Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/21/23: Zelensky Calls For Stripping Nukes From Russia, Ukraine Fires Controversial Spokesperson, Dems Panic Over Trump's Union Visit, Australian MP On Freeing Assange, Journalist Charged For Jan 6th, Republicans Attack Pro Union

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss Zelensky's speech at the UN, Ukraine fires controversial spokesperson, Dems panic over Trump's union visit, Shawn Fain exposes corruption of the big three automakers, two Australian MP's join to discuss efforts to free Julian Assange, Democrats dominate in special elections across the country, journalist arrested for Jan 6th involvement, Republicans attack Biden over union support.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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Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Very busy day today here in the studio. We actually have two guests in town from Australia, two Australian members of parliament who are here to advocate for the release of Julian Assange. We're going to talk to them. We also have a presidential candidate coming in studio, Will Hurd. We're going to talk to him about how he sees the race and the dominance of Trump within the Republican Party and within the Republican

primary, certainly. We also have big news about Ukraine, updates on Zelensky's visit here. We've got updates on that UAW strike that we want to bring to you. We also have some really interesting data about the way special elections have been going across the country, really painting a very different picture than the polls are painting.

So we'll dig into that. Sagar is looking at a January 6th conviction and I am looking at Ben Shapiro's commentary on the UAW strike. So a lot to get to this morning. Very exciting show. That's right. that. Sagar is looking at a January 6th conviction, and I am looking at Ben Shapiro's commentary on the UAW strike. So a lot to get to this morning. Very exciting show. That's right. We wanted to thank everybody again for people who've been signing up, premium subscribers. We've got an awesome interview that Jordan Cheriton did with Sean Fain, the head of the UAW, about the strike, as well as some footage that he's been able to get from the strike itself. We're partnering

with Jordan on that. Your hard-earned money is helping support some of this on-the-ground journalism. We're very proud to be able to bring that type of interview, that coverage, again, that we've been doing. And so this is an important part of our show and what you are signing up for. So breakingpoints.com, if you are able to. It really helps us to be able to support partners, creators like that, and to be able to bring this to a wide audience. We're really proud of the fact that some of our UADW coverage and more has gotten more ratings than any other subject that we have done, which is why we get up in the morning.

That's why we do this show. Yeah, we were really excited to get to partner with Status Quo on that. And by the way, guys, give them some love too. Sign up and become members for them as well because they do a lot of great on-the-ground reporting. And I mean, they broke a lot of news this trip, both in talking to the workers.

We've got some video for you that's exclusive for us about how they feel about this whole Trump coming into town and Joe Biden's speech and whether he's going to go to the picket line and that interview with Sean Fain, where he also broke some news. So thank you guys so much for supporting us and making all of that happen. Absolutely. Okay, let's get to Ukraine. So President Zelensky, the schedule changed up a little bit. He is coming to town here today on Thursday. He's going to be meeting with the full Senate and with the House as the actual Ukraine funding is on a knife's edge, as well as a complete government shutdown. But some of Zelensky's comments are certainly getting eyed at,

not only at the United Nations, but in Poland. We're going to dig into all of that. By coming to the US, he's inadvertently ignited multiple diplomatic crises. The first at the U.N. calling for the removal of Russia from the U.N. Permanent Security Council and for a policy of denuclearization against the state. Let's take a listen. 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. No right to hold nuclear weapons. So that is the policy that we've pursued against North Korea now for 40 some odd years. Ask somebody how it's worked out for them. But really what that is,

is that is an explicit call for regime change. And that is the question of, is that what we support now? I mean, is that what the end goal of this war is, is to complete not only a regime change in Russia, but to subjugate Russia in order to take away their nuclear weapon status? I mean, this was not even, Crystal, the dream of the most Cold War hawks in the 1990s. Like, even then, it was understood by the Clinton administration, by the Bush administration, others like, listen, we have to make sure that we're not creating a situation where we're occupying the country, taking nukes away, taking any ability for them to have any sort of sovereignty or national pride. He's effectively advocating for that at the United Nations. And that's why it is

a stunning comment. He also, funnily enough, wants to swap Russia and Germany for permanent UN Security Council status. For those who don't Germany for permanent UN Security Council status. For those who don't know, the UN Security Council was created after the World War II, the victors of World War II, and the idea being that these have a permanent objection, the ability to veto at the UNSC. Of course, there's lots of questions about whether that should stand or not. It's not like it particularly matters because the UN has all that much power. But I thought that the most significant call that he made there was for outright regime change in Russia as apparently one of the Ukrainian end goals. And, you know, in a way, I appreciate that. It's like, yeah, you should we should know exactly what they are working towards or what they want.

And the question is, is that the United States, does Biden support the same? At the beginning of the war, he said it. Some people were out in the administration were outright saying it. Now we haven't heard that directly for a long time. It's hard to conclude that there's any other goal though, when you see the nature of our escalating level of support. Certainly, I don't know if they are so fanciful to imagine at this point that I think there was some wish casting at the beginning that Putin's regime might just collapse without doing a whole lot, that they could easily weaken it, that it would fall apart, that they could prop up whoever they hoped would be the successor, which we have always

said, you know, careful what you wish for, because it can, it may seem like it can't get worse than Putin, but trust me, it 100% could get worse than Putin. So we always were concerned about what could happen in the event that that was even a possibility. But it seems very unlikely at this point. I mean, there have been protests in favor of peace and against the war in Russia. Those have basically all fizzled out. You haven't seen a mass public revolt there. You know, you had this one weird sort of semi coup attempt that obviously has been dealt with and neutralized, to put it kindly, at this point. So there's no sign that the regime is in imminent danger of collapse.

So perhaps they don't delude themselves into thinking that anymore. But it does beg the question, like, OK, what is the end game? And I would like to see more direct commentary from our own president, because as you said, Zelensky certainly willing to put it out there. The other thing, listen, I would love to see worldwide global nuclear disarmament. I am not so foolish as to think that we are on the brink of that happening. And I certainly don't support any sort of one-sided direction. And he also seems to indicate that like, oh, actually Ukraine should have kept the nukes. Oh, right. And Russia should have gotten rid of them. That would have been way better. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So at the same time, President Zelensky here, he's got his hat out. He's coming to Washington today asking for 25

billion more from the United States. And as part of that, he's been giving a lot of interviews. I've been keeping my eye very closely for the case that he's making to American lawmakers. And in the latest one, let's put this up there during a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer. He says, quote, we are on the finishing line. I'm sure of that. Now, I really zeroed in on this because this is just a completely dishonest way of asking us for more money, Crystal. They need to be much more frank and honest about where the war is. Just to give everybody an idea, I always talk about the map. Let's actually look at it. Let's put this up there here on the screen. This is from the counter offensive. Now, what you can see in red

is held by Russia. That's approximately 20% of all of Ukraine. What you can see in blue are the Ukrainian counter offensive gains. Now, that black rectangle for those who are watching in the left side of the screen, Crystal, that was the goal of the counter offensive, to go all the way from where that tiny little shaded area of blue is to the Sea of Azov and to split the Russian defensives and to make a breakthrough against the entire defensive line. As you can see quite clearly from that, billions of dollars of weapons, who knows, untold hundreds of thousands, wounded or dead, has got us the colored in blue shade line. That is, by any military definition, the starting line of said counteroffensive. It is not even close to the finishing line. If they were even halfway through, I guess you could exaggerate and say that's the case. I also think it fits with something that happened yesterday.

There was an all-Senate briefing by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs staff the intelligence community and others and Senator Josh Hawley who attended that briefing had this to say this happened late last night So we don't have the element quote if there is a path to victory in Ukraine. I did not hear it today I heard there was going to be no end to funding requests This latest request for what it is 24 24 billion, is not the end. Quote, they made that very clear. It is not close to the end. I would say we were basically told, buckle up and get out your checkbook. So US policymakers have made the case to Congress. They are not saying what Zelensky's saying. They're like, no, no, no, no, this is gonna be

the first many. This is just the first quarter. We're not, and don't forget that. Whenever the Biden administration requested that another 24 billion, they said, this is just one of quarterly requests that will be forthcoming. So if we are to then annualize that, we are talking about about a hundred billion per year. 100 billion, again, is the same amount that we took 20 years to disperse to the entire Afghan national security forces through our entire time in Afghanistan. It's an extraordinary amount of money. And then relative to the gains that the Ukrainians are making, you cannot by any means say that this 24 billion or whatever is going to make, let's say, a difference beyond marginal in what the gains are that are being set.

