Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/20/23: Tim Scott And Nikki Haley Attack UAW, Biden And Zelensky Plea For More Aid At UN, GOP Chaos Sets Up Gov Shutdown, Pakistan Gets IMF Bailout For Secret Ukraine Arms Deal, Russell Brand Demonetized On YouTube, Trump Plots Corporate Giveaway & MORE!

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

Ryan and Emily discuss Tim Scott calling for striking workers to be fired, Biden And Zelensky make push for further Ukraine support at UN, GOP infighting sets up government shutdown, US helps Pakistan get IMF bailout in exchange for Ukraine aid, Russell Brand demonetized on YouTube amid allegations, Trump plots tax cuts 2.0 for corporations, and Google accused of suppressing Rumble in the algorithm during the first GOP debate.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Emily came in here fired up this morning. I think she miscalculated on her microdose a little bit. So this is going to be a very, very interesting show. It's also going to be interesting because we're going to be talking about the macro dose. It became a macro dose, so look out. So we're going to be talking about the UAW, which has set a noon deadline for its upcoming negotiations. It could be an expansion of the strike coming. Zelensky was here. President Biden spoke at the United Nations. We're going to go through that. Got some new news on Pakistan and Ukraine, the IMF that we'll talk about later. Absolute face plant by Republicans in the House. We're not going to talk about these special elections, but I think they're related to this. So last night, Republicans lost a special election in a Trump district in New Hampshire, which puts them one seat away from flipping the New State House. All of this happening while Republicans just kind of

fell to pieces in a pretty hilarious way in the House yesterday. Yeah, there was some fun on Capitol Hill. We're going to go through it. We have some really good clips, so stay tuned for that. We're actually going to be talking about YouTube's decision to demonetize Russell Brand. So surely you've followed the allegations against Russell Brand, but YouTube took a pretty serious step in demonetizing his channel. So we'll get to that. I'm going to talk about alleged plans among, actually it's not alleged because they came out and told Jeff Stein of the Washington Post that they're planning a big corporate tax cut. If Donald Trump gets in office again, and then Republicans have the House and the Senate. And Ryan, you have a little bit of a scoop to talk

to us about the RNC debate. Yeah, Rumble versus Google. And we'll talk about that. But essentially, Rumble had the exclusive streaming rights for the last Republican debate, but they were nowhere to be found, certainly on the front page of Google search results, even though, and I'll report on this, Google and Rumble were in contact ahead of time. So interesting stuff there, especially as Google is kind of currently in a trial, in an antitrust trial. It's ongoing at the moment. Well, let's start with news from the UAW strike. Actually, Ryan, over at The

Intercept, there's a great news story this morning with details about a truly hilarious development and a big development too. Tell us what happened. Really love it. So yeah, we can put up this first element. Daniel Boguslaw, a colleague of mine, confused automakers braced for strike at the wrong plants. And so check out his piece. The whole thing is worth a read. But for people who are new to this kind of new tactic that's going on in labor, because they're striking all three automakers and because the supply lines are so spread out, what the union is trying to do is strike as few places along that supply chain that gets the most attention from the executives at the big three. And what the big three are trying to do is anticipate which plants are going to be struck so that they can move things around so that they can keep production going.

If the UAW can strike only a small number of plants yet exact exact a lot of damage on the big three then they don't have to eat into their strike fund and so CNBC thought that they were on to the UAW So let's play so this this clip that we're playing here was from CNBC ahead of the strike and And just roll this in all its glory. Let's get over to Phil LeBeau live in Detroit for an update on the ongoing UAW battle. Hi, Phil.

Scott, we have received some information from a source familiar with the UAW's plans for the plants that it will plan on striking come midnight tonight if they do not reach an agreement with Ford, GM, and Stellantis. And this is our understanding of the plants that will be announced tonight. 10 o'clock is when we will get the official announcement from the UAW. Let's start first off with General Motors, Romulus Powertrain, Toledo, Ohio Propulsion, and the Marion Metal Plant in Indiana. For Ford, it's our understanding that the UAW plans to strike

at the Livonia Transmission Plant, Lima, Ohio Engine Plant, and the Cleveland Engine Plant. And finally, for Stellantis, we understand that the UAW will walk out at the Kokomo Transmission Plant in Kokomo, Indiana, and the Dundee Engine Plant. We should stress, we have reached out to the UAW for confirmation that this is in fact is the plan. We have not heard back from the UAW. Well, I guess it is good that he stressed they had not heard back from the UAW because, Ryan, you have a theory as to how this happened. Well, we know that whatever the source they said that they had, this list was published in an auto trade pub earlier and Probably the AutoTrade probe which has its sources in the auto industry got it from a consultant working for one of the big three And this big three bring in strike breaking consultants who then tell this is how you're gonna beat this strike and so one way or another

This this consultant winds up with bogus information that winds up then with CNBC and they should stress that they could not confirm it because every single one of those was wrong. And so what they did is that they moved things from plants that did not strike to plants that ended up striking. So at great expense to the automakers, they shut down production at a bunch of places that did not strike, moved things out of there elsewhere, and then they moved them right into the belly of a strike. Right. And so they created maybe hundreds of millions of damage to themselves. And it allows the UAW to keep their strike fund flush. Because if they were all out against all three, they might only last three months. That's that's how long the strike fund can last now

You can go longer than that if you can, you know You you belt tighten that's what would happen a hundred years ago during these strikes and it happens The strike fund is not 100% replace your income. So there's there's you know, it's tough to be out on strike It's easy to be on the sidelines saying hey strike strike strike It's harder to be in you know to be the people who are actually striking But it's harder for these executives to if now they're accidentally shutting down their own Production. Yeah, it's like a return to the dance that everybody's out of practice, but the UAW Knew that you know, they had to be tactical and strategic about this and outsmarted the companies

It's just just just amazing to watch and this is this is a new UAW with with you know, Sean Fain the first elected President of the UAW. I think about that, you know for for decades They had you know corrupt leaders that would be elected in these Processes where there were delegates and then the delegates pick would pick, and then they'd go back rooms. So this is finally somebody who represents the rank and file, came in with a Milton attitude. And so his new statement is, noon on Friday, September 22nd, is a new deadline.

Either the big three get down to business and work with us to make progress in negotiations, or more locals will be called to stand up and go out on strike. And so what he's saying there is that, look, CNBC, you botched it last time. You didn't know which ones we were going to strike. You don't know which ones we're going to strike this time. And more are coming if you don't come closer. And what we're hearing about the negotiations is that the numbers are already coming way up. Like the workers are doing much better. The ghost though of Ronald Reagan

is still haunting these conversations. Do we have, do we have the, you flagged this one so good. Yeah, so Tim Scott was actually asked about how he would handle the strike hypothetically as president, and Nikki Haley was talking to Neil Cavuto on Fox News about the situation as well.

Let's roll these clips for a glimpse into how some Republicans are handling the question. I think Ronald Reagan gave us a great example when federal employees decided there was a strike. He said, you strike, you're fired. Simple concept to me, to the extent that we could use that once again, absolutely. The second thing I would do, though, is very important. This is probably not a well-known fact. The first thing, part of the challenge that we have today with President Biden is, and I don't mean this to be disingenuous, I mean this to be sincere. I'm not sure if the words are bought and paid for, but certainly he has been leased by the unions.

And I say that because the first bill he passed, y'all remember the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package? It only had 1% for COVID vaccines. It had $86 billion, I believe, for union pensions because they keep making these deals. And as a result of the deal, they promise too much, deliver too little, and the taxpayers pick up the tab. Well, I think that's it tells you that when you have the most pro union president and he touts that he is emboldening the unions, this is what you get. And I'll tell you who pays for it is the taxpayers. You know, here, from what I understand, the union is asking for a 40 percent raise. You know, the companies have come back with a 20 percent raise.

