Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/19/22: Live Show, Foreign Affairs, Pelosi's Future, Issue Polling, Patagonia Billionaire, Railway Workers, & More!

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

Krystal and Saagar cover the Ukraine war developments, Taiwan tension, Pelosi's leadership future, issue polling, Patagonia founder's NYT story, CNN shakeup, TikTok security concerns, & railway workers!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/Chicago Tickets: https://www.axs.com/events/449151/breaking-points-live-tickets  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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podcasts. Table news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, 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 Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of big stories breaking this morning. We are taking a look at the very latest out of Ukraine and some new pretty stunning comments from Biden again on the subject of Taiwan.

He said unequivocally the U.S. would commit troops to defend Taiwan in the event that they were attacked. Then the White House again walked it back. This has happened several times at this point, and it continues to be extremely distressing. Also, new questions about whether if Democrats hold on to the House, whether Pelosi will continue to be the Speaker of the House, or whether she will remain the leader of the Democratic Party in the House if they lose control. So that is very interesting. We have some new polling we want to break down for you that is interesting with regards to the midterms and also in terms of the ongoing realignments between the two parties.

Stunningly wrong reporting from the New York Times about this Patagonia donation and specifically the tax treatment of it. They went out of their way to say this was totally different from this other massive political gift that happened to come from a right-wing billionaire. Well, it turns out actually they did it in almost exactly the same manner and got caught.

Just completely, I mean, forget about the bias. Like, they just got it wrong. So we'll break all of that down for you. And CNN, our friends over there, making some very big moves, reshuffling their lineup. Don Lemon getting kicked off of his primetime show, getting moved to the morning, swearing that it's definitely not a demotion. We'll get into it. We'll talk about all of that.

And we also have an update from Sagar on TikTok, update from me on the rail strike. Was it averted? Are we still facing a showdown and all of that? But before we get to that, we were in Atlanta over the weekend. We had an incredible time. If we seem a little slow and a little tired this morning, it's because we are. I don't know how- I'm still a little beat up.

I don't know how these live show people do this. I don't either. I really don't. It's a tough game. It takes so much out of you. But we had a truly wonderful time. It was great to just feel the energy of all these people in the room and interact with them and all that.

Just meeting the fans and meeting people and having such a great time. It was a real participatory show. We asked a lot of questions, and we just put together. People were super engaged. Exactly. Yeah, responsive. We wanted to just make sure the people who are at the show know this, but it was all just about thank you to the audience,

to all of you who showed up for us. That's how we were thinking about it. So from the shows from here on out, the vibe was good vibes only. Everything was positive. That's something that we really wanted to program entirely in the show. Not just make it a good show, but a good experience for everybody. Like while they were there with each other,

people were talking, having a great time. We put together a little promo reel just to show you what exactly it was like there in Atlanta and to show you why you should buy tickets to Chicago and to future shows. So we're going to have links to the Chicago show in the description if you live in the vicinity,

here's a little taste of what you can expect. We wanted to start Sager. Okay. We finally have the date. It's finally happening. The date, the announcement, the link.

It's all over people. After I've gone to war for all of you, we're coming to Atlanta. How are you guys feeling, Atlanta? It gives me great pleasure to say this. Good evening, everybody. We have an amazing show for all of you, Atlanta. Crystal, what do we have today?

So guys, we are very, very excited to be here with you this evening. We have all kinds of things planned for you. Our friends Kyle and Marshall are going to join us in a little while. We love y'all. Thank you so much. And we will for you. Our friends Kyle and Marshall are going to join us in a little while. We love y'all. Thank you so much and we will see you.

We'll see you all next time. We'll see you on Breaking Points. I want to thank every single one of you. Thank you so much. Wow. I do not wish anyone else the curse of having to hear

your own voice. But it was a great show. We had a great time. I think everybody there really enjoyed it. So we had a lot of fun segments. We learned some lessons about things we're going to turn up even more during the next show. Well, it was crazy because we asked people in the audience where they came from. And, of course, I mean, you had a lot of people.

Actually, not even that many people from Atlanta. There were way more people from outside of Atlanta. From, like, Georgia. Georgia, a bunch of East Coast, a bunch of From like Georgia. Georgia, bunch of East Coast, bunch of like Midwest, bunch of West Coast. Then we started to say, okay,

were there people that came from out of the country? Somebody came from Japan. Yeah, yeah, we had Japan, we had New Zealand, we had two from London. two people from London.

It was wild to me. It was awesome. So yeah, the people who came from New Zealand, you got a t-shirt for being from the farthest away. Shout out to, yeah,

that's our gimmick, which is that whoever comes from the farthest away, just a t-shirt for being from the farthest away. Shout out to, yeah, that's our gimmick, which is that. Whoever comes from the farthest away, just a t-shirt. That's the bare minimum of our gratitude that we got. Yeah, originally the thought was we'd send them home with our monologue. But I'm like, how is he going to fly home with this? We had to take them on the plane. It's like a curse.

It's more of a curse than a gimmick. Yeah, so we're not going to curse those people. So thank you all so, so much for coming. That's why we've got Chicago. We've got the tickets down there. If you're in the Midwest vicinity, we highly recommend buying those tickets. The pace is going to be kind of like one a month. So we've got it right there.

The Vic Theater, Chicago, October 15th. The tickets are on sale now for the general public. There is a link down in the description of this video. Also, Friday was not just Atlanta. It was CounterPoints, the launch of CounterPoints, which was awesome. They did a fantastic job. You guys really responded to it. It did really, really well for a debut show, both on podcasts and on YouTube.

So we're really happy with how it all turned out. I mean, send in your feedback, premium members and others, like, obviously. And just, you know, we just want to thank you all so much, so many of the people who've signed up to continue to fund the expansion of things like CounterPoints, our partners and all that. We have that discount going on right now, 10% as a CounterPoints special

until I think, what is it? October 5th? I forget, whatever. If you guys want it extended, we'll extend it. As you see, we have very rigid corporate practices. October 5th, we've got the discount there

so you can get 10% off on your annual membership. That's the one that absolutely helped us the most in terms of cashflow, planning, and all of those things. So thank you all to those who have taken advantage of it so far. It really does mean a lot. That was one of the things that was really cool about being live in Atlanta is to see how psyched people were about CounterPoint. Yeah, it got a huge pop.

Like, it was a cheer. Huge, huge response to the launch of CounterPoint. It was awesome. So that was exciting to see. And like you said, I watched back the show. Obviously, we're a little busy on Friday getting ready for our live show,

but I watched it back and yeah, I thought they did a phenomenal job. They got great chemistry together, very thoughtful content. And as we had said before, like their ideological differences

are a little different than ours. The things they focus on are a little bit different. So I really like having that added into the mix. I'm totally with you. Yeah, it just adds to the whole content. I thought Emily did a great job on the border thing. Also, that means we don't have to cover it

since she already did. So I was like, that's great. I was like, thank you, Emily. That was another, you know, the other thing was they get to cover timely stuff. Like there was the Trump comments. They covered it. They had the, you know, and that's one of my only regrets.

Like with the schedule, sometimes we have to wait a couple of days. So the audience got, you know, like an immediate take with that, which is something I think is important. The stuff that gets left the longest is things that break Thursday. Because things that break Thursday afternoon, then we don't get a chance to cover until Monday. So now we have them to cover in a timely manner things that are breaking over Thursday and Friday. So I do think it fills a hole in terms of what we're able to provide here. So congrats to them. Thank you guys for the great response. Thank you to Atlanta. And

would love for you to jump on top of getting those Chicago tickets. It's now open to anyone can go out and grab the tickets. Response already has been super, super positive. So very excited about that one. We'll be recovered by then. Everyone who attended, I've gotten so many amazing messages and tweets, Instagrams, like all those people are just so happy to be there. My favorite part was not even about them coming to see us. It's them connecting with each other. Yeah. Talking, you know, having a good time.

Apparently, there are people having debates in the audience with each other. Very friendly debates. Very friendly debates. I love that. I mean, this was actually, this kind of blew Kyle's mind. Because, you know, we talk all the time about, oh, the audience is really ideological diverse. It really is across the map. And in real time, we did a debate on student loan debt. Like, you could see the audience was 50. I it really is across the map and in real time we did a debate

on student loan debt like you could see the audience was 50 I mean it was completely divided and like imagine what other podcast or show

or anything can actually bring those people together and like nothing but love in the room when you have that total divide on a like central issue

right now so it was cool to see that live the like diversity the age diversity everything I mean across the board that total divide on a central issue right now. So it was cool to see that diversity and all that. The age, I have a racial diversity,

everything. I mean, across the board. So it really was, it did, even though I'm tired today, it did restore me in a certain way

as well to just be with everybody and reconnect with the people who the show really means something to them. So thank you to everyone.

Everyone from a 90-year-old to like, I think there was a child. There was a kid there with a sign. Yeah. From like a small child. So love that. Might have curbed some of my curbs. Yeah, I didn't know he was there until afterwards. I might have curbed some of my language, but it is what it is. You know, just, I guess we should put a rating, you know,

whatever in the future. So thank you all so, so much. All right, let's get to the show. Indeed. This is one of the most important things we often talk about here. There's, you know, things going on in politics, day to day, polling, etc. But probably the most important thing that we all try to avoid is a nuclear exchange. So anytime that there's an update or news on the nuclear front, I think that generally should be the leading thing that we start with. And that's exactly what happened. President Biden sitting down with 60 Minutes. There's a lot of stuff in the show that we'll talk about today with regards to that. But in my opinion, the most important one was whenever Scott Pelley actually asked President Biden about fears that Putin was feeling embarrassed and may ramp up his military campaign in Ukraine. And especially, what would the U.S. response be and the Western allied response be to any sort of chemical or nuclear or biological attack. Here's what President Biden had to say.