And behind closed doors, that's what they're admitting. That's what they're admitting to our lawmakers. These wars take on a sort of endless circular logic where, you know, the idea before the counteroffensive was, okay, we're going to, you know, we're going to fund them, we're going to equip them, they're going to have this counteroffensive, and then maybe we can get to the table and they'll be in a stronger negotiating position. Now the logic is, since the counteroffensive didn't go well, well, we've got to, you know,

we got to keep funding them so they can try again and get a stronger position before they get to the negotiating table. It doesn't matter what really happens on the battlefield. There's always a logic in favor of continuing the conflict. And we've seen a number of, you know, media sort of planted reports that have helped to attempt to seed the ground and to plant the seeds of this is just going to go on and on and on. So at the same time, you know, put this next piece up on the street screen from The Wall Street Journal. They have a good report here about how Zelensky's trip to Washington this time has a much different tone and character than the trip last time, which, you know, he spoke to a joint session of Congress and it was very sort of there was a lot of grandiosity around it. It was very assertive. This time he's going to be meeting privately behind

closed doors with lawmakers, including, they say, some Republicans who want to grill him over a slow moving counteroffensive and Ukraine's use of American assistance. This comes, of course, at a time right now when the Republicans are looking to shut down the government. They can't come to an agreement within their own caucus about what they want funding levels to be. And part of the disagreements revolve around aid to Ukraine. Now, there's a lot of reporting about how much the tenor and the tone has shifted in Washington. I would just say, keep in mind that in terms of elite elected politicians on the Republican side, you still have an overwhelming majority in favor of continuing aid to Ukraine. In the Republican caucus, you maybe have a third of

the House Republican caucus that is at least in favor of reducing aid or not going forward with aid at all. So even within the Republican caucus in the House, you only have about a third that objects to continuing the direction that we have been going. So I do think some of the, you know, the journalists, some of the writing coming out of D.C. about this big split and how some of the Ukrainian aid is really in danger and, you know, it's on the precipice, et cetera, et cetera. I think it's a little bit overstated just given the numbers that are still overwhelmingly in favor of continuing aid to Ukraine. Yes, you're right. I spoke with some of my Capitol Hill sources and effectively what they're saying is like, look, we're going to fight as hard as we can. These are the people who are against adding aid. But here's the truth. It's the number one

establishment priority. And they're like they will move heaven and earth to get this money through Congress. Now, I will say there's I would put it at a 10 percent chance that it doesn't pass only for this reason. There McCarthy has got an issue. They're facing a potential government shutdown. So to avert that shutdown, he probably has to work with Democrats. Well, if the Democrats work with him, they're likely to mandate or want Ukraine aid as part of that. Well, that would give then the political power to some of the Matt Gaetz Republicans in the Freedom Caucus to call the motion to vacate on the Speaker and to replace him as Speakership. So he could put his own political future ahead of

that. There's another option that happens. They reach some sort of CR deal, continuing resolution, where they do fund the government, they leave Ukraine aid out of that, and it passes potentially at some later date. But then the question is, is that could the House and this contingent actually move forward to try and remove said aid? Then they could also pass this continuing resolution. The Senate could vote it down and say, no, we're not going to fund the government at all unless you put in said Ukraine aid. And there's like a late night vote that actually adds it on at the very last minute.

My point is, is that there is a little bit of uncertainty. And there was also some inkling of this just this morning that happened. Multiple GOP lawmakers, both senators and House of Representatives, sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget where they rejected the request for 24 billion and asked specifically about what the actual endgame is by the Biden administration saying, we will not vote for this until we receive a real strategic plan from the administration about this aid, about in the future. Senator Rand Paul vowing to hold up any procedural event that leads to more voting for Ukraine. So as you said, 90% chance, I think it will pass. Absolutely 90%. But there's a lot of chaos. So you never know. You never know. The other thing that just to clarify,

I think the government is going to shut down. I mean, I think there's very little, very little chance that it's not going to. There was a report in Politico playbook, which is, the insider rag, whatever, about how Democrats are not even planning a contingency for it to not shut down. There is no game plan in place from either side to avoid a government shutdown at this point. Republicans in the House caucus, they thought maybe they had this deal between the House Freedom Caucus and the, what is their, mainstream Republicans, is that what they call themselves? Anyway, the more moderate caucus within the Republican grouping and that whole thing completely fell apart. So, and that hadn't, you know, that was separate and apart from Ukraine funding that was just on, you know, the other budget spending levels that

completely fell apart. So even within the House Republican conference, they can't agree on a continuing resolution to pass. And that's before you even start talking about the Democrats in the Senate or the Republicans even in the Senate. That's before you start talking about the White House. So it's very hard to see how they avoid a government shutdown at this point. And it's also very hard to see how McCarthy does anything at any point, even after the government shutdown, without working with Democrats, which is why I think it's very unlikely that you don't end up with this next tranche of aid to Ukraine. Because if he's having to work with Democrats anyway, you know, he and by the way, two thirds, majority of his caucus overwhelmingly are in favor of continuing

Ukraine aid. So some I don't know how this is all going to work out specifically, but it seems like they're probably going to have to make some kind of a deal with the Democrats after the government has already shut down and after some pain has already been exacted on, you know, not just the federal government, but the American people. So we'll see how this all plays out. But I just, you know, I wouldn't get people's, I don't want you guys to get your hopes up that there's going to be some real significant change here in the direction, because in terms of the elected officials here in Washington, they're still overwhelmingly in support on both sides of the aisle of continuing the present direction. At the same time, there is a humorous incident in which a Ukrainian minister, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian defense ministry is an American transgender woman, Sarah Ashton Carrillo, who has been making incendiary videos

now, basically since the beginning of the war, that have been going very viral. Now, recently, one of these videos that she had put out effectively advocated for assassination of anybody who goes against any of the Ukraine consensus, not just in Ukraine, but actually here in the United States. Just take a listen to that flavor and we'll tell you what happened to her. Russia hates the truth that their obsessive focus on a Ukrainian volunteer is simply allowing the light of the Ukrainian nation's honesty to shine brightly. Next week, the teeth of the Russian devils will gnash ever harder, and their rabid mouths will foam in uncontrollable frenzy,

as the world will see a favorite Kremlin propagandist pay for their crimes. And this puppet of Putin is only the first. Russia's war criminal propagandists will all be hunted down and justice will be served as we in Ukraine are led on this mission by faith in God, liberty, and complete liberation. This is Sergeant Sarah Ashton Cirillo of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and I'd like to thank the X social media platform for carrying this exclusive message from Kyiv. There has been much discussion recently related to my role within the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Before answering some of the questions put forward by Senator Vance of Ohio, I'd like

to thank all those in the U.S. who are supporting the Ukrainian people. Without Republicans and Democrats working together on behalf of Ukraine, our growing and unstoppable success on the battlefield, and the inevitable victory it will bring over the Russian invaders, would take significantly longer. America is once more showing why it's history's greatest republic and the world's lone superpower, and all of us in Ukraine are humbled by the support we're receiving from the American people. Let me also take a moment in my role as spokesperson for the AFU's Territorial Defense Forces to state unequivocally that we in the TDF and across Ukraine believe journalists are heroes and have the right to report on Ukraine's war for liberation

without interference. Free speech is the pillar of all democracy. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, along with the rest of that sacred document, is ordained by God. So, Crystal, the Defense Forces of Ukraine, let's put this up there on the screen, have now announced Junior Sergeant Sarah Ashton-Srillo has been suspended from the duties of the spokesperson of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine while an investigation is now underway. In further statement, they said from the armed forces that the statements of Sergeant Srillo in recent days were not approved by command of the TDF or the command of the AFU while conducting military operations against the aggressor. The defense forces of Ukraine strictly observe the norms of international humanitarian law. The command of TDF will conduct an official investigation into the circumstances of these statements. Appropriate decisions will then be taken. She will be suspended immediately pending

the investigation. So there was the only reason that this even came to light is because of that video where she was basically, we're going to hunt down and kill anybody who doesn't agree with us. Um, Senator Vance put out a letter being like, hold on, are we funding this person's salary? Like who is this person? And then from that, the Ukrainians apparently took notice of what we're look undeniably. She has become a hero, um, amongst a lot of the Ukraine flag and bio people. She actually just got an award in Las Vegas for like – like from the city for being like a heroic American. It's just an example of like this unhinged behavior by some of the people who are aligned with this cause and that we're being directly in many respects like propped up not only by the US government, by a lot of people here who just love these types of statements.