I think any of the taxpayers would love to have a 20 percent raise and think that's great. But, you know, the problem is this is going to, we're all going to suffer from this. This is going to cost things to go up and, you know, this is going to last a while. But, you know, when you have a president that's constantly saying, go union, go union, this is what you get. The unions get emboldened and then they start asking for things that, you know, that companies have a tough time doing. That is a bizarre take on so many levels because it actually lacks a rudimentary understanding of the dynamics at play, which is that the Biden administration set off a lot of the problems

with the union that supports Democrats basically across the board, been supportive of President Biden. A lot of this is pressure that was implemented as a result of legislation that Biden's passed, executive actions on behalf of the president. And so to say that this is because Joe Biden is so cozy with unions, when in fact, actually, this is the result of serious tensions between Biden and the unions, tensions, by the way, that Donald Trump, and I think we have this element because Sean Fain weighed in on what Kristol and Sager covered yesterday, Donald Trump saying, I'm skipping the second Republican debate and I'm going to talk to auto workers.

Sean Fain weighs in and he says, every fiber of our union, this is a statement from Fain, is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers. We can't keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don't have any understanding of what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by by expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.

Donald Trump is a departure from the Scott and Haley branch of the Republican Party, at least rhetorically. Some people might doubt that on a policy level. I think that is an entirely fair question, and we going to be talking about it later when I discuss the plans for another corporate tax cut and a potential Trump administration. But it's kind of remarkable to hear Tim Scott and Nikki Haley invoking a public sector union strike that is different in so many ways. And I'm talking about the air traffic controllers under Ronald Reagan. It's different in so many ways from what's happening with the UAW right now

Just like it was a reflex like a doctor hitting his knee And Nikki Haley to have I think it completely backwards and it didn't even seem like she was familiar with the dynamics of the strike It's likely not going to increase prices There's really no evidence of that at this point at least strange stuff Strange stuff. Right. And the politics are completely different. There's a reason that Reagan could, you know, could fire the air traffic controllers and he could get away with it. Air traffic controllers, by the way, endorsed Ronald Reagan. Yes. And so people, I think, might have a hard time kind of putting themselves back in that time period, but that'll help. Like, understand this. Like, this was a union that actually endorsed Ronald Reagan. And then they

came in. People are going to fact check me. They either endorsed or like spoke highly of him and didn't endorse the Democrats. I think they actually endorsed Reagan, though. And then he fires them all. But it was in this moment where there was this kind of public backlash against unions which were getting blamed by the kind of capital class for inflation. Because a lot of union contracts, and you had significant union density. And because the union contracts said that our raises rise in tandem to the cost of living, the cost of living being inflation. So then when the federal government would say, okay, inflation is this, then unions would get wages like that. And then because the wages went up, then the inflation number would go up and they were getting blamed for this big,

this vicious kind of cycle down the drain there. So, But that's not happening now. We've got union density of like five or six percent. UAW could quadruple their wages and we're not going to see inflation as a result of that go throughout the economy. Also, the cost of labor in a car equals about five percent of the price of that car. And it's not like UPS and Teamsters or air traffic controllers where you have basically an entire system that the country relies on shut down at the drop of a hat, which was weighing very heavily on Ronald Reagan during the strike. And he was constantly invoking that problem. Tim Scott didn't even try to make specific parallels. It was, again, it was like a reflex. Reagan. Unions, fire them all.

Yeah, and again, Donald Trump is, you know, whatever you think. You might think it's rhetorical. You might think it's purely strategic. Again, we're going to knock him later in the show for what he's letting his advisors tell Jeff Stein of The Washington Post. But he at least understands the dynamics, the political dynamics, whereas these guys don't even get that. I mean, they're just like rehashing, trotting out canned lines. Now, maybe it's a question of whether you'd rather have a Republican Party that is transparently anti-union or a Republican Party that wants to

be or is rhetorically pro-union, but doesn't actually support the union in X number of ways. I think there's a really serious issue that Donald Trump and some of the Republicans, we talked to Saurabh Amari about this a couple of weeks ago, are going to raise about the UAW's relationship with Democrats and the Biden administration and how the kind of green agenda causes legitimate tensions for workers. I think smart Republicans are right to be talking about those tensions. And I think some of that conversation will turn out to be good for workers. But for these Republicans to just weigh in with basically no understanding of the situation and no interest in having an understanding of the situation, Nikki Haley is using that sort of rhetoric of, it reminds me of like 2010, 2012, that worked really well in the

Tea Party era, at a time when union favorability among the general public is way higher than it was then. It's not even good politics. Yeah. And one last point on Tim Scott there. So his second piece there, he said, and if you remember the American Rescue Plan that didn't spend enough on vaccines, also that's kind of weird for a Republican primary. He said it was $86 billion to go to union pensions. Those were miners, those were construction workers, manufacturers, factory workers, and most of those pensions went bust because private equity companies came in, bought up the companies, and liquidated the pensions. Those were contracts that were struck with the workers.

Workers worked their entire lives expecting a certain payout. And also, your pension cuts into your Social Security. So a worker who gets a certain pension gets less Social Security. So they put their whole lives into this. Private equity barons come in, siphon it out. They drink that milkshake. And so, yes, in the American Rescue Plan, Democrats did put $86 billion into this fund to say, you know what, we're going to backstop these kind of multi-party pensions for these workers who were promised this amount, worked their whole lives for it. We've got it covered. And for Tim Scott to be like, that's the thing that I'm upset about? Like, get out of here. I think, Ryan, you might be underestimating how badly the P.E. dudes need that money for fleece vests and campaign checks to Tim Scott. Like, I love this CNBC guy in his little fleece vest.

He had his jacket on. Just being completely wrong and undermining the whole case that these capitalists make of that their strategic genius is why they ought to make hundreds of times more than the workers. Like they're like, because, you know, they really know what they're doing. In the one case where we can test whether or not they have any idea what they're doing,

the workers just completely outsmarted them. Amazing. Let's move on to the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York. We have a lot of clips to play from that because President Biden spoke and Vladimir Zelensky spoke as well. Let's start with B1 here. This is Biden yesterday at the UN in New York. Second year in a row, this gathering dedicated to peaceful resolution of conflicts is darkened by the shadow of war.

An illegal war of conquest brought without provocation by Russia against its neighbor, Ukraine. Like every nation in the world, the United States wants this war to end. No nation wants this war to end more than Ukraine. And we strongly support Ukraine in its efforts to bring about a diplomatic resolution that delivers

just and lasting peace. But Russia alone — Russia alone — bears responsibility for this war. Russia alone has the power to end this war immediately. And it's Russia alone that stands in the way of peace, because Russia's price for peace is Ukraine's capitulation, Ukraine's territory, and Ukraine's children. Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalize Ukraine without consequence. But I ask you this, if we abandon the core principles of the United States to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that they are protected? If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure? I'd respectfully suggest the

answer is no. We also have Vladimir Zelensky. We can play a clip of his address to the United Nations. Ukraine gave up its third largest nuclear arsenal. The world then decided Russia should become a keeper of such power. Yet history shows it was Russia who deserved nuclear disarmament the most back in 1990s. And Russia deserves it now. Terrorists have no right to hold nuclear weapons. No right. But truly, not the nukes are the scariest now. While nukes remain in place, the mass destruction is gaining its momentum. The aggressor is weaponizing many other things, and those things are used not only against our country, but against all of yours as well. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrant

for Putin for this crime. And we are trying to get children back home. But time, time goes by. What will happen with them? What will happen to them? Those children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine. And all ties with their families are broken. And this is clearly a genocide.

When hatred is weaponized against one nation, it never stops there. Each decade, Russia starts a new war. Parts of Moldova and Georgia remain occupied. Russia turns Syria into ruins. And if not Russia, the chemical weapons would have never been used there in Syria. Russia has almost swallowed Belarus. It is obviously threatening Kazakhstan and other Baltic states.