As Ukraine succeeds on the battlefield, Vladimir Putin is becoming embarrassed and pushed into a corner. And I wonder, Mr. President, what you would say to him if he is considering using chemical or tactical nuclear weapons? Don't. Don't. Don't. It will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II. And the consequences of that would be what? What would the U.S. response be? Do you think I would tell you if I knew exactly what it would be?

Of course I'm not going to tell you. It'll be consequential. They'll become more of a pariah in the world than they ever have been. And depending on the extent of what they do will determine what response would occur. It would be consequential, an important line being drawn there by the president, especially as things on the ground in Ukraine changing up. At the same time, though, not everything is as hawkish as some might believe. And this is always a strange thing with Biden. On the one hand, he, you know, has basically shipped

Ukraine almost everything that they want. We've passed like billions and billions. They want 15 more billion on top of the 40 billion that we've already sent to Ukraine. He's like nothing without Ukraine, without Ukraine first, all of that. But then behind the scenes, apparently he's having a real spat right now with Zelensky. So let's put this up there, which is that Zelensky and the Ukrainian government is making a major campaign to hawks in the U.S. media and on Congress to ship them long-range missile systems, long-range guided missile systems specifically, because Ukraine wants new options for striking Crimea. And I talked about this previously, which is that Biden, however, has concluded that it would be seen as a, quote, major provocation by the Ukrainians, and especially on behalf of the United States, if we were to specifically provide them weapons so

that they could strike deeper into Crimea. And obviously, the reason why that's important is that, of course, Ukraine considers Crimea part of Ukraine. However, the Russians annexed it, according to them, in 2014. They see it as sovereign Russian territory. However, the Russians annexed it, according to them, in 2014. They see it as sovereign Russian territory. So, you know, obviously it's all in the eyes of the beholder as to what exactly a provocation is or means. And apparently, it seems that U.S. intel and Biden specifically see this as something that could really push things in the wrong direction. So it's fascinating to kind of see Biden's own red lines as to like what he will test and what he won't. Yeah. And of course, we always take, you know, New York Times or any

mainstream reporting with a grain of salt. I mean, it was a really fascinating look at the debates that are unfolding inside of the administration and may very well have been leaked by, you know, a hawk, a general or someone. Certainly that is the case. Who wants to try to pressure him and show like, oh, you're not doing everything you could do to support Ukraine. Biden, according to the story, keeps telling his aides, we're trying to avoid World War III. So good to see that he has that in mind as a concern. Because the bottom line is the missiles, the longer range missiles that Ukraine is requesting right now. I mean, it's very hard to really characterize them as just defensive aid. It's very hard to avoid the implication that, you know, yes, Zelensky

swears up and down, of course, he wouldn't strike inside Russia, but these would be capable of striking inside of Russia. And, you know, I don't think that anyone can really trust that in the heat of war, if things got desperate, that there might be some escalation on that front. And even if there's not, how would Putin read this, you know, this latest escalation from us providing these longer range weapons? What they said is they feel so far that they have succeeded at, quote, boiling the frog, meaning that if we had started out of the gates with all of the aid and the intelligence sharing and everything that we're doing in this war now, where it is effectively a proxy war and Putin is, you know, the conversation in Russia is very much like we are at war with the U.S. and with NATO. If we had started with all of that, it would have been much more provocative.

Putin would have responded likely in a much more aggressive manner. But because we built up step by step by step without taking any huge leaps in terms of escalation, that their view is we have succeeded at boiling the frog. So that's kind of Biden's goal, at least as presented by this article. With regards to his comments on, you know, nuclear use of nuclear weapons by Russia and what would be the response, Biden said something there that was interesting. He said, well, it kind of depends on what exactly they do. And what he seems to be referring to there is there is deepening concern within the administration that is Putin and the Russians, you know, have more losses and then he gets more

desperate. And this is something we talked about from the beginning of the war, this idea of gambling for resurrection, that he may have his hand forced and take more sort of outrageous actions, whether it is use of what they call this tactical nukes or whether it's something like hitting supply lines or, you know, targeting government buildings in Kiev. But what they're concerned about is that he might detonate some sort of nuclear weapon in, not in Ukraine, but like a test. And so then when he says, you know, it kind of depends on what Putin ultimately does, those are the sorts of scenarios that they're thinking through. It sort of reminds me of before Russia invaded Ukraine. Remember, we used to joke about Biden was like, well, maybe if Putin does like the just the tip invasion, that's kind of what he's referring to here is like the just the tip nuclear weapon detonation, which I'm not sure that such a thing is really possible. It's a kind of all or nothing scenario. So always important to remember what the stakes ultimately here are and how grave and how serious they are. Oh, absolutely. I mean, even a nuclear test like what you're discussing would be a tremendously, tremendously escalatory event.

As I recall, I don't believe that Russia has like above ground tested a nuclear weapon since the days of the Soviet Union. I'm pretty sure I could be completely wrong on that. But that's part of the reason why whenever North Korea would do those, you know, nuclear tests like inside of a mountain or freak out. A, not only from radiation, but it's like that is just that's exactly how we got to the Cuban Missile Crisis back in 1963. There's a reason that we all signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and all that, because it was literal, utter madness that was happening here. I don't know exactly what's on the table. However, with Putin, I mean, look, we should take the guy seriously. He's got his back against the corner. We have no idea exactly what he's going to do. Obviously, domestically more precarious in Moscow than probably at any time in his presidency. And, you know, he's signaling to

the Ukrainians. Let's put this up there. At a most recent conference in Uzbekistan in Samarkand, here's what he says, quote, Putin warns Ukraine, the war can get more serious. Speaking, he said the invasion was a necessary step to prevent what he said was a Western plot to break Russia apart. And here's exactly what he said. Quote, the Kiev authorities announced that they have launched and are conducting an active counteroffensive. Well, we'll see how it develops, how it ends up, he said with a grim and warned. Things can get more serious. Specifically, recently, the Russian armed forces have inflicted a couple of sensitive blows. Let's assume they're a warning.

If the situation continues to develop like this, the situation will be more serious. Obviously, you know, casting that. So look, I mean, there's dangerous stakes here in the war. It doesn't all necessarily stop at the conventional conflict that we're seeing right there on the ground. And all the rhetoric, I mean, yes, Biden did respond to this as a result of a question. However, I have to believe that with all the environment kind of as it is with the New York Times discussing this, Putin saying things more serious, that the concern about this is very, very high. And actually, I also found a very interesting quote, which is Colin Kahl. He's a Secretary

of Defense for Policy, very close to President Biden. He used to be his foreign policy advisor. I've spoken with him a little bit in the past. He gave a statement specifically to the Times, which gave credence to this, quote, Ukraine's success on the battlefield could cause Russia to feel backed into a corner. That is something we must remain mindful of. That is directly from the Secretary of Defense for Policy in the Pentagon, one of the most important positions in national security, and someone who I know has the absolute ear of the president and worked for him for a long time when in the Obama administration. So that gives us a little bit of a view into where they're thinking and like what exactly their thought process is right now. I mean, just ask yourself the question, are they

going to just, are they going to let themselves just lose? Or are they going to escalate? Because I mean, right now they are sustaining significant battlefield losses. Obviously, we'll have an update for you on the very latest. But they also are getting hurt economically. And humiliated in the eyes of the world. I mean, that probably matters more than anything. That's very true. I mean, as gas prices have fallen, all of the coverage we did earlier about how, like, the sanctions regime isn't really hurting Russia that much, that is not the case as much anymore. Because as gas prices have fallen, that means they're getting a lot less into their treasury and it's becoming a lot more

difficult to sustain. At the same time, you know, European governments are starting to get their acts together in terms of like backstopping their own population, making so they can get through the winter. Russia has already kind of blown their wad in terms of their own economic warfare against Europe. So even on that front, things are getting increasingly difficult as well as energy prices have been consistently falling. So, yeah, just ask yourself, do you think that Putin is just going to kind of stay the course even as they're being defeated on a variety of fronts. And the pressure that he's getting domestically, and I think it's really important that we just continue to underscore this, isn't from the doves. It's from the hawks. It's from the people who are saying, you aren't doing enough. You aren't going far enough. We need to strike those government

buildings. We need to disrupt the supply lines. We need to have full-scale mobilization and conscription so that we can have a full-on assault. So that's the pressure that's coming domestically not to end the war. So that's, I think, always important context to keep in mind. And let's also go to the next part here. This is very important, which is that for a while, what we were trying to understand was the relationship between China and Russia and how exactly China was looking at this conflict, whether it was positive.