But ironically, it came to bite them because they're like, hold on a second, this is creating problems for us in the U.S. Yeah, I mean, I think Zelensky choosing to investigate this person and fire her effectively, it's part of the charm offensive before he came to Washington.

I mean, they cleaned out a bunch of the defense cabinet ministers in an attempt to also show a series about corruption. So I don't really read into it anything more than that. I think, yeah, I think you're right. I think it's what they were like, oh my gosh, this could be causing problems for us. They probably, I mean, they got a Senator who's sending a messages about it. What do they, you know, they're like, all right, fine. Goodbye. We'll launch an investigation. This is not worth the headache. This is not worth the headache to put out this type of stuff. But you know, it does just give you an example of how some of their like some of their rhetoric, as we talked about, let our block about the regime change and about is actually starting to invite some pushback in Washington. Probably not enough in order to do anything about actual funding.

But this is just one of the latest examples. So I wanted to give you guys that update. I thought it was funny. So let's give you an update on the autoworker strike set to potentially escalate as contract negotiations continue without resolution as of this morning. And this has created some very interesting political dynamics. So first person out, Joe Biden, came out with a very strong statement, I thought, in support of the striking workers very clearly on their side. Donald Trump then has attempted to signal his support, his symbolic support for the workers, even without fully taking their side, by planning a speech in Detroit to workers, union workers, not all auto workers, but former union workers, current union workers, et cetera, but in Detroit on the day of the second GOP debate. And so because this is how Democrats are, this has set off a whole series of like, you know, pearl clutching and hand wringing about,

oh God, what do we do now with regards to Joe Biden? So put this up on the screen from Politico. They have the headline, Trump scooped us, Dem sound alarm on Biden's handling of the autoworker strike. Donald Trump's decision to head to Detroit for speech next week is setting off alarms among some Joe Biden allies. And the idea here is they quote a union advisor who spoke on the condition of anonymity to say that Trump is still himself and was saying do crazy shit. But they added he actually has people who know what they're doing. He boxed Biden in. It's kind of genius. Another Democratic strategist said Trump scooped us. Now, if we announce we're going, we're going, it looks like we're just going because of Trump. We waited too

long. That's the challenge. Worth remembering, actually, Trump did better among union members in 2016 than he did in 2020. Yes. Biden was able to double the margin that Hillary Clinton achieved among union members in 2020. So he does perform better with this group. But I mean, I just think it's silly, their whole concern. The question is whether or not Joe Biden should go and walk the picket line. And basically every Democrat who's advising him and every Democrat in Michigan is like, yes, go and walk the picket line, go make an appearance, go meet with these striking auto workers. The union itself has said, you know, of course they would welcome him. I mean, who wouldn't welcome the president of the United States, regardless of who it is, to come and show

support for striking workers. But they're doing all this hand-wringing about, oh gosh, now that Trump's going, maybe we can't go and it'll look like we're just following him, et cetera. I think that's so silly, all of that thinking. Of course. He should just go. And if he does go, I mean, it would be a big deal. No president in over a century has shown up at a picket line. So it would be an extraordinary action. And they're just kind of like, you know, dragging their feet about whether or not it would be the right thing to do. It reminds me of the East Palestine situation whenever Trump visited and then Buttigieg came afterwards and he was like, no, I didn't come just because Trump came. And he was like, it's ridiculous. But one of the reasons that we had written seen behind the scenes was that the Biden advisors were wary of going after Trump had

visited because they didn't want to seem as if they were following him. As you said, I don't think it mattered to the people there actually, though, at the time. And I don't think it matters this time around. In fact, you know, it would just be you could spin it and be like, yeah, good. I'm glad he's there. It's a show of bipartisanship. Yeah. The two of us support this thing. That's how things should be in American politics should be. And that's why all GOP lawmakers should do the same. There'd be an easy way to play it from a position of strength. Yeah. He could say, yeah, I'm glad to see him symbolically supporting him now while he was screwing workers while he was in office and giving away tax cuts. You know, I mean, you could use it as a messaging opportunity. And you're the president of the United States. I mean,

you're going to attract a lot of attention if you take what would be, again, a historic action by going and walking the picket line. Put this next piece up on the screen. Jeff Stein's been doing some really great reporting over at The Washington Post about the strike and from the workers' perspective. And he's got this political insight here, he says, as Trump woos Detroit unions, Democrats urge Biden to join UAW strikers. He's coming under increasing pressure, they say, from some Democratic lawmakers to do something none of his predecessors appear to have done in office, join striking workers walking a picket line. He also is the one who points out, according to Director of Labor Education Research at Cornell University, that he would be the first president in a century to join a picket line. The White House declined to comment when asked if Biden is weighing a visit. But they say in interviews with The Washington Post, more than a half dozen Democrats in Congress and the Michigan state legislature said he should

go. UAW leadership has also communicated to the White House that a presidential visit would be welcomed. So I think there's a decent possibility that he shows up. I think he 100 percent should show up. In my opinion, this is an absolute no brainer. If you don't want to get outmaneuvered by Trump and his, you know, symbolic nonsense, then there's a really clear path to doing that. He's already rhetorically Biden has already clearly taken the side of striking workers. So this is just going one step further and actually physically showing up in solidarity for them. Yeah. What I read is that one of the complications apparently is that

the GM CEO and Biden are close and apparently has been, she's been making inroads. Is this Mary Barra? Yes. Because she's visited. She was a Democratic candidate for governor in Michigan. So, yeah, she's like that. It makes sense. They know her. So they know each other. And apparently there's been communication about you shouldn't be doing such a thing. You don't want to sacrifice our relationship, apparently, as the CEO.

But, yeah, I think it would have been a no-brainer. I agree. The easy way to not have got outfoxed or whatever is we'd just been doing it earlier or announcing it, you know, whenever it happens. So we'll see. Hey, I agree. Even now it doesn't matter. Oh, they'll think this and that. No, they'll just be happy that you're there with them. Like no one's going to, you know, think, oh, you look weak and you were pressured, et cetera. They're just going to be happy that you're there showing support for workers. So don't overthink it, guys. That would be my recommendation. At the same time, thanks to our partnership with Status Quo and Jordan Sheridan on the ground, he was able to

talk to workers themselves about how they are viewing all of these political machinations. And again, guys, thank you so much for helping support us so we can get this kind of exclusive reporting. And also, you know, shout out to Jordan Sheridan and Status Quo if you're able to support them as well. Please do so. take a listen to what the workers had to say about the politics of this. Do you welcome a visit from Trump and, and do you, uh, agree with them as far as we need to shift away from the electric vehicle transition? I do agree with shifting away from the electric, electric vehicles. I do agree with that. Um, you know, It's all about the support for us. Yeah, I don't really know what to say.

Do you think in terms of the electric vehicles that it's kind of hurting the workers? There's not enough demand for it. Why do you agree with shifting away from electric? Really, job security. Job security most to me. 60% less workforce means we're going to lose a lot of UAW jobs. That's what I believe. What do you think of the former president who says he's coming here next week to, I guess, talk to the workers?

What do you think about him saying he would reverse these electric vehicle policies compared to President Biden? Well, first of all, he's a politician. So whatever he says, I'm not going to believe him anyway. But the main thing is for electric vehicles, there is a concern for the future for autoworkers. I think part of this contract, part of this fight, has to secure that future, whatever it is. I don't think there's any way to tell

how popular an electric vehicle is going to be, how well they're going to sell. But we have to have jobs, and jobs that are secure jobs and well-paying jobs. So whatever that is, whether there are more electric vehicles being sold or less, we've still got to make sure that autoworkers have jobs. We have to defend our jobs and our pay rate and our futures. So if there are going to be more electric vehicles produced,

we have to make sure the jobs in the battery plants, for example, are union jobs. There are jobs at the same pay rate, and people have a chance to work there because right now if an engine plant is closed, for example, because they have fewer gas-powered vehicles, the battery plants where there are going to be jobs might not be in the same city or even the same state. So we have to be able to secure

our jobs as autoworkers. What do you think about, you know, the Biden administration gave Ford a $9.2 billion loan for electric. Doesn't seem to be a lot of strings attached. There's not demands for wages for workers, making them union shops. What do you think about Ford getting that big loan without some requirements?