And the goal of the present war against Ukraine is to turn our land, our people, our lives, our resources into a weapon against you, against the international rules-based order. Now, Ryan, it's extremely interesting to note, actually, that of the five Security Council countries, only the United States sent the head of state. So no head of state from Russia or China or France or Britain, just the U.S. At the U.N. General Assembly meeting, Biden obviously was first to speak. That was really difficult to listen to. It's increasingly difficult every time he opens his mouth in public.

But Biden advisors were very eager to have this moment. Actually, with none of the other Security counsels sending ahead of state. It would allow Biden theoretically to even more powerfully frame the United States as the leader of the rules-based order, as he talked about repeatedly in that speech. I don't know that that works well when you say things like, let me be clear, and then mumble through the rest of the sentence. And in all seriousness, it's not good for Biden, it's not good for the US, and it's certainly not good for a country

that is sending how many billions of dollars to Ukraine to fight a very serious ground war in Europe, and he can't get through a speech without sounding like he's senile at the UN. I thought performatively he did okay, and in those short clips there we'll have some more that we can play where he was kind of stumbling all over the place, and you're like, God, somebody help this guy. But on the substance of it, I just feel like the United States is missing an opportunity to be the country, not that they

would do this, that's putting forward a peace plan. Absolutely. Because the chances are that Russia wouldn't take it, that Russia would continue its aggression. And it's clear, Russia did invade. You can say whatever you want about whether it was provoked or whether on and on. It did invade, Putin had a choice and he made that choice. But the U.S. misses an opportunity to say, look, we, we want this war to end. And here, here are ways that we could see this war ending. Clear steps. Clear steps. And to not, to not do that, in some ways, lets Russia off the hook because now there's, you're several, almost two years into the war

and people are almost forgetting at this point. Now it's just another conflict that the world wants to turn away from. But on the kind of performance of President Biden on the international stage, which is, I think, sadly, kind of one of the most important questions facing the world, whether or not Biden can kind of appear up to the job to voters. The entire election almost hinges on that. And so here are a couple of clips. We can play one more that I think the RNC was circulating this one. Now, as we evolve our institutions and drive creative new partnerships. Let me be clear Certain principles are in the national system are sankers sacrosanct simply put the 21st century 21st century results

Are badly needed Who need it to move us along you're like, ah? Makes me think somebody who loves him should tell him he shouldn't run for president again. I mean, let alone somebody who loves his country, but somebody who loves him should tell him this has got to end. And he ran for president saying that he was going to be a bridge.

And I think this was in particular reference to Gretchen Whitmer. Somebody was talking about Whitmer and the new rising stars of the Democratic Party. And Biden said, I'm a bridge to the next generation. And so he said that literally, as Biden loves to say, literally. But he also. Not a joke. Yeah.

He also kind of configured his entire campaign around that, that he was going to be there for one term. That his whole mission, he's running because of Charlottesville, that Trump is a nasty creature, a monster that needs to be beaten back into the cave. It's his mission in life to beat him and then be a bridge to the next generation. So he did those things. Now he's in office. He's like, no, I think I want to run again. It always happens and there was a term limits but oh not for me right there was a kind of democratic resistance campaign it was muller she wrote uh at a post yesterday that was complaining about uh media coverage of biden's age and whether or not you know biden should step aside and they were saying you know the only the media is hand-wringing about this. Democrats are not.

And it's a very interesting definition of Democrats or because something like 70% of Democrats would like to see a different nominee. Yes. And what people like that mean by Democrats is the very top of the Democratic Party. Democratic elites are comfortable or comfortable enough. But even that's not true because David Ignatius wrote a column in the Washington Post. And I think David Ignatius is like known to be one of the Biden administration's favorite columnists. Like they pay very close attention to David Ignatius. Of course. Yes. And he even said last week he wrote a whole column. Yeah. In the Washington Post saying time for Biden to step down. Yeah. So I don't see how you can watch that and think otherwise. Frank Luntz had a really funny and almost meaningless comment the other day where he said the only Democrat that can lose to Trump is Biden and the only Republican that can lose to Biden is Trump. It's Trump,

yes. That's actually 100% true. And it was true in 2022. Although I think DeSantis could lose to Biden. I think Biden could lose to a bunch of people and Trump could actually lose a bunch. So it sounds cute. It's funny, but there's such bad candidates, both of them, that they could actually probably be beaten by multiple people. But there's something about the matchup of both of them that's like the perfect mirror image and the perfect inversion of one strength and the others. They've been called the two old guys in the balcony from Muppets, and it's perfect. It also reminds me, it's like the Soviet Union, right, when they had that carousel of aging leaders that in the West we mocked because it was a very clear sign of decline. And that they didn't have a grasp on the country. And obviously they didn't have democratic controls in the way that the U.S. does. 1917 is over, move on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

The other thing I wanted to point out here, there's something about the U.N. backdrop, by the way, that's a little different than when you're on the literal world stage. Biden mumbling at campaign events, okay, it's bad. Biden mumbling in front of the UN, I think there's something that hits different about that. But also Jackie Heinrich of Fox News made a good point, we can put this element up, that he talked last year, he had a line where he said, we seek to uphold peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and then actually did not mention Taiwan at all in the 2023 address. So if he hadn't mentioned it either time, that's maybe not so interesting. Maybe you don't need to get that

specific in a UN address. But the fact that he mentioned it last year and not this year, I found that worth noting at least. Yeah. So that's good. Okay. Maybe a little like not to be antagonizing. Saber rattling. Saber rattling. Yeah. Anytime a saber goes back into a sheath, I'm for that. Okay. Well, it's not really a surprise to anybody, but yesterday the Republicans' efforts to fund the government on a stopgap basis, this is something that a lot of establishment Republicans really want to do, it fell apart again. Efforts to pass a Pentagon funding bill fell apart again. A lot of this is due to the internal dynamics in the Republican Party. And we're actually going to get to some

of that. But let's put a one up on the screen. This is from Kyle Griffin, who said NBC News has confirmed Kevin McCarthy just punted plans to tee up a vote on the GOP's short term spending plan later this week. Griffin says McCarthy is now left without a viable plan to fund the government with just 12 days left to avoid a shutdown. It's rare that a post like that news will just make me laugh out loud. You were just enjoying it. Just the phrasing. I mean, it's terrible. It's going to suck for millions of people, probably including myself. Washington gets hit the hardest during a government shutdown. But just the framing of it is just, he's right. The passive framing of it made me laugh too,

because yes, he's left without a viable path. He does have a viable path, but it is to work with Democrats. And that's not necessarily viable for him because then they try to throw him out. But it's not viable to throw him out because they don't have a candidate to replace him. There's nothing viable anywhere. Yes, for Democrats. Yet the world must go on. I was going to say, Matt Gaetz was offering Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to work with, or just Democrats in general, to work with him, once again, last week, a total troll move. But for Democrats, none of this works unless you throw the house into total chaos, which again, like as a kind of anti-establishment

person, I don't care about. Like fine, throw the house into chaos. They're going to be doing dumb stuff either way. Whether the government shut down or the government is running, it's dumb. Like you're passing horrible legislation and not actually solving any problems. So does it bother me too much if they shut down the government for a little bit? No. Does it bother me too much if they don't shut down the government for a little bit? No, because either way, there's no substantive thing happening. And that's where I think the Kyle Griffin tone is getting reading Republicans wrong. He may not be reading Kevin McCarthy wrong, but Chip Roy, not all that bothered if the government shuts down.