There does seem to have been some sort of green light from Xi Jinping, or at the very least, like he probably knew about it before it was going to happen, given their meeting at the Olympics before the invasion. At the same time, there's been speculation as to whether and how much support their Chinese would give the Russians. They're going to buy their oil, but so far have not shipped them any weapons and are becoming very uncomfortable. We're about to talk about Taiwan in a little bit because it actually just showed you the tremendous political response that would come. Like Ukraine, which is, look, let's be honest, like, you know, emotional, but not as nearly economically important. If that's the response there, I mean, just consider what it

would mean then for the Chinese. It was very eye-opening and also in terms of what inferior military can inflict whenever you're literally fighting for your life, and especially with Western support. So what happened very recently in Uzbekistan at this conference where both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi of India were was a very stiff arm from both countries publicly towards Putin. And that is a genuinely shocking event because it just shows you how isolated Russia is, even with ostensible allies, or in the case of India, not an ally, but a non-aligned country who's like, we're in it for ourselves. They were really trying to be neutral. They're like, look, we're friends with the, this is what they did during the Cold War. They're like, yeah, look, we'll play with the Soviet Union, play with, like, who's going to pay us

more? Which, you know, how can you blame them? All right, let's put this up there on the screen. So from the Financial Times, what a lot of people are viewing is that Xi and Modi made clear at this conference that while they'll appear with Putin, they are, quote, not standing with Putin. Modi's comments were the most significant. Whenever he was with Putin, he specifically said in Hindi, which was then translated directly. And by the way, they know exactly what they are saying. This is the direct English translation from the Indian government. Today's era is not an era of war. He specifically told that to Putin in the bilateral meeting. That was a, in diplomatic speak, that's like a backhand across the face. That's like, I don't support what you're doing. I want this war to end as soon as possible. He's like, yeah, I'll take your oil at a cheap discount

and I'll sit down with you because you sent me a lot of oil. But don't think for a second that I'm like supporting what exactly you're doing here in Ukraine. It's very much, I'm in this for myself. I'm not gonna listen to some of the Western like finger wagging at me.

But don't think that I'm just sitting here and supporting exactly what you're doing there. Putin was a little bit caught off guard because here's what he said. He said, we will do our best to stop this as soon as possible with the concerns that you constantly express. Meaning also that it appears that Modi has been saying this to Putin behind the scenes now. This was not the first time he was aware of this. Exactly. Not the first time that this was made. And that also came after Putin acknowledged Xi's, quote, concerns. So what happened there is that Xi Jinping expressed, again, remember, this is very specific diplomatic language. Whenever you listen to the Chinese, they pick every single word extraordinarily carefully. They know exactly what they're doing. And with this in particular, Xi Jinping expressed, quote, concerns over the geopolitical environment and the fallout from

Ukraine. So to have both those leaders say that to the face of the Russian president, who ostensibly, you know, been cast in the Western media as allies, but making very clear, they're like, yeah, look, we'll buy the oil and, you know, we're not going to go as far as the West, but we are not supporting what you're doing here. That's very important. I mean, that shows you how geopolitically isolated. They don't have real steadfast allies in the way that Axis powers and others in the past would have. So it's a big lesson. Well, and with India, I mean, it makes perfect sense because you've got two things going on. First of all, you have what were humiliating defeats for Russia on the battlefield. So

they're looking at this and they're going, oh, you are not winning. In fact, you're losing. And this looks bad for China. They're like, this looks bad for us. India's like, I don't really know if I want to be on your side because this doesn't look like it's going all that well. But probably more importantly, India has obviously developed incredibly rapidly and made a lot of gains in terms of their economy. But this is still a nation that has a lot of poor people who, you know, are very sensitive to food prices, furlough prices, all of these things. And so food prices have spiked and, you know, they are really hurting because of that. So I think they're also looking out for their interest and it shows that they don't really buy

what Putin has been trying to sell is just like, you know, the escalation in food prices, the escalation in energy prices, that this is all just because of the Western response. And India is not really buying that line. Obviously, listen, we've talked about like the Western response is sovereignty or territorial integrity, but rather focused on issues around the war's impact on areas such as food security, fuel, and fertilizer supplies. The increase in food costs has been devastating around the world. I mean, I really, like, you cannot possibly overstate the impact of the increase in grain prices, bread prices, and also fertilizer. Like the difficulty of obtaining sufficient fertilizer really makes it difficult for these countries, not only in the short term, but for, you know, seasons and seasons to come. So patience seeming to run thin with some of the major countries that have kind of, if not been allies of Russia,

have been happy to sort of support them in certain ways that have been critical. They're telling them basically, you're kind of on borrowed time here. Right. And also for Putin to acknowledge it. I mean, he opened his speech with Xi Jinping being like, we understand your questions and concerns. You know, it's like, we will answer them here at this meeting. Look, he's on the back foot, you know, even with his so-called allies in the middle of Samarkand, he's getting not smacked around, but the great powers of Asia, India, and China making it clear, we are not 100% behind you. Like, just because we're not with the West does not mean we're with you. So to have that situation for him,

it's a big, big problem. All right. And then let's move on to the final part here, breaking out of the 60 Minutes interview that just happened last night. So, well, first of all, yeah, the Russians, in terms of what's happening on the ground, the Ukrainian offensive continues to go forward, not nearly at the same lightning pace. At the same time, however, Russia is closing in actually on a critical city in the Ukrainian east. So this is a little bit further east of where the Ukrainian offensive had been. They're continuing also to attack in that eastern region despite the setbacks and making it clear that they're going to shell the currently reoccupied positions by the Ukrainians and to make it as difficult for

them to hold the territory as possible. So we'll continue to cover that. On the Biden front, though, this is very, very important news, which is that President Biden, for what, the fifth time now in his presidency? I want to say, or at least third major high profile time, has said now definitively that he as the American president would militarily defend Taiwan with U.S. troops. And then the White House changing their response or changing and contradicting the president after he has said that now publicly. So let's take a listen to exactly what he said, and I'll tell you what the White House said after. But would U.S. forces defend the island? Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack. After our interview, a White House official told us U.S. policy has not changed. Officially,

the U.S. will not say whether American forces would defend Taiwan, but the commander-in-chief had a view of his own. So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, U.S. forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Yes. He said it as clear as day. He said it. He said it now three times. He did not leave himself any wiggle room, right? Because the first response was like, in the event of, what are you saying, unprecedented attack. Yeah. Okay, well, maybe you could spin that as like, oh, well, this attack didn't meet the standard of unprecedented.

But at the end, he's like, so let's be clear. Unlike Ukraine, where we didn't commit this on the ground, with Taiwan you would, and he says flat out yes. Right. Then the White House once again says, no, policy hasn't changed, strategic ambiguity, all of this. The U.S. maintains strategic, this is from the U.S., from the State Department and from the White House, quote, the U.S. maintains strategic ambiguity on whether American forces would defend Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act obligates the U.S. to help equip Taiwan to defend itself. That's not congruent with what he said.

This is like whenever he did the, by God, this man cannot remain in power. And the White House is like, oh, no, this is not a declaration of regime change in Russia. We're like, yeah, but he's the president. Like, he's the one who gets to decide the policy. As far as I'm concerned, President Biden now has made it very clear exactly what he's going to do in Taiwan. And the reason why this is so dangerous is mixed signals when you're dealing with nuclear powers is the exact opposite of what you want to do. Okay, you said you're going to defend Taiwan. Stick to it then. That's now the policy of the US government. Now you should maintain that. And at the very least, let's get the possible deterrent effect

that that may have in the future. But now if you're Xi Jinping, you're like, what is the policy? Who is running the government? Because if I go, is Biden going to do it? Does he even run the government? Is it the White House? Like, you know, I mean, to them too, the idea that the American president can say something and then be contradicted by his own government, that makes no sense to the Chinese. So they're like, I don't know what the hell is happening here. I was actually, after I read that piece about, like, Biden war and we don't want World War III and all this stuff, I was like, okay, like, I've got some disagreements, but at least these things. And then I saw this and I was like, what the hell is going on here? I mean, this is insane.

China is not Russia. Like the people who think we could do the same thing to China that we've done to Russia and like cut ourselves off economically. You're smoking something because the level of economic interdependence between us and China, forget about it. Did we not learn this lesson during the pandemic when it was like, oh, guess what? We don't have masks. Guess what? We don't have enough materials for the shots. We rely on them for everything, for gowns, for PPE, for everything. And you think that we're anywhere close to being able to have the same response with China that we have with Russia? That is bananas. Not to mention how many Americans are out there clamoring

for a war with China. Like, you want to talk about World War III, let's talk about a direct military conflict with China, which is exactly what he is floating, not just floating here, saying definitively that he is on board for. So this is insane. And then you add to it the total contradiction between what he's saying and what the White House is trying to spin. And what, it's a disaster. It's a total mess. My thing is, is like, look, if that's a policy, then you need to orient all U.S. forces towards that. But this might, you know, Bridge Colby, who we've had on the show, has discussed this. He's like, look, if that's actually the policy, he's like, you have to change literally everything about the U.S. military, about the U.S. alliance, about our economy. You

need to prepare like all of this, because otherwise, if you stick by this policy, exactly for the reasons that you're saying, you could both possibly lose a war with China and you could suffer complete economic catastrophe. I mean, it would be an economic catastrophe regardless, just because of interdependence with Taiwan. Absolutely. The other problem, too, is that the spokesperson for the Chinese government, obviously they see this and they're immediately saying that this is severely jeopardizing China-U.S. relations, stability in the Taiwan Strait. China is firmly opposed to this. And another problem is that I was reading actually very recently that ever since the Pelosi visit to Taiwan, once again, the Chinese government does not believe that the U.S. government had nothing to do with that visit. They're like,

I don't believe that President Biden didn't want her to go. I don't really believe it either. I don't really know. I mean, I think that she is enough of a narcissist to go. I certainly don't blame China for reading it that way because I'm not convinced that Biden didn't green light it either. Right. So like, I don't know. Anyway, if I'm the Chinese and I grew up in an authoritarian system, I'm like, I straight up just don't believe like so-called co-equal branches of government. So I get it from their perspective. And at the end of the day, their perspective, you know, matters equally as much as ours does. Well, there has apparently been almost a near total diplomatic cutoff between Beijing and Washington ever since then.

