean, is it true or is it not true? And if it's not true, not a single one of those has been disputed yet by Joe Biden or Hunter Biden, which means

what? The laptop is real. Didn't he say, even he's like, I don't know if I dropped off my laptop. Well, weren't there like three other laptops that he also lost? Yeah, I mean obviously this was his laptop. Crack addict. Now you can debate how like, you know, ultimately people elected his dad anyway.

Correct. And also, I would say that Twitter's actions in censoring this article drew—it was total Streisand effect—drew so much more attention to this piece of news and this article than it was going to get otherwise. So it's not like it really worked out for them. But the FEC decision itself is interesting because what they effectively ruled is that Twitter had a commercial reason for censoring the article. And I guess they'd been warned by the FBI or somebody that Hunter might be the target of disinformation or something like that. So they ruled that they had a commercial reason that was outside of a political reason. But I mean, social media networks could always argue they have a commercial reason because it

is ultimately about, you know, they're worried about their business model. They're worried about profit margin more than they are any particular political ideology. So it basically means that they have carte blanche to do with these things whatever they want. I think that's – yeah, the decision itself is troubling. The fact that the media still refers to it as unsubstantiated is troubling. But look, it does all link back maybe to a bigger investigation. And when we saw that exchange, I thought, wow, that actually could be big. It could be something that might come up. That being said, you know, I'm not going to get my ass kicked.

Could be nothing. Who knows? Yeah. We'll continue to watch it. Wow. You guys must really like listening to our voices. While I know this is annoying, instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial, when you're done, check out the other podcast I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American society. You always need more Crystal and Sagar

in your daily lives. Take care, guys. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, as you all know, I've long been obsessed with the case of Epstein. I see it as a window into just how corrupt the American elite is, how they can be manipulated,

how the systems of justice and power that we have in this country literally stop at nothing to advance themselves, even if it means protecting and cavorting with the worst monsters in our society. And as you also all know, Epstein did not just ensnare Democrats. He had a relationship with the power elite of finance, science, technology, princes, former presidents, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Now we're learning, it seems, also one of Trump's closest advisors, Steve Bannon. Get this. A bombshell revelation dropped yesterday in the New York Times,

revealing that provocateur Michael Wolff got his hands on a transcript of hours of on-camera interaction between Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein in the last days of Jeffrey Epstein's life. Bannon, in the reported interaction, appeared to be coaching Epstein before a scheduled 60 minutes interview that never ended up happening. He told the pedophile, quote, you're engaging, you're not threatening, you're natural, you're friendly, you don't look at all creepy, you're a sympathetic figure. Wolfe describes the session as a quasi-interview in which Bannon was supposedly providing, quote, media training

to Mr. Epstein. Per Michael Wolfe, Bannon repeatedly tells Epstein he has one message to convey, that he is not a pedophile, and said that he was impressed by his progress. Bannon disputes that characterization. He told the New York Times that actually he interviewed Epstein over the course of hours and they were conducted for an unannounced documentary series, which is supposed to show Epstein's quote, perversions and depravity towards young women were part of a life that was systematically supported, encouraged, and rewarded by a global establishment that dined off of his money and his influence. Now, if that's legit, look, sign me up. But I still have a lot of questions. Those interviews took place over two years ago, in early 2019. What is Steve Bannon waiting for? Interviews in

the very last months of Epstein's life are the definition of newsworthy. How is it we're only hearing about this now? And look, I know it's Michael Wolff, but Bannon did not dispute the legitimacy of that transcript at all. Per Wolff, Epstein himself seemed to believe Bannon was coaching him in practice interviews. So whatever the truth is, we need to learn about it. More importantly, we gotta see those tapes, like now, as soon as possible. Interviews with Epstein right before he was imprisoned and ultimately died are a wealth of information. I simply refuse to believe something so incredibly explosive could sit in a vault for more than two years, unless there's a

really good reason or other factors at play. Beyond the specifics of the case, it's a reminder how much Epstein cavorted and sought advice or seemed to become entangled with nearly anyone whose name that you would recognize from a newspaper. Scientists and presidents, the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, the princes, Prince Andrew, you'll recall. He's effectively been in hiding now for the last two years, ever since his disastrous BBC interview in 2019, where he denied that it was him in a photograph with his arm around a young woman named Virginia Gouffray.