Matt Gaetz, not all that bothered if the government shuts down. Matt Gaetz, not all that bothered if the government shuts down. And Mitch McConnell weighed in yesterday and said Republicans always get blamed for a shutdown, kind of warning Kevin McCarthy publicly, taking a shot at Kevin McCarthy publicly. Mitch McConnell is not wrong about that on a national level. He is, once again, totally wrong about that when it comes to representatives that comprise the house who answered to smaller districts where voters are not just favorable to a shutdown, but are demanding a shutdown. They're calling constantly on these lines to the Capitol and saying, shut the damn government down. Don't send all of this money to BS purposes. And that's why, for instance, Chip Roy's hard line in the sand on that stopgap that was worked with

was basically border security. He said, we need to have a border security, we need to have a return to pre-COVID spending. And this kicked off, the whole conversation got really, what's the right word for this, granular over differences, as it always does when a shutdown looms. But Matt Gaetz and Byron Donald starting going back and forth. Well, McConnell has this incredible line that he uses when it comes to a government shutdown, where he says there's no education in the second kick of a mule. And that's how he kind of avoided previous government shutdowns, because the first one prompted by Ted Cruz back in 2013, which he did basically for email fundraising purposes.

And McConnell people hate it. Hated it. It went terribly for them. Republican voters liked it. Some Republican voters. Chip Roy was the chief of staff for Ted Cruz at the time. That's a great poll. Yes. So right. So the arc from 2013 to today, that's right. So you've got Chip Roy as Ted Cruz's chief of staff. Ted Cruz does this, basically forces a government shutdown. He really elevated his profile at the time, which creates a split between him and McConnell.

But Roy, his chief of staff, clearly came out of that believing, oh, this was a win. Absolutely. This was the way to go. So now Roy is a member of the House of Representatives leading this effort here. Yeah, absolutely. Along with Matt Gaetz, who we have on the House floor yesterday. Let's roll Mr. Gaetz. I'm not voting for a continuing resolution. I'm not voting to continue the failure and the waste and the corruption and the election interference,

and in some cases, the efforts that could lead this country into World War III. I oppose the CR authored by my friend and colleague from Florida, Byron Donalds. The Donald CR continues the Ukraine policy negotiated by Speaker Pelosi and Mitch McConnell in the omnibus that conservatives were against. The Donald CR is a permission slip for Jack Smith to continue his election interference as they are trying to gag the president, the former president of the United States, and the leading contender for the Republican nomination. And the Donald CR abandons the principle that it is only a review of single subject spending bills

that will save this country and allow us to tweeze through these programs and force these agencies to stand up and defend their budget. My friends, we are approaching the days where we're facing $2 trillion annual deficits atop a $33 trillion debt. This is unsustainable. And just to continue things with some facial 8% cut over 30 days that will lead to no programmatic reform

is an insult to the principles we fought for in January. So he's talking about Byron Donalds there. And Emily, am I hallucinating here or did I not sit in the balcony in January and watch Matt Gaetz give speeches comparing Byron Donald's to Frederick Douglass when he was nominating him to be Speaker of the House? And now he, anyway, this is your party. It's not my party. You all figure this out. No, not Emily's party. How dare you? But it's her problem. Yeah, yes.

Well, so to the extent they consider themselves conservative, that's my problem. But Matt Gaetz is a master of theater, and Byron Donalds understands that. Now, reporters caught up with Byron Donalds, and C-SPAN cameras happened to capture his interaction with those reporters. He had a great response to Matt Gaetz. Check this out. Your fellow Farney and Matt Gaetz sat here telling us he's working to develop a coalition to, quote, defeat the Donald's CR. What do you make of that? I would challenge my colleague from Florida to create a coalition that tries to actually get a victory for the American people. If he wants to have a personal thing with me going back and

forth, he's entitled to. But I don't care about that foolish that foolishness i want to win your colleagues who said they want to see oh and by the way now leave it i'll leave that no no no no no no no no no no no no no no okay we wanted to play the clip basically because of the end there which was so great he was about to spill some tea clearly on gates and uh the reporter is like please please continue sir we have plenty of time and he's like yeah you not going to get me to go there. And so people understand what happened here. So Byron Donald sat down with basically moderate Republicans and other House Freedom Caucus members. Chip Roy.

Chip Roy. And they hashed out a CR, a spending bill, that they all could live with. And they're like, okay, let's put this on the floor. We know it's not going to pass the Senate. We know it's not going to be signed by Biden, but at least this puts us on record, gets us started in these negotiations. And Gates is like, no, not doing that. The Donald's CR. This is a great quote from Chip Roy. And yesterday what the vote was procedural to allow the vote to continue. And so that vote, the vote to have the vote basically to allow for the vote

was voted down. Chip Roy comes in and says, I find it extremely difficult to explain or defend opposition to an 8% cut over 30 days in exchange for the most conservative and strong border security measure we've ever passed out of this body. I think that is inexplicable. I think it's malpractice. And I think there are some outside groups who are trying to advance themselves that are a part of this, that are pushing this narrative that it's somehow malpractice to do that. So in a normal situation, it's very difficult for Republicans to fund the government and to have this negotiation between the Freedom Caucus, Main Street Caucus, Tuesday group people.

That's already hard enough. When you graft on the Trump-DeSantis dynamics to this, which is some of what you're seeing right now, it gets even more difficult. It was heading for a shutdown either way. Nobody wants a CR because it means you're kicking the can to December and nothing is gonna get solved in December. Nobody wants to have to solve these problems

around Christmas. It's just a nightmare to try to do that. People are upset. It's even worse for public opinion. But the Chip Roy, CR, to your point, Ryan, what Republicans want to do is say, we have given Democrats, the ball is in their court, and we've given them a great border security. If they really want to close the border, if they really don't want to shut down the government, we did it. And I think

they probably still, there's some quotes here from other Republicans or like I think we're we'll just lock ourselves in a room and we'll we'll figure it out But when you have Matt Gaetz going after somebody like Byron Donald's it makes it even less likely That they can sit down in a room and figure something out. I think they will if I had a bet on it I think Matt Gaetz has shown like with the speaker vote He he'll go along with it at the end of the day, he'll find something, realize at the last minute he can work with it. But man, we're not even talking about the Boebert-Marjorie Taylor Greene dynamics. Just a hell of a week for the Freedom Caucus. And it's got to be interesting for somebody like Roy to be the kind of fire breather,

fire eater, back in 2013, to now be kind of cast as some like compromising, you know, kind of squish by people who are outflanking him, even though you're going to get a shutdown either way. Yeah. So what's the, I mean, I know we got to move on here, but I just, I don't understand. Like what, if you listen to kind of the Bannon wing of the Republican Party, they're celebrating people. Matt Rosendale was just on his podcast because he was one of the five against this. And they're saying that they went from eight or ten against the CR to maybe two dozen because of Bannon's posse haranguing people in the House. So what do they think is the move? What are they going to get out of this?

I think it's the same thing. I'm all for fighting. I'm just curious what's the plan. Yeah, I think that it's the same thing with the speaker battle where everybody knew it was going to end up being Kevin McCarthy, but they realized that they could push way further than people thought and get even more concessions after concessions after concessions. And you heard Gates actually even get in on the Ukraine spending in the clip that we played.

I think they know they're eventually going to cave at the last minute, but they're going to look like they fought tooth and nail to get all of these extra concessions out of the establishment wing of the Republican Party in the process. So again, conclusion- Will they get them or will they just look like they're fighting? What's your guess? McCarthy doesn't have a choice for the reason that you explained earlier in the segment that it's either he's out the door and there's literally nobody who steps into that vacuum. Like there's nobody that a handful of Democrats and a handful of Republicans would settle on. There's nobody Republicans can settle on other than McCarthy when you have such a slim margin. So it's McCarthy or bust basically. And again, like doesn't bother me too much, whatever happens there. But Kevin McCarthy is clearly the best bet for the Republican

party at this point, politically, substantively, in terms of like actually bringing people together to do anything. And that's, you know, their only option. And they know it. He knows it. So I think at the end of the day, it'll be very similar to the speaker battle. Push, push, push 20 times. And then at the last minute, like, OK, yep, here we go. At least we get the theater. It's good theater. So we'll stay on top of it. That's for sure. Ryan, updates on your excellent reporting with Murtaza Hussain in Pakistan. Yes, thank you.