Remember when they fired those missiles around the Taiwan Strait after the Pelosi visit, there was no military deconfliction pickup by the Chinese military. So once again, if you want that policy, I think that's fine. But then you need to be 100% committed to that, and then we should at the very least get the deterrent effect and prepare the U.S. Armed Forces and the U.S. military and the U.S. population for democratic buy-in, if such a thing were going to happen. But you can't just offhand say these things like you did with regime change and then also have the White House directly contradict you. It's incredibly dangerous for the future. I really think it's more destabilizing as if he didn't just commit to it in the first place. Yeah. And I mean, I don't think it's fine in any regard, even if we were aggressively preparing our military economy or whatever. We have taken some small, tepid steps like the CHIPS Act

towards being more economically independent, that's good. But we are nowhere there. And I don't want a war with China. I don't want World War III. That would be a disaster. The bottom line here. And even the policy that we've sort of ramped up, weapons shipments to Taiwan. I mean, now they feel like, okay, we've got a playbook with what we did in Ukraine, which again, even that, thinking that is insane because China and Russia, totally different situation. But that seems to be what they're thinking. So they've ramped up weapons shipments to Taiwan.

And even that is a really double-edged sword. Like, I understand the impulse of, like, let's arm them so that they are really prepared in case there is some sort of invasion. But the other thing that can happen here, which may have been what happened with Ukraine, is that China feels like, oh, since we're arming them and we're shipping them all these weapons, making it more difficult for them, it's like, we got to go now or never or else it's going to be more difficult. Because that's what some people think happened basically with Ukraine. When we started arming them, when we started training them, there was a sense of Putin of like, I've got to act now before they get further down this road. And it becomes impossible to take over this country ultimately.

I think it's possible. I actually think it probably would have much less to do with us and a lot more to do with China and domestic political conditions there. I don't really think it would have as much to do with U.S. I mean, we've been arming the Taiwanese since like 1973. So nothing we're doing right now is unprecedented. More what it would be is if they genuinely believe that their moment is now and they have no other choice, and also to stick with the 2025 plan and the 100-year anniversary of the CCP and Mao's revolution or whatever. I think it would have a lot more to do with that. And also, if he especially had economic collapse and they needed the population in China

to be united around something. I mean, people forget this. The Chinese population actually does really agree with the Chinese government on Taiwan. It's an uncomfortable truth, but it's true. It's kind of in the way that Russians believe that Ukraine really is an independent country. Most Russians believe that. Most Chinese also believe that about Taiwan. The idea that they don't have domestic political support on this is very, very misguided. So they have their own domestic political concerns. I think that would probably fuel their thinking more than anything. Look, I honestly have no idea. I do think they probably had to learn something from Ukraine. I mean, they have to learn that it wouldn't be costless, that they couldn't just, quote unquote, get away with it. So anyway, I have no idea.

Troubling. Troubling situation. We'll leave it at that. Okay, let's turn to the domestic political front. Some pretty interesting reporting about how Democrats are feeling about the leadership of Nancy Pelosi. Let's go ahead and put this first part up on the screen. CNN was the outlet that was of the quotes here from Democratic members of the House who basically are saying, look, if we win the House, I guess we'll give Pelosi the speakership again. But if they lose the majority, quote, the dynamics change. I think it changes the game. If you dig into this article, they interviewed more than two dozen House Democrats. That seemed to be the consensus that among most of them that, quote, if they lose the majority, there would be overwhelming pressure for Pelosi to go. A prospect that Democratic sources say the House speaker is keenly aware of. If they do hold control, it could lead to Pelosi extending her time in power.

But Democrats are split about that possibility. A sizable contingent is eager for new leadership regardless of the outcome, even if she would be the heavy favorite to hold on to the gavel. Now, the thing that is always interesting to me about this is that the like corporatists and the centrists are willing to go so much harder than the lefties. So AOC is quoted in here and it's very squishy. Yeah. What does she say? She says, I think if we're in a minority, then I think that the desire for change will be broader, potentially within the party. But I think that desire exists. We saw and heard that desire in the last few terms, the Democrats were the majority. So it really is just a question of not if people want that, but how many. Whereas you've got, you know, you've got a senior, another senior

like corporatist Democrat here who says she has to go. No way she can stay. She doesn't have the votes. So always interesting to me that the, but, and part of that is that the people who challenge her from the right, like they get forgiven for it. You know, I mean, there was a sort of like uprising in 2016, was it? Where it was like, okay, we might make a run from the right at pushing Pelosi out of power. Those people were all welcome back in with open arms. Whereas if it was a lefty challenge, then forget it. They would be, you know, excised from the party and demonized as Russian traitors or whatever forever. I also thought that there was an interesting quote here from Henry Cuellar, who, you know, Pelosi really went to bat for,

dragged him across the finish line in his primary where he was facing a challenger to his left. And you see very clearly in this article why she was so committed to keeping him. Cuellar says, I support Pelosi. I'll support her for whatever position. totally at odds with her on any number of other issues that she still backed him and dragged him across the finish line because ultimately he was going to be there for her in the vote that most is most important to her. So if she does go, who would be the replacements? This is also very interesting. The two that are always floated, Hakeem Jeffries in particular, I think is the person who's floated the most, Democrat out of the New York area. What does he represent? Brooklyn, I think. And then you have Adam Schiff, who, you know, you guys know who Adam Schiff is.

But in this article, they say that two of the current deputies, Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn, are also thinking about it. Which, like, if your case is Pelosi's too old, these dudes are just as old. So that's the piece. Go ahead and put that tweet back up on the screen. They say, much attention on Pelosi's plans, but also Steny Hoyer has privately indicated to allies he would run for the top job if Pelosi bowed out. According to multiple Democratic sources, I don't think we're ruling out anything Hoyer said, and Clyburn is also keeping options open. So there you go. That's the state of play. Pretty interesting. Yeah, I mean, and Steny Hoyer is a whopping 83 years old, just so everyone knows.

He's actually older than Nancy Pelosi. I believe Clyburn is also up. That's actually what strikes me more than that. I'm like, God, is there nobody 40, I mean, even 55. I'd take it. You know, it's like at this point, like, how is there not a bench of any real leadership? I really do think that they have done themselves a tremendous disservice. We were looking, I was looking at a graph recently about average age in Congress and the recent spike to the 70s and 80s, especially in leadership. That's a very recent phenomenon. It really only happened in the last like 25 years.

And much of it is because of Pelosi and the people around her is her complete inability to let go of power. I mean, Clyburn is a very malevolent influence in politics, as is Adam Schiff. I mean, none of these people that are floating are an improvement over Pelosi. In fact, several of them are actually worse. Like, Clyburn is probably the reason Kamala Harris is vice president, really. He's the one that, you know, kneecaps the left in the primary. Ultimately, Biden's able to win. He is a big part of the reason that the Democratic Party stays so closely aligned to corporate power and never breaks that hard and fast alliance. So the idea of him stepping in as speaker is, you know, it's not a good one, in my opinion. None of these, as I said, is any improved. Adam Schiff, I mean, at least with Pelosi, you got to say, like, she is relatively effective at keeping

the caucus in line. She's kind of politically savvy and, like, strategic and tactically savvy. Like, these people, I don't think they have that level of tactical skill, and they're ideologically all terrible. So not an improvement, in my opinion, any of this. They discuss the possibility of Pelosi either stepping aside or being pushed out on CNN. Let's take a listen to a little bit of how that went. But it is really an open question. You have this situation where we have three leaders of Democratic leadership who have been there for a very long time. And so there's a lot of interest in coming up the ranks.

Any women? Any women? There are women who are in consideration for other posts, but the top job is probably going to not be a woman at this point. We'll see. It's too early to tell where this will go. So CNN's top concern there is, you know, any women. It's like, who is the woman? Where is the woman? As if that's the thing that matters here. Yeah, apparently that's the most important thing. Not what they believe, you know, this typical, anyway, there's a reason that lady is losing

her job, or at the very least, losing her primetime slot on CNN, or whatever, morning show slot on CNN. Yes, we're getting to that later in the show, the CNN shakeup, but I don't know. I mean, I don't really buy that Pelosi is going to step aside. I don't either. Especially if they do hold on to the majority, which I think is unlikely, but, you know, theoretically possible. I don't see any way she steps aside. And she supposedly, you know, back when she did face this, like, leadership threat before, she made a deal with them that

it was like, I'm going to step aside in four years. Now it was like an unofficial deal and no one should have ever taken her word for it. But clearly, you know, she's sort of thrown those calculations aside. So I don't know. I do think she has that narcissistic tendency to feel like, oh, the Republic, future of the Republic depends on me staying in this position and no one could possibly replace me. So I'm going to have to stay here no matter what. And I also, you know, I don't think any of these potential replacements, they're all close allies of Pelosi. So are they really going to step up and like mount this direct challenge to her? I find it a little bit hard to believe, but it is interesting that you have, you know, a significant number of members right now saying that they think

it's time to move on and that they think she'll be replaced. I think you're right. I, yeah, I mean, I think she's too much of a narcissist to actually let go.