She was accused Epstein of sexually trafficking her as a minor, and specifically leveled that Andrew himself took advantage of her when she was underage. Well, it seems the prince's attempts at hiding haven't worked fully. According to Virginia Gouffre's legal team, Prince Andrew was served with legal papers at his house. This matters because the legal proceedings against Andrew can't actually begin until he's been physically served with papers. Now, given the fact that he's a prince and he has guards who keep him from the public, it's obviously a little difficult. So get this.

According to Gouffre's legal team, Prince Andrew's security team rejected the attempts to serve them with papers, saying they, quote, were instructed not to accept service of any court process. Her legal team was later told that if they gave the papers to a police officer, they would then be considered served. But Andrew was not at the residence, and his shadowy whereabouts are difficult to track. So all of this matters because Andrew's plan is not to dispute the charges leveled against him by Gouffre, though he denies any wrongdoing. It's to challenge that he was ever served at all in New York State Court, where the civil suit is taking place. Furthermore, after that, the prince and his

legal team are charging that the U.S. doesn't even have any jurisdiction over this case. Now, none of this would matter if Prince Andrew just met with FBI agents and sat down for an interview with them. Except, of course, he refuses to do that. The man is literally in hiding. The Queen retired him from public life. He has not spoken in public in two years. He hides behind great big walls, and he literally has the police intercepting summons for him to be served in a legal proceeding where he's accused of grave sexual misconduct. Do you need any more evidence of how the powerful are protected? If only you and I had literal guards to shield us all the time. Just imagine how much more convenient life would be. I paired these two things together

because they're fitting questions that were raised in this case. What exactly is the deal? How did he ensnare so many people, it seems? Why does every headline never actually answer the final question? Ghislaine Maxwell has literally been sitting in prison for over a year. What's going on? Why have no names actually come out from the case? So many of you asked me to do updates on Epstein, and look, I would love to. Here's the truth, though. The case is just like this. It lives in the shadows. Little tidbits. They dribble out from time to time, month after month. And I doubt the full truth will ever come out. But look, if something ever does, we'll keep you updated. I mean, that Bannon thing, Crystal.

I have so many questions. That's totally nuts. One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle and Friends, where we do long long form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or you can subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. Crystal, what do you take a look at? Well, back in 2019, Brazilian soccer star Neymar was accused of rape. In response,

he took to Facebook and also to Instagram, recording videos that revealed nude photos of his accuser in an attempt to smear her and protect himself. Now, ordinarily, such an action would constitute a blatant violation of Facebook's terms of service and would lead to a very clear outcome. Not only would that content be immediately removed, but the user's entire account would be deleted for posting non-consensual nudes. But in this instance, for some strange reason, no action was taken.

For more than 24 hours, that content was allowed to remain up, while it racked up more than 56 million views from his 150 million followers. Why? Well, we are now learning, according to documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal, that this lack of action was no error, but part of an intentional system of protection for elite users on Facebook. So while Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives have always insisted that all users of Facebook and Instagram are treated equally, in reality, VIPs receive explicit special treatment through a program internally named CrossCheck. Here's the Wall Street Journal, quote, the program was initially intended as a quality