So I've got a new story out this week with my Intercept colleague that uncovers the way that secret Pakistani arms sales to the United States helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the International Monetary Fund earlier this year. That's according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement and confirmed by internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military. Now, the revelations in this story are a window into the kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays that price. Harsh policy reforms demanded by the IMF as terms for the bailout kicked off an ongoing round of protests in Pakistan.

Major strikes have taken place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures. The protests are the latest chapter in a year-and-a-half-long political crisis roiling the country that began after the U.S. encouraged the ouster of then Prime Minister Imran Khan over his, quote, aggressive neutrality in the war between Ukraine and Russia. The new reporting starts to put that soft coup into context. As Arif Rafiq, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, told me, quote, Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine's counteroffensive. But why did the U.S. even need Pakistan? Now, that goes back to the question of our lack of an industrial base.

We're great at making $100 million airplanes that fall out of the sky and get lost, but we're not very good at making the basics. Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare. Now, as Ukraine grappled with the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare. Now, as Ukraine grappled with chronic shortages of munitions and hardware, the presence of Pakistani-produced shells and other ordinances by the Ukrainian military surfaced in news reports about the conflict, though neither the U.S. nor the Pakistanis acknowledged the arrangement. So we obtained a trove of documents that makes it irrefutable. Records detailing the arms transactions were leaked to us earlier this year by a source within the Pakistani military.

The documents describe munition sales agreed to between the U.S. and Pakistan from the summer of 2022 to the spring of 2023. Some of the documents were authenticated by matching the signature of an American brigadier General with his signature on publicly available mortgage records in the United States, by matching the Pakistani documents with corresponding American documents, and by reviewing publicly available but previously unreported Pakistani disclosures of arms sales to the United States posted by the State Bank of Pakistan. Now, the weapons deals were brokered, according to the documents, by Global Military Products, which is a subsidiary of Global Ordnance, a controversial arms dealer whose entanglements with less than reputable figures in Ukraine were the subject of a recent New York Times article.

Documents outlining the money trail and dealings with U.S. officials include American and Pakistani contracts, licensing, and requisition documents dealing with U.S. broker deals to buy Pakistani military weapons for Ukraine. Now, the economic capital and political goodwill from the arms sales played a key role in helping secure the bailout from the IMF, with the State Department agreeing to take the IMF into confidence regarding the undisclosed weapons deal. That's according to sources with knowledge of that arrangement and confirmed by a related document. Now, to win the loan, Pakistan had been told by the IMF it had to meet certain financing and refinancing targets

related to its debt and foreign investment, targets that the country was struggling to meet. On May 23, 2023, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., Masood Khan, sat down with Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lew at the State Department in Washington, D.C., for a meeting about how Pakistani arms sales to Ukraine could shore up its financial to hash out details of the arrangement ahead of an upcoming meeting in Islamabad the following Friday between U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Donald Blom and then Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. Now, Lew told Khan at the May 23rd meeting that the U.S. had cleared payment for the Pakistani munitions production and would tell the IMF confidentially about the program. Lew acknowledged the Pakistanis believed the arms contributions to be worth $900 million, which would help to cover a remaining gap in the financing required by the IMF,

tagged at roughly $2 billion. What precise figure that the U.S. would end up relaying to the IMF remained to be negotiated, he told Khan. At the meeting on Friday, Dar brought up the IMF question with Blum, he told Khan. Now at the meeting on Friday, Dar brought up the IMF question with Blum, according to a report in Pakistan Today, which said that, quote, the meeting highlighted the significance of addressing the stalled IMF deal and finding effective solutions to Pakistan's economic challenges. Now securing the loan eased economic pressure, enabling the military government to delay elections and deepen the crackdown against Khan's supporters and other dissenters. The U.S. has remained largely silent about the extraordinary scale of the human rights violations that push the

future of Pakistan's democracy into doubt. Now, a spokesperson at the Pakistani embassy in Washington declined to comment, referring questions to the State Department. A spokesperson for the State Department denied the U.S. played any role in helping procure the loan, quote, negotiations over the IMF review were a matter for discussion between Pakistan and IMF officials. The United States was not party to those discussions, though we continue to encourage Pakistan to engage constructively with the IMF on its reform program, unquote. An IMF spokesperson denied the institution was pressured, but did not comment on whether it was taken into confidence about the weapons program, saying, quote, we categorically deny the allegation that there was any external pressure on the IMF in one way or

another while discussing support to Pakistan, unquote. Yet U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, speaking to a group of Pakistani reporters before our story was published, said this. The United States has been very instrumental in making sure that the IMF came forward with its emergency economic relief. Obviously, there are continuing challenges. Now, I talked to him in the hallway in the Capitol and asked him how he had learned of that. And he said, quote, my understanding based on conversations with folks in the administration has been that we supported the IMF loan package given the desperate economic situation in Pakistan, unquote. Now,

the Pakistan government's response has been even more extreme than the Americans. They just flat out denied everything. They said that our story was fabricated, saying, quote, the IMF standby arrangement was successfully negotiated. And they even denied any, Pakistan does not provide any arms and ammunition to them. Pakistan's defense exports are always accompanied with strict end user requirements. Okay, sure they are. So this is where we are. In the last couple of days in Pakistan as well, there's been this horrifying story that's unfolded over the last several weeks and months

where the child of a man who was detained, it turns out, by the Pakistani military without charges, without having done anything, just detained, it turns out, by the Pakistani military without charges, without having done anything, just detained as a political prisoner. The kid began suffering such incredible trauma he had to be hospitalized, and this week he died. There's been mourning across Pakistan that's been following this child's descent because of the loss of his father with no response from the Pakistan military. And so now, because of the documents that we've been able to review,

we can put it all into the global context that it turns out that this was simply about the U.S. needing a reliable supplier of munitions for the war in Ukraine. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, Ryan, I wanted to put this thread. I think we have the element here. This is from a Wall Street Journal slash, I think, AEI scholar. He did a thread basically outlining what he saw as the problems with your reporting. So he says, if this intercept story is true, and listen, this is a great sentence from this fellow here, then the PDM government and the Pakistani army deserve the gratitude of the Pakistani people for deftly using a piffling amount of alleged arms transfers to Ukraine to avert an economic

catastrophe in Pakistan. So basically, his contention is that you're reporting, A, he's basically putting words in your mouth and says you're reporting is necessarily framing all of this as nefarious, corrupt, and a bad thing, which I don't think your reporting does. This is what happened. Yeah, exactly. Secondly, though, he's saying, well done for negotiating behind closed doors. It's almost like this cold realist take that like, well, these negotiations are going to happen anyway.

So X, Y, and Z, maybe that's true, but then maybe the U.S. should stop lying about what happened. And Pakistan lying, yeah. It's funny when a country's key defenders are admitting to things that the country itself is still completely denying. Right, right, right. And by the country, I mean the government. The government is claiming that this is all lies, all fabricated, none of this is true. Right. Whereas its defenders are saying, no, no, this stuff is obviously true. And it's great.