She's intimated in the past, like, maybe I'll leave, maybe I won't. She always ends up staying. I honestly think she'll just die in office. Like, I don't think that she has it in her

to step down. Well, at the very least, yeah, I mean, look at how much, she just loves being fed at all. She's in like Armenia right now. You know, she loves to travel. She's always on board. The military escort plane is like part of the, you know, the actual line of succession for the U.S. government. I think she just really likes the flex of being speaker. You know, being minority leader in the House is not an insignificant position either. You also still have tremendous responsibility. So it wouldn't surprise me for

a second if she stayed on. Yeah, me neither. We've got some new polling about how things are shaking out for the midterms. Let's put this first piece up on the screen. This is from NBC News. Mark Murray tweeting here that the GOP has huge issue handling leads on the economy, crime, and border slash immigration. Dems have leads, big leads on abortion and healthcare. And you can see the graph there over on the side. I mean, the biggest area where Republicans have a lead appears to be border security, but pretty close behind is the economy, which obviously continues to be a really important issue for people, as it always is. Overall, in this poll, you had a tie in terms

of the generic ballot. So that's when you ask people, hey, would you rather have a Democrat or Republican as your member of Congress? That's the generic ballot, and it came in at a tie. Now, Democrats previously had a deficit on that measure, so that represents an improvement. But if they were actually going to hold on to the House, most analysts think they would have to be ahead by several points on that metric just because of the way the districts are drawn and gerrymandering and the fact that you pretty consistently have Republican support understated in these polls. Interesting also, let's put this next piece on the breakdown, demographic breakdown of who supports the Dems and who supports the GOP in the 2022 midterms. As I said, overall, it's 46 to 46,

so it's a tie among white voters overall, Republicans with a sizable advantage, 41 for Democrats, 54 for Republicans. Huge college split, so white people with a college degree, 58% backing Democrats, 38% Republicans. Without a college degree, those numbers are totally flipped and even more lopsided, 31 for Democrats, 64 for Republicans. Black voters still overwhelmingly with Democrats. Democrats with a narrow lead among Latinos, 46-42. We're going to dig into that a little bit more. And there's a sizable gender gap here, too. Women are backing Democrats, Democrats 53-40. Men are backing Republicans, 39 for Democrats, 53 for Republicans. So that is kind of the overall picture that is coming out of this NBC News poll. Yeah, it's interesting. Also, whenever you're looking even more into the breakdown in terms of what voters care about and what they also believe about the economy, it matters a lot.

63% of voters believe their income has fallen behind the cost of living. 58% disapprove of Biden's handling of the economy. So even though you have like that 46-46, something during the 2020 campaign, something I would always hear from the Trump folks was, yes, you look at all that, but look at his economic numbers. And always he was either tied or slightly above Joe Biden. towards Republicans, again, at 47 to 28, in terms of who you think is going to handle things better, that's just a tremendous lead that it's going to be very, very hard to decouple from. And, you know, demographics and all that other stuff aside, the one thing that we all have to deal with is prices. And whenever prices are high, as they are right now, 8.2, I think, percent inflation, highest in over 40 years, there's just going to be a price for that. I don't think there's any way to spin it, Crystal.

And abortion and all that other stuff aside, structurally, like, things are looking pretty good. I mean, so we actually, down in Atlanta, we gave our predictions for the midterms. Yes, we're giving away hair, too. Yeah, shameless prognostications that I'm sure will backfire and blow up in our faces, but what the hell. And I think people were a little bit surprised that I did pick Republicans not only to take the House, which to me is, you know, that's an easy one to make. I think it's pretty certain just because of the advantages they have structurally that they'll probably take the House. They only need to pick up a few seats. But I also, if I had to say, would still predict that they win the Senate. And I know that, you know, 538 and these

other metrics say that Democrats are very much favored to hold on to the Senate. The polling looks pretty good for them in all of the battleground states and even in some surprising places like Wisconsin and Ohio. Those ones I discount entirely. But ultimately, this is going to come down to likely very close races in states like Georgia and in states like Nevada. And they only have to net one seat. So if they win those two, which again, the polling is extremely close on, Republicans win control of the Senate. And when I look at the economic numbers, when I look at the fact that Republicans still have an advantage in terms of how they would manage the economy and a significant advantage, the economy is still the number one issue people are talking about. The economy is always the number one issue

that people vote on election after election. Like we always have to relearn this lesson. When you look at the fact that, yeah, Biden's approval is a little better, but it's still not good when you still have so many people saying the nation is on the wrong track and you have the historic precedent of the party in power doing poorly in this first midterm election, it's just hard for me to really believe that abortion is going to be enough to completely turn the fortunes around for Democrats. Now, is it going to be closer than expected? Yes, of course. Now they have a shot. They didn't have a shot before. And it really is sort of balanced on a knife edge. But when I look at

numbers like this, I do feel like it's just so hard to overcome that economic deficit that even if you have this newly motivated, you know, women in particular, young people maybe around student loan debt, it's still a really uphill climb for Democrats to be able to overcome in a state like Georgia or a state like Nevada where the Senate will be won or lost. So we'll see how it all shakes out. It's still a long way to go before November. God knows what will happen between now and then. But even as Democrats have very much improved their positioning, I still think it's going to be a tough hill to climb. All right. Cosign all of that. And yeah, I think it's very important just to underscore why that is such an important dynamic. And all the polls, exciting ones,

which are probably fake and completely wrong, just like they were in 2020, it's more of a bet on that and not always just bet on the absolute, quote-unquote, fundamental that has ruled American politics now for decades, which is it's the economy, stupid. It's a joke and a meme for a reason because it literally is basically the only thing that really matters whenever people come to the

ballot box. So at the same time, we had a new deep dive into how Latino voters are feeling, what party they're identifying with at this point in time. This one came from the New York Times that did a poll just of, it was New York Times and Siena College that did like an oversample of Latino voters to dig in and get some insights here. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. They say a majority of Latino voters are out of GOP's reach. A New York Times, Siena College poll found Democrats far worse than they have in past with Hispanic voters. But overall, the party has maintained a hold on the Latino electorate. And so what they're seeing here is obviously there has been some realignment, especially among young, working class Latino males. Huge shift towards Republicans.

There is weakness for Democrats in some areas. And I think it also, I mean, the big thing you get out of this is like, we talk about the Latino community, like that's a fiction. There's a very different picture in the South with Latino voters than in other parts of the country. So in the South, you've had more of a realignment, especially in Florida and Texas towards Republicans than you haven't had in other parts of the country. They say that Democrats have maintained a grip on the majority of Latino voters driven in part by women and the belief that Democrats remain the party of the working class. Overall, Hispanics are more likely to agree with Democrats on many issues, including immigration,

gun policy, and climate, and they are also more likely to see Republicans as the party of the elite and is holding extreme views. Majority of Hispanic voters, 56%, still plan to vote for Democrats this fall, compared with 32% for Republicans. But again, the trouble spots are, you know, handling of the economy. Trouble spots are, there is a sizable chunk of the Latino electorate that does agree with Republicans on issues like crime and the border. So, and they also, they asked about Latinx. And they found basically like,

they didn't really like the term, but they were like offended by it. So anyway, that's kind of the big picture is they're trying to make the case that even though there has been some shift towards the GOP, there's still a bulk of Hispanic voters that identify more with the Democrats and feel like the Democrats are still the party of the world.

Yeah, I just still felt like it's a bit cope, which is that nobody's ever claimed that Republicans are winning the majority of Latinos. The whole point is that if it's even 55-45, it's actually a huge disaster because they were winning it by 75-25 like five years ago. So what happened? Go and look at the margins on Obama. Compare this to the expectations of the Democratic Party just a few cycles back,

especially when, back in 2012, you know, all the way up through Trump's first election when the thought was because his rhetoric was so extreme

in terms of the border and immigration that you'd have a flood of Latinos in the Democratic camp. I mean, this was actually fierce all the way. Republicans were secretly

very afraid of this as well. Yes, this was, Mitt Romney believed this. Yeah. You're correct. Yeah, and there was, I remember after 2012, there's an autopsy where you even had people like Sean Hannity saying like, ah, we got to soften on immigration. We got to reach out to this constituency in a different way, which was also very all around the whole political class. The idea that you could just, that immigration was the only issue that this large and extraordinarily

diverse group of voters cared about was always really, I mean, frankly, racist and incredibly essentializing. So there was that mistake. And then obviously after 2016 and then in 2020, when Trump gains with this demographic, it's like, what the hell is going on here? So compare where they are now, where it's like, well, we're not doing, you know, Democrats are doing not that great, but they're still barely holding on to a majority versus the expectation that this was going to become a solid Democratic voting bloc the way that African-Americans are. There's a very different reality that has unfolded. My reaction to this is Latinos Latinos, they're just like all of us. As in, they are bifurcating

on class lines predominantly on whether you have a four-year college degree or not. Gender lines, too. And gender, too. No, but that's the GOP

as well. It's men. The only group, once again, who actually voted less as part of a demographic in 2020 were white men.