control measure for actions taken against high-profile accounts, including celebrities, politicians, and journalists. Today, it shields millions of VIP users from the company's normal enforcement process, the documents show. Some users are, quote, whitelisted, rendered immune from enforcement actions, while others are allowed to post rule-violating material pending Facebook employee reviews that often never come. So here's how it all works. Facebook identifies a whole list of elite athletes, journalists, politicians, other influencers who they deem as posing a PR risk for the company by dint of their fame, their money, or their power. Those elites are then whitelisted and exempted from the normal process of automated enforcement. In theory, human beings are supposed to review any potential

violations by those whitelisted elites, but in practice, that human enforcement rarely actually occurs. Only 10% of cross-checked posts were subjected to review for enforcement at all. Facebook's own internal analysis of the program and the special treatment afforded VIPs was absolutely scathing. A company document said the program was, quote, not publicly defensible, adding, we are not actually doing what we say we do publicly. In other words, Facebook has been blatantly lying about their policies, lying to the public, lying to Congress, and even lying to their own oversight board. Just as significant as the revelation that Facebook exempts millions of users from normal protocols, is the reason why they do it. Facebook's special enforcement system for VIP users arose from the fact that

its human and automated content enforcement systems that are normally used regularly flub calls. They know that they screw up all the time, and so they instituted a system in an attempt to minimize the PR backlash of such screw-ups. Clearly, Facebook does not actually care about consistency. They don't actually care about getting things right. They care about someone with a big following being able to make the public aware of their many frequent screw-ups. Because if that happened, it would be all too easy for the public to see just what an absolutely dreadful idea it is to outsource your civil discourse, your fact-checking, and your medical science adjudication to any soulless multinational monopoly. Now, there are real consequences to this codified favoritism, too. As just one small

example, Facebook is often central to the campaigns in particular of upstart anti-establishment candidates. AOC was able to oust a longtime incumbent thanks in part to her savvy use of Facebook targeting. But while Crosscheck whitelists most sitting politicians, it excludes their opponents, who are subject to the normal, bumbling, automated censorship of the masses. On a platform as important and as pervasive as Facebook, this type of political favoritism is actual election interference. One set of rules for the politicians in power and another set of rules for those on the outside seeking to oust them. In fact, in related news that we mentioned earlier, the FEC just ruled that Twitter was

justified in their unprecedented decision to block that sharing of a New York Post article on the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop back in the run-up to 2020. The Federal Election Commission ruled that Twitter's censorship of this legitimate political story was fine because it was based on a commercial purpose, not a political purpose. Of course, every action taken by these companies is first and foremost about a commercial purpose. It's about protecting their profit margins. It's just that their pursuit of profits rather inconveniently screws up our political system, creating biases, stifling debate, and censoring dissent. All of this is to say that cheering for Twitter and Facebook and other tech monopolies to have more powers of censorship and more avenues for manipulation is pure insanity. Just look at the lies they'll tell, the wild

errors that they make and know that they make, the codified bias that applies one set of rules to those in power and another set to everyone else. I guess in that way, these companies are really just like the rest of American society, explicitly crafted to protect and serve elites. In this case, that elite agenda has been enabled by the useful dupes whose good intentions of opposing hatred and bigotry have been manipulated to justify handing more power to the already powerful. Just another mask-off moment for the entire rigged game. And Sagar, it's pretty incredible. Like, I mean, they just blatantly lie. Joining us now, we have staff writer at The Atlantic, Derek Thompson. He's out with a new piece, Why Americans Die So Much. U.S. lifespans which which have fallen behind those in Europe, are telling us something important about American society.

Derek, it's so great to see you. Great to be back. Thank you. Good to see you, Derek. Let's just start with the facts here. Something we've tracked closely, certainly, at this show over years at this point is the fact that mortality is declining in the U.S. But I actually hadn't thought to really compare it to, okay, well, how are we doing versus the rest of the developed world? That's what you take a look at here. What did you find, Derek?