But it's great and it's also unimportant. Right. Like pick one of these four things and just ride with that. And I think the fact that the U.S. won't own up to it and Pakistan won't own up to it is that there's a sense of shame about it. And when you have the defenders being like, listen, there's no reason to have any shame over this. It would be so much better if we could just have that conversation, right, and explain why this is just such a wonderful thing to be kind of negotiated in the dark. And then people are reporters are misled about it as opposed to saying, no, we wouldn't do that. No. And it's not just shame publicly and shame in the mirror. I think it's complicated geopolitically for Pakistan because its biggest creditor is

China and its close ally in a lot of ways is Russia. Khan was trying to negotiate to get cheap gas in there. Which is why he was resisting getting involved. Right, exactly. And so both, you know, Russia for obvious reasons doesn't want Pakistan making munitions for Ukraine. But China too has been pressuring countries to try to get this war to wrap up. It's no longer a convenient war at all for China. And so to find out that Pakistan, which they lend all of this money to, and trying to help them get the IMF loan as well by kind of refinancing some debt obligations that they didn't have to do, to find out that actually it involved this weapons production is going to be complicated for

that relationship as well. It's really the perfect story. And I don't mean this like perfect in a good way. It's the perfect distillation of the problem with Joe Biden slurring and mumbling at the UN about the US leading the rules-based order. And then at the same time, you know, you have him saying you need the rules-based order to prevent incursions in Ukraine, to prevent aggressors from starting these bloody invasive wars like Russia did in Ukraine. In order to do that, we're going to sort of violate the rules-based order. As the leader of the rules-based order behind closed doors, we're going to do all kinds of stuff. We're going to use our leverage to change your democratic process, deal with the rules-based order behind closed doors, we're going to do all kinds of stuff. Like we're going to use our leverage to change your democratic process, deal with it, rules-based

order. We're on top. We make the rules, even if we don't always follow them. Right. It is, as, as Arif Rafiq had said, uh, the Pakistan's democracy is just being sacrificed at the altar of democracy. Yeah. Perfect. Uh. Perfect distillation there, unfortunately. All right. So Russell Brand is not looking so good on YouTube. What's the latest? Yes. So I know most people have heard by now the allegations that were raised against Russell Brand. I'm going to just read the sentence from the New York Post because I think they encapsulate it with some precision here. They say he's been accused of raping, sexually assaulting, and abusing four women over seven years in the past. Now, Russell Brand was demonetized yesterday

by YouTube over these allegations, not just by YouTube, actually some of his content. We have a lot of elements here because there's a whole lot going down, a whole lot going on. You can see the New York Times there reporting that YouTube suspended the comedian and actor Russell Brand on Tuesday for making money from videos posted to the social media platform. That was three days after British news organizations published their investigation. The channel is a potentially significant source of income, the Times says, who is earning money, Brand was, through advertisements and paid promotions. A spokeswoman for YouTube said in an email that Mr. Brand, whose channel has 6.6 million subscribers on YouTube, was suspended for harms our users, employees, or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community. The spokesman did not respond to the Times question about how long that suspension would last, which is actually a pretty important question.

Brand denied everything. He posted his clip on Friday. Again, I'm sure people have seen this by now saying that everything was consensual Essentially now a video resurfaced There have been all kinds of things because the guy was a raunchy comedian for years has been a raunchy comedian He's talked about all of this stuff for years. So people are of course We go to that. Can we just I just want to read the one text message that I think is the most damning thing that That the Times has gotten so what one woman who accused him of rape presented the paper with text messages

that the paper confirmed were from Brand, from Brand's number. And so this is the next morning. He texted her, I'm sorry. That was crazy and selfish. I hope you can forgive me. I know that you're a lovely person

X and she writes back you scared the blank out of me You're right. I'm a lovely person and for you to take advantage of me like this is unexpected. It's unacceptable You have a problem you need help. It's dangerous that you think you can get your own way all the time You know how scary you are when that glazed look comes over you and so yeah Corrupt, you know you are when that glazed look comes over you. And so, it's hard to find corroborating evidence outside of a video any more direct than that. And actually, the other thing is, as many people know, one of the victims at the time had a rape kit. She went to actually have the investigation with the rape kit, which suggests, I mean, it's obviously not something the vast majority of women do if they don't believe that they were victims of rape. It suggests that at the time she saw it that way. And it's not

the same as many Me Too cases that have been high profile where we've had this kind of public conversation that changed the way women, for better or for worse in different situations, saw what happened to them depending on the severity and the scale of it. This suggests that at the time, this woman absolutely saw this as rape to the point where she went and had a rape kit. This is obviously very serious, and suggests that she didn't see it as consensual, in the same way that Russell Brand is now saying this was all, of course, consensual. That said, the YouTube policy, I think is, we can get into that.

I think it is going in a somewhat frightening or very serious direction, but I also wanted to raise that there have been videos like this one. We have, I think we have the element here of Catherine McPhee on Jimmy Fallon with Russell Brand from years ago. If you're watching on the screen, you can see the picture there. He pulled her onto his lap. And this was on Fallon's like night, nighttime talk show back in 2013. Catherine McPhee weighed in on Instagram and said, you know, this specific incident was over 10 years ago and it was harmless.

Now, another thing came up on Deadline, which had an exclusive, saying that his brand's last major television job in the UK ended with him being dropped after he was repeatedly accused of being a, quote, sexual predator during the recording of the show. So this was a Comedy Central roast battle. It was the spinoff of the show that they did here in the US. Basically, it was based on it. And it only lasted a season. He was roasted on camera by one of the judges, Catherine Ryan, over these allegations. She said last year, she didn't name Brand at the time, but she confirmed with multiple, Deadline confirmed with multiple sources that this was about Brand. She said, I, in front of loads of people in the format of the show, said to this person's face that they

are a predator. Now, one of the sources told Deadline, this person said other comedians may have also called out Brand, though that has not been confirmed by those who worked on the show. Two other sources said he demanded that producers protect him from being roasted by his fellow comedians. Finally, we have from The Hollywood Reporter, BBC saying that it's actually removed some programming featuring Russell Brand from streaming services amid these allegations. BBC has says it does not ban or remove content when it is a matter of public record unless we have justification for doing so. There is limited content featuring Russell Brand on iPlayer and Sounds. We've reviewed that content and made a considered decision to remove some of it, having assessed that it now falls below public

expectations. So let's juxtapose that quote from the BBC with YouTube's creator responsibility policy. They say, if a creator's off-platform behavior harms our users, employees, or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community. Ryan, allegations of Russell Brand, we both agree, are serious. Now demonetizing people amid those allegations when things are being litigated in the court of public opinion, certainly in the United States within the discretion of a private company like Alphabet, Google, YouTube, BBC is another question with UK speech laws. What do you make of it? This is such a tough one because I think he's guilty. I think that the evidence is very clear. But because we have this bizarre system where we go on this case-by-case basis of who gets to have a platform and who doesn't get to have a platform, Then it leaves every single person that has to then adjudicate each case and say whether or not that they kind of fall above or below some arbitrary line that we don't have any say over anyway. It again, I think speaks to the need for some type of broad regulation and

Which says that you know, the corporation is not responsible for You know not responsible for the platform not responsible for the what the performers say because the second that You're responsible for it then everything that you a lot everything that you allow onto your platform you're then sort of indirectly endorsing which you don't want to get in that position either uh but it's but it's a very but it it's not an easy it's not an easy question no um because like and i and the guy has said that what what he has admitted in the past is that he was a sex addict which is a Nice way of saying he was a predator probably. Mm-hmm. I don't think there's anybody I doubt he would even necessarily