Well, it shows you which side the government's on. They're subsidizing the auto company, not just Ford. All the auto companies are being subsidized by the Inflation Reduction Act and building battery facilities in this country. So they're subsidizing them without any protection for the workers. But that's what the government normally does, right? And in my opinion, they're out there serving big business and not the workers. Former President Trump says he's coming here next week. He's going to talk to the workers. UAW President Sean Fain had some not so nice words for him saying we're fighting against billionaires like him. What do you think about Trump coming

here? I have no comment about Donald Trump. Not a supporter, I assume? No comment. What do you think in general, he criticized the electric vehicle shift saying, you know, if he becomes president again, he would shift away from this investment in electric vehicles? He'll be in prison. Okay. Do you agree with him? Because I've talked to workers who feel electric. They don't have job security with these electric jobs,

and there's not enough demand for the electric. Do you agree with him, or do you think this electric transition is a good thing? I think it's a good thing. I think it's the wave of the future. They you agree with them or you think this electric transition is a good thing? I think it's a good thing. I think it's the way of the future. They're going to have to figure out how it's going to all work, where people are going to have to plug in their cars and whatnot. But, you know, it's change and we have to embrace change. So I talked to, yeah, those were really interesting. A good spectrum of, you know, of views there. And, you know, I thought the gentleman in the middle who was like, listen, we're not opposed to EVs.

We just got to have job security. I think that's the general view. I asked Jordan, you know, what was the overall vibe as he was talking to workers about the politics of it. And he was like, most of them don't want to talk about these guys. Like most of them are skeptical of both of these politicians. It's not their primary focus. Like they're focused on their fight against the big three, against the bosses, trying to win job security, trying to win decent wages. Like that is the primary thing that they're focused on and want to talk about. And this stuff over here all seems like kind of a sideshow.

Makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. While he was in Detroit, Jordan Terraden of Status Quo was also able to get an exclusive interview with UAW president Sean Fain, covered a range of issues. Let's take a listen to some of the highlights. Joe Kernan, who's worth $3 million, that's his salary, at CNBC, he said, that's just optics, what the CEOs make. It doesn't really matter. UAW is deploying a, quote, politics of envy by continually hammering the CEO pay. Are you and the workers just, quote, envious of the CEOs? I call it a politics of reality. The reality of what our members go through every day. I mean, the majority of our workers are scraping to get by paycheck to paycheck. I mean, you know, that's not envy.

You know, when workers start out at 15 or 16 dollars an hour and it could take them years as attempt to even get to full time if they get the full time there's no guarantee they'll get there if they do they go to 18 and then they have an eight year progression to get the full pay um they're not our members are this isn't the old big three where you know it was the gold standard when you got a job at the big three you were set for life that's not what this is anymore and that's what we're fighting to bring back these jobs should matter and we're generating a quarter of a trillion dollars in profits in the last decade, 21 billion the first six months this year. And our workers are falling further and further behind.

That's got to stop. And it's ironic when Kramer's compared me to Trotsky or anyone else and talking about the ninth class at Harvard is going to be Seanain and communism and I laugh, it's like I tell him, I come from central Indiana, I said, yeah, central Indiana is really known for a breeding ground for cornfields and communism, it's laughable. I don't know if you saw Mary Barra, the General Motors CEO, did a bit of a robotic interview on CNN, she was asked, how do you kind of justify

you're getting a 34% increase? Why shouldn't workers get? She gave some weird math equation that 92% of her salary is based on company performance. I kind of take that reading in between the lines is the stock price. Can you kind of talk about, because it seems like they're just doing this scheme of buying back the stock, the juice up the stock, so the CEO and executives make more pay. She's not specifically talking about like the workers. Well, the worst part of this, like I tell people when she talks about performance, she's getting paid and the stock price goes up and down based off the performance of our members,

of our workers, because they're in there busting their asses doing this work, delivering great product, sales happen. That generates some massive profits. But the sick, twisted part of this is you look at the last four years. Incomes have went up. Sales have went up 65 percent in the big three. CEO pay went up 40 percent. Stock buybacks went up 1,500%. This is our time. We call this our generation-defining moment. This is it. And so when I talk about not having limits, throughout my campaign running for this job and even since then, when we're talking about our issues, when we put our demands out there, I can't tell you how many people would say,

oh, you'll never get cost of living back. That's a thing of the past. You'll never, why are you fighting for pensions? We'll never see a pension. And all I heard is what we can't do. And our, unfortunately, that was driven by a leadership that had a can't do mentality, settling for the bare minimum and making people think that's okay. The sky has to be the limit. We cannot limit ourselves on what we can achieve. If the founders of this union would have went into negotiations saying what they can't do, if they would have went in and they would have fought or if they wouldn't, they fought, they fought, they got beat up. They, some gave their lives to have this opportunity and they didn't give a damn what anybody told them they couldn't have. They said, no, we're going to take it. We're going to get

what we have to get no matter how, by any means necessary. I don't really care if you endorse President Biden. That's all that CNN cares about. But I am interested, you know, you hear some verbally kind of pro-worker language. He did, you know, stop a railroad strike at the end of last year. But aside from, you know, occasional vague support, there hasn't been a lot of action. There was no push for the PRO Act, which would have, you know, been a big boost for organized labor when Democrats had complete control. You know, Biden apparently is sending two top aides here. I don't know what they'd be doing, but we know the Republicans and their views on labor. Do you need more from the Democratic Party aside from, you know, talk and showing up

when the cameras are here? Yeah, I mean, the proof's got to be in the pudding. The proof's going to be in the work. I mean, and as we said, our endorsements are going to be earned. It would drive me nuts as a worker to just watch. Sometimes we just endorse people and there's really no body of work behind that. And we can't be taken for granted no more. Workers shouldn't allow themselves to be taken for granted. And so, you know, there's a lot of things going on in this economy. And there's a lot of things with the EV transition. I mean, we're not against a green economy. I mean, we've got to have clean air.

We've got to have clean water. You know, we've got to have a world for people to live in, future generations to live on. But it's got to be a just transition where, you know, labor has a seat at the table. You know, there's a lot of money, you know, with the IRA that was put in play with the government, a lot of our taxpayer dollars to help fund this transition. But, again, like always, the corporations come with their hands out. There's always a way the government finds a way to put money in their pockets. But labor gets left behind.

Labor cannot continue to be left behind. And that's been our message to the White House, to Congress, and to anyone that'll listen. And so, you know, that's got to change. So you can really see there the way that his vision is to try to restore the previous era's understanding of what an auto worker job should mean, that it should be the gold standard, as he put it. It should mean that you can have a stable middle class life. And by doing so, he's trying to redefine what that looks like for the entire working class, what the entire, you know, blue collar and also service sector working class should be able to expect from their job. So, you know, I think he's he's very compelling, very clear. He was just elected, as I pointed out, and over the sort of like historic, more

company-tied leadership. The members, for the first time, had a truly democratic election. This is the leadership that they chose. They wanted to go in this more militant direction because they've seen the way that their wages have been eaten away and eaten away and eaten away over years. They've seen the way that they got nothing back after basically bailing out these automakers. And the latest information just this morning is that they've seen the way that they got nothing back after basically bailing out these automakers. And the latest information just this morning is that they've set a kind of a new deadline of noon on Friday. If they aren't able, which it doesn't look like they're likely to be, aren't able to come to some sort of a contract agreement before noon on Friday, they're going to then escalate the strike and bring in additional plants from the big three in order to strike and join what's already about 10,000 workers out of, I think it's 10,000, out of the 150,000 UAW workers who are already on

the picket line. So you can hear a lot of clarity there in what his goals ultimately are. Yeah, I think it's really interesting the way that he's phrasing it. It's very important, actually. It probably comes at the best possible time. I also think that his confrontational attitude specifically toward the boss class, as you said, coming in a time of historic acceptance of unions, of growing political, I wouldn't say there's political opposition in the same way that there would have been 10 or 15 years ago. So anyway, I think it's very interesting to see how he's positioning himself, but also to see how much, given the interviews that we saw with the workers, all of them, they didn't want to get involved in the politics. They're just like, look, we just want better pay. So clearly he is speaking, you know, on behalf of them. And

that militant attitude is reflective of what they elected him to do. Yeah. That's probably the biggest take. He's critical of, it was very critical of Trump saying we are fighting with every fiber of our being against the billionaire class and need to stop electing these people who are, you know, basically screwing everybody over. But he also has been very critical of the Biden administration and saying, you know, their big rub is not that they don't want to transition to EVs. It's that they want to make sure that those jobs are going to be union jobs. That's the big rub. The original plan of the idea of the administration, the Inflation Reduction Act, is that those incentives to the carmakers would come with a requirement that they be union jobs. But that