There's two really interesting points about this new study that came out just last week. The first point is that in 1990, American lifespans were basically the same as every country in Western Europe, the same as Germany, same as UK, same as Spain. And in the last 30 years, something has happened. There has been this divergence between Western Europe, the same as Germany, same as UK, same as Spain. And in the last 30 years, something has happened. There has been this divergence between Western Europe, where almost every country has average lifespan over 80, and the US, where we sort of hit 79, and then it started to fall back from that. So that's the dark side of this story. But there's a light side, too, in this finding, which is that, you know, historically,

there has always been this large black-white gap, this difference between the average lifespan of a black American and a white American. But interestingly, and almost kind of like paradoxically, that has fallen in the last 30 years. The black-white gap has actually fallen by 50 percent. And so the way that I sort of think about twinning these two stories that seem to pull apart, like America's doing well, but America's doing horribly, is that the way that we're falling behind Europe, the reasons we're falling behind Europe might be fixed if we pay attention to exactly why we've been successful at raising black longevity relative to white longevity in the last 30 years. That has to do with Medicaid expansion. It has to do fundamentally with policy. Lifespan, I think, is a policy choice, and we need to make more right choices rather than wrong ones. So what happened there? I mean, I hate to open up this can of worms,

but is it basically that we prioritized minority health care over majority health care? What exactly were the specific policy choices that created both a collapse in the divergence, but overall an increase in the death rate of the country? Right. So I think it's important to point out that Americans on average live longer than they did in 1990. It's just that our growth of lifespan hasn't been anything like Europe's growth, right? Okay. And so you're thinking, okay, why is that the case? Why are we falling behind in progress? The answer, I think, comes down to equality. There is something about treating everyone's

life as if it is equal at the national healthcare level that seems to be better for everybody's outcome. Some people who are against egalitarian policies sometimes say, well, yes, Europe has more equal policies, but it's all one big mediocre muddle. Well, actually, rich Europeans live longer than rich Americans. That was one of the really fascinating findings of this study. So the answer to your question, I think, is that starting in the 1990s, we did a couple of things that made a really big difference, I think, in black longevity. We expanded Medicaid so that we had much better outcomes for pregnant women and minority infants.

We expanded the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit, and that reduced various measures of poverty among both white and non-white Americans. And that was really good for increasing longevity in low-income areas. But we're not doing it enough. We still don't have perfectly universal health care. We still have the most inequality in the OECD. We still have the highest poverty rates in the OECD. And so the big blaring lesson that I took from this paper is keep going, keep moving toward the kind of social democracy that we see in Europe producing these extraordinarily longer lifespans, not only for the poor, but also for the rich. This is a kind of free lunch that we can have, that social democracy can help everybody live longer, whether they live in the poorest counties or the richest. And Derek, I think people will actually find this kind of

shocking because in America, we take it for granted that rich people live longer than poor people. We just assume that's just the way it is. That's not the case in Europe. You write here that Europe's mortality rates are actually very, very similar between the richest community and the poorest communities. Just dig into that data. I think you summarized it very well. In the US, where you live determines when you'll die to a certain extent. People who live in high poverty areas die years and years before people who live in low poverty areas. In Europe, that's just not the case. And this is really surprising to me as someone who was born in America, lives in America,

and I guess has sort of internalized various American truths, that like, of course, the rich tend to live longer. It's not a good thing, but they tend to live longer than the poor. In Europe, by contrast, what this research found is that if you divvy up the countries,

you know, Germany and France and the UK by high and low poverty, the people who grow up and live in low poverty areas live about the exact same amount of time as those who live in the high poverty areas. Again, not only does the US have higher poverty than Europe, but also poverty impacts death more in the US than it does in Europe. So again, back to the thesis statement, the big picture here is that equal, egalitarian policies seem to be better for everyone when we think about life. And that really is what modern welfare states should be about or modern government should be