Disagree with that kind of description what he disagrees with is whether or not there was consent in these occasions At least in the one case that I mentioned at the top of this block, he acknowledges that in hindsight, he felt like there wasn't, and probably in real time. He wondered whether there was, otherwise he wouldn't have sent an apology text. Exactly. The next morning. So he's guilty. I think we can barely say that. And it's hardly, by the way, given Russell Brand's intentional public persona, especially before he shifted more and more to politics, surprising. He openly, I think he actually openly joked once about some of this stuff. And Louis C.K. did it. Yes. And so it was,

it's, there's a, there's a really great line that Camille Paglia wrote, in the heat of the Me Too movement for, I think it was the Hollywood Reporter, there's a, there's a really great line that Camille Paglia wrote, uh, in the, the heat of the Me Too movement, uh, for, I think it was the Hollywood Reporter. It was a column. She said that, uh, this idea that, you know, she said, great art has often been made by bad people. And the idea that the artist has to be some sort of moral paragon, she called it a sentimental canard of Victorian moralism. And I really liked that line because it's true. And we do in the post-MeToo era, in the MeToo era, need permission to accept what we all know, which is that great art has often been made by bad people. And I'm not saying that Russell Brand is a great artist, although I find him to be a very interesting thinker, a very compelling thinker, somebody

who's outside of the box. And I do think it's interesting that as soon as he started approaching some truly anti-establishment, so he was always sort of, you know, a kind of anti-establishment guy when he was focusing mostly on British politics and sort of pro-socialist, anti-capitalist. I do think it is interesting that when he crossed the kind of orthodoxy and cultural questions is when some of the stuff I'm I think the timing is genuinely interesting that doesn't make him any less guilty I do think that there there's some political weaponization going on here but YouTube taking that step to demonetize people and the BBC like their justifications are so broad that it's going to implicate some genuinely good artists that their users actually can make the decision whether or not they want to engage with that person. I saw some people

bringing up R. Kelly and other stuff like that. R. Kelly, fantastic artist. Sorry. Also guilty. Clearly guilty. Fantastic artist. And these questions, they're hard, but also that question of whether or not you can enjoy art from bad people isn't hard. You have to be able to do it. Otherwise, you'll only be watching the worst art, basically. And as a society, I think we have to be able to separate. Politicians and artists. And the art and the artist. That doesn't

mean that the artist is free of criminal implications. And R. Kelly is a great example, prosecuted. And so if it does appear like there are cases that could be made here against Russell Brand and they should go for that. And that's why as a public we want to have legal frameworks set up that are established and give people a fair trial, but give victims a chance to bring charges forward. And then if they're found guilty, these are the consequences. To push it off onto platforms and to consumers is to me a cop out. Those aren't decisions that should be forced into those spheres. Like if you commit a crime, you should be prosecuted for it.

And he appears to have committed multiple crimes, or at least this, I mean this is just the one I'm highlighting here. There are other very credible accusations accusations. Well and prosecute those And for YouTube so yeah based on that point for YouTube to say this kind of broad justification that the the content from somebody who is a very like accused of very serious crimes harms their users or their employees That is going to implicate a whole lot of content that YouTube a is just not going to take down and B if they were pressed to Would would not want to take it down nor with their users because users can make decisions

You know, this doesn't apply to children But users can make decisions about which content to engage with and you know what if they want to watch a Woody Allen Interview or they want to watch a Bill Clinton interview or they want to watch a Bill Clinton interview, if they want to watch a Donald Trump interview, they can make those decisions for themselves because this is all part of the world that we live in. And YouTube is an incredible resource for understanding the world. And it doesn't have to be an endorsement of all of these amazing primary sources that we have access to via YouTube. It's just a crazy standard, I think, and a really dangerous one. I hope it's not a permanent suspension. And I get that it's just for monetization. I get that they have them on the platform. It's a question of whether

they're taking, you're allowed to make money off that content. I think all of the same problems still apply to those questions. What are you looking at today? Well, last week Jeff Stein of the Washington Post had a report that did not get nearly enough attention. I'm going to read from it right here. Trump and his advisors, Stein reported, have discussed deeper cuts to both individual and corporate tax rates that would build on his controversial 2017 tax law, which they see as a major accomplishment

worth expanding, according to interviews with half a dozen people close to the former president, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. The cuts could be paid for, at least in theory, with a new 10% tariff on all imports to the United States that Trump has called for, which could raise hundreds of billions in revenue. The sharp new tax cuts would help offset higher consumer costs by the tariffs. Now, it's a long article, but let me read one more part of it that caught my attention. Still, Trump may propose using that revenue, so revenue raised by the tariff, to send a dividend payment to U.S. consumers similar to the state of Alaska, how they cut a check every year to residents from oil revenue. That's according to Newt Gingrich, who of course served

as GOP Speaker of the House and remains an outside advisor to the former president. Gingrich stressed that there are, quote, many options for how to use the revenue. Stein quotes both, or mentions that both Steve Moore and Art Laffer, Arthur Laffer, who are apparently advising the potential former future Trump administration, former and future Trump administration, on economic policy are not a fan of the potential dividend payments, but they are absolutely supportive of renewing this 2017 push and actually expanding on it. I think this is really interesting because it brings in this entire question of whether the Republican Party, as Ryan and I posed to Saurabh Amari

recently, can truly become the party of the working class in a way that sort of matches the rhetoric. We talked earlier in the show about Tim Scott and Nikki Haley's statements on the UAW strike, which contrasts with Donald Trump's effort, which he will do alongside the Republican debate. He's skipping the Republican debate to talk to auto workers in Detroit. He's trying to drive a wedge between Biden and the UAW, between Democrats in general and union workers in general. That's a much smarter tactic than what Tim Scott and Nikki Haley are doing, which is just sort of saying, well, Reagan and the air traffic controllers, in a way that is not tethered to any nuance or particular details. But all that is to say,

if Donald Trump's administration, future administration, is already very ecstatic for the prospect of a tax cut, it's really interesting to me that throughout this article, all we hear is about the corporate tax cut. What they want essentially is a cleaner corporate tax code, so something like a flat tax for corporations. And that's what this article is conveying. So unless Jeff Stein, who we've certainly talked to before, has an inaccurate kind of depiction of these conversations, unless his article is just for some reason really focused

on everything they're saying about the corporate tax rate and nothing they're saying about the individual tax rate, it they're saying about the individual tax rate. It sounds like people advising Donald Trump have their priorities backwards. I know you're going to be surprised to hear about that. And it's probably a fair question as to whether either major political party can truly represent the working class interests in Washington, D.C. and in various state houses. I'm not sure that's possible. But as the Republicans

tried because Donald Trump brought in specifically union workers, workers in the Rust Belt, people who voted Democrat or didn't vote at all for a long time, even some supporters of Bernie Sanders into the Republican party, can they vote for other Republicans? Will they vote for other Republicans outside of Donald Trump? Will they vote, will they support a Republican agenda outside of Donald Trump? Will they continue to support Donald Trump himself? These are all very fair questions that Republicans need to answer. And when you have a consensus among even the conservative movement, and I can tell you this as somebody who runs in those circles, the consensus is that the 2017 tax bill, which had great effects for many taxpayers, was a mistake because it showed that Republicans were expending all of this political capital on sort of a

priority of fiscal conservatism. Even if it had materially positive benefits for the average person, Republicans spent so much time and energy on this bill that Paul Ryan came out and said, we are finally going to get your taxes down to a postcard. You'll be able to do your taxes on a postcard. That's actually kind of a populist priority. It might be good. It might sound good for corporations. It might sound good for really wealthy individuals, but it's not because in order to get your taxes down to a postcard, Paul Ryan knows this, you have to cut all of the loopholes. You have to close all of those loopholes, simplify

the tax code. And people have questions about whether that raises enough revenue. Trump says we'll offset it with a tariff. That's something that can be part of the conversation. But in order to achieve the goal that Paul Ryan said he was so excited about, you have to really stick it to rich people in corporations to make it so the average American can do their taxes on a postcard, which is why, of course, it didn't happen. And it's why, of course, we ended up with a bill

that establishment Republicans were so happy about. They're trying to do more of. And from the Washington Post article, it doesn't sound like the focus is at all on fixing the tax code for the average individual, basically because everyone knows that's impossible. And by the way, I think they know that really going to a flat tax for corporations is impossible. I think that would, in some sense, help with onshoring. I think there are ways that you could do it that would help with bringing back jobs, good paying jobs back to the United States. But oh my gosh, the lack of attention paid to average Americans and the level of excitement that people have for just going in on another

big corporate tax cut in Donald Trump's own circles, I think is a very clear message that the Republican Party, even in Trump's circles, is still struggling mightily because of this vast infrastructure, basically, that has already existed throughout the history of the conservative movement that is sort of reflexively pro-business. That's a hard muscle memory to get rid of. You have to basically retrain your muscles to continue torturing this metaphor. And for all of the times you have Tom Cotton introducing a bill to hike the federal minimum wage, Tom Cotton is not necessarily your new right icon, somebody who has sort of a neoconservative foreign policy

and is known for having fairly fiscally conservative economic policy. All the times you have him introducing federal minimum wage hike, everything that J.D. Vance and Josh Hawley talk. Josh Hawley introduced legislation last week to cap credit card interest rates. That's a huge blow to these companies.