got stripped down in negotiations. Joe Manchin, in particular, didn't want it. And so there are now no protections in the Inflation Reduction Act to make sure that these new battery plants and the new EV manufacturing facilities are actually union. So that is at the core of this fight. That is a genuine rub between the autoworkers and the Biden administration. It's something that, of course, Trump honed right in on and is trying to use to create a gulf there and, you know, is obviously going to be in town next week. But, you know, from what I can tell from from Sean Fain and from the rest of the membership, like those political fights are really secondary to them. They're very much

focused on the here and now. What's my wage going to be? What are my benefits going to be? What's the future going to be for me and my family and this industry? And how are we going to make sure that we secure our part in it? And that way, it really reminds me a lot of some of the fights with the writers and actors who are also looking at the way their industry is changing and saying, this is our chance to make sure that we have a secure spot in what this future looks like with AI and also with streaming. And they can already see the way that they're getting completely screwed in terms of streaming revenue. I mean, just basically cut out completely from streaming revenue, whether you're an actor or a writer. And so they're

saying, we're using this point, little moment that we have when contracts are up and when the labor market is tight and when we have an administration, a national labor relations board that at least is not going to completely screw us to try to make sure we can secure our future in a changing industry. And it's the exact very similar dynamics here with autoworkers. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm fascinated to see how it continues to spiral. It seems like the lawmakers aren't – sorry, the bosses aren't giving in here. So a wider strike obviously will really hit their bottom line, and we'll see if they can hold out as long as the studios can. I don't think so, given the current economic conditions. Just how united the UAW is and their ability to stretch and all that.

But hopefully it's not a long one, hopefully. They seem very committed, and we'll see what the automakers ultimately do. The ball is in their court, as they say. That's right. All right. Now we're going to shift gears. We have some special guests joining us in studio here, two Australian members of parliament who are advocating for the release of Julian Assange. They are in town. They're going to join us right now. We are very excited to have two special guests in studio here with us this morning, two members of Parliament all the way from Australia, from two very different political ideologies who are in town to advocate for the release of Julian Assange. We have Member of Parliament Barnaby Joyce and also Member of Parliament Monique Ryan. Great to have both of you here with us.

Good to see you. Thanks for having us on your show. Absolutely. So if you could start just by telling us why are you in town, why make what is a very long trip to come here and advocate on behalf of Julian Assange. Oh, thanks, Crystal. Yeah, so as you say, it's a long way to come.

And the parliamentary delegation that's come from Australia, the six of us, is unique, I think. As far as we can tell, it's unprecedented for three members from our lower house and our upper house to come in this way. But we're also people from across the political spectrum in Australia, which basically reflects the fact that our electorates feel really strongly about the Assange case.

More than nine out of ten Australians now feel that it's past time for Julian Assange to be released and to be allowed to go home to be with his wife and his two children. There's a real wave of support for him in Australia. We're very anxious about the prospect that he could be extradited from the United Kingdom to the States, and we're here to advocate on his behalf.

So talk a little bit about that, Sarah. What are the issues at stake? Is it about standing up for journalism? He's a citizen. What are some of the issue areas that have united, you know, all these disparate political coalitions to unite you, for them to come to Washington and say this is something that we demand? Let's go through the issues here. For me, it's not so much about Julian Assange as a principle. It's a principle about extraterritorial reach. Let's turn it around. Let's imagine a guy from Ohio and all of a sudden he lives in Ohio,

he's never committed an offence in the United States at a state level or federal level, and then Australia says, well, he's committed an offence for us, and then he goes overseas and next thing you know Australia is saying, well, he's coming to jail in Australia and he's going to stay there for 175 years. Right. The people of the United States would rightly say, well, what on earth is going on here?

Let's go through some other things. Julian Assange never stole anything from the United States would rightly say, well, what on earth is going on here? Let's go through some other things. Julian Assange never stole anything from the United States. A guy by the name of Bradley Manning, who then became Chelsea, who was then Chelsea Manning, did and then he published it. Let's go through another thing. He didn't publish it first. An American guy by the name of John Young published it first from Cryptome, I think was the name of the website.

It's just that Julian had a much larger reach. In Australia, Julian actually got a Walkley Award, a journalism award. Now I'm not here to advocate. I actually think that morally it was wrong, but it wasn't a criminal offence in Australia and that's the big difference. And we've got other issues. We've got a lady by the name of Cheng Lei. She's in jail in China. She's a journalist.

So what do we say there? Do we say to the Chinese, oh, well, you should send her back? Let's go back and say, hey, how about you work on your first roller in your own backyard and then come and talk to us? So as a principle, a lot of Australians have said, oh, this is messy. And I think for us in our relationship, close relationship with the United States, especially on defence, the new world,

we see it as a mess and we just want it cleaned up and moved on. Wow. Ms Ryan, how has the reception here in Washington been? How have the politicians that you've been speaking with, are they receptive? They have been really receptive. So we've met thus far with representatives from the Department of State and the Department of Justice and a couple of politicians,

and we're meeting with a number more today. And I think the thing that's really resonated is the extent to which this really matters to Australians. And I think people are a bit surprised. And we've heard on several occasions people saying, well, we didn't think you guys were that fussed about it, that worried about it, that you cared that much about Julian Assange's situation,

but also that they weren't as aware as we want them to be, and that's why we're here, about how strongly we feel about freedom of the press and about protection of our citizens' rights. And one of the things we've said repeatedly is that Australians have huge respect for the US. And our countries work really closely together in lots of ways, economic, on defence, and in any number of other ways.

And there's not many points of difference between the US and Australia. We have great respect for your constitution and your First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. And we, I guess, expect a reciprocal level of respect for our press and for the speech of our citizens. And we don't want this to become a point of difference

between Australia and the US. That's something we're trying to say. We come here not to pick a fight, but to advocate on behalf of someone that matters to us and hopefully to strengthen the relationship between Australia and the US, not the reverse. Well, that's a very powerful message. So just outline some of the steps for what comes next.

I know there's currently an extradition fight about bringing him over from the UK. If the US were to drop the charges, would that drop the extradition and you'd be free to go home? Is that what we're advocating for? Sagar, precisely right. There's no point extraditing someone to the United States if there's no charge to answer.

Exactly. Right now Julian Assange was probably in prison for around about 11 years, in fact more, about 13. Right. But part of it sort of sets off imprisonment in the Ecuadorian embassy and we saw that. But right now he's in a place called Belmarsh Prison, which is a high security prison in England.

He gets out for one or two hours a day and if you think about it, he said, well, why are you in jail? You didn't commit a crime in Australia. Right. There is no...and Australia is not like a sort of a backwater in a remote corner of the world that goes around deliberately persecuting people or we have special laws. We're very similar on a common law principle

and how the United States works. And we just were trying to take people on the journey and trying to say this is not a right or a left thing. I was Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and I'm from the right. I'm strongly from the right. And if we in Australia, both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, who are poles apart in both ones from the left of the left, ones from the right of the right,

have both landed in the same spot, it really just calls into question, you know, think about it, just think about this principle, because we don't...we have a strong belief in the United States and therefore the United States has such a leading role in so many areas of the globe. And you don't want one sort of barnacle to sort of sully your reputation. You just say, man, let's park this thing and move on.

Yeah, unfortunately I think we've got more than one barnacle. We can talk about that another time. Has public sentiment in Australia shifted? Has pressure been building on this? It really has for a number of different reasons. The first thing is that this has gone for more than 11 years, during which time Julian has married and he has two small children who have never had an opportunity to live with him.

And so we do feel like enough is enough. Yeah. In that context, Chelsea Manning has been tried, pled guilty, been found guilty, convicted to 35 years in jail, but then had her sentence commuted by President Obama. So she now walks free. Right. Whereas Mr Assange has never actually been sent to trial as such. Right. And 11 years later is still being detained. Right.

It seems egregious. That contrast to us really sits very poorly. But the other thing that's happened over time is that we have understood more about our own military's engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan and around some of the circumstances of that engagement. There are a number of criminal trials in Australia underway now or about to start of military personnel from Australia... Oh, interesting.

..for potential war crimes. And so I think we see the information that Mr Assange released in a different light now than we did when it was released. Makes sense. And I think that probably, to some extent as well, reflects some of the things that have happened in the US... Oh, sure. ..with the vision and the documents that he released.