about. How do we increase, how do we keep our citizens alive? Europe seems to be much better at it, not just in COVID, but over the last 30 years. Well, and this is also interesting because it's not, we're also not doing that well by our rich people who aren't living as long as the rich people in Europe. So I also had this sort of assumption that, you know, you have this rich-poor gap in terms of life expectancy, but surely our rich people, because they have everything at their disposal and the best doctors and the best food and all of this stuff, surely they would be doing as well as their global counterparts. But that's actually not even the case. So what's going on there? Right. So what this mostly has to do with, you know, one way you can sort of look at these

mortality statistics, and I won't make this sort of too granular, is you can sort of break it up by age, right? You can say in the U.S. versus Europe, are babies more or less likely to live to five? Are teenagers more or less likely to live to 20? Are adults more or less likely to live to 65? And in all of those buckets, Europeans beat Americans and rich Europeans beat rich Americans. So the only advantage or equality the US seems to have with Europe is that if you make it to 70, then the outcomes for rich Americans seem to be basically the same as the outcomes for rich Europeans. But it's getting to 70 that is so much more unequal. And you can throw in a bunch of stuff into our sort of

explanatory jambalaya, right? We can say, well, of course, Americans are more likely to die of gun deaths because there are more guns in America. Americans are more likely to die in traffic accidents, not because we have a higher fatality rate per mile driven, but because we drive more miles. There's just way more cars in America and way more driving from the suburbs. But you really, I think, need to look at the big picture of egalitarian policy to be able to explain all of this at once. There seems to be something very special about these sort of social democratic outlook on health care and poverty, such that it's not just that it helps the low income and the

middle income, it helps all of us. This is a policy from which we all can win. How do you rule out cultural explanations? For example, like they eat differently, drink differently, you know, eat rich or poor, that kind of comes across the income gap and more. Opioid deaths is another thing that we have to contend with. How do you arrive so confidently at the healthcare explanation and not a lot of these other things? Fantastic question. So you can't rule out these sort of behavioral differences if you only look at lower income Americans and Europeans where the differences are largest,

right? I'm not just saying that low income Americans are the only ones who eat junk food. It's just that low income people around the world are more likely to consume certain kinds of food and have certain kinds of habits. And what you see in – but you can't necessarily make that same point about rich Americans and rich Europeans, right? There are a lot of rich American health nuts in America. But overall, rich Americans in the lowest poverty areas do not live longer than rich Europeans in the lowest poverty areas. And that suggests to me, because of the universality of these findings across ages and across income levels, that a national explanation at the government level is more likely than a behavioral explanation, which is more likely to be stratified by income in the US.

Derek, are other nations experiencing the same rise in deaths of despair as we are? Initially, no, they were not. But my understanding is that as of more recently, opioid deaths seem to be rising in places like Western Europe, but nothing like they are in the US. To be totally honest, I'm not an expert on sort of contemporary European changes in deaths of despair, so I don't want to go too far down that road. But I recall reading, I pretty confidently recall reading, this is a trend that started in America, and like so many other things that start in America, seems to be mildly exported across the Atlantic. Well, look, a lot of lessons here, no matter really where you

are on the spectrum. The rich part in particular really drove it home to me. So thank you, Derek. Great piece. But we also understand you've got a book coming out. So could you tell us about the book is called, title, where people can pre-order, all of that? I'm sorry. And I think that was a, so I just went on book leave and I am writing a book about how to solve the world's biggest problems faster. I think it's going to be great, but it probably won't come out until 2023. Okay. So, you know, everyone just mark their calendar at the end of 2023 summer.

And I'm so excited for you to buy my book. Awesome. Awesome. We can't wait to read it. I'm going to buy it. It's going to be a long wait. Thanks, Derek. Thanks, Derek.

Great to see you. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching. We to read it. 100%, I'm going to buy it. It's going to be a long wait. Thanks, Derek. Thanks, Derek. Great to see you. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching. We really appreciate it. If you guys could help us out, become a premium subscriber today. Link is down there in the description. Look, we don't often open up the curtain on this, but we were talking about this yesterday, Crystal.

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