So for every time you have that happening from a Republican, you still have this muscle memory that I think is creating this real struggle for Republicans as they look to actually govern in a way, or some of them look to actually govern in a way that sort of puts the money where the mouths are. Some people just want to keep flapping the gums, saying they're representing the you know, the average working

class person and talking about that on cultural issues to the extent that they even want to talk about those anymore. And doing the Nikki Haley, well, union's bad, blah, blah, blah. They want to keep doing that and their muscles don't want to allow them to actually govern in a way that is serious, whether it's libertarian populism, the sort of Ron Paul populism that's genuinely anti-corporate, or economic populism in a way that some people consider on the left, maybe more statist. They don't want any of that, period. And their muscles aren't going to let them do it anyway. So Ryan, interesting story here from Jeff

Stein. All right, Ryan, more original reporting from you today, and even I think a cool tutorial on how to do screen recording is what you have for us. What's going on with Google and Rumble? So the last Republican debate was held on August 23rd. And a couple of weeks before that, Google reached out to the RNC and asked the RNC, hey, do you have a live streaming partner for the upcoming debate? If so, who? RNC responded, yes. In fact, Rumble has the exclusive live streaming results. The civics team over at Google, to their credit, yes, in fact, Rumble has the exclusive live stream results. The civics team over at Google, to their credit, said, sounds great. You know, either connect us with Rumble or give us a link to the upcoming live stream if you have it. So RNC then asks, you know, what exactly do you need? Google explains to them, quote, as we often do for major election events, we're exploring linking to the live stream on search and our product team is asking for a link to test the feature, unquote.

That's an email that I obtained from Google over to the RNC. RNC ends up adding Rumble to this chain and they go back and forth then for a couple days about whether they get a link whether they get on the phone and Emily and I can talk about the bizarre kind of email conversation that unfolds from there the the upshot though is that this and we can put up this little screen recording is what people saw if they searched GOP debate stream kind of the night of the debate. There's YouTube, there's YouTube, there's ABC News, there's The Verge on how to watch the debate, a couple, you know, a couple of articles. What you do not see on the front page of that search is the actual stream itself, any link to Rumble. So now I have responses from both Rumble and

Google, and then we can get into this. So Rumble told me, they said, the first Republican presidential debate was yet another example of Google's determination to squash competing video platforms. That's Rumble General Counsel Michael Ellis, quote, in its own words, Google uses search to highlight other major election events, but chose not to offer the same feature to Rumble's live stream. We look forward to proving Google's continued anti-competitive conduct in court, unquote. Now, Google, meanwhile, told me that this was all just a miscommunication. The quote from Google is, people could easily find information about where to watch the debate in Google search results. And as part of our ongoing effort

to build dedicated features in search to more prominently showcase events like debates, we reached out to the RNC and Rumble, but unfortunately it didn't come together in time to test and create the live stream feature. We've already worked with the RNC and Rumble to get this feature set up for the next debate as we would do with any live stream provider. So Emily, this is happening while Google is literally in facing, like in trial

currently. Because of this. Anti-competitive, kind of this-ish. Yeah. Or anti-competitive stuff. There was an amazing moment, by the way, and we'll get back to this, yesterday in court where Google complained that the Department of Justice was putting up the public exhibits on its website and asked that they stop doing that. And the judge said, yeah, you should stop doing that. It's terrible. And the DOJ said, we're so sorry. These are public exhibits. We're so sorry.

We're going to take them down. Google said, great, take them down. A Bloomberg reporter To her credit stood up in in the gallery. It was like hold on a second. These are public I want to I want at least Google to have Bloomberg to have an opportunity to have a lawyer here and The judge said okay. We'll we'll do that still in the meantime the department just took them down pitiful Mm-hmm. This is you're supposed to be prosecuting these guys. You're just taking public information off. So anyway, so Google's in the middle of this, and they know that this trial is coming when they find out that Rumble is going to be the

exclusive partner here. Now, the email chain is funny, and it'll be up at an article I have at The Intercept. I'm not posting it here because I forgot to redact all the names of the of the innocent So but we'll do that over at the intercept but so Google says send us a live link and This is nine days before the event right and so rumble writes back I want to get some clarity on the ask can we get on a call tomorrow or the day after now on the one hand? There is nothing more annoying than somebody who wants to take an email to a phone call.

To a meeting. And set up a meeting. Like, the ask is clear. Just send us a link. Now, in Rumble's defense, they don't have a live link nine days before. So, and what an official there told me is that they're trying to figure out, what do you need? Like, technically speaking, like, what do you need from us? Yeah. So that nine days from now, you can feature this. Right. And then they bump it the next day, and no reply from Google again. And then no more, no further bumping from Rumble and no

further replying from Google until the day of the debate, where Rumble doesn't appear kind of in the search results. Now, Google does not legally have a requirement to promote a competitor's product, like with the live little red thing and like above the search results, but organically, they can't suppress. Like the organic results can't suppress a competitor. And so they would have to explain,

well, why is YouTube there in that videos portion? And they would say, well, those YouTube video creators did a good job of kind of putting in the right keywords. Maybe it was breaking points. And we put in the right GOP debate kind of parameters that juiced us in there and Rumble didn't. But I think the thing that Google might be forgetting is that antitrust law is wildly up for grabs at this point. And if you get a Trump appointed lawyer and you have Rumble as the victim or complainant, better look out. They're going to side with Rumble, period. Your video is fantastic, actually. That was it. either on the podcast, which you can get anywhere, or to premium subscribers. And so we want to thank all of the premium subscribers who are going to BreakingPoints.com

and giving their hard-earned money. My annual subscription re-upped the other day. It was kind of funny to see on my phone that I gave Crystal and Saga $90. Man, what did I do that for? Oh, that's right. Yeah, I subscribed to their show because good. I like that you subscribed.

So it's actually telling that Ryan's annual subscription just re-upped because we're at a year of counterpoint. That's right. It was when I came over. I'm like, yeah. Mine was in June because I'm loyal. But Ryan's was in September because he's selfish. It's tough.

In the media, it's tough because all of your friends have books and have shows, and you're not going to make it to the end of the month if you don't lie about supporting some of them. Yes, absolutely. But in all seriousness, we've been here, part of the Breaking Points team. Oh gosh, Substack is another level. And then you add Locals and Patreon, and it's just, it's simply too much. But anyway, this is a high priority. Yes. It's why I give, why you should too.

This was basically a long-winded way of saying, we know you have a lot of things to subscribe to, but we love, love, love everyone who has taken that extra step and subscribed to watch the full video on YouTube early. And then all of Crystal and Sagar's great work is there too. So thank you. We appreciate it enormously. Make sure that you like and subscribe to the channel. Make sure that you subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. And just if you want that premium content comes a

little early, you get the full thing interrupted, full video uninterrupted. We really appreciate that. It means the world to us and it helps us keep doing what we do. And we were talking yesterday about how the Pittsburgh Penguins are the only team that hand deliver season tickets to their fans that purchase them. We got to figure out a way to do that. Yeah, but you want Sager to do it. You don't want to do it. You want Sager to do it. I would be happy to do it. Yeah. You'd be good at that. Sure. Just Ryan Grim shows up at your door unannounced. Yeah.

With a link. Here's your password. The password. Yeah. I don't know. We'll have to figure that out. A sticker. We'll have to figure that out.

We'll work on that. The whole team will grab some beers except for Sagar because he's lame. And we'll figure out how to get you those passcodes to your door. But in the meantime, make sure to subscribe. Thank you so much for watching and have a great week. See you next week. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi.

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