Every other, black men, Latino men, Indian man, whatever, all went much more Republican, including women as well. So it's more like a white man felt like shame, I guess, and decided not to vote for Trump. But in general, gender split has always been extremely reliable on whether you voted. They did that one map where it's like if only women voted,

every single state would have gone blue. If only men voted and a vast majority would have gone. It's always been a major dividing line in America. Nobody likes to talk about it, but it is true. So especially when you introduce the class dynamic, I mean, once again, one of the best predictors outside of gender and guns is did you go to college or not? Shocking. It turns out Latinos are just like all of us. Yeah. And vote just like everybody else. Well, and the difference between Latinos in the South and other parts of the country was also interesting to me and also makes a lot of sense. I mean,

in Texas, you have a lot of Latinos who've been there for generations. I mean, you know, it's a different. It's a, it's a, it's an own identity. This is, you know, this has also driven me crazy. It's like you have people there in Texas, they're fourth, fifth generation, sometimes before even the whites showed up in Texas. So they're like, yo, we don't look at ourselves as Mexican. They're like, we're Texican. And sometimes they even – there's a term which is like nebulous, but it does mean something, like white Hispanic. Like where they literally consider themselves white, which is fine. I mean you can consider yourself whatever you want. But they legitimately do literally consider themselves white, which is fine. I mean, you can consider yourself whatever you want, but

they legitimately do not consider themselves and really have any real cultural connection to a new arrival from Puerto Rico. They're like, we don't really have anything in common. We have a very distinct culture. They're like, we have a deep connection to Texas, to the land. They're like, even Mexico.

They're like, yeah, we know it's close by. We may have relatives, but we're very different people. Border Patrol, also an important source of jobs in border communities and throughout Texas. Everyone forgets this. To work for Border Patrol,

you have to speak Spanish. Who do you think that the best bilingual people near the border are? Most of these people are Latinos themselves. So yeah, it's always annoyed me that I could be a racer

of who a lot of these people are. In Florida, you obviously have large Cuban, but also growing Venezuelan population, where the erasure of who a lot of these people are. Florida, you obviously have large Cuban, but also growing Venezuelan population where the, you know, the politics again are very different. So anyway, that's the latest breakdown, reflects a lot of the shifts that we've seen in other polling and pretty interesting to dig into the different issues and the way it's being viewed and, you know, with Hispanics across the country. Next piece that we wanted to get to here. So last week there was a big report in the New York Times.

They got the scoop about how the founder of Patagonia, who's this kind of like hippie-ish guy who's like a rock climber and sort of, you know, accidentally. He always seemed like a cool dude. Yeah, I mean, this is not like to smear him. This is to smear the New York Times and tell you that they're bad at their job. So this guy decides he's getting older and he's trying to figure out what he wants to do with his company. And he ultimately decides that through a series of mechanisms I'll get into in a moment, his family

is going to keep basically control of it. And it's a private company. It's not a public company. And all of the proceeds are going to be donated to this nonprofit, which is meant to this guy who I have no reason to believe that he has ill intentions here or whatever. But there was a really explicit effort to pretend that there were no tax benefits to him or the family from handling the company in this way. Go ahead and put the article up on the screen here.

It says, billionaire no more, Patagonia founder gives away the company. Here is the technical specifics and how they describe it of how this is all happening. They say, in August, the family irrevocably transferred all the company's voting stock into a newly established entity known as the Patagonia Purpose Trust. So that's the company and the voting stock goes there. Then the trust, which is going to be overseen by members of the family and their close advisors, is intended to ensure Patagonia makes good on its commitment to run a socially responsible business

and to give away its profits. The Tweenards, I think is how you say it, I don't know, donated their shares to a trust. The family will pay about $17.5 million in taxes on the gift. Then they donated the other 98% of Patagonia's common shares to a nonprofit called the Holdfast Collective. It's a 501c4, which they say allows it to make unlimited political contributions, but the family received no tax benefit for its donation. Okay, remember that line. Then they go on to very explicitly draw a contrast with another

big company gifting for political causes that they had previously covered, but that one came from a right-wing billionaire. So then they say, Barry Seed, a Republican donor, is the only other example in recent memory of a wealthy business owner who gave away his company for philanthropic and political causes, but he took a different approach in giving 100% of his company to a non-profit, reaping an enormous personal tax windfall as he made a $1.6 billion gift to fund conservative causes, including efforts to stop action on climate change. Now, the reality is that that Republican donor, whatever you think, and I don't like the use that he is intending to put his funds to, it was the same basic structure as what the Patagonia did do. So the tax benefits that are accruing to the Republican donor are the same ones that are accruing to the Patagonia founder, namely the fact that because he used this mechanism, they don't have to recognize any of the capital gains on this company. So the appreciation of value, all of

that, that would be a huge tax hit. That is all foregone, and they're able to transfer it over with paying very minimal taxes. No, it is true for both of these men, by the way, that because it's not going to a 501c3 where you could get a charitable tax deduction, it is true that they are not maximizing their tax benefits. But that's also true for the right wing donor. So it's pretty, pretty remarkable. And, you know, they went out of their way to get like quotes from people in this Patagonia article saying like, oh, it's so amazing and it's incredible that they're not benefiting from this and all of this. Again, I don't have an issue personally with saying I support what this money is going to and I don't support what that money is going to. But the fact that they just got the story blatantly wrong is a real disservice to everyone. Oh, it's completely ridiculous.

Because everyone's like, oh, this is the good – you know, it's this is exactly also just shows you why it's very dangerous to play the good billionaire, bad billionaire game. It's like, no, they actually all exploit the exact same loopholes in the tax code in order to just benefit whatever cause that they want. So once again, like you can think, yeah, it's great that he avoided taxes in order to support climate change stuff. But if you support that, then you also are supporting the underlying mechanism through which the right wing billionaire gives a billion six to the Federalist Society climate change stuff. But if you support that, then you also are supporting the underlying mechanism through which the right-wing billionaire gives a billion six

to the Federalist Society guy. So, well, as long as that loophole exists in the tax code, it is going to be used for dueling political purposes. And then you have to just be okay with the fact that right-wingers exist too amongst the ultra-wealthy.

Well, and here's the thing. Bloomberg actually accurately covered this story. Let's put that up on the screen because I think it's important. And they go into the details and the parallels between what the Patagonia dude and the other dude did. And that it basically was some, you know, small details was the same structure and they got the same tax benefits. And in fact, this allows the Patagonia billionaire to skirt $700 million in taxes. And they had some good quotes in this article

from an analyst and expert on sort of, I want to say an expert in taxation and billionaires, I guess. But I thought he put it well. He said, we're letting people opt out of supporting all the expenses of government to do whatever they want with their money. This is a highly problematic from the point of view of democracy. And it can mean a higher tax burden for the rest of Americans.

Using a 501c foreign trust lets him and his family continue to effectively control the company. And they say, if someone wanted to leave their votes behind after they die. We don't let people do that. But through these organizations, they're doing something similar and their money is so much more powerful than a single vote. So again, I'm not saying that these guys have like ill intent or nefarious or whatever, but the bottom line is rather than allowing their assets and their estates to be taxed when they pass. And for those massive, $700 billion in this case, million dollars, sorry, not billion, $700 million in this case, to go into government coffers where there's a democratic process where we all get to have a say in terms of what this money goes towards, whether it's roads or bridges or schools or war or whatever. Instead, they get to keep control

over how this money ultimately is used. And we've talked a lot on this show about how, you know, the billionaires controlling these social causes and relying on the benevolent billionaire to fund your causes is ultimately very problematic and leads to all sorts of other issues. You see this with Bill Gates and the public health sector as one example. Yeah, of course. Exactly. Bill Gates and the public health sector. I mean, so many of these guys,

the Waltons in water rights in Montana. There's all kinds of insanity that's happening around this country. And this is exactly the issue, which is that if you want to defend this, okay, be my guest, but then just understand the exact tax mechanism which is going to be used by everyone,

every billionaire in the United States in order to dodge taxes to just basically donate to whatever cause they believe in. Also, this is the more important one to me. He's actually avoiding the 40% gift tax if he was going to give this money to his heirs because the man is 83 years old. So his heirs now have to pay nothing.

And they didn't build Patagonia, okay? They were just there along there for the ride. So now they get the social cachet of being a big spender in the Democratic Party and they don't have to pay any taxes. That's crazy. And I was reading an article this morning about the LA Times. This billionaire guy buys the LA Times. His daughter is like some crazy social justice lib and is literally making the LA Times like change its style guide language.

And they don't know what to do because they're like, yeah, I mean, it's the owner's daughter. Like, do we listen? And this is a huge paper like in in los angeles so and at the time everyone hailed it like oh patrick uh i forget i don't know how to pronounce his last name like he's bailing out the la times like he's coming in as a say it's like this is the price that we pay yeah for this total control like do you want that guy's daughter to be controlling the style guide for a city the second city largest city in America. That's nuts. Same thing with this guy and whoever his kids are.

I don't know his kids. Well, the way you put it is really good. Just stay out of the business of playing the good billionaire and the bad billionaire game. Just understand that all of these mostly men

with this large amount of money, it distorts democracy. Okay, Mackenzie Bezos though is a good example. Oh, absolutely. She gets all this money from this divorce. She rules left-wing.