You know, with the passage of time, we recognise their significance and their value. And we would not be seeing that sort of information if journalists feel that they can't take classified documents and publish them in the public interest if they're truthful. Do you feel that there may also be a bit of an opportunity with this administration? Because under the Obama-Biden administration, they were no fan of Julian Assange, but they evaluated the relevant laws and said, we don't see how we can prosecute this man without criminalizing all of journalism and criminalizing publishers and the other outlets

like the New York Times that were also reporting on this information. Washington Post, De Spiegel, Le Monde, El Pais, The Guardian, all of those would have been drawn into the same thing and they would have had to have been prosecuted and the Obama administration decided not to do that. And so, you know, Biden was obviously vice president then. So is there a sense that, OK, potentially we can make the argument like, let's just

go back to what was decided previously under the Obama-Biden administration? Well, we look for the outcome and we'll leave the process up to the United States. And we understand that you can't turn up in another country with a process of duress and it's really on the same principles. You've got to turn up and show your case, plead your case, explain yourself and that's why we are here. My position is not so much on, as a person who has an involvement in the military in Australia, I'm not here to justify

on a moral basis what Julian Assange did. I've never met the guy. I don't even know whether I'd like him. It's kind of irrelevant. You probably would disagree with it. It doesn't matter. It's kind of irrelevant. I think it's important for people to know that because a lot of the times

what people are doing is they're looking at the action and making a judgment on the process. The process must be right because I have a view of this person. And you've got to say, no, you've got to separate that. As you know, in law the lady who represents justice has a sword, she has scales, but she's also got a blindfold and you've got to be blinded to the person and not make a judgement. Let's see where that process ends.

I just think on a cogent examination of it, people has to say exactly what you... We'll have everybody in CNN, everyone in Fox. I mean, they'd better build a really, really, really big jail because if this is the case, there's a lot of people going to jail and that's obviously patently absurd. Right. Yeah. It's not just the journalists who would be at risk.

It will impact all of us because we wouldn't receive the news that we need to receive if journalists are afraid to publish it. Is there any action that you would ask our audience to take to support your efforts here, anything that people could do to be of help? I think the really important thing is to think about the case and then lobby your Congress, your Senator, make them aware of it. I have found in some instances, I'm surprised

that the lack of understanding, maybe a view in a certain way after a discussion, but I think it's really important that people see it and see it for me through the light of a process and say, look, this is the United States of America. We're not some Central American Republic or something like that. This is kind of crazy. And we're not some Central American republic or something like that. This is kind of crazy. And we're certainly not the CCP in China. This is kind of the way they carry on, not how we should be carrying on.

Any last words? Yeah, I tell you, we're here because people lobbied us. Politicians listen to their constituents and so we would really ask people to do that and to speak out about this because it matters to all of us. Yeah. Well, thank you both so much for joining us, for making the trip and hopefully our audience can help. Thank you. Thank you both. Thanks for having us.

Had a couple of special elections this week. Both of them went in the direction of the Democratic candidate. And this led to some new analysis of how all of these special elections have been going, which points in a very different direction from how the polling has been going. Of course, the polling has Biden and Trump very tight. It has Republicans with a significant edge in terms of the congressional ballot. But these special elections have sort of consistently swung towards the Democrats by double digits over what would be expected. So go ahead and put this analysis up on the screen. We want to make sure and flag this for people. This is from ABC News. And they say that Democrats have been winning big in special elections, but on average,

so not in one race or the other, on average, they have won by margins of 11 points more than the weighted relative partisanship of their district. So whatever you would expect based on presidential results and based on what the normal partisan lean of a district is, Democrats have been outperforming that by about 11 points. One of the special elections this particular week was actually in New Hampshire district. That is six percentage points more Republican leaning than the nation as a whole. It went for Trump, yet the Democrat won by 12 points. So that is an 18 point Democratic overperformance above their partisan baseline. Okay, so now you may be asking, does any of this matter? Well, that's kind of an open question. in these special elections does seem to correlate with what happens in terms of the National House popular vote. So if you have Democrats who are overperforming the special elections,

they tend to overperform when it comes to the congressional ballot, when it comes to midterm or presidential year elections. They go through the data here. Now, the relationship does not always hold. There was a year here in 1997 and 98 where Republicans were overperforming by 12 points. But then when it came to the National House popular vote, it was more or less even. They were at 0.9. So not a big correlation there. But if you look at a lot of these other years, you can see there seems to be a trend of whatever party is overperforming the special elections tends to do well come the congressional vote. Now, you could probably guess some of the reasons that might be contributing to this.

Same as when the predicted red wave did not materialize in the midterms could very much be, you know, discussed with Trump and stop the steal and crucially abortion, which obviously has really motivated the Democratic part of the electorate. You could also say, you know, this could have to do and this may actually lessen the impact when it comes to a presidential election year. But it used to be that Republicans were the party that had more of the college educated voters who were more likely to be to routinely show up election after election after election. It was more difficult for Democrats to turn out their base. That dynamic has now flipped where it is Democrats who overwhelmingly are backed by college educated voters who are more likely to consistently turn out for elections. So you could

say, OK, well, maybe they're turning out for these special elections. But when you have a general election with likely Trump and Biden on the ballot, you may get a very different electorate. Another reason why you may have a discrepancy between what's happening in these special elections versus what the polls look like at this point is right now the polls do not have what's called a likely voter screen. They're just looking at everybody, all registered voters, and they haven't started to factor in, all right, but who's going to actually show up and who's not going to show up? So that could account for the difference. But it is very interesting to note that when people have actually been going to the polls and voting for candidates,

Democrats have on average been outperforming by about 11 points. Yeah, I think all these points are very valid. I think the only reason why we should all zero in, as you said, is they've been especially predictive. And look, in retrospect, they were one of the most predictive things of what was to come in the 2022 midterm elections. And also, I mean, the real thing is, is that I believe very strongly that one of the problems with polls is that they are unable to account for massive changes in a very short period of time. So one of the reasons that the polls were completely wrong in 2016 is that Trump activated a ton of people who just had never voted before. And so pollsters

had not built that into their model. All of these white working class voters crawled out of the woodwork. They hadn't voted since Ronald Reagan and decided to come out to vote for Trump. The same thing happened with abortion. A lot of people who never voted before, never cared about electoral politics, crawled out of the work and decided to vote. Also, even amongst people who do vote, these were people who increased their voting percentage. So as you said, even if you increase

college-educated voters who usually come out to vote at let's say 60 whatever percent, they're voting at 80, 90%. That's why some of these were happening. Well, that still represents a big change in the election. I think that these special elections are so indicative for that reason that, especially when we're living through such crazy times, nobody anticipated the level of voter turnout that we saw in 2020.

That was massive. Then everyone's like, oh, Democrats are going to get blown out. Midterms, they always follow the script. Yeah, but in the aftermath of COVID, all this insanity and the dobs, it's like, boom, we just had a big election. I think we'll probably have just as big one. Big voter turnout is usually a bad sign, at least right now for Republicans, because it just means newer voters who are entering the fray. Why in this moment would you be new to voting? For a lot of reasons, it's abortion.

And abortion skews dramatically towards Democrats., it's abortion. And if abortion skews dramatically towards Democrats. So it's a big flashing red sign, I think, for Republicans. I've also seen some data to indicate that young voters, Zoomers and young millennials have really been surging to the polls in these elections. And obviously that benefits Democrats. And I do think that there is a direct line between that and Trump, but also largely abortion. Now, the other side of it is, listen, the midterms did not have Donald Trump on the ballot. And the, you know, the 2018 midterms did not have Donald Trump on the ballot. Also, when Democrats did very well, Donald Trump likely is going to be on the ballot this time around. So does that bring back the

dynamics we had in the past where the polls then understate Republican support? I have no idea at this point. But I will say, I think it's really important to take note of this data because the polls have, we've seen misses at this point in both directions on the polls. But when people actually have to show up to vote, I think taking note of that voter behavior may actually be more indicative of the direction that we're heading in with a million caveats. We don't know what the economy is going to be like. We don't know what the war in Ukraine is going to be like. We don't know what inflation is going to be like.