She is the single largest donor. That amount of money, given the way our system is structured, is incredibly distortive and incredibly. You don't want to talk about threats to democracy. Like the fact that they can create this whole separate ecosystem that none of us has any say in whatsoever. Like that is a real threat to democracy. So, yeah, not the New York Times' finest moment in how they covered these things. And it really is funny. I encourage you to go and read the article that I think was actually a very good article written by Ken Vogel about the right-wing dude.

Yes. Compare it to the fawning, not critical at all, didn't raise any of these questions article about the Patagonia dude. Like, go and compare them side to side. The types of quotes that they got on the one hand versus the other hand and the way they presented everything. It is like the definition of propaganda. And you can see it. This is an actual, like, one of the most perfect, glaring examples of fake news. I think it's important that you set it up, too, because everybody in the left-wing media just doesn't want to talk about it.

They're like, well, we support the cause. It's like, it doesn't matter. You reported something that was actually factually incorrect. I actually, the person I reached out to, I don't think he would mind me saying this, but because he had done a lot of reporting on the right-wing donation, David Sirota, with the lever, and I was like, is this, because this looks like the same structure. So are they just getting this wrong? And he checked in with, you know, the people that he relies on to understand the complicated tax mechanics. He's like, no,

they just blatantly got it wrong. So like even putting like the biased cover, just like this, just factually incorrect the way they presented it. Pretty astonishing. Just another reminder, these people are bad at their jobs. Bottom line. Exactly. It's actually shocking. Speaking of people who are bad at their jobs, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. There's a big shakeup going on over at CNN. We're covering this. So Don Lemon has officially been taken off of his nightly primetime show with his own name on it and is being transferred to The Morning. Now, I don't know how else you would describe somebody who has a show with own name on it and is being transferred to the morning. Now, I don't know how else you would describe somebody who has a show with their name on it at the most coveted time

slot in television and then moving them to a panel show with multiple co-hosts from 6 to 9 a.m., which in TV terms means that you actually have to wake up at 3.30 in the morning in order to go do your job and not describe that as demoted. However, Mr. Lemon is very, very sensitive about this. Let's put this up there. He says explicitly, I was not demoted. He's like, no, no, no, no. For those who are saying, oh, he moved me out,

I could have said, no, I was not demoted, none of that. This is an opportunity for her to create something around me, and I get to work with two great ladies who, you know, and he basically just ends the quote right there. Turning lemons into lemonade. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Turning lemons into, yeah, there's a lot. There's so many puns that we can make here. I cannot resist.

I don't know. Maybe he's got tears in his eyes because he's got, I'm not going to keep going. All right. So, but, Crystal, I don't think there is a way to describe this as obviously a demotion. Clearly also, also just shows you, once again, you know, for all, I do support Chris Licht, like firing Brian Stelter and all this, but they fundamentally lack imagination.

They describe this as a, quote, mass appeal play. Yes, let's take the lowest rated and frankly dumbest man on television and put him in the morning. That'll appeal to the masses. And then we'll put a blonde woman right next to him because that'll soften him up. Like, what?

What are you thinking here? I think what's funny to me is they are describing this. The thing that was strange to me is, like, they're describing this as big game changer. Yeah. What? No, it's not. It's the same type of people.

Like, all of these CNN characters are very plug and play. Like, they're all very similar. And so, oh oh i took this blonde woman and man combo and i switched it for a different blonde woman and man combo and threw in caitlyn collins totally it's like that's not a game changer that's just like a regurgitation of a very similar thing that you've been doing i mean look we'll see what it looks like when it actually comes to light a day but i was surprised at the lack of ambition that this represented, I guess is what I would say.

Because Chris Licht comes from, morning TV is kind of his thing. Yeah, he created Morning Joe. He helped create Morning Joe. What did he also, CBS, I think, their morning show. They're the lowest rated one, so, you know, I'm just saying. And that was actually, I think the last element that we have here for Puck News. Yeah, please. Yeah, so this was for Puck News. Yeah, please. Yeah, so this was When Life Gives You Lemon, LOL.

This was an interesting analysis by Dylan Byers. I don't know if this is accurate or not, but I thought it was an interesting way to look at it. He said, listen, the audience that watches cable news is growing older and it's growing smaller. Zucker, who's now, of course, ousted, may have felt confident he could have fought that trend, but Licht's strategy is to embrace it. So basically what he's arguing here, Dylan Byers, is that he's not, even though they say this is a mass appeal play, he's really not going for the mass appeal play. He is trying to appeal to the normies that are still watching cable news, like the older retirees who are still watching cable news, is trying to pare back expenses and make it less costly and basically, you know, make it financially viable in a future where ratings are not coming back. So I thought that was an interesting insight into potentially what he is ultimately thinking here. That's smart.

That could be a smart way to look at it. I mean, I think that the other one is that Lemon was a huge pain in the ass and needed to kind of, quote, get rid of him, put him in a less high-profile role. He also seems to have a real thing against Brianna Keillor, which they talk a lot about in that piece, who we played earlier, the woman thing. I don't blame him. I also find her very unpleasant to watch, so I guess I also would want to get rid of her in the morning. Right, but it's not like Poppy Harlow is... Is she measuring things different from Poppy Harlow? Exactly. I don't know. That would seem to me. I don't know where this is all coming from. I mean, look, Caitlin's actually quite good at her job. She's going to be like a roving correspondent type. I think she'll be fine at that. I mean,

that's, that's good. Uh, moving on from the white house. So, you know, she'll probably just be traveling a lot. Like the hurricane person, you know, I'm here on whatever. That's a fine gig. But at the end of the day, like what they point to is, and he actually says this, he's like, well, Chris Licht is going for the competition of muted screens in airports. And here on K street, I couldn't find a better way to describe it, which is that even morning show television, CNN, what they say is there's only way up because at best, only 400,000 people are watching in the morning and about less than a hundred thousand of them are in the key demographic, which is all that matters. I mean, think, that's like, you know, a tenth or whatever of whatever happens here on breaking points.

And think about how much they spend. Right. I mean, millions of dollars. In promotion, in the set, in the quote unquote talent. I mean, the whole thing all in. It's just mind boggling how much money they spend to achieve such incredibly poor results. It really is incredible. There's another article out about the fact that the Sunday shows are dying too. They can't book high-level guests. Nobody's watching. I mean, the Sunday shows used

to be like, this set the agenda, and this is where the news was made, and all of this. But it's just a totally different world. And, you know, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where it's like, okay, they can't get the big guess and they can't break the big news. And so there's even less reason for people to try to chew it and watch. And it becomes a downward spiral.

You see this playing out really across all of network news and cable news, frankly, where there's just, there's so many other options. It's so boring and predictable. They've gotten so many key moments so incredibly wrong. But yeah, if that's the strategy is just to kind of like pare back expenses and make it cheaper and try to hold on

to the relatively small audiences that they have, I guess it's not the dumbest play in the world. Completely. My favorite term with regards to the Sunday shows, I think you taught me this, is the full Ginsburg. Yeah, right. Where, named after the lawyer

for Monica Lewinsky who went on all six Sunday shows back when people cared about such things. Yeah, I mean, I can't even tell you it was on Fox News Sunday.

Even five years ago that used to be kind of a big deal. Now it's nothing. By the way, the person there that's being floated for Don Lemon's

replacement in the evening. Who is it? Casey Hunt. Oh, my God. That'll be a fun one to celebrate. Sire, what are you looking at? I spend a lot of time here criticizing Joe Biden. Rightfully so, I think.

It's always important, as we did with Trump, though with any politician. If they do something right or in the right direction, let's give them as much due attention and highlight how their new victory could spur another more important step that is vital for our country. Let's start with the good and important news. If you'll recall the CHIPS Act, which spurred billions of dollars in new investment for the semiconductor industry here in the U.S., there were a few big and gaping problems. First amongst them was that while the bill itself was designed to protect U.S. competition for China in the critical chip sector, it didn't include enough provisions to actually stop Chinese money from infiltrating U.S. supply chains. It gets really complicated in the exact legal language, but it was enough that more than a few GOP senators who are pro-chips investment voted against the bill.

Mostly, it seemed like standard issue Washington corruption. But apparently, at the bare minimum, the Biden administration did take notice. After Congress, on behalf of Chinese interests, took out anti-Chinese protections from the bill, they drafted and have now signed an executive order mimicking what that law would have originally done, beefing up one of the most important and unknown parts of the U.S. government, the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, known in D.C. by the acronym CFIUS. CFIUS has a mandate from Congress to block U.S. foreign investment in companies that have a direct impact on national security. Think like Arathion or Northrop Grumman. It's been limited in scope, and critics like myself for years have alleged

CFIUS has been approving transactions clearly designed to undermine the U.S., but have bowed to corporate pressure. A new order directs CFIUS to consider whether any pending deal in U.S. markets involves the purchase of a business to access with two American-sensitive data, and specifically whether data has dual-use purposes for business could also be exploited by a foreign government. This new direction comes amid a flurry of new signs. The Biden administration, while far too slow to act in my opinion, may actually be considering either a total ban on TikTok or a forced sale of the Chinese company to one controlled by a U.S. corporation. The data provisions in CFIUS, in my opinion, should have been law years and years ago. And it also highlights how incompetent the Trump administration was.