What's the gas price? We don't know what Trump's trials are going to be like. We don't know. I mean, there's a million factors between now and then. Not to mention, I'm sure there are going to be things that happen that we have no concept of right now and could not possibly name, even as a potential chaos X factor. So a million caveats, but this is really interesting. Let me put another one as a former Kentucky resident who's kind of obsessed with Kentucky politics. They're one of the few states that has elections on the ballot this year. Virginia also has legislative elections on the

ballot this year, but Kentucky's electing a governor this year. Now, back, bear with me for a minute. Back in 2015, the year before Trump is elected, Kentucky had what ended up being a very canary in the coal mine kind of election. Now, people nationally, they have this conception of Kentucky as a red state. That's sort of true. But at the state level, back in 2015, actually, Democrats still held the state house and they held the governorship. So the Kentucky Democratic candidate for governor was significantly in the lead, seemed to have large margins, seemed to be beating the Republican nominee, guy by the name of Matt Bevin, by a large amount. Bevin was this kind of like Trumpian businessman kind of a character. And out of nowhere, there was a low turnout election and Bevin massively outperforms the polls and ends up sweeping into power, even though this was very unexpected in Kentucky politics.

Okay. So ends up being a bellwether then for Trump precipitates, you know, Trump coming into 2016. Okay. So this time around, you have an incumbent Democratic governor, a guy by the name of Andy Beshear, who surprisingly is actually, even as a Democrat in a red state, one of the most popular governors in the entire country. And he's running against a Mitch McConnell protege by the name of Daniel Cameron, who's currently the AG. Put this up on the screen. This is polls. Take it with a grain of salt. They could be just as wrong as they were last time in Kentucky. But every poll that has come out of this race in recent months has had Andy Beshear leading, the Democrat leading, and actually by quite significant margins.

So this one, this is an internal poll, so always take those with a grain of salt. But it actually reflects similar margin to what we've seen in other polls. And it has Andy Beshear up on Daniel Cameron by a margin of nine points. And he's over 50 percent. It's 51 percent to 42 percent, again, in the relatively red state of Kentucky. So if this result holds, that would be another thing to take a look at. The other survey that was taken this summer had Andy Beshear leading Dan Cameron by eight points. So even though this is an internal, it seems to track with some of the

other polling that is out there. So that is another one, another potential bellwether to watch, which has been indicative at other times in the past. Now, it's not the end-all be-all. Again, a million things can happen. You got Donald Trump on the ticket, who is a wild card in and of himself. But I think it's really interesting to take note of what is happening when voters are actually showing up at the polls. Absolutely. I mean, of course, that was the most indicative thing of the polls, and it's why we have to zero in on it. And when you see a Republican underperformance, it's still a big problem, especially in a state like Kentucky. I mean, it's also smart for Beshear to be talking about abortion all the time. We already know from that law that went up for a

referendum in the state of Kentucky that even in a deep red state, which what did Trump win by, like 30 points or something outrageous like that? It's something 20, 30 points just blown out of the water. They still can't get it past the finish line. So it also, a lot of people, as I was talking about who don't traditionally vote, came out to vote for that one. They came out to vote in Michigan, in Ohio, Kansas. And the story is over and over and over and over again on the same thing. So any politician who's attached to that cause is the best possible thing that you can do. Yeah, Andy Beshear is running a brutal ad right now.

Did you watch it? Yeah, it was horrible. About abortion. It's this young girl who is straight to camera and, you know, she's the picture of the, you know, white all American girl talking about the fact that she at 12 years old was raped and that Dan Cameron would have forced her to have that baby. It is brutal. And, you know, again, just shows you even in a state like Kentucky, which is very religious, very culturally conservative, even in Kentucky, this issue is a killer for Republicans and the

Democratic governor is making as much out of it as he possibly can. Absolutely. All right, so how are we looking at? Well, who is a journalist? Not that long ago, actually not that hard to answer that question. They work for a news outlet. Easy. But around 1996, when the internet really began to take off and user-generated content slowly began to eat into the attention span of Americans, it started to become not so easy.

Is someone who just posts something that happened to them, is that person a journalist? It's a tough question. A tougher question is this. While we have well enshrined rights as journalists here in the United States, should those rights, as expressed in the Constitution and subsequent case law, apply to that person? I've always erred on the side of yes. In fact, I err on the side of even if you're not a journalist

and don't even consider yourself one, I believe that if you're an everyday citizen, but then you produce an act of journalism, like let's say you're in public and something happens and you post about it, it should still apply to you for that instance. This is still the fight of our time, especially with the rise of the internet and non-institutional media. And the reason it matters today is how these people are treated by the law as expressed in a troubling new verdict here in Washington, D.C. concerning January 6th. Now, Stephen Horn is a 23-year-old North Carolina

resident. He was just found guilty of four misdemeanors in federal court in Washington relating to charges of having entered the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Horn's case is different from others because he has claimed since January 6th he was a journalist documenting the event rather than a protester. Horn's case has garnered scrutiny ever since the day of the attack when he posted video to his Facebook page documenting the event with the caption, quote, I was in D.C. today when the Capitol was stormed. Horne did not try to actually hide his presence in the attack.

He followed up with footage that was a post on January 7th, 2021. Here's what he wrote, quote, I was in D.C. today. The Capitol was stormed. This is the full unedited footage that I took. He adds, quote, this was not a peaceful protest. I saw many instances of pushing against police officers, as well as at least one instance where a barrage of projectiles was thrown. At the end, he says this, quote, I did not enter the Capitol building as part of the

protest or for cheap thrills, but to document and accurately record a significant event which was taking place. Feel free to share, download, repost his video, or any clip from it. The footage was from video that was taken by a helmet cam that he was wearing at the time. Now, DC prosecutors have argued Horn is a sham journalist, that he invented the excuse the day after the attack to avoid criminal charges. Their argument is that the footage doesn't even show him trying to ask questions of people at the attack, and the footage was actually not even that good. That I don't

disagree with. They zoomed in on particularly on a photo of him standing atop an Abraham Lincoln statue with a camera that was pointed at the crowd in selfie fashion. The defense, however, argued a different story. They noted that the entire footage does not show him ever participating in any stop the steal chants. They show that he was never an aggressive towards law enforcement. He did not destroy or participate in any destruction of property. In fact, public record himself shows that Horn turned himself in after the FBI wanted to question him in relation to the incident. And he even shared all of his footage with the FBI so they could identify other people involved in the attack. Since the event, Horn has produced a documentary on January 6th with an expansive

list of tactical failures, the timeline, perspectives on crowd control. And despite his defense in the expansive First Amendment protections provided to journalists under U.S. law, the jury took only hours to convict him of the following. Entering or remaining in a restricted area, disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted area, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building. In my opinion, this is a major miscarriage of justice for several reasons. Number one is obvious. The federal prosecutors here sought to cross the line of First Amendment protections to go after someone who all evidence shows did not engage in any egregious activity in the Capitol except for entering. If he was a normal citizen, it would be a different matter. But considering the decent enough evidence here that he genuinely was producing acts of journalism and has since committed setbacks, it was not worth bringing charges and going to trial over such a

matter. To be clear, I am not saying if you murder someone and then say it was for a documentary, you shouldn't be charged. I'm saying here that considering how blurry the line is and considering how many dozens of journalists that were present within the Capitol on that day, that establishing a precedent like this one makes it more difficult, not less, to conduct journalism from this day forward. In fact, one of the arguments that DC prosecutors made was that Horne was not credentialed. This is an insulting and an antiquated consideration of journalism. Think of it, of some of the most monumental footage that you have seen taken in the last decade. Very, very little of it comes from credentialed journalists.

They come from citizens in the wild who upload that content for the world to see. The act must be protected at all costs. Here it is clear the Fed sought to make a statement that crossing into the Capitol building is so awful that it is worth impeding on First Amendment case law. What do you think, Crystal? And by the way, I'm not particularly sympathetic to this guy because – It's a tough one. It's a tough case. Because here's the thing that gets me is he'd never done anything like –

He'd never done anything before. He'd never produced any journalism before. And so it does feel very convenient. And he was – you know, he was on Facebook. He was like supporting Stop the Steal groups and whatever. So it does feel very convenient that the day after he's like, I'm a journalist, guys. Here's my journalistic footage. I get that.