Remember when Trump said he would ban TikTok, but then he tried to do so in the dumbest way possible, resulting in the existence of the service and its continued domination in US markets? Breaking points, remembers. Trump also failed on multiple occasions, thanks to certain of fail son's son-in-law to beef up CFIUS and continued review

of US investments in China. His incompetence aside, the case for banning or spanning TikTok off has been quadrupled in years since that was considered. To review, the case is actually quite simple. In China, there is no such thing as private business. National security laws in the books, which have already been used against TikTok's parent company ByteDance, make clear their data belongs to the Chinese state, not to them privately.

They exist at the pleasure of the CCP and nothing more. Thus, when TikTok claims its data and its companies are separate from its overall Chinese operations, it's laughable. The basic truth is that one of the most used and most downloaded apps in the United States, especially amongst teenagers, is controlled directly by a foreign adversary. And the proof of this has been solid since 2019. But like I said, only grows day by day. In June, I covered that investigation that showed direct audio proof TikTok lied to been solid since 2019. But like I said, only grows day by day. In June, I covered that investigation that showed direct audio proof TikTok lied to the U.S. Congress

about who has processes in place to keep the Beijing parent company without control over TikTok. The audio proof internally TikTok routinely acknowledges how in control Beijing is of their day-to-day operations. And a new profile, though, of TikTok's quote-unquote CEO also hammers home this point. TikTok hired several CEOs in the last several years with a chief mission of fooling U.S. regulators and consumers that it is not straight-up controlled by China. They first hired a longtime executive from the Walt Disney Company and since have hired Singaporean citizens Xiao Shi Chu. Now, the smokescreen was, well, he's Singaporean, it's cool, it's a US ally. Yet, when you look under the hood, it's the exact same scenario. Qiu, turns out, doesn't run the damn

thing at TikTok. Decisions on everything from live streaming to shopping are made by Zhang Ziming, the mysterious multi-billionaire founder of TikTok and ByteDance, its parent corporation. In fact, the most critical part of the company, TikTok's research and development team, as well as their growth and strategy team, report directly to Beijing, not to the CEO. They have no reporting lines whatsoever to the supposed CEO of the company. TikTok's shamelessness was best on display when their chief operating officer, who used to work at YouTube, testified before Congress on Thursday, where she would not definitively say that the company would cut off data and metadata flows to China. Just take a listen. Her own words.

Can you make the commitment, though, that I just asked you to make, that you will commit to cutting off all data and metadata flows to China, Chinese-based TikTok employees, ByteDance employees, or any other party located in China? What I can commit to is that our final agreement with the U.S. government will satisfy all national security concerns, yes. But you won't make a commitment to agree to what I have now twice asked you about? Sorry, given the confidentiality of CFIUS, I'm not able to talk specifically about that agreement. I'm not talking about CFIUS. I'm asking whether you'd make that commitment today. Will you make that commitment?

I am committing to what I've stated, which is we are working with the United States government on a resolve through the CFIUS process in which we will continue to minimize that data, as well as working with Oracle to protect that data in the United States. That is corporate speak for no, we won't commit to it. So it's actually simple. The company claims that despite being wholly owned outright and controlled by China, they are not controlled by China. When asked under oath if they'll stop sending them data, they're not going to say yes. It seems cut and dry. The longer we draw this out, the more it makes a mockery of our country and how weak we are. It has taken us this long to even get the conversation to a place where it is being considered. I'm just going to end with this, a situation that should make it clear as day why TikTok either needs to go or needs to

force sale now. In 2018, a Chinese news aggregator, which I'm not going to try and pronounce known as Chao Cho, owned and operated by ByteDance, the same company that owns TikTok, was literally shut down overnight, despite being one of the largest in the entire country of China. The reason why? Because the CCP said it was causing too much social disruption to their liking, and they just decided to nuke it overnight. In his bid to keep the job, Zhang Zhiming, the current controller of TikTok, wrote in an open letter, in Chinese, here's what he wrote, quote, the product has gone astray, posting content that goes against socialist core values. It's all on me. I accept all the punishment since it failed

to direct public opinion in the right way. Do we need more proof? The guy literally said his content should promote CCP values and should, quote, direct public opinion in the way that they want it. If you think that isn't at play here in our country, when the same guy literally owns TikTok, you're delusional. TikTok needs to go or be spun off. Biden administration needs to capitalize on the newfound momentum and just do all of us a favor to make us safer. I mean, I just think it's very basic, Crystal. And look, I mean, I've come around to the... And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com.

Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, after a dramatic showdown last week, our nation's railroads were kept open by a last-minute deal that was struck between rail bosses and union leaders. That was in meetings that were led by the Biden administration. So President Biden released a triumphant statement saying that the deal was, quote, a big win for workers. Most of the media took the bait, declaring the crisis over. Hardly surprising, given that they were so late to this story and did such a terrible job of covering it.

Parroting corporate talking points about the potential economic impact of a strike without giving any space to the workers' entirely legitimate concerns, while also ignoring how rail bosses were actually the ones holding the entire economy hostage to try to pressure Congress. It was crazy. After the tentative agreement was negotiated, Biden himself went on 60 Minutes, was thrown a totally softball question, and all but declared, mission accomplished. Mr. President, you have just averted a nationwide railroad strike that would have been crippling to the economy. How did you do that? And what were those last hours like in the negotiations? Well, look, we brought business and labor together. One of the things that happens in negotiations, particularly if they've been elongated like these have, is people say and do things where their pride gets engaged as well.

And it's awful hard to back off of some of these things. So what we did was just say, look, let's take a look. Let's take a look at what's happening. You have a good deal being made for labor. Their income is going to go up 24% over the next five years. They've worked out the health care piece. They worked out days off. They both sat down, in my view, and they were in the office today saying, well, we finally figured out this is fair on both sides. And it took that time to focus. And the alternative was just not thinkable.

What do you mean? If, in fact, they had gone on strike, the supply chain in this country would have come to a screeching halt. We would have seen a real economic crisis. But since that victory lap, something strange has happened. The details of that deal have remained hidden. We still don't know what exactly is in that tentative agreement. And more importantly, the rail workers, who will ultimately ratify or reject this tentative agreement, they still don't have the details.

Now, some things have been reported by the press, but workers have far from a complete picture. Why does that matter? Well, Jonah Furman put it well. He wrote, The thing is, negotiations rely to some extent on momentum. Members were extremely fired up. They had picket teams organized.

They felt confident in their demands and knew what they were holding out for. Calling it off without anything to discuss is like icing the kicker. So we're being told by the Biden administration, backed up by much of the media, that this is a good deal. But workers, they have some severe doubts. What's more, the reaction to the details we do have has been overwhelmingly negative. As one example, workers had asked for 15 paid days off. This agreement reportedly only includes one. Details on health care and unpaid time off, those remain murky. A locomotive engineer told The Post, quote, it's impossible right now to make heads or tails of what this agreement means, and it's

disgraceful how opaque it is. Even the best-case scenario does not look like a massive victory for labor, but the devil is in the details. The worst-case scenario could be quite awful. Another worker posted on Facebook, quote, Why is our union posting this like this is some kind of game-changing deal? One day is laughable. We need to strike. Meanwhile, workers on Twitter shared stories about being penalized for taking time off to witness the birth of their child, or for taking care of their sick child, or for the crime of themselves being sick. These issues are not just issues for the workers, by the way. They are safety issues with potential real-life consequences. One worker wrote about how she

was, quote, forced to take a non-compensated day because there is no way I can drive a 15,000-foot, 12,000-ton train 256 miles safely while having a fever and puking my guts up. Seems reasonable. Bottom line, while much of the media and political class has already forgotten about these workers and their lives, the fight is far from over. And after whatever the current cooling-off period is, we might be right back in the same place, facing down a deadline with rail bosses willing to commit corporate terrorism and risk the entire economy in order to get their way. We will certainly not stop covering it here. But you know, I can't help but think about the big picture here as well and the utter insanity of having such a

critical piece of national infrastructure vital for everyone from commuters to farmers to businesses, subject to the whims of a few rich executives. Remember, not only do these companies not care about their workers, they also don't care about the supply chain, about farmers getting their crops to market, about water treatment facilities getting the chemicals they need, about commuters getting to work who depend on the freight rail lines. They care about profit. That's why they've given themselves massive handouts in stock buybacks and dividends rather than investing in an adequate workforce. That's why they're perfectly willing to threaten the entire nation with economic calamity just to keep from having to treat their workers with

basic decency. Now, to us, such a thing might be unimaginable, the height of unchecked greed and immorality. But to them, it's just business as usual. A veteran train dispatcher who penned an op-ed for our friends over at The Real News implored Americans to consider that big picture. He wrote, I can understand why people around the country are concerned about the calamitous impact a national rail strike or rail lockout could have on the economy and an already creaking supply chain. What I hope people understand in return is that railroad workers are the ones fighting to save what is left of the supply chain from the same corporate greed that has upended the nation's freight rail industry. If you stand with us, we can win. Sounds like a pretty good plan to me.

Step one, continue to stand with these workers who are still very much in this fight. Step two, reform this monstrous system so these railroad bosses can never hold the nation hostage to protect their own cruelty again. Sagar, it was pretty remarkable. You saw the way that question was answered. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. No guests today. We wanted to talk and spend some time talking about Atlanta. So thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it.

As we said, we've got the CounterPoints discount going on right now. We gave you a little taste of what it was like in Atlanta. If you want to come and join us in Chicago, if you're in the Midwest. It was a hell of a lot of fun, and we learned a lot of lessons. So otherwise, we will see you all on Tuesday. Love y'all. See you tomorrow. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children.

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