I think it's a tough one. I think it's tough. That said, like, look, if he had beat somebody, if he had destroyed property, I would say, I mean, then that makes it much more clear. Exactly. Because those are, you know, those are separate crimes. That's actual crime. Even if you are a journalist, like you're not allowed to beat people up if you're a journalist. Exactly right. Yeah, I think it's really a difficult one because, like I said, the thing that really

sticks with me is he'd never done anything like this before. If I had to guess, he probably did invent it, but I still don't even care because I think that the fact is, is that if you- So how do you, though, keep from having a principle that anyone can just, like, bring a camera and then commit a crime and then pretend after the fact,

like, oh, it was all for journalism? Well, that's the thing. It's about, it depends on the severity of the crime and, like, what it was. So, like, if he had destroyed a structure, if he, whatever,

like, any of those sort of things, I think it's fine. But since it's just trespassing, you're like, yeah, whatever. Fuck, it's trespassing. We're talking about a misdemeanor entry charge here. Like four separate ones.

Unrestricted ground. I mean, that's basically making it so that if you don't have a press, for example, I don't have a press pass. Okay. So when I have to go, I have to get a visitor's pass. So let's say I didn't do that properly. But while I'm there, I'm like filming something. You know, I mean, look, nobody would. But they could.

And that's one of those where. But like with you, I mean, it would be much more clear cut. You're right. Because you, like we do a show. This is why- And you produce prior works of journalism. And so it wasn't just an after the fact. I don't disagree.

I still believe in the most expansive protection for the exact reason of always there will be the edge case. And on the edge case, we should side on the side of the First Amendment, especially whenever we're talking about misdemeanor. We're not talking about destruction. We're talking about, you know, some BS trespassing here. Look, he probably invented it. I agree. I agree with that. To be honest, I really do. Yeah. I really think he probably invented it.

That said, I don't care. I think that the precedent that's being set here is bad enough that it's like we shouldn't be bringing this charge. If he's a QAnon shaman or whatever, that's a whole other matter, right? But even on that, it's like going to the length of a trial just to set a precedent for this, I don't know. That seems like on their – I mean think about how many people came out of Ferguson, right, who were – I mean they were right in the middle of it. Guys like Tim Pool or I forget some of the others.

There's a lot of journalists today actually who made their name on – not one of them were credentialed. They were just people with YouTube channels. Yeah. And they were caught up in the melee. The credentialing piece is obviously complete bullshit. Right, but if they're participating – Because there's a million journalists out there who are. But, I mean, to me, the most compelling argument is, like, since it's an edge case and it's this low-level misdemeanor trespassing, it's like, all right, do we really want to set this back? That's, to me, the most compelling.

But do I actually believe this guy that he was there for journalistic purposes? No, not really. I don't believe him. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, a new poll reveals that as autoworkers have gone on strike against the big three car companies, the public is overwhelmingly on their side. According to Morning Consult, only 18% of Americans oppose the autoworker strike in contrast to the solid majority, 54%, who explicitly support it. The rest are not sure. These numbers put opposition to the strike at about the same level of popularity as complete abortion bans and

defunding the police. In other words, getting on the wrong side of this strike is politically moronic. Post-pandemic, Americans have become incredibly clear about their disgust for corporate greed and their support for the workers who our nation relies on every single day just to function. So I've been watching with great amusement as many Republicans have just gone ahead and stuck with their same old Reagan era anti-union rhetoric, while also accidentally kind of making Joe Biden sound way more amazing on unions than he actually is. Just take a listen. 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. And so I don't think government should get involved in this. These are private sector matters. But I do think the tone of how a president talks

about unions and how a president emboldens them does play a role in this. And we're seeing what Biden has done play a role in this. 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 it's 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 that only had 1% for COVID vaccines. I 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. All of this stuff, these strikes, these UAW strikes, again, are just part of a broader whole picture here, which is that the unions have paid off Joe Biden and the Democratic Party for literally decades on end. And finally, they got their man in the White House, the most pro-union president since Barack Obama and probably more pro-union even than Barack Obama, who's too elitist. Joe Biden has been in the pocket of the union since day one in Wilmington, Delaware. Well, now all of these unions are seeing their moment to shine. It is amazing how we can keep

relearning the same lessons over and over and over again. Nikki Haley, by the way, goes on to proudly describe herself as a union buster. Tim Scott, as you heard there, apparently thinks that all workers exercising their rights to take collective action should just be summarily fired. No wonder these two are big donor favorites. In a way, I actually kind of appreciate the anti-worker clarity of their message, as opposed to Trump, who wants to signal symbolic support for workers, in spite of the fact that his administration was stuffed with aggressive union busters, which fits with his business track record also as an aggressive union buster. But Haley, Scott, and Shapiro here are giving Biden an accidental assist when they basically accept his rhetoric of being the most pro-union

president in history. This is, of course, a wild overstatement. It is true. Biden is way more pro- union than Barack Obama or any other president in my lifetime. His National Labor Relations Board has been phenomenal, as has his rhetoric on this particular strike. But I am quite sure it will come as a surprise to Sean Fain and a lot of other union workers and leadership that Biden is a, quote, 100% union shill. After all, the UAW has withheld their endorsement over frustration that EV incentives for new factories did not include requirements that those jobs be union. They might also want to talk to the rail workers who saw the White House work with rail bosses to cram down a deal that blocked their ability to strike. So yeah, he is better than Obama.

He is better than Clinton. He is wildly better than Trump, W, Bush, or Reagan, but he could do a hell of a lot more than he has done. This commentary also completely denies workers any power or agency. It was not Joe Biden who voted to authorize these strikes. It was rank-and-file workers who elected Sean Fain because of his more militant approach

and voted almost unanimously to go out on this strike. These workers bailed on the automakers in 2008. They have every reason to demand that their jobs be decent jobs at a time when automakers are turning massive profits and issuing billions in stock buybacks. After all, these companies have spent $66 billion in stock buybacks and dividends over the past 10 years. According to Robert Reich, this would be enough to hand out $440,000 to every single one of the striking autoworkers. So spare me your tears for the billionaires and their multinational corporations here. Now for Haley and Scott, this is just kind of knee-jerk Reagan Republicanism. It's like a doll that you pull a string and Chamber of Commerce anti-union talking points come out. For Ben Shapiro, though, he lays on a lengthier ideological argument.

He's clearly thought a lot more about this for why unions are always bad and had nothing to do ever with American middle class prosperity, trashing as dolts anyone who thinks otherwise. Take a listen. All the dolts who suggest that it's unions that made American life so wonderful during the 1950s, 1960s. It was the union job, the union job where you sat there for 10 hours a day doing riveting or whatever and neglect the fact that a lot of those jobs, you know, now is you sitting in an air conditioned office doing another kind of job and that your grandfather who had to sit

out there in the factory doing the riveting would kill for your job right now. Put that aside. The fact is that the real reason America boomed during the 1950s is because every other place on earth was on fire during the 1940s. So first of all, I don't think anyone's suggesting that blue collar work is easier or more desirable than cushy office jobs. On the contrary, the fact that auto workers are doing demanding, difficult, physically taxing jobs only makes the case stronger for good pay and good benefits. But the evidence on unions helping to build the American dream, it's really pretty indisputable. This chart right here, this says it all. So the blue line is union density, which has been on a steady decline since the 1970s.

The red line is middle class share of income. Lo and behold, as unions lost power and traction in our economy, the middle class fell off a cliff. More accurately, they were pushed off a cliff. Today, even with union power at a low ebb, they still benefit not only their own membership, but all workers within industries which are significantly unionized. So, for example, non-unionized FedEx workers benefit from the fact that UPS is unionized. Tesla workers are likely to benefit from the fact that the big three are unionized. A recent Treasury report actually analyzed these impacts and found union workers on average earn 20% more than their non-union counterparts and that non-union workers share in a spillover effect of increased wages themselves. Interestingly, they also find

union membership is associated with some of the civic values that conservatives like Ben say they care a lot about. Union members are more likely to vote. They're more likely to buy a house, to donate to charity, to attend community meetings, to volunteer and to participate in neighborhood projects. That all makes a lot of sense. When you earn a good wage

and you don't have to work a second or third job, you've got more time and mental energy for that type of civic engagement. Still think that only dolts would believe that unions help build the two-parent white picket fence broadly shared prosperity that conservatives in particular hearken back to? One thing I'm appreciating about this strike is how it creates a kind of political clarity. It's all fine and

good to say vague things about the working class, but when the chips are down, what do you say? And more importantly, what do you actually do? We all know American workers cannot depend on the political class to have their backs and cut them in on the incredible prosperity of this nation. And that is why unions are so incredibly essential, because they give workers the ability to fight for themselves and to win. And a prosperous, empowered working class could actually make America great again. Thought it was very interesting to see. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

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